Atlantis fact or fiction?

[seanbam]

The following is a rewritting of an article I first wrote around 1999 on my theory about Atlantis.

Mythos Atlantis - Historia Pangaea, by Ro-fhessa V Sean W Bambrough

--Atlantis was a Continent not only an Isl/City:

Plato said Atlantis was an ISland the size of/larger than Asia & Libya combined ("roughly same size as USA/Antarctica/[Australia/face of moon]", Flem-Ath.) Not a needle in haystack as Hancock put it. Theopompus said Meropis was larger than Europe, Asia and Libya. Herodotus said Europe was as long as Asia & Libya put together & its breadth (euros) is not even comparable with them (though in another place he also says Asia & Europe are the same size/shape). Atlantis totally disappeared without any trace (except "mud"). All of the details of the Atlantis account seem in general agree with Atlantis being a continent not an "island/city (+ empire)". Americas could qualify geopolitically (Haushofer/Mackinder). Ancient writer mentions tradition of 7 islands and a larger one that ruled over them in the Atlantic. Island in Bible, anc Egypt, etc could mean either island, coastland/sealands, continent.

--Atlantis was in Ocean not Sea:

Plato says Atlantis was in real/true outer/open ocean not in inner sea. Was opposite/beyond Pillars of Hercules. (The S (& W) hemisphere has majority/emphasises unity of the oceans. The biblical Great Sea and Egyptian Great Green may have been Atlantic incld Mediterranean ("Great Green poss suggests existence of another different coloured, smaller sea.")

--Atlantis must be one of modern Continents not Oceans:

Present oceanographic/geophysical evidence is that there are no sunken/submerged continents/land-masses in the Atlantic, Indian*, Arctic, Antarctic, and/or Pacific* oceans except for the true continental edges, shelves, islands, and seas, and except for continental shift. (Seem no evidence that the continents ever wholly/permanently below sea level?) Maps that use true continental edges don't show significantly large enough gaps in the Atlantic between Eur/Afr and Amers when orig joint together to fit Atlantis into (excepting lakes, ridges, islands, sub-continents/plates). All evidence of lost continents is more readily explained by continental drift theory. According to Ockams razor there is no need to assume the existence of any more continents than the 7 we presently know of. (All the oceans are from one original Pan-Ocean/part of one Oceanus.) Old World traditions of Atlantis/etc in west and New World traditions of [Mu]/etc in east could be respectively/relatively refering to each other, or commonly to land in between (Armorica plate).

--Atlantis was America(s) or Armorica Plate not Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, "8th/Atl":

Antarctica is 2 islands not continent (depend on sea level). Plato treated Atlantis as a separate land-mass from Eur & As/As & Lib/Lib & Eur. Atlantis can't have been too far dist/duration incl "up/down" from Greece/Egypt (Incendium). Atlantis was in western sea/opposite Pillars of Hercules. Atlanteans conq upto Tyrr & Liby from (N)W. Atlantis can not be dry land based theories. No mention in acct of crossing equator. No archaelog finds of hums/civ in Antarctica yet. No hints on Piri Reis map of civ/hums/Atl in Antarctica. "Atl has been identified/conn with every cont except Austral" except for by one writer. Some of "Atlantis" locations not too far from Old World to be lost/not to be found. N (&E) hemisphere has majority/emphasises unity of continents (re Atlantis). Bimini wall & pyramid in Caribean. Cp Mystery Hill complex with Stonehenge/Hyperborea. North Pole was once in Canada/Greenland re Hyperborea/Sea Peoples/Keftiou. Americas had all animals implied in Atlantis account incl elephants/mastodons, camels, horses, sabre tooth tigers, sloths. Alleghenies/Appalachians could have been Atlas/Nthern Pillar. Scientists theorise Amerinds came via Berring but almost exclusively all Indians own oral memories say they came from east over sea. First Americans were like Cro-Magnons in Europe (Otamid/Folsom/Big Game Hunters/MacKenzie High Arctic high culture, cp Archaic Caucasoids, cp Kennewick man) and Cro-Magnons (flat faced?) like Amerinds. My theory explains Archaic Maritime culture in ancient America, ref Barry Fell. (Egyptian pictures of some Sea Peoples look American to me?) Assyrian pictures of Tjekker sea peoples bearing South American fan palm, ref Fitzgerald-Lee.

