Atlantis

The Atlantis is not a hoax

SUPPORT FREE SOFTWARE, SUPPORT NETBSD g4u

The hole in a bag with apples
is the philosophy of this world
and it is an art to learn how harpists
collect them.

The hole in the bag can also mean
that apples will accumulate,
but only a few can tell who becomes rich.

So the passage from weed on your way to the garden of fruits is a gradual disappearance -
with how many apples you come there,
that much reward you will receive!
(JS)

The Atlantis was definitely here; it is not a hoax. Plato wrote about it and his story began to unfold around 355 B.C., which was really a long time ago. Plato said that the continent had existed in the Atlantic Ocean until its destruction around 10,000 years before. However, Plato's and others' remarks on this lost continent do not carry enough knowledge to build a scientifically grounded theory that would prove higher intelligence and technology flourishing there. But people with enough intuition cannot completely throw off this idea.

Atlantis and Lemuria - lost continents, or a dreamland of Eden?

Copyright (c) George Sipos

(The contribution presented below was published in the Slovak journal Historická revue in June, 2004.)

Atlantis

You ask - Atlantis?  What is hidden behind the veil of this mysterious word? Did this lost and mythical world really exist? Why has it been filled with so many words, half-truths, assumptions, hypotheses, or perhaps truths? Or is it just a pure fabrication that inspires poets, occultists, and a little less conventional scientists? It is hard to tell.

A pyramid in the Amazon jungle

Atlantis received a lot of attention and many books were written about it; delusions and disinformation too. However, not only laymen but also few and quite earnest scientists claim that this fabulous world did really exist here some long time ago.

Atlantis and its unearthly destruction gave birth to several theories; however, before we start speaking about them, let us look at the historically first recorded note about the existence of this unknown world.

The first record about Atlantis was written by Plato - a famous and trustworthy Greek philosopher - who in his works Critias (and Timeus, too) described in words of Critias a Solon's story (Solon was a famous thinker and poet from the 6^th century BC), who had heard in Egypt from a certain priest that some long time ago there had existed a land called Atlantis, which had been destroyed. A fragment of Plato's words:

Our records show how your city checked a great power, which arrogantly advanced from its base in the Atlantic Ocean to attack the cities of Europe and Asia. For in those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an island opposite the strait which you call the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), an island larger than Libya (Africa) and Asia combined; from it travelers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the whole opposite continent, which surrounds what can truly be called the ocean. For the sea within the strait we were talking about is like a lake with a narrow entrance (the Mediterranean sea); the outer ocean is the real ocean and the land which entirely surrounds it is properly termed continent. On this island of Atlantis had arisen a powerful and remarkable dynasty of kings, who ruled the whole island, and many other islands as well and parts of the continent; in addition it controlled, within the strait, Libya up to the borders of Egypt and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy). This dynasty, gathering its whole power together, attempted to enslave, at a single stroke, your country and ours and all the territory within the strait. It was then, Solon, that the power and courage and strength of your city became clear for all men to see. Her bravery and military skill were outstanding; she led an alliance of the Greeks, and then when they deserted her and she was forced to fight alone, after running into direst peril, she overcame the invaders and celebrated a victory; she rescued those not yet enslaved from the slavery threatening them, and she generously freed all others living within the Pillars of Hercules. At a later time there were earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence, and in a single dreadful day and night all your fighting men were swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis was similarly swallowed up by the sea and vanished; this is why the sea in that area is to this day impassable to navigation, which is hindered by mud just below the surface, the remains of the sunken island.

Translation by Sir Desmond Lee, first published 1965, Penguin Classics.

According to other narrations, gods divided the world for themselves. Poseidon was one of them and he got the Atlantis. Some people had already lived on the island and one of them was Evenor who had Leucippe as his spouse; they had one daughter - Cleito. Cleito grew up, she was more and more beautiful, and Poseidon fell in love with her. When Cleito's parents died, the almighty God of the Sea took care of her and she was about to give birth to five pairs of twins - men, twin brothers, who received the Atlantis to domineer over it. The oldest one was Atlas. And these governed the big empire.

