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

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  • NEWS September 2023

    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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Hakluyt Society

Benzoni, Girolamo

Girolamo Benzoni (c.1519-1570) was an Italian historian who is best known for his 1565 book, La Storia del mondo nuova[1116] (The History of the New World). The Catholic Encyclopedia

L0020190 Portrait of Girolamo Benzoni Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk https://wellcomeimages.org Portrait of Girolamo Benzoni Woodcut 1572 La Historia del Mondo Nuovo Benzoni, Girolamo Published: 1572 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

comments that “It contains interesting details about the countries he visited, but abounds in errors and often in intentional misstatements. What Benzoni states about the Antilles is a clumsy rehash of Las Casas. His reports on the conquests of Mexico, and Peru bristle with errors.” In it he also supported the then prevailing view that linked Atlantis with America.

In 1857 the Hakluyt Society(b) published a well regarded English translation of Benzoni’s book, which is available online(a).

(a) https://archive.org/details/historynewworld00smytgoog

(b) https://www.hakluyt.com/ 

Cosmas Indicopleustes

Cosmas Indicopleustes was a 6th-century AD theologian and geographer from Alexandria who became a monk in later life. He wrote of Atlantis as a large island in the western ocean punished by god with submergence. He also added a twist to the tale by recording a tradition that Noah had resided in Atlantis. Cosmas was probably the first writer to use Plato’s tale as evidence for the veracity of the Bible. He contended that Atlantis was the Garden of Eden and that Plato’s 10 kings of Atlantis were the 10 generations between Adam and Noah!

His only extant book, Christian Topography, is a bizarre work that includes support for a Flat (Square) Earth. A translation[1245] by J. W. McCrindle was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1897(b).

>It seems to me that Cosmas has added little to the Atlantis story except for further confusion. However, Thorwald C. Franke has published an essay on the relevance of Cosmas Indicopleustes to Atlantis studies(c).<

One commentator described his work as a ‘monument of unconscious humour.’

Jason Colavito has traced(a) some of Graham Hancock’s theories back through Donnelly, Faber, and Bailly and even as far as Cosmas.

(a) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-byzantine-claim-about-atlantis-and-noahs-flood

(b) https://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/ct/index.htm

(c) Kosmas Indikopleustes – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *