Atlantis
John Gibbs
have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath the North
Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
Thanks.
Burntnjall
Total Hogwash. Everyone knows the entrance to The Hollow Earth
lies under the North Pole ice.
Zimri
>What do you think of the idea that the remains of Atlantis, which could
>have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath the North
>Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
More remote than Alpha Centauri. Utter HRBMP ("Hogwash Rejected By Miss
Piggy").
The "long" answer - the Atlanteans would have to be pretty damn advanced to
build an empire from Ice Age Greenland. And we'd need to see more evidence
of such a civilization elsewhere on Earth. (And, no, Graham Hancock is no
authority on this.)
The best bet for Atlantis is some form of Bronze Age Crete. (Which is
interesting enough, come to think about it...)
Regards,
-- Zim da Grouch
Lord Valdis
Burntnjall wrote in message
<199809042141...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> John Gibbs <jo...@NOSPAM.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>What do you think of the idea that the remains of Atlantis, which
>>could have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath
>>the North Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
>
>Total Hogwash. Everyone knows the entrance to The Hollow Earth
>lies under the North Pole ice.
>
>
drawings of the hollow earth theory....look somewhat similar. Any
opinions?
Chris Camfield
wrote:
>John Gibbs wrote:
>>
>> What do you think of the idea that the remains of Atlantis, which could
>> have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath the North
>> Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
>> Thanks.
>
>One of the more recent theories is that it existed in the land known as
>antarctica today. Compared to most theories I have read it sounded more
>plausible. Maybe that was the "whole world " flooded in genesis? I've
>heard weirder ideas.
Except that Antarctica was not bare of ice at that time. If the
theory is based on the Piri Reis map -- well, it's been noted that the
coastland of Antarctica would not look like it does after all those
tons of ice were removed.
CC
Burntnjall
>Burntnjall wrote in message
>> John Gibbs <jo...@NOSPAM.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>What do you think of the idea that the remains of Atlantis, which
>>>could have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath
>>>the North Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
>>>Thanks.
>>
>>lies under the North Pole ice.
>>
>>
>Interesting that should come up....look at the drawings of Atlantis and the
>drawings of the hollow earth theory....look somewhat similar. Any
>opinions?
What else would you expect? It's well known that both Atlantis and
the inhabitants of the Cities of the Hollow Earth have the EXACT
SAME extraterrestrial origins, namely the planet Canineus
orbiting Sirus, the Dog Star.
Temujin87
of Gilgamesh, Biblical Flood, and Legend of Atlantis? You know? Offence to the
gods, destruction by immersion, diaspora of civilisation... get it?
Now two guys from Columbia University's Geology department did drilling samples
in the Black Sea which seem to prove a rapid change in the Black Sea from fresh
water to salt water... seems to Dardenelles/Bosporus acted as a natural dam
once of twice and the last time the dam broke was about 5600 BCE... just about
the time that Semitic, Hammitic, and Indo-European cultures began to expand and
when the second agricultural revolution hit high gear.
Not discounting Piri Reis but a simpler explanation would be that the ruins of
early proto-Indo European civilization lay under five hundred feet of water and
sea bed near the Crimea or coast of Odessa.
Add to that, the description from Genesis and the Gilgamesh story and Eden
could be near of in Lake Van: Ararat in the neighborhood, Tigris and
Euphraates, natural gas and oil deposits to the west evoke the possibility of
the angels with the flaming swords to prevent re-entry in Genesis. Perhaps
displaced persons from the pre-5600 BCE Pontic coastline contributed culturally
to the Semitic and Hammitic development.
This would pre-date the earliest organized Egyptian society, but not the
earliest urban areas of the Levant or Anatolya, in this pre-literate age, oral
traditions wopuld be very important, but not completely accurate. Such a flood
as would have occurred by the Mediterranean rushing in and adding five hundred
feet to the water table would certainly been passed from generation to
generation with gradual changes in details, but the three stories have the
basic framework, a possible key actual event, and physically proximate cultural
origins.
