An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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    NEWS September 2023

    September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
  • Joining The Dots

    Joining The Dots

    I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
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Félix Rodrigues

Cart-Ruts *

The Cart Ruts of Malta are one of the many remarkable archaeological features of the archipelago. Unfortunately, the local authorities have not done all they could to ensure their preservation. Cart ruts are also found in other countries but with nothing like the numbers found in Malta.

Sardinia has a number of comparable cart ruts that have only recently received the attention they deserve. Dr Dominique Görlitz has studied these cart ruts(ai). Images of the Sardinian ruts can also be seen in a YouTube video(aj).

Madeira taxi sleds

Madeira taxi sleds

An article written in 1904(h) describes a visit to the Madeiras where the writer travelled on a sled drawn by oxen, while Alexander Braghine describes how Paul le Cour visited the Azores and noted that the natives there used ‘sledges’ rather than wheeled vehicles and greased the runners to assist movement, similar to the practice on the Madeiras. A more recent paper(s) by Félix Rodrigues of Azores University discusses in detail cart ruts found on Terceira Island in the Azores. Other papers(w)(x) on the Academia.edu website discuss ‘ruts’ on Lanzarote in the Canaries.

Uwe Sneider has produced the most comprehensive overview of the geographical distribution of cart ruts that I have encountered(ak). He has visited many of the sites in the Mediterranean and across Europe and has alluded to possible traces of ruts on other continents.

An image (4th down) from Malta on a 2017 posting(af), appears to show where axles have worn into a raised stone wall at one side of a rut, which would seem to end the ‘sledge versus wheel’ controversy.

Another feature of the ruts found in Malta is the inexplicable manner in which some will suddenly disappear at cliff edges! Furthermore, ruts are also found disappearing into the sea on one side of a bay and then reappearing on the opposite side. Over a century ago Emanuel Magri reported that there were cart ruts on the tiny island of Filfla, which lies 5km off the south coast of mainland Malta, suggesting the disappearance of a very large tract of land between the two.

The melitamegalithic website has linked the altered orientation of Malta’s temples with the geological disruption indicated by the cart ruts (ae) noting that “While the geology of the Maltese islands indicates unmistakably major events of a cataclysmic nature, these give little hint as to what took place, and when. What is definitely obvious is that the geologic events are evident from man-made artefacts. Those artefacts point to the kind of event and the time when it occurred. In geological time they are quite recent.”

“The earliest reference to cart-ruts was made by Gian Francesco Abela (1582–1655) in 1647 [1676] who suggested that they were used to transport stones from quarries to the sea for exportation to Africa during the Arab rule in Malta.”(z)

Dr David Trump (1931-2016) who has done much to advance Maltese archaeology, published a booklet on the cart-ruts in 2008 [658]. Trump nicknamed the complex collection of ruts at Misrah Ghar il-Kbir “Clapham Junction” after the London railway station, where several railway services interchange. A 1998 paper(d) by Joseph Magro Conti and Paul C. Saliba focused on “Clapham Junction” and concluded that the ruts had a clear connection with the transportation of material from adjacent quarries.

Speaking of railways, Ralph Ellis has written on the suggestion that the standard British railway gauge may have had its origins in the cart ruts of Malta or ancient Egyptian cubits!(ag)

A connection between the cart ruts and Atlantis has been suggested by Anton Mifsud and adopted by the late Axel Hausmann, who both claim that the ruts were the irrigation channels referred to by Plato (Critias 118c-e).

Another prominent archaeologist, Claudia Sagona, has also suggested(f)(j) that the ruts were used for irrigation, although she has not associated them with Plato’s text. While this linkage fits nicely with the theory of Atlantis having been in the region of Malta, it does not stand up to close examination.

First of all the cart ruts follow the natural undulations of the Maltese landscape and so to function as irrigation channels would require water to flow uphill for parts of its journey, Trump has mentioned how some of the ruts can be seen sloping as much as 45°. Roman aqueducts, like the one in Malta’s Rabat(ac)(ad), seldom used a gradient greater than half of one percent.

Secondly, the fact that the ruts are always found in pairs would suggest a degree of unnecessary and wasteful duplication found in no other irrigation system in the world. Because; if the ruts were intended to carry water, for the same labour they could have been cut as a single channel at twice the depth cutting losses through evaporation by half.