--Atlantis was in Atlantic not in Indian, Pacific, Arctic, Antarctic, Oceanus:

Herodotus called Atlantic before Plato (though after Solon). Evidence is that there are no sunken/submerged continental island masses in Atlantic (Hancock), Indian (Jantsang)*, Arctic (submarines), Antarctic (geophysics) and/or Pacific (orthodox scientists)* oceans. Atlantis can't have been too far (incl "up/down" re Antarctica) from Greece/Egypt (Incendium). Lemuria unlike Atl/Mu was only a theory for oddities now better explained by Gondwanaland. S (&W) hemisphers has majority/emphasises unity of oceans re Atlantic/Poseidon. *except for HS Lewis' vague Indian ocean claim. *except for Gilroy's evidence of submerged shelf/bridge, and except for CSF/ICR/AIG's evidence of seamounts and of seafloor sediments which still has to be expalined.

--Atlantis was in the west (and north) not east (and south):

Atlanteans conquered upto Tyrrhenia & Libya from (N)W. Atlantis is always said to be in western sea. Cp Hesperides. Spanuth gives evidence that Atlantis was in the north (Hyperborea, Sea Peoples). Despite the ancient records of reversal of compass points a couple of times in history the Egyptians were the only odd ones out in (sometimes) placing south as up/reverse west-east (Deyo/Flem-Ath/Massey)? Atlantis can't have been too far incl "up/down" from Greece/Egypt (Incendium). Necho. Hyperborea/Tartarus in NW or NE. Cp Thule. The Aryan Barbarians always came from the north (Greek, Indian, Iranian, Egyptian, Sumerian, Polynesian, Aztec, biblical. W hemisph maj of oceans vs E hem. N hem maj of continents.

--Atlantis sinking/submergence can not have been (just) Great Flood, submerged by rising sea levels at end ice age, tidal wave/slosh, earth crust displacement, volcanic eruption or literally sunk, but rather Atlantis (continentally) shifted away:

Only Atlantis (and Athens) lost not whole world re flood/rising sea levels/crust displacement. Must have both quake(s) and flood(s) re flood*/ris sea levs. Would not have made distance/duration that much longer for ancients not to be able to find Atl any longer re ris sea levs. Atlantis totally disappeared (locally/regionally) without any trace (except "mud") re ris sea levs/tid wav/volc erupt/lit sunk/displac. The land would still be not absolutely lost but still possible to find down below underwater re ris sea levs/lit sunk. Account says sunk not sea level rise. Atlantis was already separate island mass but in bible continents didn't split til Peleg/Babel/Flood re flood. No rain/fountains great deep in Atlantis account. Evidence is that there are no sunken/submerged continental island masses in Atlantic (Hancock), Indian (Jantsang), Arctic (sumarines), Antarctic (geophysics), Pacific (orthodox scientists). Dates Atlantis and end last Ice Age only coincidence (see below). No large enough gaps betw Americas and Old World when they were joint together to fit Atlantis into. Evidence for old sunken/submerged continents theories more readily explained by continental shift. Cp sink >11km or 1km submerged true cont shelf to shift ca 2000km. If sea levels were lower Gibraltar straits would be land.

--Evidences of sudden continental shift(s)/sprint(s) not (just) drifting:

Sudden shift not so hard to imagine if you picture that as earth spins America(s) could have lagged/dragged behind. Charles Hapgood is/gives evidence of shifts. Mid-Atl ridge (or bank/rise) looks as if it could be phantom/ghostly remnant/vestige of where continental edge once was (cp beach sand, inland continental type seals (or interior of Armorica?)) Near pass by of celestial body could have exerted pull influence. Sudden continental shift would have caused sea/lakes to slosh over land as testified by Hopi myth, bible, sea salt petrified mastodon bones near Bogota, whale bones in USA, muddy sea, Tiahuanaco flood. Sudden shift could have triggered volcanic eruptions cp Thera. Atlantis on same faultline as Athens (globally/regionally not locally/regionally). Kirchir's spurious/dubious map seems to show N or S America closer to Old World than S or N America. (Americas perhaps closer to Old World in Piri Reis map?) Old World traditions of Atlantis/etc in west and New World traditions of Tulan/[Mu]/etc in east could be respectively/relatively refering to each other being closer together, &/or commonly to same land in between (Armorica plate). Cp catastrophic turning inside out of Venus. Seeming ancient oral memories of continental shifts (Peleg, Atlantis, etc.)? Shift would cause earthquakes cp Atlantis/Athens, Easter I, Stonehenge damaged from [sw], collapsed pyramid. Shift would have caused tidal waves cp Ur/Kish flood strata. Cont shift would have wrinckled/crested up mountain ranges cp Rockies/Cascade/Coast/Cordillera, Andes, Grt Div Rge, Himalayas, mid-Atl ridge. Evidence from Andes that shift happened contemp with humans/civ incls Tiahuanaco, nets/pottery/stone implements/cloth in strata/cross-bedding, staircase. Sudden shift would have caused warmer (or cooler?) oceans cp seafloor sediments. These catastrophes would have caused sudden mass extinctions of prehistoric megafauna cp mass graves in Siberia, Gobi, [Alaska], [Mexico/Texas]. Sudden continental shift would explain migration patterns of birds/lemmings/eels/butterflies, which are exactly the same as ancient ships going out to look for Atlantis where it once was in vain. (Scenarios: Amer(s) shifted west, Old World shifted east, Amer(s) & Old World both shifted outwards; Armorica (east Amer) shifted west, Armorica (West Eur) shifted east, Armorica shifted half west and half east.) Poseidonis was remnant (picture overlap/lag) of Saturnia/Golden Age (cp Cronian sea), both names are seemingly used for Atlantis. Scientists theorise Amerinds came via Berring but almost exclusively all Indians own oral memories say they came from east over sea. First Americans were like Cro-Magnons in Europe (Otamid/Folsom/Big Game Hunters/MacKenzie High Arctic high culture, cp Archaic Caucasoids, cp Kennewick man) and Cro-Magnons (flat faced?) like Amerinds. My theory explains Archaic Maritime culture in ancient America, ref Barry Fell. (Egyptian pictures of some Sea Peoples look American to me?) Assyrian pictures of Tjekker sea peoples bearing South American fan palm, ref Fitzgerald-Lee.

--whole world/global not old world/known world/inhab world/inner/As-Afr/local/flat :

Herodotus said his contempoaries were wrong that the world consisted of (only) Europe, Asia and Libya. Popul Vuh says first race of men "examined 4 pts of horizon & round surface/circles of the earth & the 4 pts of the firmament/heaven." Maps such as Piri Reis, Kirchir, Ptolemy (Sitchin). Finds of ancient ships &/or drawings of (cp Heyerdahl). Satan wandered to & fro, up & down in [all] the earth. Pyramidology geographical facts about Great Pyramid. Plato said Atlantis was larger than Libya & Asia comb, and treated it (& opp cont) as separate landmass from Libya &Asia/Asia &Europe/Europe & Libya. Herodotus' statement that oceans/seas all parts of one Ocean and Plato's distinq betw real/true outer ocean and inner seas/indentations ("theory") parallels modern geopolitical worldview. Poseidonis was remnant (picture overlap/lag) of Saturnia/Golden Age (cp Cronian sea), both names are seemingly used for Atlantis. Proofs of links between ancient/prehistoric Americas and Old World (above).

--Atlantis was real not myth/theory/lie/unscientific:

Plato said was Atlantis was true history, Plato was the one who elsewhere 1st used mythology in sense of fictional and legend as true. Every year there are more discoveries that the Atlantis acct, Bible, oral memories, ancient historians/poets, myths are historically/scientifically correct.

--Refs: J Spanuth, G Hancock, HS Bellamy, S de C(h)amp/R Ley, [Tantalis book], I Donnelly, E Sykes, E Zangger, C Berlitz, Mavor, D Fasold, Chadderton, C Cook/Pears; [Acknowls: S Deyo, Prof Santos, E Cayce, KR Bolton, AA Incendium, Flem-Ath, Plato.]

[Galaico]

I think Atlantis is myth based in a true civilization. Though Plato said Atlantis was found after Heracles' pillars, I think that's part of the myth.

I would identify Atlantis with the Minoan civilization. Powerful ruler of the East Mediterranean, protected by a powerfull fleet, that was completely destroyed after an earthquake provoked a Tsunami that crashed every ship against Crete's coast, allowing Miceneans to invade the island.

[Savorgnan]

Atlantis...Was it Sardinia with its "Nuraghe" civilisation 2000 years before the Romans?

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Reflections on Ancient Underwater Cities
19-Apr-2002


In the May/June issue of Atlantis Rising magazine, David Lewis writes about the newly-discovered ancient underwater cities of India. He says, "Finding the ruins of an ancient, submerged civilization raises more questions than it answers, causes more problems than it solves. How did the land and structures sink? What could have prompted such a large scale cataclysm? When did civilization on earth actually begin? What do we really know about the ancient past and human origins? And how does the establishment of science, so fixed in its doctrines, grapple with the potential demise of its most cherished presumptions?" In other words, these cities raise more questions than they answer. This may trouble the conventional scientific establishment, to the degree that they even try to deny the validity of these ancient ruins.


