|
Hyarama sheds unique light on the significance
of Atlantis, its true history and why it became the stuff of
legends. Hyarama can change our judgements in places
- without denying any of the evidence.
This Broadsheet was written in 1995 by Nigel Blair, MA Oxon
(1946-2005), founder of the Wessex Research Group. "I was
writing... to centre on the inner nature of history..."
This, Nigel hoped, would lead to a book - never completed -
so here we are posthumously honouring the stupendous work Nigel
did, collecting evidence. Nigel never radically altered
his theories, but his position shifted in minor ways.
|
|
LIST OF CONTENTS
"The Man from Atlantis" ... "The Lost World of Atlantis"
... "The Fantastic Journey" ... "Warlords of Atlantis"
... "Terra X: the Mists of Atlantis" ... "Atlantis —
the Lost Continent" ... the number of popular programmes connected
in some way with this fabled lost continent seems to be multiplying.
Why is there so much interest today in what has often been regarded
as a mere legend? Does it resonate with some deep impulse? Is there
any factual basis behind the often fantastic fictional stories, and
the more sober documentaries?
For orthodox writers on prehistory the answer is all too often to dismiss
the idea without a conscientious examination of the facts. For well
over a century now, however, more discerning writers, willing to see
the hidden links between pieces of evidence which have escaped others,
have asserted the reality of some great prehistoric civilization which
suffered an immense catastrophe — which may be the origin of the
flood legends which occur not just in the Bible, but in religions all
over the world.
Recently, a number of scholarly writers have pointed to the mounting
evidence, much of it newly-discovered, that there was such a civilization
and that it was probably located precisely where legend, and Plato,
in his "Critias" and "Timaeus", put it — in
what is now the Atlantic Ocean. back
to top
1. CHARLES BERLITZ: A GREAT SUBMERGED MEGALITHIC
CIVILIZATION
Amongst the best of these writers is Charles Berlitz, the well-known
researcher, writer and linguist, whose remarkable "Atlantis —
the Lost Continent Revealed" was published in 1984 by Macmillan
and subsequently in paperback by Fontana; this was something of a breakthrough,
as these were major publishers which concentrated on subjects well backed
with research. His earlier "Mystery of Atlantis" had been
published in the late 1970s by Souvenir in hardback and Panther in paperback.
Writing as he did with the help of the experienced diver J. Manson Valentine
and, in one chapter, the great prehistorian Egerton Sykes, Berlitz produced
impressive evidence. This included sonar profiles of at least one, and
possibly two, underwater pyramids; the underwater "Bimini Road"
in the Bahamas; submerged megaliths off Venezuela, Morocco and elsewhere;
"cores" taken from the Azores (mid-Atlantic) Plateau area
suggesting it was on the surface in recent geologic times; and gigantic
holes in the Atlantic sea-bed where possibly great asteroids had struck.
Also there were vast overgrown pyramids of undreamed-of antiquity, unrecognised
and unexplored in the forests of Brazil; and extraordinary similarities
between widely-dispersed ancient legends and tribal rituals depicting
overwhelming floods and the survival of a few who re- founded civilization.
As a linguist who uses thirty languages, moreover, Berlitz is well qualified
to show startling similarities between pre-Classical languages which
could have had no contact with each other, except as offshoots of some
ancient language or, at least, related set of languages lost in the
mists of time. All in all, Berlitz said, this added up to a great, forgotten
ancient megalithic culture centred on the Atlantic area. This had widespread
overseas trade, an advanced alphabetical language, sophisticated implements
and, probably, a large empire. This could not be later than about 8-10,000
BC, as most of the finds had been covered by the ocean since that time.
Although the idea of a large surface Azores Plateau home area (possibly
destroyed by an asteroid) fits in with Plato's account, it is not essential
to the Atlantis hypothesis, as is often supposed. As Berlitz points
out, it is accepted knowledge that the ocean sea-level rose by several
hundred feet at some time between six and twelve thousand BC, as the
ice from the last Ice Age, previously locked largely on land, melted
into the sea. Since in those days the main cities were usually coastal
or in low-lying river areas, these would be first to be flooded. Before
this, even without an enormous Azores Plateau island there was easily
enough space for a major Atlantic power, including far more, and larger,
Atlantic islands and the continental shelves of all the continents,
now submerged. This power, with or without the Plateau, had a strategic
position, excellent climate and harbours, fertile land and the warm
Gulf Stream current. back
to top
2. OTTO MÜCK: THE GREAT ASTEROID OF 8498
BC
The late Otto Mück, the distinguished German geologist, prehistorian
and inventor had already, unknown to the English-speaking world, written
an epoch-making work on Atlantis in the 1950s. When this was published
in Germany in 1976, and in English in 1978 by Collins as "The Secret
of Atlantis", despite good reviews there seemed to be little response,
as if the thesis was, literally, too earth-shattering for more than
a few to contemplate. With the passage of time, however, helped by a
Fontana paperback edition, the incredible message sank in, and in recent
lectures on Atlantis I have found more people who are aware of it: there
is strong evidence that an asteroid, possibly six miles wide, struck
Earth at about the time of this rise in ocean level, perhaps 8-10,000
BC; were they connected? This had been widely believed by Atlantologists,
including Donnelly and the late Egerton Sykes (who told me personally),
but Muck assembled the evidence impressively. He traced back the previous
flight path of the Adonis Group of asteroids which, for example, came
within 186,000 miles of Earth in 1936. In 8,498 BC, there was a line-up
of the planets which could have attracted in to the Earth a hypothetical
extra member of the group, "asteroid A". It could have flown
in over what is now the USA. , white hot and with pieces flaking off,
one of which could have caused the Arizona Meteorite Crater, and others
the line of crop-mark craterlet remnants running diagonally across South
Carolina to the Atlantic. Here "asteroid A", he suggests,
broke into two, causing the two deep holes in the sea-bed Puerto Rico
Trench which now exist. The Maya, he argues, may have seen it, describing
as they did a white "snake in the sky" which rained down fragments
on them, followed by great tidal waves which flooded them. He even claims,
with less evidence, that they could have dated their famous calendar
from this event. back to
top
3. "THE SINGLE DREADFUL DAY...."
— THE SINKING OF ATLANTIS
Mück's further thesis is even more amazing. The asteroid, ignoring
the two-mile Atlantic depth of water (only a third of its own diameter,
perhaps) went straight through the thin hard crust on the sea-bed and
into the serai- liquid magma underneath, causing such eastward pressures
that practically every volcano, surface or subterranean, for thousands
of miles across the Atlantic, erupted. He then enlists an ally for his
theory more often drafted in by opponents of Atlantis as a foe. Otto
Wegener proposed in 1912 the theory of continental drift, whereby there
was originally one giant continent, and the ones we know gradually broke
away and drifted apart over hundreds of millions of years. Egerton Sykes
told me he knew Wegener at that time and was one of the few, then, to
support the theory. Over the decades, it was elaborated into one of
tectonic plates floating insecurely on a sea of magma, and periodically
adjusting themselves, causing major volcanoes and earthquakes at the
juncture lines. (Incidentally, the academic scientific world regarded
this idea as a heresy, and remained obdurate until "rushing to
the aid of the conqueror" in 1960 when the evidence became overwhelming.
) One of these juncture lines runs from North to South Atlantic and,
according to Mück, runs all round the Azores Plateau which is a
"platelet" of its own. The pressures from the "asteroid
A" strike caused the magma to erupt all around this platelet, with
a drastic reduction of pressure underneath, in turn causing it to settle,
eventually by over two miles, to its present position. It took Atlantis
with it, leaving only the present Azores. The great Atlantean fabled
mountain, over three miles high, became the present Pico Alto, which
boasts not much over a mile. back
to top
4. THE AGE OF DARKNESS AND THE RISING OCEAN
The consequences of this hypothetical event bring together all sorts
of loose ends and mysteries of prehistory into a sort of grand theory.
The massive volume of water vapour ejected into the air came down as
continuous torrential rain everywhere, so that whole swathes of civilized
life were destroyed or enervated, especially in the lowlands. This we
have not only in the Noah story, but in flood legends across the world.