As well as that, the ground between each pair of tracks could provide an extra acre of arable land for every two miles of length. Furthermore, the multiplicity of tracks at the ‘Clapham Junction’ site is incompatible with an irrigation system.

All of which is compounded by the absence of  controlling sluicegates anywhere at the remaining 100+ sites, and emphasised by Trump’s observation that “no association of ruts with water sources has been demonstrated.”[870.268]

I refer below to several countries where comparable cart ruts have also been found. I am not aware of even one instance where any of these have been suggested as having an irrigation function.

Compounding all that is the fact that no supporter of the cart ruts as Plato’s irrigation channels has attempted to explain how the dimensions of the ruts can be measured in inches while Plato describes canals measured in feet – tens of feet!

Joseph S. Ellul in his book Malta’s Prediluvian Culture [0289] expressed some controversial unconventional views(t) regarding the cart-ruts, including his assertion that the ruts were created by tools or machinery and were formed during the Stone Age before the biblical Deluge! A chapter from his book focussed on the cart ruts has been translated(ah) into German and published by Atlantisforschung. With the help of Google Translate, I have added an English text below (See: Archive 7256P).

Graham Hancock refers to the cart ruts several times in Underworld [274], where he commented that “It is certain, too, that they were not simply worn away in the tough limestone by the passage of cart-wheels over periods of centuries, as many have wrongly theorized; on the contrary, there is no proof whatsoever that cart-wheels ever ran in these ruts – which were initially carved out of the bedrock with the use of tools.” [p.331] His claim that the ruts were hand-carved is disputed and Gordon E. Weston in his excellent book [754.172] debunks the idea.

Philip Coppens wrote a paper on the ruts, offering an overview of the controversies relating to their use and date(aa).

By way of comic relief, I thought I should include one theory regarding an explanation(c) for the ruts from Laura Knight-Jadczyk, a noted conspiracy theorist, which I quote in full: “Do I have an idea to propose? Of course I do. I wouldn’t be writing about it if I didn’t. I would like to suggest that these “ruts” look an awful lot like places where lightning has struck, and the electricity has blasted away the dirt and rock as it shoots along some sort of natural earth power grid conductor. The only difference is that the cart ruts are not random. That suggests that there was something present in the ground laid out in a definite grid, which acted as a conductor. Were the cart ruts some sort of networked energy conduction system? Could some sort of element have been placed in the ground by an ancient civilization; something that conducted power to their homes the way our vulgar power poles and lines crisscross the landscape? And then, at some point in time, was the earth hit by such a surge of energy from some unknown source that these power “lines” melted the rock in which they were  “strung?” Perhaps a surge of some kind of cosmic energy source? Maybe even the Electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion? Maybe it was neither of these, but merely a massive overheating of the surface of the earth so that the conduction element and its insulating covering melted and was swept away?”

One of the more bizarre suggestions has been proposed by Markus Tutsch on the German EFODON website, that the parallel ruts were used in some way to distribute electrical power(q)!!!

Another comical suggestion is offered by Dr Cornelius Niels Kopf who has proposed that “The Bronze Age traces on Malta and Gozo and many other parts of the then populated world, known as cart ruts, were sports facilities, and the area designated as ‘Clapham Junction’ was apparently the ‘stadium’ of Malta.” (r)

CartrutsIn 2010, the most comprehensive work on the ruts, that I’m aware of, was published by Gordon E. Weston[754]. Weston now has a website(g) where he discusses the ‘ruts’ further and provides additional links. Weston also published Clapham Junction: 3000 Years of Maltese Heritage, in 2015 [1619].

There are also several websites devoted to the investigation of these enigmatic features(a). One of them(m) offers a fine collection of images, including the one above, as well as a discussion on the origin, use, and questions raised by the Maltese cart ruts.  

A study of the ruts by three geomorphologists at Portsmouth University, published in Antiquity, is a valuable addition to the literature on the subject(b). The authors “that the ruts could be caused by two-wheeled carts with a gauge of 1.40m carrying moderate loads. In wet weather the carts would gradually cut into the limestone and reach their ground clearance of 0.675m, causing the carriers to try another route – so there are plenty of them.”