The initial guess by archeologists was that newest underwater city discovered off the coast of India, which is 5 miles long, was 4,000 to 6,000 years old. "But in January of 2002," Lewis says, "carbon dating revealed that an artifact from the site was astonishingly ancient, between 8,500 and 9,500 years old—the oldest known civilization in the world by thousands of years—a time when, according to orthodox archeological standards, India should have been peopled with primitive hunter gatherers and a few settlements, not inhabitants of a lost civilization."
Author Graham Hancock has personally researched the underwater site and describes buildings there as being hundreds of feet in length, with drains running along the streets. Hancock says the discovery of the cities means that "the foundations are out of the bottom of archeology."
Lewis writes that conventional archeology believes that civilization began 5,000 years ago in Sumeria. "In the orthodox (Darwinist) view, life and then human beings emerged extremely slowly from highly improbable accidental causes over a period of time necessitated by laws of probability…Civilization followed, according to the scenario, after the theoretical Out of Africa migration (about 100,000 years ago) and fairly recently in prehistory. Evidence of extremely ancient civilizations, or severe cataclysmic disruptions (those resembling mythical events that may have shaped the ancient world) throw a wrench into the conventional machinery."

Lewis talks about the possibility of life arriving on Earth by "more mysterious means, not by a series of astronomically improbable accidents, not through a biblical creationist scenario, but by virtue of some other unknown agency, an all-pervasive life force more in keeping with "The Tao of Physics" than "The Origin of the Species," some mysterious agency such as that evidenced in eastern healing disciplines and codified impressionistically in the world’s mythologies…Tradition in India has always held, in fact, that Indian culture predates all understanding, being virtually timeless, stretching into the mists of antiquity whence sprang the gods and myth—the non space/non time reality of modern theoretical physics."
He describes Indian legends about a much bigger Indian land mass in ancient times which, he says, "leads to the idea of an Asian Atlantis…" In Sri Lanka, an ancient legend says that "In a former age, the citadel of Rawana (Lord of Lanka), 25 palaces and 400,000 streets were swallowed by the sea…" Another ancient tradition is that "formerly [the] country was of continental dimensions, but the daughter of an evil spirit threw many rocks into the sea…the waters rose and swallowed up the land…Everything alive perished, except what was able to save itself on one island that remained above the waters." Ancient Indian writings describe a spiritual academy that was located in that ancient place, lost beneath the ocean. Lewis says, "At least one branch of modern-day south Indian mystics claims a direct lineage from those extraordinarily ancient times, when their spiritual progenitors were said to have achieved extremely long lives through yogic techniques…India’s epic poem, the Mahabharata [over 7,000 years old], contains references that place its hero, Rama, gazing from India’s present-day west coast into a vast land mass now occupied by the Arabian Sea…"

See news story, "Another Underwater City in India", click here.

To learn about Atlantis Rising Magazine, click here.

Meanwhile in Europe, a new theory about the location of Atlantis has emerged. Jacques Collina-Girard, from the University of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence, France, says Atlantis could have been sited on an island close to the Strait of Gibraltar, and would have vanished below the waves about 11,000 years ago, just as Plato said it did. His evidence is based on a study of sea levels that prevailed as the last Ice Age was ending. His study of the coral reef data shows the coastline off the southernmost tip of Spain and around Gibraltar 19,000 years ago to have been 422 feet below what it is today. This would have exposed an archipelago, with an island at the spot where Plato reported Atlantis to be in his work Timaeus.

"There was an island in front of the Pillars of Hercules [the Strait of Gibraltar]," Collina-Girard says. Named Spartel, this island lay to the west of the Strait just as the Greek philosopher described. The Strait was longer and narrower than today, and enclosed a harbor-like inland sea.
The search for Atlantis has led archaeologists to the Caribbean, the Azores, Canaries, Iceland, Crete, Tunisia, Sweden, the coast of Western Africa and now India. But Collina-Girard says, "Nobody seems to have to have thought of the clearest indication given by Plato—that of an island at the mouth of the Pillars of Hercules."

The researcher says he made the discovery accidentally while investigating the possible migration patterns of Palaeolithic people. However, Plato’s reporting does not agree with the geological evidence in a number of aspects. For example, Plato said Atlantis was larger than Libya and Asia combined, while Spartel was only 8.75 miles long by three miles wide at the time.

Plato also reports that volcanic activity sank Atlantis, but this may not have been true, says Collina-Girard. "The Greeks were familiar with volcanic eruptions," he says. To them, such a fate might have been more dramatic and plausible than the change in sea level that would have accompanied the melting and gradual retreat of glacial ice sheets. To find out how ancient catastrophes have affected the human mind right up to the present, read "Catastrophobia" by Barbara Hand Clow, click here.

[source]

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Plethon

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[source]

The dates provided by the article are coincident with the end of the last Glaciation, the melting of the continental ice shelves and the woldwide rising of the sea levels... that is the origin as well of the tales about the Deluge that one encounters in several traditons around the world (coincidently these tradittions are only present among coastal cultures and civilisations, absent among secular continental tribes and cultures)

[Strengthandhonour]

There has been so man ideas of where Atlantis was.
I have heard it all, from the Carribean to Brazil.
Last time I saw, there was a man doing a huge documentary by for the History channel. Some Greek fisherman claimed that he found something and the people went with him. He told them that he would show it with the promise of the team not writing down the cordinates of where the place is.
They got to this place and dove in and there was a few foundations and mosaics deep under water. It was pretty interesting. But perhaps as technology progresses we will discover the secret of Atlantis.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

There has been so man ideas of where Atlantis was.
I have heard it all, from the Carribean to Brazil.
Last time I saw, there was a man doing a huge documentary by for the History channel. Some Greek fisherman claimed that he found something and the people went with him. He told them that he would show it with the promise of the team not writing down the cordinates of where the place is.
They got to this place and dove in and there was a few foundations and mosaics deep under water. It was pretty interesting. But perhaps as technology progresses we will discover the secret of Atlantis.

Yes, it was near from Cyprus.

[Savorgnan]

We all know about the dramatic increasement of the ocean' level since the end of the last Ice-Age.In southern France,near Marseille,we have the Cosquer cave that gives an idea of how far where the littorals at that time...So it's not surprising.We should find numerous Atlantis in every littoral region of the world that has been marked by a consistant human population.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by RegioX

We all know about the dramatic increasement of the ocean' level since the end of the last Ice-Age.In southern France,near Marseille,we have the Cosquer cave that gives an idea of how far where the littorals at that time...So it's not surprising.We should find numerous Atlantis in every littoral region of the world that has been marked by a consistant human population.

Not to tell that during the ice-age you could go from French Basque country to England and from England to Netherlands, all by foot

[Señor Malo]

Here; a map of sunken lands and coast lines changes since the last ice age. There one can find all the possible Atlantis, Lemuria, Hyperborea, Mu lost continents


This one, a map from a site claiming that Atlantis was in SE Asia

http://www.atlan.org/articles/checklist/





You even could walk from S Argentina Coast to Malvinas islands:

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by searcher of truth

Not to tell that during the ice-age you could go from French Basque country to England and from England to Netherlands, all by foot

Absolutely,and northern Adriatic did not even exist at that time.It was the Netherlands of the mediterranean.Or a southern extension of the Po valley,between Italy and the Balkans.I would have made several hours to go to the beach instead of less than one now!

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by searcher of truth

The dates provided by the article are coincident with the end of the last Glaciation, the melting of the continental ice shelves and the woldwide rising of the sea levels... that is the origin as well of the tales about the Deluge that one encounters in several traditons around the world (coincidently these tradittions are only present among coastal cultures and civilisations, absent among secular continental tribes and cultures)

That seems a plausible claim.
Sunken cities do feature in ancient Irish legends.
Perhaps we can collate old myths from various areas to see if this theory bears out. That in fact there was not one Atlantis, but many.

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Milesian

That in fact there was not one Atlantis, but many.

It reminded me of a news article of National Geographic I read sometime ago:

"Now new evidence claims that Atlantis was based on a real place—or places."

Atlantis "Evidence" Found in Spain and Ireland


Personally I think that all the Mediterranean theories walk on thin ice. The Mare Nostrum was nothing unknown nor distant to the Greek world to hold any mystery to them, plus if something "strange" had happened, much more people -not only Greeks- would have given account of it.

Plato already stated that Atlantis was west to the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar), so logic tell us that if such island (or cape, land...) was called that way it was indeed because it was located in the Atlantic Ocean. Anything else is a mere touristic lure, in my modest opinion.