>From: ab...@freenet.carleton.ca (Chris Camfield)
>Date: Sat, Sep 5, 1998 09:48 EDT
>Message-id: <35f140da...@news.ncf.carleton.ca>
>
>On Sun, 06 Sep 1998 18:35:01 +1200, Ben Ataya <BenA...@clyne.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>John Gibbs wrote:
>>>
>>> What do you think of the idea that the remains of Atlantis, which could
>>> have existed at about 10,000 BC, could be burried underneath the North
>>> Polar ice cap? Total hogwash, or a remote possibility?
>>> Thanks.
>>
Zimri
<199809051610...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>Can I get someone's acknowlegement that there are similarities between the
Epic
>of Gilgamesh, Biblical Flood, and Legend of Atlantis? You know? Offence to
the
>gods, destruction by immersion, diaspora of civilisation... get it?
The Sumerian and Biblical Floods have a literary, detail-by-detail
dependence. The details of Atlantis are very, very different (volcanic, one
island vs. meteorological, whole world).
>Now two guys from Columbia University's Geology department did drilling
samples
>in the Black Sea which seem to prove a rapid change in the Black Sea from
fresh
>water to salt water... seems to Dardenelles/Bosporus acted as a natural dam
>once of twice and the last time the dam broke was about 5600 BCE... just
about
>the time that Semitic, Hammitic, and Indo-European cultures began to expand
and
>when the second agricultural revolution hit high gear.
Might we have a specific reference?
>Not discounting Piri Reis but a simpler explanation would be that the ruins
of
>early proto-Indo European civilization lay under five hundred feet of water
and
>sea bed near the Crimea or coast of Odessa.
The PIE-speakers probably hailed from north and east of there, and they
weren't much of a civilization back then. Face it, our ancestors were a
bunch of semi-barbarians living in yurts ;^)
>Add to that, the description from Genesis and the Gilgamesh story and Eden
>could be near of in Lake Van: Ararat in the neighborhood, Tigris and
>Euphraates, natural gas and oil deposits to the west evoke the possibility
of
>the angels with the flaming swords to prevent re-entry in Genesis. Perhaps
>displaced persons from the pre-5600 BCE Pontic coastline contributed
culturally
>to the Semitic and Hammitic development.
>This would pre-date the earliest organized Egyptian society, but not the
>earliest urban areas of the Levant or Anatolya, in this pre-literate age,
oral
>traditions wopuld be very important, but not completely accurate.
To convince me, it would have to be more accurate and better documented than
this...
>Such a flood
>as would have occurred by the Mediterranean rushing in and adding five
hundred
>feet to the water table would certainly been passed from generation to
>generation with gradual changes in details, but the three stories have the
>basic framework, a possible key actual event, and physically proximate
cultural
>origins.
<snip>
Interesting theory. Humans do settle near water, so if there were such a
flood, I would certainly recommend sending some divers to snoops around.
Probably not a good idea to get too excited about it now, though.
Mark D. Lew
temu...@aol.com (Temujin87) wrote:
> Can I get someone's acknowlegement that there are similarities between
the Epic
> of Gilgamesh, Biblical Flood, and Legend of Atlantis? You know? Offence to the
> gods, destruction by immersion, diaspora of civilisation... get it?
Sure. That would suggest that the Atlantis story is a variation on the
usual Middle Eastern flood myth.
> Now two guys from Columbia University's Geology department did drilling
samples
> in the Black Sea which seem to prove a rapid change in the Black Sea from
fresh
> water to salt water... seems to Dardenelles/Bosporus acted as a natural dam
> once of twice and the last time the dam broke was about 5600 BCE... just about
> the time that Semitic, Hammitic, and Indo-European cultures began to
expand and
> when the second agricultural revolution hit high gear. [...]
> Not discounting Piri Reis but a simpler explanation would be that the ruins of
> early proto-Indo European civilization lay under five hundred feet of
water and
> sea bed near the Crimea or coast of Odessa.