Uwe Topper has written an extensive paper on cart ruts around the Mediterranean and beyond(i). He controversially theorised that the ruts were created when the limestone on which they were cut was ‘softer’!!!

A short April 2015 video clip(l) demonstrates how even a 20kg quarter-scale slide-car, can with one pass cut a 1mm groove into the soft Maltese limestone, near Sliema. A full-scale slide-car would be carrying 320 Kg.

Amateur archaeologists, Ronnie Gallagher and Abbas Islamov have highlighted the existence of cart-ruts in the Gobustan peninsula of Azerbaijan (e).

In a 2014 article(k)(ak) on the Mysteria 3000 website, André Kramer drew attention to the cart-ruts discovered on Mallorca, the principal island of the Balearic archipelago.

Evidence exists for cart ruts in other countries in Europe, such as Switzerland, and much further afield including South America(u). The same site makes two interesting points, (1) since the earliest carts probably lacked brakes, the repeated use of the ruts gave some small degree of control, and (2) without any obvious passing points the ruts seem to indicate that they were limited to one-way traffic.

In 2015, Russian geologist Alexander Koltypin drew much media attention(o) when he claimed that comparable tracks in the Phrygian Valley of Turkey were dated to 14 million years ago and were created by an unknown civilisation. He also implied that the cart ruts of Malta had a similar origin! However, a quick look at his website(p) revealed him to have travelled well beyond the lunatic fringe.

I find it interesting that much more investigation of the Maltese cart ruts has been carried out by foreigners than by natives of the islands. A recent example is the inventory of ruts recently published by Monika I. Trinkler, a Swiss photographer, who has listed 717 pairs on Malta and 43 on Gozo Dec. 2020). Her interest in the Maltese ruts has now expanded into the identification of ruts throughout Central Europe(v).

Unfortunately, the date and function of the ruts are still sources of intense debate, particularly in Malta itself. In 2017, Anthony Bonanno published The Archaeology of Malta and Gozo [1665] in which he argued for a Roman rather than a prehistoric date for the cart ruts. This runs counter to the opinion of many, particularly that of the late David Trump. In 2019, Anton Mifsud published a rebuttal of Bonanno’s claims in a fully illustrated book entitled David’s Ruts [1666], published as a tribute to the work carried out by David Trump on Malta.

In August 2021, it was announced that some of Malta’s cart ruts were to be covered by a new airport roundabout(ab)! A comment is unnecessary.

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190102032648/https://cartruts.com/

(b)(PDF) THE CART RUTS OF MALTA: AN APPLIED GEOMORPHOLOGY APPROACH THE CART RUTS OF MALTA: AN APPLIED GEOMORPHOLOGY APPROACH (researchgate.net)

(c) https://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/adventures247.htm

(d) https://www.angelfire.com/ar/magrosalibarchaeo/

(e) https://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai103_folder/103_articles/103_cart_ruts.html

(f) Oxford Journal of Archaeology (Vol.23, Issue 1, p.45-60)

(g) https://cartrutanswers.com/index.html (offline 15/07/14)

(h) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20110616093830/https://www.oldandsold.com/articles09/travel-45.shtml

(i) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/gleisedt.htm (german)

(j) https://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/000350.html

(k) Cart-Ruts auf Mallorca – Mysteria3000 (archive.org)

(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4y2aLns5So

(m) Cart Ruts Malta – Maltas Cart Tracks – others aound the world (archive.org) 

(n) Archive 3036

(o) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3200912/Did-ancient-civilisation-drive-tanks-Turkey-14-MILLION-years-ago-Probably-not-academic-thinks-so.html

(p) Earth before the Flood: Disappeared Continents and Civilizations (archive.org)  *

(q) https://www.efodon.de/html/publik/sy/SY132/SY13239 Tutsch – Cart Ruts.pdf

(r)  Archive 6308 & Archive 6309 

(s) https://www.academia.edu/37215162/Dating_the_Cart-Ruts_of_Terceira_Island_Azores_Portugal

(t) https://web.archive.org/web/20050301092052/https://www.truegood.fsnet.co.uk/hagarq5.htm

(u) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/cartruts.htm

(v) https://malta-cartruts.ch/

(w) https://www.academia.edu/38904928/Malta_and_Lanzarote_Canary_Islands_Spain_Cart-ruts_and_Rock_Prehistoric_Calendar_at_Zonzamas_Lanzarote_-_Quesera_Cheeseboard?email_work_card=view-paper