Egyptians said to Solon that Atlantis had been destroyed some 9000 years ago. Thus, if we add 600 years (before Christ) when Solon lived, and 2000 years that have passed from the Christ's birth until today, we will get 11,600 years.

The other source of literature about Atlantis is a Greek philosopher Diodorus Siculus, who lived some 90-20 years before Christ, and who wrote (Bibliotheca Historica) that some thousands years in the past Phoenicians had visited a very big island. Atlanteans allegedly civilized most of the people. So you can see, there are more historical descriptions of Atlantis among which we can also find the one from Aristotle, who wrote, too, about a big island in the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, the destruction of Atlantis was mentioned by historians such as Marcellinus, Timagenus, Theopompos.

There are also written records such as (Maya's) Dresden Codex, Popol Vuh, Codex Cortesianus - they all indicate that the existence of such an advanced civilization was possible. If we look into the timeline of the less distant history, Atlantis had always attracted poets, writers, but also occultists or travelers/adventurers. One such author was Francis Bacon, who already in 1626 wrote a very interesting work  - New Atlantis, which - at its time - surpassed even subsequent Verne's fantasies.

The alleged ancient bridge between India and Sri Lanka mentioned in the Indian epos Ramayana (satellite picture).

Bacon describes how a shipwreck crew found some extremely advanced people on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Its inhabitants could "record sound", they were able to "demonstrate" and "copy" it; they used engines for all types of movements; they also had messengers whom they sent to visit the "worldly nations" and collect information. Readers must be captivated and astonished. The book was written some several hundred years before a visionary writer like Jules Verne and it can be found in the Gutenberg Library here. Just search for the title or the author's name.

Atlantis later became a hoax and a good source of profit. This mythical and mysterious topic was grasped by clairvoyants and occultists, either groups or individuals of the New Age movement, which popularized it. Occultism and New Age also drew information from the famous Russian clairvoyant Blavatska, who maintained that people in Atlantis were just a different race on Earth with amazing psychic abilities. However, being corrupted, they transformed themselves to bad magicians and started war that resulted in their complete destruction.

Theories about Atlantis

Theories about Atlantis basically stand on two pillars:

I. It is a fable.

It is a bubble fabricated from the fall of the Minon civilization and the destruction of the Thera Island (presently known as Santorini) by volcanic explosion in the area of smaller volcanic islands in the Egey Sea some 75 kilometers southeast from the main Greek land, which occurred some 1640 years before Christ.

II. Atlantis existed.

However, theories are not in agreement; some say it existed in the Atlantic Ocean; a Brazilian professor and a nuclear physicist Mr. dos Santos (www.atlan.org) suggests that Atlantis existed in the Southern Chinese Sea (a quite recent theory).

In the web of science, pseudoscience, and charlatanism, other hypotheses appear such as a theory about the existence of an archipelago between Cyprus and Syria, but the above theories are the mainstream ones. And if the theory about the Southern Chinese Sea sounds really weird, it must be said that there are also theories about the lost continent of Mu (Lemuria), which allegedly existed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean near Australia.

Theories about Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean

One of the first modern-time Atlantis researchers, who delved into the study of Atlantis on a long-term basis, was Ignatius Donnelly - an American congressman from Minnesota, who in the year 1882 wrote a book Atlantis the Antediluvian World, and in 1883 Ragnarok the Age of Fire and Gravel. Donnelly brought the legend of Atlantis to awareness of Americans with great success. He cites Plato in his books; he speaks about myths and theories related to the Biblical flood; he does not bypass the native American Indians either and tries to document language similarities of Indian languages with some European languages.