> Add to that, the description from Genesis and the Gilgamesh story and Eden
> could be near of in Lake Van: Ararat in the neighborhood, Tigris and
> Euphraates, natural gas and oil deposits to the west evoke the possibility of
> the angels with the flaming swords to prevent re-entry in Genesis. Perhaps
> displaced persons from the pre-5600 BCE Pontic coastline contributed
culturally
> to the Semitic and Hammitic development.
> This would pre-date the earliest organized Egyptian society, but not the
> earliest urban areas of the Levant or Anatolya, in this pre-literate age, oral
> traditions wopuld be very important, but not completely accurate. Such a flood
> as would have occurred by the Mediterranean rushing in and adding five hundred
> feet to the water table would certainly been passed from generation to
> generation with gradual changes in details, but the three stories have the
> basic framework, a possible key actual event, and physically proximate
cultural
> origins.
Well, the most obvious problem with this theory is the idea that the
Mediterranean would come "rushing in" as a result of the
Dardanelles/Bosporus "dam" breaking. The inflow of water to the Black Sea
is much greater than the inflow to the Mediterranean, as one can readily
guess by simply looking at the rivers entering into each sea. Through the
Bosporus and Dardanelles there is a constant flow toward the Mediterranean.
On the surface, the flow is almost as strong as a river, and although there
is an undercurrent going the opposite direction, the net flow is OUT of the
Black Sea, not into it.
If one were to postulate that the Bosporus and Dardanelles were once closed
up and suddenly became open, the obvious conclusion is that water would
come rushing OUT of the Black Sea. If your conclusion is that the Black
Sea was previously empty, you need to explain where the enormous flow of
the Danube emptied if not into the Black Sea, and likewise for the Don,
Dnepr and Dnestr.
I think perhaps someone has misread the phrase "rapid change in the Black
Sea from fresh water to salt water". More likely this refers to the border
between the fresh water which makes up the upper layer of the Black Sea and
the salt water below. Since salt water is heavier, it general sinks below
fresh water in a body that contains both, but in the Black Sea the border
is stable and unusually abrupt. This has been known for centuries, but I
don't think the details of Black Sea oceanography are completely understood
even today.
(Neil Ascherson's "Black Sea" (1995), an excellent book, is primarily about
other topics, but begins with a brief description of the mechanics of the
sea.)
mdl
Ben Ataya
Temujin87
by temu:
>From: mark...@earthlink.net (Mark D. Lew)
>Date: Sat, Sep 5, 1998 20:52 EDT
>Message-id: <markdlew-ya0240800...@news.earthlink.net>
>
>In article <199809051610...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>temu...@aol.com (Temujin87) wrote:
>> Can I get someone's acknowlegement that
>>there are similarities between the Epic
>> of Gilgamesh, Biblical Flood, and Legend
>> of Atlantis? You know? Offence to the
>> gods, destruction by immersion, diaspora
>> of civilisation... get it?
>Sure. That would suggest that the Atlantis
>story is a variation on the usual Middle
>Eastern flood myth.
>> Now two guys from Columbia University's
>>Geology department did drilling samples
>> in the Black Sea which seem to prove a
>>rapid change in the Black Sea from fresh
>> water to salt water... seems to Dardenelles
>>about 5600 BCE... just about the time that
>>Semitic, Hammitic, and Indo-European >>cultures began to expand and when the
>>second agricultural revolution hit high >>gear.
>>explanation would be that the ruins of
>> early proto-Indo European civilization lay
>> under five hundred feet of water and sea
>> bed near the Crimea or coast of Odessa.
>> Add to that, the description from Genesis
>> and the Gilgamesh story and Eden could
>> be near of in Lake Van: Ararat in the
>> neighborhood, Tigris and Euphraates,
>>natural gas and oil deposits to the west
>> evoke the possibility of the angels with the
>> flaming swords to prevent re-entry in
>>Genesis. Perhaps displaced persons from
>>culturally to the Semitic and Hammitic
>>development.
>> This would pre-date the earliest organized
>>Egyptian society, but not the earliest urban
>>areas of the Levant or Anatolya, in this
>> very important, but not completely
>> accurate. Such a flood as would have
>>occurred by the Mediterranean rushing in
>>and adding five hundred feet to the water
>> table would certainly been passed from
>>generation to generation with gradual
>> changes in details, but the three stories
>> have the basic framework, a possible key
>> actual event, and physically proximate
>>cultural origins.