(x) https://www.academia.edu/38703354/Cart-ruts_in_Lanzarote_Canary_Islands_Spain_and_Malta_first_evidence_of_dating_supported_by_dated_ceramics?email_work_card=view-paper

(y) https://www.academia.edu/40011356/DAVIDS_RUTS_-_STRINGENCY_IN_ARCHAEOLOGY_WHAT_WEIGHT_OF_AUTHORITY?email_work_card=view-paper

(z) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/cartruts.htm

(aa) https://web.archive.org/web/20200420044822/https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/cartruts/

(ab) https://lovinmalta.com/malta/3000-year-old-maltese-cart-ruts-to-be-buried-under-new-airport-roundabout/ 

(ac) ~~ Roman Aqueduct System at Rabat – Eugene P Teuma – Culture Malta Culture Malta (archive.org) 

(ad) https://www.academia.edu/1819676/QANAT_SAQQAJJA_and_ROMAN_AQUEDUCT_SYSTEM_at_RABAT_MALTA 

(ae) https://melitamegalithic.wordpress.com/2019/09/25/beyond-the-he*retic-reality/ 

(af) https://michael-chen-mg2n.squarespace.com/news/2017/6/22/maltas-cart-ruts-proof-of-ancient-advanced-civilizations *

(ag) https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/religion.occult.new_age/occult.conspiracy.and.related/Ellis,%20Ralph%20-%20Assorted%20Articles.pdf (see ‘Ancient Egyptian Railways’) 

(ah) Cart Ruts – Mysteriöse Wagenspuren auf Malta – Atlantisforschung.de (German) 

       Cart Ruts – Mysteriöse Wagenspuren auf Malta – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (English) 

(ai) On the trail of the Cart Rut mystery – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) 

(aj) Cart Ruts of Ancient Sardinia and The Hypogeum Tombs of Su Crucifissu Mannu | Megalithomania – Bing video 

(ak) Cart-ruts – Eine Annäherung an ein archäologisches Mysterium (www-cartruts-de.translate.goog) (English) 

       https://www.cartruts.de (German) 

Azores

The Azores (Açores) is a group of Portuguese islands in the Atlantic, situated 1,500 km from the mainland. The first recorded instance of their discovery is in 1427 by the Portuguese, although there is some evidence to suggest that the Norse reached the islands 700 years earlier(z). However, they were not the first as recent discoveries have shown clearly that megalith builders and others had occupied the archipelago’s island of Terceira long enough to construct a number of megalithic monuments(aa). Professor Felix Rodrigues has claimed that these structures were stylistically related to European megaliths. The island also has a number of cart ruts, a subject about which Rodrigues et al have published a paper(ad). The significance of the megaliths on Terceira is far greater than might be first thought. Received wisdom has it that apart from coastal hugging, ocean-going vessels were not available until the time of the Phoenicians. The Azorean megaliths suggest otherwise. Furthermore, it throws new light on the possibility of Neolithic and/or Bronze Age visits to America from the Old World. A BBC video(ab) has some interesting images, while for Portuguese speakers a RTP video(ac) has an interview with Professor Rodrigues, who has also written a paper on early Atlantic navigation(ae).

The earliest association of the Azores with Atlantis dates from 1499 when Maximillian I of the Holy Roman Empire (1459-1519) appointed Lukas Fugger vom Reh as the ‘titular’ king of Atlantis. The certificate of appointment nominated the Azores as the remnants of Atlantis. Markus Fugger a descendant of Lukas has published a 2013 paper defending this identification of the Azores with Atlantis(x).

In 2012, the president of the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA), Nuno Ribeiro, revealed(c) that rock art had been found on the island of Terceira, supporting his belief that human occupation of the Azores predates the arrival of the Portuguese by many thousands of years. A further article(a) in October 2016 expanded on this matter. Ribeiro’s research was trotted out in a more recent documentary from Amazon Prime with the tabloid title of New Atlantis Documentary – Proof that Left Historians Speechless(u), which explores the claim that the Azores are the mountain tops of sunken Atlantis!