Vast quantities of volcanic rock shot through with holes by volcanic
gases came down in a layer and floated on the sea, followed by mud and
magma, confirming Plato's statement that, following the sinking of Atlantis
"in a single dreadful day and single dreadful night", the
ocean beyond the Straits of Gibraltar was covered by a sea of mud, and
unnavigable by ships. (Those who cannot believe this are not familiar
with the aftermath of the Krakatoa eruption, west of Java in 1883, when
such a sea of mud appeared, resting on volcanic pumice-stone, rock made
light and buoyant by volcanic gases.) Dust and earth were expelled at
all points; the resulting cloud in the air cut off much of the Sun's
rays for probably several thousand years, especially over northern Europe,
causing a prolonged dark age. According to Otto Muck, evidence of flora
and fauna shows a sparse period at this time, and Greek myths of "Hades"
and the northern "land of shades" in the distant past were
for them a legendary legacy of this period. The well- known "loess"
layer of topsoil which branches out somewhat like a funnel from the
Bay of Biscay coast, through Europe to Siberia, could be the settling
of some of this gargantuan dust-cloud.
As if this wasn't enough, Otto Muck outlines further consequences. The
warm Gulf Stream, released by the sinking of Atlantis, reached northern
Europe, melting much of the land-locked Arctic ice, which raised the
general ocean level by 300 to 650 feet (estimates differ, but the fact
is not disputed, confirmed as it is by fossils, strata in rocks, etc.),
Because of the dust cloud cutting off the Sun's rays, which partly counteracted
the warming, this only happened gradually over the centuries, but by,
say, 6,000 EC, the British Isles had been created from the north-west
peninsula of Europe, a sort of "consolation prize", perhaps,
for the loss of Atlantis! The Mediterranean, also, may have become a
proper sea (rather than a series of large lakes) owing to the rising
ocean breaking fully through the Straits of Gibraltar, The continental
shelves of Europe and America were submerged, greatly reducing the land
area and causing what must have been a gradual abandonment of ancient
centres of civilization. back
to top
5. THE SURVIVORS: "HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS"?
Meanwhile, Atlantean Man is identified with Cro-Magnon, or Aurignacian
Man: Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the first really modern human, upright, with
large brain and developed larynx for speech. This culture still survived
as the colonisers of the remnants of the Atlantean empire. Like other
colonisers in history who have lost their homeland, they preserved what
they could of the language, technology and culture, but they were attacked
by predators, hungry and cold in the new dark age after the floods and
dust cloud. They were unable to maintain their original culture and,
like Britain after the Romans left, declined into a long period of chaos,
isolation and racial amnesia: possibly the distant ancestors of cultures
like the Basques, Sumerians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Carians, Mayans,
proto-North American Indians, Mayas, pre- Olmecs and pre-Incas.
back to top
6. THE "MODERN CLASSICAL" ATLANTOLOGISTS:
IGNATIUS DONNELLY & LEWIS SPENCE
Other Atlantean authors of note are Andrew Tomas, whose "Atlantis
— from Legend to Discovery" appeared in 1972 (Hale; Sphere
paperback 1973) and established valuable links with Eastern legends,
especially that of Shambhala; and, most recently, Murry Hope, whose
''Atlantis – Myth or Reality?'' in Arkana paperback (1991), is
an excellent overview of modern evidence.
These books build on the remarkably comprehensive earlier works by U,S.Senator
Ignatius Donnelly, whose "Atlantis — the Antediluvian World"
of 1882 was the "breakthrough" book, worldwide bestseller
and modern classic in countless editions. It was excellently updated
by the erudite British prehistorian Egerton Sykes in 1950 (Sidgwick
& Jackson; revised 1970). Donnelly1 s subsequent "Ragnarok:
the Age of Fire and Gravel" (1883) was the first systematic treatment
of the "cosmic cataclysm" theory. The almost legendary Scottish
mythologist and historian Lewis Spence also wrote possibly the best
attempts to integrate Atlantis with wider prehistory, classical history
and ancient mythology: his books, now out of print, are considered great
prizes to find at second-hand bookshops, "The Problem of Atlantis"
(1924), "The History of Atlantis" (1926)and "The Problem
of Lemuria" (1933) were followed by "Will Europe Follow Atlantis?"
in 1942 and "The Occult Sciences in Atlantis" immediately
after the war. All are fascinating and scholarly. Spence in particular
laid down much of the basis for later theories, especially on Cro-Magnon
Man, the Classical view of Atlantis and how it fits into orthodox views
of the Stone Age. back to
top
7. THIS WAS ATLANTIS: PLATO, SOLON AND THE
EGYPTIAN PRIESTS
All, of course (as in philosophy, and much else) have built on Plato's
famous dialogues, which, he was at great pains to point out, were written
in this case as historical fact, not mythology: they were based on extensive
notes taken down in the sixth century B.C. by Solon, the great founding
figure of Athenian democracy, from Egyptian priests, who in turn were
translating from hieroglyphs even then considered ancient, possibly
the Thothic Records, inscribed on a stone column at Saïs.
The priests clearly considered that the Athenians needed an object-lesson
in the true antiquity of great cultures. They started by pointing out
that the movement of the heavenly bodies periodically undergoes changes
causing earthly catastrophies and the destruction of millions of lives.
Humanity lapses at these points into barbarity and forgets, amongst
other things, the art of writing. The Athenians remembered, they said,
only one world flood, whilst in fact there have been several. One of
these destroyed Atlantis, which was a great island in the Atlantic (Atlas's)
Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). Otto Mück
matches Plato's exact dimensions with the Azores Plateau island, about
twice the size of the British Isles; far too large for Santorini, Thera
or any other Aegean island, and quite unlike them. Around this island
there were others, and beyond them, at the limit of the ocean, a great
continent. It is staggering that this reference to what is clearly the
American continent has escaped general notice. The Atlantean islands
were a sort of confederacy with one main king (originally, Atlas: hence
the name) and ten kings in all, They had a empire which included much
of the Mediterranean shores, and invaded Europe, which was saved by
a valiant Greek coalition under the (original) ancient Athens .
This was clearly the superpower confrontation of its day, remembering
that Greece was then a far larger area than it is today, before a major
part of it had been submerged by the rising sea level. It was recalled
as a sort of Armageddon, and Arraageddons have always been linked with
catastrophes and the end of the age (not of the world: this was a mistranslation
of Revelation). This was no exception, according to Plato in the "Timaeus".
The Atlanteans were defeated, but shortly after, a violent earthquake
tore the Earth asunder, and heavy and lasting rains ensued. The Greek
troops, though victorious, perished, and Atlantis sank beneath the ocean
in a single day and night. Why did this happen? At first, says Plato
in the "Critias", the Atlanteans were divine and obedient,
sober, gentle and wise, not caring for wealth or luxury; but then this
divine quality began to fade, and gave pride of place to lesser mortal
qualities. 9,000 years before Plato, Zeus, king of the Gods, wanting
to chasten, improve and punish them, called all the Gods together, and
spoke. . . here the "Critias" stops short, unfinished, but
it is clear from the "Timaeus" that the decision was to destroy
Atlantis, rather as, in the "Noah" story, God punishes humanity
for its sins with the Great Flood, and, in the Hopi and countless other
legends, catastrophe justly visits mankind.
What had Atlantis been like? The "Critias" (alias "The
Atlantic") gives almost a guided tour. Poseidon's son Atlas was
the first main king, but his twin brother got the part towards the Pillars
of Hercules, "as far as Gades" — possibly modern Cadiz.
This reference, usually ignored by "Aegean Atlantologists",
makes it quite clear that Plato could only have been describing an Atlantic
culture, as Cadiz is on the Atlantic side of the Straits of Gibraltar,
and in any case the "part towards" the Straits, if taken as
inside the Mediterranean, would be far too distant from the Aegean to
make any sense of that theory. Elsewhere, as given above, Plato describes
Atlantis as an enormous island which was submerged, "beyond"
the Straits, followed by others and then the "great continent at
the limit of the ocean" (America). For this and other reasons,
all the non-Atlantic theories rapidly collapse. Some, like the attempts
to identify Atlantis with the Iberian Peninsula, North- West Africa,
or even Heligoland Bight in the North Sea or the Caribbean Islands,
are ingenious, and could well be turning up invaluable evidence of Atlantean
outreaches or colonies: but they are the peripheries, not the centre.
back to top
8. THE BREAKTHROUGH: EGERTON SYKES AND THE
RUSSIAN SEAMOUNT PHOTOGRAPHS
In 1980, I had a striking and unexpected personal confirmation of this.
In the late 70s I had read a front- page item in the "Daily Telegraph"
on the discovery of Atlantis, stating that, in 1974, a Russian vessel.
had photographed mysterious remains of an apparent stone structure on
a seamount (seabed mountain) which reached within a few hundred feet
of the surface in the Atlantic. In May 1980, with a small group, I founded
the Wessex Research Group Network. This was soon, very rapidly, to become
a Wessex-wide holistic lecture network, and it was our second meeting,
in July 1980, that really got us going. Through a friend, we managed
something of a "coup", and got as a speaker the most distinguished
living Atlantologist in the western world, Egerton Sykes, also well-known
as a prehistorian generally, and re-writer of the famous "Dictionary
of Non-Classical Mythology", He gave us a remarkable overview of
Atlantis, confirming from a lifetime's scholarship and travel (he was
then 86), the asteroid, the mid-Atlantic large island, Atlantean vestiges
in Wessex, and much else. His next item electrified me.
A contact in Eastern Europe had smuggled out to him several extraordinary
photographs taken, it later emerged, by the Soviet research ship "Academician
Petrovsky" in the Atlantic, probably near the Ampere and Josephine
Seamounts, or possibly near the Azores, and showing a probably artificial
structure on a site last on the surface c. 8,000 years ago at the latest.
Here, at last, was the direct evidence, not just of the sunken colonies
of Atlantis (this was already widespread), but possibly one of the main
islands. Sykes later gave Berlitz the photos, and much information,
for his book, and his unique Atlantean Library to the Edgar Cayce foundation,
the A.R.E. , at Virginia Beach, U.S.A. He pointed out, incidentally,
that there was a vast Russian (untranslated) literature on Atlantis,
dwarfing anything in the West, and that they had amassed extensive evidence
leaving little doubt of its reality; the next most significant, and
most ancient, untranslated literature was in Arabic. He prophesied that
evidence of Atlantis would be found in the honeycomb of tunnels underneath
the Giza plateau which supports the Pyramids in Egypt. Egerton Sykes
has now, sadly, passed on. The finest testament to his remarkable life
would be such a find, Possibly the two large underground chambers reportedly
discovered in summer 1994 near the Sphinx (as, in essence, predicted
by Edgar Cayce), but not yet opened up, will reveal something dramatic.
back to top
9. A PROSPEROUS CONFEDERATION: PLATO' S ATLANTIS
Plato goes on, in the "Critias", to describe Atlantis in some
detail. It had more wealth than any country before or after. Because
of its great empire, goods were brought from far afield. It was well
supplied with minerals (including a strange red metal called orichalcum),
trees, plants and elephants. It had extensive temples, palaces, harbours
and docks; its famous canals included an enormous one 300 feet wide
and 100 feet deep. It had cold and hot springs and red, white and black
rocks (both abundant in the Azores), excellent soil, and two crops a
year. There were public baths and gardens, places of exercise, horse-race
courses, tin and bronze, and many temples for many gods. Part of the
country on the main island was hilly, perhaps mountainous, but to the
south and centre was a great level plain, partly levelled by excavation,
with many canals and wealthy villages. This surrounded the great capital
city built to a plan of concentric circles, which some have thought
Carthage, with its famous circular harbour, was an attempt to emulate
through a distant memory. The harbours were full of ships and traders
from all parts. The royal city state of Atlantis (the main one of the
ten kingdoms) alone could raise 60,000 soldiers, 10,000 manned chariots
and 1,200 warships — a staggering total for ancient times.
In the middle of the main island, Plato says, was a column of orichalcum
by a great Temple to Poseidon, the god of the sea. On this column was
inscribed their constitution, defining the relative positions of the
ten kingdoms: every fifth or sixth year people from all the kingdoms
gathered there, hunted bulls, sacrificed one in the temple, discussed
public issues and disputes, and swore oaths to judge according to the
laws on the column. A special law forbade the kingdoms to fight each
other, and all were to intervene if any city attempted to overthrow
the central royal House of Atlas, Was this the world's first confederation?
Was it a distant precursor of the European Union, or NATO, or of the
successor to the Soviet Union, the Confederation of Independent States?
Or was it a closer union, more like the U.S.A., Australia or Canada?
Whatever it was, it was apparently a highly enlightened arrangement
as long as the Atlanteans remained a spiritual people. Atlantis is archetypal,
not only in its destruction, but in its fabled golden age. It is no
accident that great writers, like Plato or Francis Bacon in his "New
Atlantis", have used it as a model for the ideal society. back
to top>
10. "ISLANDS IN THE EXTERNAL SEA..."
— THE CLASSICAL WRITERS' ATLANTIS
What, then, is the wider evidence for such a colossal prehistoric empire?
