The Legend of the Lost City of Nan Madol: The Basalt Columns of the Pacific, the Canals of the Reef, and the Oral Traditions of Micronesia
The Venice of the Pacific On the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia, built upon a coral reef in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, lies one of the most enigmatic archaeological wonders of the world. Nan Madol (meaning "The Spaces Between" or "The Reef of Heaven") was the ceremonial and political capital of the Saudeleur Dynasty —a centralized chiefdom that ruled Pohnpei between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. The city consists of ninety-two artificial islets constructed on the reef, separated by a network of tidal canals that fill and empty with the movements of the ocean. The scale of the construction is colosal: the walls of the islets are built of massive, natural basalt columns (naturally formed volcanic prisms) laid in a criss-cross pattern, filled with coral rubble. Some of these basalt stones weigh up to fifty tons, and the total weight of the stone used in the city is estimated at 750,000 tons. The construction of Nan Madol is t...