>Well, the most obvious problem with this
>theory is the idea that the Mediterranean
> would come "rushing in" as a result of the
>Dardanelles/Bosporus "dam" breaking.
>The inflow of water to the Black Sea
>is much greater than the inflow to the
> Mediterranean, as one can readily
>guess by simply looking at the rivers
>entering into each sea. Through the
>Bosporus and Dardanelles there is a
>constant flow toward the Mediterranean.
>On the surface, the flow is almost as strong
>as a river, and although there is an
>undercurrent going the opposite direction,
>the net flow is OUT of theBlack Sea, not into
>it.
*resp. temu:
We must have taken quite different physical geography courses you and I, as the
net flow is IN the Black Sea... the saline/sulphuric level is so high and the
oxygen level is so low below five hundred feet in the Black Sea that very
little is able to survive. Add to that the lack of light penetration and there
is a lifeless sea there.
BTW, one cannot visually observe waterflow by looking at a map... the loss of
water by evaporation and precipitation further inland is quite severe despite
the flows of the Don, Dneiper, and Danau. Take for example, the Mediterranean,
the evaporation thereof has created deserts several times in the millions by
closing the gates of Gibraltar and denying the replentishing Atlantic waters.
So similarly withthe Black Sea which has been back and forth between salt sea
and fresh lake, only this last time there may have been witnesses of greter
communication skills than fossilized fauna.
*cont' markdlew:
>If one were to postulate that the Bosporus
>and Dardanelles were once closed up and
>suddenly became open, the obvious
> conclusion is that water would come rushing
> OUT of the Black Sea. If your conclusion
>is that the Black Sea was previously empty,
> you need to explain where the enormous
> flow of the Danube emptied if not into the
> Black Sea, and likewise for the Don, Dnepr >and Dnestr.
*cont' temu: I never said it was empty, just very much lower, especially during
the last glacial period.
The Don River system is deftly dumped into the Black Sea through the Sea of
Azov only by deflection of the Privolzhskaya Vozvyshennost, forcing the Volga
to drain into the Caspian depression, which, according to your theory should be
overfilled despite its below sea level elevation! Again, more water evaporating
than flows into it! If not for the Priv'skaya V'yshenst the water of the Don
would be in the Caspian too!
*cont' Markdlew:
>I think perhaps someone has misread the
>phrase "rapid change in the Black Sea from
> fresh water to salt water". More likely this
> refers to the border between the fresh
> water which makes up the upper layer of
>the Black Sea and the salt water below.
> Since salt water is heavier, it general sinks
> below fresh water in a body that contains
>both, but in the Black Sea the border
>is stable and unusually abrupt. This has been
> known for centuries, but I don't think the
>details of Black Sea oceanography are
> completely understood even today.
*temu resp:
No misread, fact is if the Dardanelles were closed, several decades would pass
by, but the ocean level of the Black Sea would drop considerably and the
surface waters would convert to fresh. True, there is all the nasty salt water
in the depths, but in geologic terms, a decade is a rather brief encounter.
As regards to the researchers who explored this idea, they are Walter Pitman
and Bill Ryan of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the cursory exam of
their ideas were covered in Earth (August 98), their website is
www.earthmag.com.
Garry W
>I dont remember what it was supposedly based on, it was just an article
>that I breezed through a while back. But whos to say that at one time
>the polar caps werent in different places?
"Scientists". Trust them. It's their job.
Garry
PS - The poles *were* of course in different places at one time. But at the
time mammals hadn't been invented yet....
Mark D. Lew
temu...@aol.com (Temujin87) wrote:
> We must have taken quite different physical geography courses you and I,
as the
> net flow is IN the Black Sea... the saline/sulphuric level is so high and the
> oxygen level is so low below five hundred feet in the Black Sea that very
> little is able to survive. Add to that the lack of light penetration and there
> is a lifeless sea there.