However, the Portuguese authorities set up a commission to look into Ribeiro’s contentions and concluded(q) that any perceived remnants of an ancient civilization were either natural rock formations or structures of more modern origin. Nevertheless, as the Epoch Times reports(r) that Antonieta Costa, a post-doctoral student at the University of Porto in Portugal, remained unconvinced and continued research into the hypothesis that the Azores were inhabited in antiquity and even in prehistory.” In 2013, Costa, published, in English, The Mound of Stones [1967] about the megaliths of the Azores.

It seems to me that the research of Rodrigues, Ribeiro and Costa should be looked at again as a combined study so that the ancient history of the Azores can be more clearly understood and its mysteries resolved.

It is thought that the Phoenicians and Etruscans competed for control of the Azores in later years. In 2011, APIA archaeologists reported that they had discovered on Terceira island, a significant number of fourth-century BC Carthaginian temples. They believe the temples were dedicated to the ancient Phoenician/Carthaginian goddess Tanit(c). The Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, in his 1665 book Mundus Subterraneus, was the first to propose that these islands were the mountain peaks of sunken Atlantis. This view was adopted by Ignatius Donnelly and developed by successive writers and is still supported by many today. The latest recruit is Carl Martin, who is currently working on a book locating Atlantis in the Azores and destroyed around 9620 BC.Azores3 The late Christian O’Brien was a long-time proponent of the Atlantis in Azores theory. A bathymetric study of the area suggested to O’Brien that the archipelago had been a mid-Atlantic island 480 x 720 km before the end of the last Ice Age. Apart from the inundation caused by the melting of the glaciers, he found evidence that seismic activity caused the southern part of this island to sink to a greater degree than the north. O’Brien pointed out that six areas of hot spring fields (associated with volcanic disturbances) are known in the mid-Atlantic ridge area, and four of them lie in the Kane-Atlantis area close to the Azores.

Klaus Aschenbrenner was originally happy to consider the Azores as a possible location for Atlantis, but further research led him to conclude that this was unlikely(ag).

In 1982 Peter Warlow suggested [135] that a sea-level drop of 200 metres would have created an island as large as England and Wales with the present islands of the Azores as its mountains.    However, Rodney Castleden contradicts that idea[225.187]  saying that if the sea level was lowered by 200m “the Azores would remain separate islands.” Bathymetric maps of the archipelago, above and on the Internet(g), verify Castleden’s contention. This together with a 1982 paper from P.J.C. Ryall et al, demonstrates more clearly that the Azores are just the summits of volcanic seamounts that rise from an underwater plateau that is 1000 metres below sea level. Professor Ryall and his associates were dealing objectively with the geology of the area and were not promoting any view regarding Atlantis. The geological evidence supporting an Azorean Atlantis is therefore very weak, verging on non-existent.

Andrew Collins, the leading proponent of a Cuban Atlantis, has written a short review of the Azorean Hypothesis(h).

Frank Joseph has offered his views on Atlantis in the Azores in a YouTube video(l).

Nikolai Zhirov recounts in his book[458.363] how Réne Malaise wrote to him regarding a Danish engineer named Frandsen who identified a plateau, 2/3rds the size of Finland, south of the Azores, whose summits were 4,000-5,000m metres higher than it. Adding canals gave Frandsen a configuration that closely matched Plato’s description of Atlantis.  Zhirov also noted[p403] that in 1957 a journal entitled Atlantida was published in the Azores.

In 1976, Jürgen Spanuth pointed out[015.249] that the Azores are not the mountain peaks of a sunken continent but are instead volcanic rock created through an eruption. He quotes similar sentiments expressed by Hans Pettersson. A 2003 paper(b) by four French scientists demonstrated that the Azores had been greatly enlarged during the last Ice Age. However, showing that the Azores were more extensive is not disputed, but it in no way demonstrates that it was the location of Atlantis. In fact, Plato’s description of the magnificent mountains to the north and the mud shoals that were still a hazard in Plato’s day do not match the Azores. The geologist, Darby South, strongly denied that the Azores could have been the location of Atlantis according to a couple of articles posted on the internet some years ago(a). However, natives of the archipelago are quite happy to assert a link with Atlantis, as travel writer David Yeadon found on a visit there(d).

