MANY FATHOMS DEEP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19278, 16 September 1924, Page 7

MANY FATHOMS DEEP

CITY UNDER THE SEA.

AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, September 15. (Received Sept. 15, at 8.55 p.m.) The Daily Chronicle’s Berlin correspondent says that deep sea divers north of the Island of Rueger discovered the remains of a large Danish warship which was wrecked in the Baltic in 1453. Ihe diver who brought up the mediaeval guns says that he also saw the immense walls of a city. . The theory is that this is the site of the long-lost city of Vineta, which was swallowed up 825 years ago, when the Goodwin Bands were formed. Heine has sung of the legend of the sunken city of Vineta.— A. and N.Z. Cable.

Near the modern town of Wollin in Pomerania once stood the ancient and opulent city of Vineta. In the 10th and 11th centuries it was the centre of an active and extensive trade. The Northmen made a settlement here about 370 and built a fortress on the “silver l hill called Joinsburg, which is often mentioned in the sagas. Its foundation was attributed to a legendary Viking exiled from Denmark. In 1098 the stronghold ot Jomsburg was destroyed by King Magnus Barfed of Norway, and this, says one authority, is probably the origin of the legend that Vineta was overthrown by a storm or earthquake and overwhelmed by the sea.