> BTW, one cannot visually observe waterflow by looking at a map... the loss of
> water by evaporation and precipitation further inland is quite severe despite
> the flows of the Don, Dneiper, and Danau. Take for example, the Mediterranean,
> the evaporation thereof has created deserts several times in the millions by
> closing the gates of Gibraltar and denying the replentishing Atlantic waters.
> So similarly withthe Black Sea which has been back and forth between salt sea
> and fresh lake, only this last time there may have been witnesses of greter
> communication skills than fossilized fauna.
I thought that I had gleaned from the Ascherson book cited earlier that the
net flow is out of the Black Sea, but rereading I see that although it
gives that impression it isn't stated explicitly. I've never taken any
physical geography course, so I'll take your word for it. Thanks for
educating me.
mdl
Gabriel
>
> On Sun, 06 Sep 1998 18:35:01 +1200, Ben Ataya <BenA...@clyne.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
> theory is based on the Piri Reis map -- well, it's been noted that the
> coastland of Antarctica would not look like it does after all those
> tons of ice were removed.
>
d...@telalink.net
John Gibbs
>What do you think of the idea that Atlantis,could be burried underneath the North
Zyrinia
the famed "Atlantis". However, I have yet to hear a debate (both sides)
that would satisfy these opinions. So far, it's just opinions and nothing
to back them. Can someone help me with this? And I'm not just saying any
one region, I'm opening this to earth ~ period.
~Zyriana~
d...@telalink.net wrote in message <35f5bd9e...@news.telalink.net>...
Chris Camfield
artifacts labelled "Atlantis".
I would suggest you point a web browser at www.dejanews.com and read
the COPIOUS blood, or at least words, spilled over this issue in this
newsgroup and sci.archaeology.
CC
Zyrinia
actually a place that people believe in whole heartedly. Or, people
disbelieve it wholeheartedly. I agree there are no archaeological finds
from "Atlantis", and if the reason for disbelief is simply that we have no
solid proof, then I'll go for that.
However that does mean that both sides are inherently correct. There is no
proof for either theory. So, darn it, a mystery it will remain.
I have done alot of research (passive amateur really) on our mysteries (some
more than others) and I was just wondering if this NG could bring a debate
on the validity of our opinions.
Thank you Chris for answering this request. You are very helpful. The
debate goes on...
~Zyriana~
Chris Camfield wrote in message <35fbe095...@news.ncf.carleton.ca>...
Barbarossa
<zyr...@home.com> wrote:
>To be truthful, I'm not sure what I wanted. Atlantis is (for some reason)
>actually a place that people believe in whole heartedly. Or, people
>disbelieve it wholeheartedly. I agree there are no archaeological finds
>from "Atlantis", and if the reason for disbelief is simply that we have no
>solid proof, then I'll go for that.
>
>However that does mean that both sides are inherently correct. There is no
>proof for either theory. So, darn it, a mystery it will remain.
This is not entirely correct. Of the many suggested places 'Atlantis'
might have been, a great number have been explored in detail; no trace of
any 'Atlantis.' This narrows down the scope of the mystery considerably.
>I have done alot of research (passive amateur really) on our mysteries (some
>more than others) and I was just wondering if this NG could bring a debate
>on the validity of our opinions.
The greatest stumbling block in this debate is, contrary to a great number
of lines of scientific inquiry, the dates that Plato uses for his
'Atlantis.' The story is about a Bronze Age war between Greeks and
'Atlanteans.' The simplest explanation is that knowingly, or unknowingly,
Plato gave an inaccurate date. If we allow for an error in the date, the
mystery becomes almost "over-solved": some people show with great
scholarship that 'Atlantis' must have been Troy; others, also with great
scholarship, 'prove' that 'Atlantis' must have been Minoan Crete, while
still other equally scholarly works show that 'Atlantis' could not have
possibly been Crete. Of course Aristotle, Plato's student, believed he
made the whole thing up.