Nevertheless, advocates of Atlantis in the Azores must accept that when the Portuguese arrived on the island in the 15th century they were found to be uninhabited and without any evidence of an earlier advanced civilisation there, such as described by Plato.  Initially, the only hint of earlier visitors was some 3rd-century BC coins from Carthage discovered on the island of Corvo. However, in recent years Bronze Age rock art(f) and what is described as a Carthaginian temple(e) have both been discovered on the island of Terceira.

Otto Muckazores-islands-map among others was certain that the enlarged Azores had deflected the Gulf Stream during the Ice Age, contributing to the extent of the Western European glaciation. However, a 2016 report(m) from the Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment (CAGE) offered evidence that the Gulf Stream was not interrupted during the last Ice Age, which would seem to undermine one of Muck’s principal claims.

Nevertheless, it is still far from clear what caused the ending of the last Ice Age. A number of writers including Muck speculated that an asteroidal impact in the Atlantic was responsible. When the Azores were discovered in the 15th century they were uninhabited and without any evidence of an earlier civilisation. It can be reasonably argued that since the Azores today are just the mountain peaks of a larger mainly submerged island, any remains would be more likely to be found on the plains and estuaries that are now underwater. One undeveloped theory is that the name ‘Azores’ might be linked to the ninth king of Atlantis,Azores Azaes, listed by Plato. This idea is supported by the linguist Dr Vamos-Toth Bator. However, a Portuguese correspondent has pointed out that the Azores is named after a goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) commonly found on the islands and portrayed on the regional flag. The renowned writer, Dennis Wheatley, used the possibility of Atlantis being located in the Azores as a backdrop to his 1936 thriller, They Found Atlantis.

In August 2013 Portuguese American Journal reported that the many pyramidal structures on Pico are clear evidence of extensive human activity in the archipelago long before the arrival of the Portuguese(o). A YouTube video(p) offers some interesting views of the pyramids.>If these pyramid builders were capable of sailing from mainland Europe as far as the Azores, understandably, it has prompted some to question whether the same people were able to complete the journey to the Americas! In 2014, Dominique Görlitz gave a lecture on the pyramids(ai) and the Atlantisforschung website has an article on the debate between Nuno Ribeiro and Portuguese archaeologists regarding the authenticity of the pyramids(aj).<

The following month the same journal announced the discovery of a pyramidal structure 60 metres high at a depth of 40 metres off the coast of the Azorean island of Terceira(i). Shortly afterwards the Portuguese Navy denied the existence of any such structure(j).  Not exactly a surprise! Nevertheless, an Italian website has attempted to breathe new life into the story by linking this underwater pyramid report with pyramidal structures found on the island of Pico(k).

Atlantisforschung published an article that included critical comments about the ‘pyramid’ from both Greg Little and Andrew Collins.“A Portuguese Navy commander states that there is a read error of the sonar data and that the alleged pyramid was a volcanic mound. Afterwards, the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute [also] stated that the “ Pyramid ” was a known volcanic mound and posted actual underwater bottom contours of the site obtained from a hydrographic survey.

For the Portuguese Navy and its officials (who were originally said to be excited and involved), that was the end of the matter. But allegations arose almost immediately that this was a cover-up. Apparently, there was a Pyramid of Atlantis there, some claimed, and for obscure reasons, the government didn’t want anyone to know about it. At least that’s what is claimed. But of course, none of the people claiming a cover-up will ever go there and dive or lower a camera themselves. It’s probably [from their point of view; much better to keep it alive as a mystery. At the end of the day, no one wants to admit the truth — or know the truth.”(z).

The Wikiversity website has an extensive article(s) on the location of Atlantis, which is focused on the Azores and the bathymetric evidence for that archipelago having been a large single landmass at the end of the last Ice Age when sea levels were much lower. However, it is based on the literal acceptance of Plato’s 9,000 years before Solon for the date of the Atlantean War.

April 2018, saw British tabloid interest in Atlantis revived with further speculation on the Azores as the location of Plato’s submerged island(t). However, the details of the claim were rejected by Dr Richard Waller a lecturer at Keele University. Not content with recycling the old Azores theory, The Star also throws in the even more nonsensical idea of an Antarctican Atlantis.

A paper by Gerard Janssen of Leiden University places Homer’s Ogygia in the Azores(v).