The number of authors enlarged. For example, James Churchward wrote several books where he documented ancient scripts; William Niven, a geologist, tries to prove that he found similar stone tablets in Mexico. These and other writers support the theory that Atlantis existed in the Atlantic Ocean as an advanced civilization that colonized the continent of North and South America, but also Europe, Africa and Asia.

The anthropologist George Hunt Williamson made his own research of Atlantis and Lemuria. The author writes how the ancestors of the Incas led him to an old manuscript in the Andes; it records the destruction of Atlantis and Mu. They had allegedly an advanced technology. Williamson also visited some Indian tribes in USA and Mexico where Indians told him stories that fit into the theory about existence of Atlantis and Mu before the Biblical flood. It appears that not only the Indian testimonies do speak about an ancient but very civilized world.

Proofs or arguments

In case of proofs, we should be careful, as the Atlantis topic is a good way to earn money. But in addition to fake proofs, there are some trustworthy arguments I will highlight.

The Piri Reis map from about the year 1513.

Columbus, the man who discovered America as the first person mentioned in historical documents, studied older maps including the map of Admiral Piri Reis, which dates back to 1513. Albeit the continent of America was discovered in 1492, these maps picture the world in a shape that is against the knowledge of the present historical science. The Piri Reis map pictures also Antarctis some 300 years before it was discovered - the contours are quite accurate.

Professor Hapgood contacted the US Air Force with a question to confirm his theory about the fact that the land areas of the Piri Reis map picturing Antarctis are not below ice. He received a positive answer.

However, most theories pertaining to this subject are a product of manipulation. The Italian scientist Diego Cuoghi documents some details too. At the time of the Turkish Admiral, South America was being discovered by more adventurers; one of them was Amerigo Vespucci (in 1499); however, there are also maps dated before 1513 and even more accurate than the Piri Reis map if we focus on Cuba, Jamaica and Porto Rico - these areas are pictured quite inaccurately on the above-mentioned map. Writers like Danikin or Professor Hapgood simply ignore this fact.

We can also mention the map by Juan de la Cosa (1500) or Cantino (1502). If we put Antarctis or the then undiscovered islands into the profile, this cannot be seen as proof, because, for example, Waldseemuller's map from 1507 pictures China prolonged from the back of India - China actually going to Sri Lanka. Thus, we could say that the missing part of Brazil on the Piri map simply did not exist!

And what to say about the accurate contours of Antarctis? I think that Hapgood, von Danikin and other writers arrogantly underestimate intelligence and skills of ancient people and they forgot that Egyptians were very good sailors too. If these authors speak about extraterrestrials, they actually think that ancient people were primitive nations without ability to do things as we do them today. There is a well-known rock inscription with Egyptian hieroglyphs found in Australia, which indicates that ancient Egyptians could visit Australia or the Antarctic regions in the ancient past.

The richest source of information we had ever had in the ancient past - the Alexandrian Library - was destroyed. Any visionary Egyptian pharaoh could easily support a big expedition and it is possible that some ancient sailors knew that Antarctis existed. Having no records of this does not necessarily mean that ancient people did not explore America or Antarctis; neither does it mean that they had to be instructed by "extraterrestrials", as imagination of present writers often indicates.

Archeological findings or just findings

There are many interesting findings, but to expose details of every one of them is not necessary for the moment. To be brief, let us include only some of them just to give a picture how adherents of the "lost world" think.

 

North America

In May 1969, somewhere around the Bimini Islands, archeologists Mansen Valentain and Dimitri Rebikov found some remnants of a building some 30 meters deep in the sea. These were big pieces of stones - they perfectly fit into one another; the weight of one was about 25 tones. Scientists from the Miami University concluded that the remnants date back to some 7,000 or 10,000 years before Christ, which means that they are older than the pyramids of the Mayas.

In 1978, the New York Times wrote about a Soviet expedition in the Atlantic that had found and photographed some ancient ruins destroyed by lava.

The expedition of Dr. Manson Valentine found, near the Bimini Islands, other ruins at the sea bottom, and in the year 1982 these ruins were photographed. They are like the ones found in the Tiahuanaco Lake in Bolivia.

South America

Many explorers and adventurers tried to find the El Dorado - an imaginary place of immense richness. Some archeologists also claim that South America is the oldest cradle of humankind. Long time ago, the Tiahuanaco Empire existed here and it is believed that it had existed some 12,000 years before Christ. The remnants of a big city Tiahuanaco can be found even today on the banks of the Titicaca Lake. Many expeditions explored this area. Scientists wonder how could the then inhabitants move heavy stones (about 130 tones each) and put them side by side. The Tiahuanaco civilization gave birth to predecessors of Indians in South America.

The journal Archeology (July/August 2002, Vol. 55, No. 4) contains an article Is Atlantis in Bolivia? (author: Vranich, Alexie), where attention is given to the Kota Mama expedition the research skeleton of which was based upon a photograph that might suggest that the alleged Plato's Atlantis had supposedly existed in the Bolivian area Altiplano.

Other sources, too, confirm that Phoenicians visited South America; one such a source was Austrian Professor Ludwig Schwennhagen, who claimed that he found their inscriptions in the Amazon jungle. A French researcher Apollinaire Frot traveled all over the Brazilian areas such as Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso and Bahia, and confirmed this too.

Amazonia

Amazonia is only a little smaller than the present USA.

A very famous is the story of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, a member of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Pyramids in the Amazon jungle do really exist.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, this in archeology interested adventurer decided to explore lost worlds in the South-American forests. On the basis of agreements with the Bolivian and Brazilian governments, he became a member of several expeditions, and already in the year 1911 he lectured in London about lost cities the debris of which he expected to find somewhere on the border between Bolivia and Brazil. Percy Fawcett was a real enthusiast of the mythological Atlantis and he believed that South America, i.e. Brazil, had been colonized by this civilization in our ancient history.

In Brazil, there are several hundred Indian tribes, some of them, for example, are: Aikana, Aikewara, Ajuru, Akawai, Akunsu, Akwe, Alaketesu, Alantesu.

His disappearance gave birth to several hypotheses - one of them was that Indians might capture him and that he still lives. BBC made several TV documents and they also contacted the Fawcett's family to find out more, but the family refused to disclose some sensitive materials about Fawcett with justification that people were not yet prepared to hear it.

Document 512

Fawcett, as we already know, was possessed by the idea to find the debris of this ancient civilization and he also visited many archives to learn more. He found a document in Instituto Historico e Geographico Brasileriro in Rio de Janeiro about the 1753 (year) Portuguese expedition, where it is written: "...big, hidden and very ancient city was found without inhabitants...".

However, stories about his disappearance are exaggerated - it is not a problem to disappear in such a jungle even today without leaving a trace. Some believe that he lives in these lost cities and has eternal life...

Lemuria

The idea of Lemuria or Mu first appeared in works of Augustus Le Plongeon, the traveler and writer who conducted his own investigations.

Concepts about Lemuria are further built upon the fact that identical geological structures of Permian can be found in South India, South Africa, and Australia. Some geologists therefore suggested a theory of possible existence of ancient continent and proposed the name Lemuria, which has somehow survived.

This lost continent was later popularized by James Churchward (1852-1936) in a series of books, beginning with The Children of Mu (1931), The Lost Continent Mu (1933), and The Sacred Symbols of Mu (1935).

Conclusion

Every reasonable man will certainly refuse Danikin - we may not necessarily see an astronaut in every ancient drawing. But neither do we have to go in a direction to hatefully reject any idea that somehow slithered off our monocultural line. First of all, it is open thinking that is important if we want to correctly grasp or refuse anything that appears as truth or lie.

More about Fawcett can be found here:
http://www.rickrichards.com/ac/ac_1.htm

Back