[ ... ]
>~Zyriana~
A good place to start would be two recent works:
ZANGGER, Eberhard, 'The Flood From Heaven: Deciphering the Atlantis
Legend', New York: Wm. Morrow & Co.,1992 ISBN 0-688-11350-8
ELLIS, Richard, 'Imagining Atlantis', New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1998
ISBN 0-679-44602-8
--
________________________B_a_r_b_a_r_o_s_s_a_____________________;^{>
Wayne B. Hewitt Encinitas, CA whe...@ucsd.edu
ArtKramr
>
>>I've heard the comments of "Hogwash", "Not Possible" etc with relation to
>>the famed "Atlantis". However, I have yet to hear a debate (both sides)
>>that would satisfy these opinions. So far, it's just opinions and nothing
>>to back them. Can someone help me with this? And I'm not just saying any
>>one region, I'm opening this to earth ~ period.
>>
>>~Zyriana~
>>
mentioned it except Aristotle to say that Plato invented the whole thing as a
morality lesson, as was his wont. Atlantis was never mentioned by Plutarch,
Thucidides, Herodotus all prolific historians who left no stone unturned and no
word unsaid. If there was an entire nation called Atlantis, one or more of them
might have at least mentioned it. But nary a single voice to reinforce Plato.
Arthur
344th Bomb Group, 494th Bomb Squadron
9th Tactical Air Force
England, France, Belgium, Germany
Zyrinia
Thank you for your replies. I knew that if I asked in this NG I would get
pointed in other directions than what I have been currently travelling in
this quest for info. Let me tell you --that is a relief.
Thank you again, I'll definitely get to the information that has been
provided and then go from there.
~Zyriana~
Doug Weller
Of all the books I've read on Atlantis, the most impressive (and the one
with the most archaeological evidence) is Rodney Castleden's Atlantis
Destroyed, published this year by Routledge. Castleden also wrote The
Making of Stonehenge, The Knossos Labyrinth, The Stonehenge People,
Neolithic Britain, and Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. (And Classic
Landforms of the Sussex Coast for the Geographical Association, but
that's not relevant here!).
On page 7 he discusses the Pillars of Hercules:
"Before the sixth century BC several mountains on the edges of mainland
Greece were seen as supports for the sky. Amongst others, the two
southward-pointing headlands on each side of the Gulf of Laconia were
pillars of Heracles. Then, to the Greeks, a large island with one end
just outside the pillars of Heracles could only have meant Crete. [This
isn't the sum of Castleden's thesis, wait for it]...Support for a
Peloponnesian location for the pillars comes, unexpectedly, from Egypt.
The Medinet Habu texts, dating from 1200 BC, describe the Sea Peoples
invading from islands to the north (possibly the Aegean), 'from the
pillars of heaven', by which the Egyptians probably meant that the
invaders came from the end of the world as they knew it.'
He then goes on to say "The thesis of this book is that the story is not
one piece of identifiable proto-history but several, and that Plato drew
them together because he wanted to weave them into a parable that
commented on the state of the world in his own times ... he wanted to
entertain, improve and exalt his readers. A distant memory of the Minoan
civilization was available, preserved for his use, as he said, by the
seventh century priests in the Nile delta. The wealth, orderliness and
strangeness of the Minoans are sketched in for us." Castleden then points
out that Plato does not write about Atlantis as a utopia, but about
Athens -- "It is the Athenians who are described in utopian terms. It is
they who have relinquished private property... and have prolific fields
and boundless pastures. It is Athens that is the excellent land with
well-tempered seasons."
Castleden follows this with a very detailed discussion of the archaeology
and geography of Minoan Crete and Thera and how that compares with
Plato's tale. He goes into detail about how the story might have been
transmitted to Plato and Plato's possible motives in writing the two
essays. (He also mentions that there was a century older text by
Hellanicus, of which only a small fragment survives, called 'Atlantis'!).
In the last chapter, he writes "There are several reasons why there have
been so many misunderstandings about the nature of Atlantis and its
location in time and space:
"1. Plato left the various elements in the story's visible and
undigested. Although he altered it, he did not do so thoroughly and the
result is that Atlantis as described cannot have existed at all. That
has led some commentators to claim mistakenly that the story is fiction
from start to finish, and thus to overlook the proto-historical content.
"2. The Egyptians who acquired the story in 1520 BC or shortly
afterwards had a very different geographical sense from he Greeks of
Plato's or Solon's time. To the 16th-century Egyptians, the Aegean was a
long way to the west. When the story was passed to Solon, the known
world was expanding rapidly, and either Solon or the priest may have
assumed that Atlantis was out in the newly visited Atlantic Ocean.This
mistake may actually have led to the ocean being named after the lost
land, rather than the other way around as most people have assumed.
"3. The geographical mistake was compounded by a misreading of Linear A
or B numerals, or a misreading of hieratic or demotic copies of the story
made in Sais by Egyptian scribes, in the fifteenth century or later.
This led to a tenfold exaggeration of many of the distance measurements,
and a hundredfold exaggeration of area, so that the Plain of Mesara,
instead of being small enough to fit into central Crete, was inflated to
the size of the southern Aegean. The land areas involved became too big
to fit into the Mediterranean: another reason for removing Atlantis to
the outer ocean.
"4. A similar mistranslation of numerals led to an exaggeration of the
900 years elapsing between Thera's destruction and Solon's Egyptian visit
to 9000 years. The idea of an advanced bronze age culture ...in 9600 BC
has always been unacceptable to pre-historians, and that has helped to
push Atlantis to the outer fringes of academic study.
[Here I'd like to interject that I've always been puzzled by those who
believe in a 9600 BC Atlantis and ignore the archaeological evidence that
there was no 9600 BC bronze age Athens. They seem to want to say that
half the story is true, the other half false.]
"5. The hypothesis revived repeatedly in the 20th century - that Minoan
Crete was Atlantis - has proved inadequate ... The parallel hypothesis,
based on more recent archaeological evidence, that Cycladic Thera was
Atlantis is also in itself inadequate. Because these hypotheses can be
rejected separately, many have rejected the idea that Atlantis might have
existed in the southern Aegean, understandably overlooking the
possibility that if the two hypotheses are combined they do meet the
needs of Plato's description.
6. -- omitted, about the Pillars of Heracles and dealt with above.
"7. It is possible that contemporary allegorical readings of the tale
were intended to be implicitly ironic, and that in relation to Sparta and
Syracuse Plato intended Athens to be Atlantis. From the execution of
Socrates, Plato learned the value of cricumspection and may have chosen,
for safety's sake, not to say directly what he meant."
What I find so impressive in this book, as I've said, is the wealth of
archaeological evidence.
One final point. Castleden is holding to the later date for the Thera
eruption, and includes an appendix justifying this.
Doug
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Doug Weller
1998 00:27:10 GMT, artk...@aol.com said...
>
> Plato made a brief comment about a place called Atlantis. No one else ever
> mentioned it except Aristotle to say that Plato invented the whole thing as a
> morality lesson, as was his wont. Atlantis was never mentioned by Plutarch,
> Thucidides, Herodotus all prolific historians who left no stone unturned and no
> word unsaid. If there was an entire nation called Atlantis, one or more of them
> might have at least mentioned it. But nary a single voice to reinforce Plato.
>
>
There was a Greek 'book' called Atlantis, dated about 100 years before
Plato, of which we have a scrap.
The author is Hellanicus, and the source for this is T Ganz,
Early Greek Myths, 1992. I can't find the book, but I presume this is
Hellanicus of Lesbos, who wrote a number of local histories.
Found this in Rodney Castleden's book.
Alan Alford
> 1998 00:27:10 GMT, artk...@aol.com said...
> >
> > Plato made a brief comment about a place called Atlantis. No one else ever
> > mentioned it except Aristotle to say that Plato invented the whole
thing as a
> > morality lesson, as was his wont. Atlantis was never mentioned by Plutarch,
> > Thucidides, Herodotus all prolific historians who left no stone
unturned and no
> > word unsaid. If there was an entire nation called Atlantis, one or
more of them
> > might have at least mentioned it. But nary a single voice to reinforce
Plato.
> >
I hate to be a smartarse, but I believe I have solved the mystery of
Atlantis. Here's a copy of an article which I have just had published in
'The Independent' newspaper, London.
'THE INDEPENDENT' 17th September 1998
MYTHOLOGICAL NOTES
ALAN F. ALFORD
'Henny-Penny discovers Atlantis'
In the English fairy tale, Henny-Penny was hit on the head by a falling
object, and then set off with Cocky-Locky, Ducky-Daddles, and the rest of
the tongue-twisting farmyard crew, to warn the king that Śthe Skyąs
a-going to fallą. What was the reason for this paranoid behaviour?
Surprisingly, the answer can be found in the famous legend of the lost
island of Atlantis.
When the Greek philosopher Plato described Atlantis as an Śislandą,
which was struck by an earthquake and sank into the sea, he inspired
countless generations of explorers to search the deepest oceans and
furthermost corners of the Earth for the remnants of a lost civilisation.
But my study of the ancient Egyptian texts now reveals that these
expeditions have been wild goose chases, because the Egyptians - the
source of Platoąs Atlantis legend - firmly believed that the lost island
was up in the Sky.
It was a central tenet of ancient Egyptian religion that the Sky had
fallen to Earth on more than one occasion. The oldest of these fallen
Sky-deities was Geb, who was said to have laid a Great Egg out of which
emerged the Phoenix with a blinding flash of light. Geb then let out a
piercing scream and fell to the Earthąs surface, carrying out
Śconstruction worką in Śmillions of placesą.
Another fallen god was Osiris, who was born in the Sky but was then
Ślaid lową by the evil god Seth. Osiris was said to have Śsplit openą the
Earth, and come to rest in the deep dark caverns of the underworld.
What is the connection to Atlantis? Well the Egyptians believed that
the gods had descended to the Earth from a place in the Sky, known
variously as the ŚHomeland of the Primeval Onesą, the Śeastern Horizon of
Heaveną (the Land of Light) or the ŚMountain-Land of the Godą. But
underlying all of these epithets was the image of an island floating in an
infinite abyss of primeval waters (which we nowadays call Śspaceą).
How did this island come to be lost? The Egyptians claimed that Osiris
had drowned (compare the sinking of Atlantis), but they also said that
Osiris had been Śdismemberedą i.e. chopped into pieces - a close parallel
to the Śearthquakeą which destroyed Atlantis.
The myth of the Sky falling to Earth reflected an Egyptian belief in a
catastrophic Śact of creationą, a day when the Sky-goddess Nut gave birth
to her Śchildren of chaosą, and the Sky became Śchoked and stifledą. The
Earth was said to have become an ŚIsland of Fireą as a result of impacts
from heaven.
Was ancient Egyptian religion inspired by a meteorite which fell from
the asteroid belt?
The idea seems plausible in view of the meteorite-cults which are
well-attested in Egypt. However, whereas modern astronomers claim the
asteroid belt is nothing more than space
debris, the Egyptians believed that asteroids and meteorites were parts of
the body of their Sky-deity, who had been dismembered. Remarkably, this
Sky-deity was described in the same terms as used for the Earth herself -
an island, a mountain, a throne, and a horizon. In other words, the
Egyptians believed that their ŚGodą was a planet.
The same idea is found in depictions of the god Atlas, supposedly the
first king of Atlantis, who was shown supporting the heavens in the form
of a planetary globe. The Greek meaning of his name tells us that Atlas
failed to withstand the Sky, which came crashing down to the Earth.
Atlantis was thus conceived as a planet which suffered a catastrophe
and sank into the waters of space. But might there be a reality behind
this myth? The notion that one or more planets have actually exploded in
our solar system is not without its supporters in the science of
astronomy. If their predictions concerning the explosive origins of
asteroids and comets are proved correct (and we should find out in 1999),
the ancient Egyptian myths will become due for a re-assessment. And
Henny-Penny wonąt be the only one to wake up with a sore head.
Alan F. Alford is the author of ŚThe Phoenix Solution: Secrets of a Lost
Civilisationą (Hodder & Stoughton Ł18.99).