The "lost city" of Gelanggi or Linggiu, claimed to have been hidden in the jungles of Johor for more than a thousand years, does not exist, said an archaeologist in the National Heritage Department. Khalid Syed Ali, the curator of archaeology in the department's research and development division, said a team of researchers carried out a study over a month in July last year but found no evidence of the "lost city".The 15-strong team was headed by the Director-General of Museum and Antiquity Datuk Dr Adi Taha, he said in a working paper presented at a forum organised by the National Museum here.The search was launched following a claim made by an independent researcher Raimy Che Ros that he had found evidence of the "lost city" after 12 years of research.The claim, published in a newspaper in February last year, created public excitement because Linggiu was said to be older than the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Indonesia built between 750 and 842 A.D. and Cambodia's Angkor Wat built 300 years later.Khalid said Raimy was believed to have come up with his claim based on his research of literature on Malay history and did not discover any physical traces of the "lost city".The search team led by Adi comprised researchers from his department, Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Malaya, Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris and Malaysian Archaeology Association.
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