Firstly there are ancient classical writings, beyond Plato's. The story
was widely believed to be factual in learned circles in the classical
world, including in Alexandria, the great centre of scholarship with
its famous library, in the first few centuries A. D. Proclus (410-485
A. D. ), a major philosopher in his own right, in his commentary on
Plato, says the Greek, Krantor, visited Sal's three hundred years after
Sol on. He confirmed the existence of the hieroglyphic column with the
identical Atlantis story to that contained in Solon1s notes and Plato's
account. (Some commentators says Plato later personally confirmed it,
) He adds, citing Marcellus, that certain historians (whose writings
are lost to us, but may have existed in the great Alexandrian library
which was so tragically burned later) said there were seven islands
in the "external sea" (beyond the Straits of Gibraltar). On
the largest of these, sacred to Poseidon, the inhabitants preserved
the memory of the once great and wonderful Atlantic island which had
for centuries dominated all the other Atlantic islands. Plutarch (Roman
historian, 46-120 A. D. ) wrote of an Atlantic continent called Saturnia;
Timagenes (Greek historian, 1st century B.C.) said the Gauls (of what
is now France) told how their land was once invaded by people from an
island that sank. Marcelinus (Roman historian, A. D. 330-395) told of
a type of earthquake which swallowed up whole portions of the Earth:
he cited "a large island. .. in the Atlantic Sea, on the coast
of Europe", stating that the Alexandrian educated class regarded
the destruction of Atlantis as a fact. Herodotus, a Greek often regarded
as a founding father of scholarly history, referred to the "Atlantes",
who took their name from Mount Atlas in north-west Africa, probably
a colony of Atlantis.
Diodorus Siculus (distinguished Greek historian, 1st c. B.C. ) writes
of the "Atlantioi", named after King Atlas (the first king
of Atlantis, after whom the mount was named). We get fascinating extra
detail from Diodorus: they dwelt in a large island "a number of
days' voyage to the west", "out in the deep off Libya",
which meant the whole of North Africa. His description confirms Plato:
a fruitful, fertile, mild land, with varied trees, gardens, streams
and costly villas, banqueting houses, hunting: like a "home of
the gods and not of men". Atlas was the first to publish the "doctrine
of the sphere", which is why, he says, the idea arose of the entire
heavens being supported by Atlas: this suggests he knew the Earth was
a globe, when almost all other ancient societies thought it was flat.
He also, Diodorus says, "perfected the science of astrology":
since this included astronomy in ancient times, this meant an advanced
culture. Atlas's daughters, through the "most famous gods and heroes",
became "the first ancestors of most of the human race".
Could this be an allegory of the origin of "Homo Sapiens Sapiens",
"Cro-Magnon", "Aurignacian" Man? We know the latter
appeared mysteriously in Western Europe in waves, especially on the
vest coastal regions, from at least 35,000 B.C.: where from has long
been a mystery. They obliterated, or at least superseded and perhaps
interbred with, the previous, more apelike (but still intelligent) "Neanderthal
Man". Lewis Spence, in his "Problem of Atlantis", argues
cogently that there were three successive waves escaping from the progressive
break-up of Atlantis: this, he says, explains why most of the archaeological
finds are on or near the Atlantic coast; also why, adds Otto Muck in
his "Secret of Atlantis", many north, and some south, Native
American cultures have also been of Cro-Magnon type, making Atlantis
"the empire of the red-skinned man", They, and later variants
of "modern man", went on arriving down to the end of the last
Ice Age. The migrations ended at about this point (8-10,000 BC) when
their homeland, Atlantis, sank; the ensuing rise in sea-level flooded
the large coastal shelves everywhere and the large atmospheric dust-cloud
from the hypothetical asteroid caused a long dark age over northern
Europe. The megalithic cultures started after 6,000 BC. Evidence is
abundant, from the relative lack of advanced artifacts and cave-art
from c. 8-10,000 to c. 6, 000 BC, of a serious interruption to European
civilization at this point. The ancient Greek references to a mysterious,
gloomy "land of Hades" where the Hyperboreans, "beyond
the north wind", lived, could be a dim memory of a dark land cut
off from much of the Sun's rays in the aftermath of the cataclysm.
