'6,500-year-old stone ark' found in Florida
Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 29 June 2006 Page Views: 20155
Neolithic and Bronze AgeCountry: United States Type: Standing StonesInternal Links:
A tireless prophet with a salt-and-pepper beard and an inviting grin, John Saxer knows that mainstream archaeologists, journalists and folks in Tarpon Springs think he's nuts.
They reject his Greek mythology- and archaeology-based theories that Tarpon Springs is the center of the biblical Garden of Eden and the Tampa Bay area coastline was the seaport of Atlantis.
It's been a tough sell, acknowledges Saxer, a 55-year-old bicycle mechanic and bartender who was homeless for much of 2004.
Saxer has been ignored by archaeologists nationwide for the past 18 months, despite offering evidence of what he claims are 6,500-year-old stone ark anchors abundant on land near shorelines in New Port Richey, Holiday and Tarpon Springs.
"It gets scary when you're in front of the field," said Saxer, an amateur archaeologist since his college days at the University of Wisconsin. "You don't want to be out there alone. You start to question yourself."
Last week, Saxer had a breakthrough. He found a believer, the type he had sought for years, an archaeologist with credentials and financial backing.
Bill Donato, 55, a California archaeologist known for his underwater work near the Bahamas with the Association of Research and Enlightenment, came here to study Saxer's finds.
The maverick archaeologist was lured by pictures of stones Saxer sent him and Saxer's telephone descriptions.
"I don't believe any of the Garden of Eden theories, or most of John's views of Atlantis, which I did my master's thesis on," Donato said before his trip here. "I'm interested because the pictures are similar to anchors found at Bimini last year and to [5,000-year-old] finds in the Middle East."
Finally, Saxer had found an expert willing to study the stones, which range in size from fragments light enough to be held, to rocks with multiple holes weighing more than a ton.
"He's the best I could have found. I commend him for thinking outside the box," Saxer said. "I've wanted a team of archaeologists, people a lot more knowledgeable than me, to study the undeniable evidence and make their own conclusions."
More: WSAV
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