Joachim Rittstieg (1937- ) was born in Berlin and has spent six years in Central America. After decades of study he claims to have decoded all the Mayan calendars and published the results in 1999 in ABC der Maya^[717]. Rittstieg has combined information he has gleaned from The Icelandic Eddas, Plato, Mayan calendars as well as oral sources and concluded that the capital of Atlan, which he equates with Atlantis, can be found submerged in Lake Izabal in Guatemala. He also reveals that the sinking of the city took place on 30^th October 666 BC. But there is more^(a) the sunken city also has a cache of over 2,000 gold tablets on which the ‘Laws of Atlan” are inscribed. Rittstieg wants someone to invest €3,000,000 in the recovery of this booty!  I would expect the Guatemalan government would have something to say about such an operation.

    On March 1^st 2011 it was reported^(b) that an expedition led by Rittstieg had headed for Guatemala in search of the gold.            

Coincidentally, Duane McCullough has also identified Lake Izabal as the location of Atlantis.       

^(a) http://www.asgard-atlan.de/atlan-e/index-e.htm

^(b) http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/03/01/cracked-maya-code-lead-ton-golden-treasure-german-scientists-claim/?test=latestnews