No, These Photos Don’t Show the Sunken City of Dwarka in Gujarat

Images from across the globe shared as remnants of the Dwarka city in Gujarat.

Misleading photos from different parts of the world shared as the remnants of Dwarka Temple.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

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A tweet which claims to show the sunken city of Dwarka in Gujarat has been shared by a user named Jixsa on Twitter with over 9,000 followers.

Jixsa has shared four pictures along with a caption, “Shri Krishna’s Dwarka, The sunken city in Gujarat. As described in the Mahabharata. It is real yet the Christian world says there is no proof! #JaiShriKrishna.”

The post, at the time this article was written, was retweeted over 1,500 times and liked by 3,000 people.

The screenshot of the tweet with the four photos.

An archived version of the tweet can be seen here.

The same claim has also been made by an article published on 2 January 2018 by Postcard news, a website flagged multiple times for peddling fake news.

The photo is claimed by Postcard news from Gujarat.

The post has also been shared by multiple users on Facebook.

Screenshot of the viral post. 

What is the Truth?

The tweet and the article published by Postcard news are false. These pictures are not from Gujarat and, in fact, three of these are not even from India.

What We Found Out

IMAGE 1

Statue of lion from Egypt.

We ran a reverse search on the picture using the keywords “Lion Statue in Water” and came across an article titled “Sub Marine: The Things We Sink” in a Hakai Magazine the statue stands at the entrance of the underwater Neptune Memorial Reef located off the coast of Florida's Key Biscayne, in the USA.

We then searched for the website of the Neptune Memorial Reef and found the picture on their website with caption “Lion Entrance”.

The lion statue on the website of the Neptune Memorial Reef with caption “Entrance Lion”.

We also found a video uploaded on YouTube by the channel named ‘Neptune Memorial Reef - Neptune Society’ which carried the same image.

The Quint also got in touch with Neptune Memorial Reef, who confirmed to us that the structure is indeed at the entrance of the memorial reef.

IMAGE 2

One of the structures that was left behind after the 2004 tsunami.

We reverse-searched the image on Yandex search engine and came across a blog on Mahabalipuram.

We then reverse-searched the image on Google using the keywords “submerged temple of Mahabalipuram” and found a website called ‘GOUNESCO’ which promotes heritage tourism.

According to the website the structure was left behind on the sea coast after the tsunami of 2004 . Mahabalipuram is a port city in Tamil Nadu.

IMAGE 3

The photo is from the Neptune Memorial Reef.

We found this picture to be a part of a video uploaded on the website of Neptune Memorial Reef (NMR) which suggested that it is from NMR in Florida. This too was confirmed by NMR to The Quint.

The screenshot from the video uploaded by Neptune Memorial Reef)

We found another YouTube video uploaded by a verified account called ‘Fearless & Far’ which shows the same structure.

IMAGE 4

The picture is from the lost city of Atlantis (Reverse Search). 

We reversed searched the picture using Yandex search engine and found various articles suggesting that the picture is from the “Lost City of Atlantis”.

However, The Quint has not been able to independently verify the image.

The lost city of Atlantis is widely accepted to be a myth and the theory about the city was floated by Plato. The city, nonetheless, has captured the imagination of the world for more than 2,300 years.