back to top
11. "THE PEAKS OF SUNKEN LANDS":
THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS
Many other noted classical authors write of Atlantis and clearly accept
it as a fact. These include Philo Judaeus (20 BC - AD 40), Claudius
Aelianus (third century BC), Tertullian AD 160-240) and possibly Homer
and Theopompus. But there is more direct evidence. Charles Berlitz,
to whom I am much indebted for inspiration and information, points out
in his "Mystery of Atlantis" that there is much from the very
remnants of Atlantis itself — the Atlantic islands. When the Canary
Islands were discovered in the fourteenth century, the people said they
thought all humanity had died in a great flood, save their own home,
the tips of mountains which had remained above water. They had a monarchy
of ten kings, like Atlantis; built red, white and black houses, mummified
their dead, built circular forts and canals, and had a written alphabetical
language: all things associated with Atlantis. The Canaries would have
been remnants of one or more of the south-eastern outlying islands of
the Atlantean Empire.
The Azores were probably the remnants of the main island: Otto Muck,
the distinguished German geologist, scientist and inventor, draws in
his scholarly "Secret of Atlantis" a detailed parallel between
the Azores Plateau island and Plato's island. Amongst other things which
Plato mentions, the Azores have black, white and red rocks; hot springs;
temperate climate; fertile fruit crops; and the great mountain, now
Pico Alto. The Azores as a whole, great mountains emerging straight
from the sea, have the look of the peaks of sunken lands. On the sea-bed
below, up to two miles down, the jagged and sharp mountainous terrain
suggests recent submergence, as over millions of years it would have
been smoothed out by erosion. I am also told by a friend of mine who
went to the Azores frequently that the snaking paths of river-beds can
still be traced offshore on the shallow sea-bed of the Plateau, showing
that the area was once on the surface. Berlitz reports that flyers,
on the very occasional glassy-calm day, can see what seem to be rectangular
shapes, as if sunken buildings of unknown origin, The Russian Seamount
photographs cane therefore as a confirmation of an already likely theory,
first scientifically researched by the Royal Naval survey ship "Challenger"
in the last century. Its crew, like the then Prime Minister William
Gladstone, were convinced they had found either Atlantis, or something
eerily corresponding to it. back
to top
12. "THE STONES OF ATLANTIS" —
SUBMERGED RUINS AT BIMINI
As if this is not enough, we have the extraordinary finds at Bimini
in the Bahamas, probably one of the colonial outlying islands of Atlantis.
The "Bimini Wall" was first discovered by the naturalist,
explorer and diver J. Manson Valentine, and written up in Berlitz's
books. It was further explored by Dr, David Zink in his remarkable "Stones
of Atlantis", published by W. H. Alien in 1978. It is a clearly
artificial paved stone "road" in a "J" shape, about
thirty feet down in sea-bed last thought to have been on the surface
before the rise in sea level at the end of the last Ice Age, c. 8-10,000
B.C. Dr. Valentine, as reported in chapter eight of Berlitz1 s "Atlantis
— the Lost Continent Revealed", thinks it was a ceremonial
road leading to a special site, as with the Mayan one, the Sacbe, a
raised causeway in Yucatan which goes on for over a quarter of a mile
undersea. It was only one of veil over thirty areas containing what
he calls "ghost patterns", vague patterns in the seabed too
deeply buried to be traced in detail, including large rectangles connected
by straight lines, comparable in some ways to the Lines of Nazca in
Peru. He has researched them since 1958. He thinks they were built by
a widespread prehistoric race that could transport cyclopean megaliths
in a mysterious way, such as (later) Stonehenge, Baalbek in Lebanon
(c. 200 tons), or Tiahuanaco, over two miles up in in Bolivia.
Finely cut stone blocks and a "stylized head" have been brought
to the surface by Dr. Zink at Bimini, who has also pointed out an amazing
vertical plinth arising out of the seabed which could not be a natural
object. All this fulfils the prediction of the famous American psychic
Edgar Cayce, who said, speaking in the 1930s, that evidence of Atlantis
would be found at Bimini in 1968-9 — which is when in was, in
fact, first definitely discovered. Further south, off Florida under
some three hundred feet of ocean, a massive pyramid, it is claimed,
has been found by the depth finder of a fishing boat. Berlitz estimates
a total of between fifty and sixty unexplained underwater stone walls,
roads and circles in the Caribbean and Bahamas areas: in fact, over
the continental shelves of the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific
coast of South America, extraordinary evidence is being found of the
remains of an incredibly ancient megalithic civilization with, at least,
extensive seaborne communications and trade. back
to top