In 2019, Fehmi Krasniqi published a three-and-a-half-hour video on the building of the Egyptian pyramids. For Krasniqi, the Ancient Black Egyptians travelled to the Americas and many other parts of the world(af). He claims that these ancient Egyptians travelled to America using Atlantis, now the Azores as a stepping-stone. This is offered as an explanation for the huge Olmec stone heads with African features!

A recent (2021) advocate of Atlantis in the region of the Azores is Victor Staner(w). In the same year, I was made aware of the work of Matthew Chinn who also pinpointed a location (38° 32′ 06″ N, 29° 24′ 09″ W) in the Azores region as the site of Atlantis, using satellite imagery and bathymetric data.

Support for the Azores continued with a book from Michael le Flem, Visions of Atlantis [1958] in 2022, an excerpt from which was published on the Ancient Origins website in January 2023(ah).

My leading questions regarding the proposed Azorean location for Atlantis are (a) why and (b) how would Atlanteans situated in the middle of the Atlantic launch an attack on Athens or Egypt that were over 4,200 km away? Unless those two questions are satisfactorily answered the Azores fails as the home of Atlantis.

(a) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/controversy-surrounds-artifacts-azores-islands-evidence-advanced-ancient-021028?nopaging=1

(c) https://portuguese-american-journal.com/archeology-prehistoric-rock-art-found-in-caves-on-terceira-island-azores/

(d) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/travel/1988/08/14/sao-miguel-the-azores-misty-fragments-of-atlantis/f0f754aa-3961-451b-8fb5-4563debafdde/ 

(e) https://portuguese-american-journal.com/archeological-findings-in-the-azores-spark-controversy-%e2%80%93-update/

(f) https://portuguese-american-journal.com/archeology-prehistoric-rock-art-found-in-caves-on-terceira-island-azores/

(g) https://www.internalwaveatlas.com/Atlas2_PDF/IWAtlas2_Pg049_Azores.pdf

(h) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/midatlan.htm

(i) https://portuguese-american-journal.com/terceira-subaquatic-pyramidal-shaped-structure-found-azores/

(j) https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=255178&st=75

(k) https://www.stampalibera.com/?a=28020#sthash.EUkbmusn.dpuf

(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRABMVIV0pQ

(m) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160219134816.htm

(o) https://portuguese-american-journal.com/pico-new-archeological-evidence-reveals-human-presence-before-portuguese-occupation-azores/

(p) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmd89nPH4WM

(q) https://www.scribd.com/document/327357287/Relatorio-Comissao (Portuguese)

(r) https://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2171870-controversy-surrounds-artifacts-on-azores-islands-evidence-of-advanced-ancient-seafarers/

(s) https://web.archive.org/web/20190322095652/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis

(t) https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/695548/Google-Earth-sighting-Atlantis-cover-up-conspiracy-solved-expert-video

(u) https://www.amazon.com/New-Atlantis-Documentary-Historians-Speechless/dp/B07F2Z1272 

(v) http://homerusodyssee.nl/id27.htm

(w) Atlantis | Captainvic (wixsite.com)

(x) Eine These zur Lokalisierung von Atlantis im Atlantik – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)

(y) Sobering news about the ‘underwater pyramid’ near the Azores – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) 

(z) Viking mice: Norse discovered Azores 700 years before Portuguese | CALS (cornell.edu) 

(aa) Megalithic Constructions Discovered in the Azores, Portugal (scirp.org) 

(ab) (57) Were the Azores home to an ancient civilisation? – BBC REEL – YouTube (Eng)

(ac) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBPyCYo97VQ  (Port)

(ad) (99+) Dating the Cart-Ruts of Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal | Félix Rodrigues – Academia.edu  

(ae) (99+) Early Atlantic Navigation: Pre-Portuguese Presence in the Azores Islands | Félix Rodrigues and Scientific Research Publishing – Academia.edu 

(af) Solving The Mystery Behind the Building of the Great Pyramid – Rising Tide Foundation

(ag) Was Atlantis in the Azores? – Klaus-Aschenbrenner (archive.org) 

(ah) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/azores-atlantis-0017844

(ai) https://www.5-sterne-redner.de/en/news/6582-the-pyramids-on-the-azores-lecutre-by-keynotes-speaker-dr-goerlitz/ *

(aj) Who built the stepped structures on Pico? (Part 3) – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *