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

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    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 »
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    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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Harold T. Wilkins

Quetzalcoatl

QuetzalcoatlQuetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity, whose name in the local Nahuatl language means ‘feathered serpent’. To the Aztecs he was a creator god and also had a parallel in Mayan culture to whom he was known as Kukulcan or Gucumatz.

For some centuries it has been generally thought that the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II initially believed that Hernán Cortés’ arrival to be the anticipated return of their deity Quetzalcoatl. The veracity of this story has come under increased attack, exemplified by a paper from Jordan Baker(b).

It is a commonly held belief among Mormons that Quetzalcoatl was Jesus Christ!

More widespread and a little less contentious is the idea that St. Thomas the Apostle was Quetzalcoatl(e). Within two decades of the Conquest, Quetzalcoatl was identified with St. Thomas, the wandering apostle. Since that time Quetzalcoatl has been described as a Viking, a Chinese Explorer, an extraterrestrial, Moses, and Jesus Christ. Similarly, most Mormons assume that the legends of Quetzalcoatl were simply distorted reminiscences of the visit of Christ to the New World as detailed in the Book of Mormon”(f).

An Indian website vehemently disputes the association of St. Thomas with Quetzalcoatl and for good measure also argues against the idea of St. Thomas in India!(g)

Harold T. Wilkins claimed [363.97] that Quetzalcoatl was from Atlantean Brazil.

Pierre Honoré claimed[0956] that these white gods had come from the region of Crete and had brought with them their script. As Linear A & B had both ceased being used by 1400 BC, Honoré surmised that visits of these deities had taken place before that date.

Lewis Spence also claimed an Atlantis connection for Quetzalcoatl, identifying the Mesoamerican deity as Atlas.

Daniel Fleck had some interesting thoughts on Quetzalcoatl(c).

Christian O’Brien has proposed that Quetzalcoatl had been one of the Sages who originated in Sumeria and travelled the world spreading advanced knowledge, including astronomy and megalith building [1797.117]!

>In 1900 Peter de Roo concluded, “that Quetzalcoatl was a Christian prelate who landed in America, accompanied by several inferior missionaries and a number of people from some part of Christian Europe, and that he established a settlement in the territories of the Mexican empire or, perhaps, on the eastern coasts of our United States, from whence they eventually extended their race and religion along the Mexican Gulf.” [890+.1.582]<

These ideas are just pure conjecture but are relatively tame compared with the wilder speculations of writers such as Peter Kolosimo, who claimed that the legends actually describe a race of white men who were born in spaceships and migrated to Atlantis; then after Atlantis was destroyed, they moved to the Americas to be treated as “white gods” by the “primitive earth-dwellers.”(a)

[890.1.]https://archive.org/details/historyamericab02roogoog vol.1

(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_gods

(b) The Real Story of the ‘Bearded God’ Named Quetzalcoatl | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20160903185759/http://www.atlantia.de/atlantis_english/myth/myth/atlantis_quetzalcoatl_columbus.htm *

(d) https://ishwarsharan.com/2019/09/17/how-st-thomas-quetzalcoatl-myth-was-manufactured-justified-and-continued-in-the-new-world-k-v-ramakrishna-rao/ 

(e) http://gnosis.org/thomasbook/ch20.html 

(f) https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/055-06-10.pdf

(g) https://ishwarsharan.com/2019/09/17/how-st-thomas-quetzalcoatl-myth-was-manufactured-justified-and-continued-in-the-new-world-k-v-ramakrishna-rao/ 

Ancient Astronauts and Atlantis *

Ancient Astronauts and their technology is often promoted as the inspiration behind aspects of many ancient religions such as the vimanas of the Hindus, the flying chariots of Ezekiel as well as the gods of Mesopotamia. The most widely known proponents of these ideas are Erich von Däniken and the late Zecharia Sitchin.

However, I must also include Josef Blumrich who proposed that the biblical Ezekiel had encountered an alien spaceship in his 1973 book [0692]. It is worth noting that a decade earlier Arthur W. Orton wrote The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel which was recently republished [1735] and offers similar ideas as Blumrich. Ulrich Magin has written a critical review of Bloomrich’s interpretation of Ezekiel’s visions(m).

Extraterrestrial visitors have been suggested by a few of the more imaginative and sometimes unscrupulous authors and their publishers, as the source of an advanced civilisation in the past, remembered today as Atlantis. Martin Brady makes such a claim in a brief paper available online(s).

Another example of this genre of b.s. is offered by Tricia McCannon, who delights us with an account of Atlantis as “the seat of a Great Galactic Empire, with many extraterrestrial races coming and going from its shores”, with lots more of the same(t).

Decades before von Däniken, Harold T. Wilkins was already suggesting prehistoric extraterrestrial visitors in the 1950s. He also wrote a couple of books about Atlantis[363][364]. Not long after that, Egerton Sykes wrote some short articles for his Atlantis magazine(i) that were sympathetic to the idea of ancient astronauts.

R. Cedric Leonard is another Atlantis researcher who has written about Atlantis and ancient alien technology. A more recent attempt to link Atlantis with ancient astronauts came from Kevin Falzon, who closely follows Sitchin while locating Atlantis in his native Malta[869]. Richard Mooney speculated on a connection between Atlantis and ancient aliens four decades ago[842].

However, Professor Emilio Spedicato may have added some degree of respectability to the concept when he wrote(u) “There are significant indications in worldwide traditions that intelligent people from planets within a few hundred light-years from Earth visited our planet and intelligently interacted with our biosphere”. He went on to claim that around 5500 BC some of these visitors landed in the Hunza valley of Pakistan where they engaged in a little genetic engineering which led to the ‘creation’ of Adam and Eve!

It should be noted that Plato’s account does not relate any technology beyond that of a Late Bronze Age society, whereas any civilisation founded by alien astronauts should offer some evidence of technologies at least equal to if not more advanced than that of our present-day capabilities. 

Nevertheless, the idea of visitors from other worlds is often traced back to the 18th century and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)(e), who not only argued that extraterrestrial beings had visited our planet, but that he had met them[1583]Greg Little has also recently(g) credited Swedenborg as the originator of the alien visitors’ idea, but Jason Colavito has rubbished Little’s article(f) and traced the concept of extraterrestrial encounters back to Lucian (125-180 AD) together with a few others before Swedenborg. Colavito and Little are not ‘best friends’, so I can only conclude that Colavito simply wished to undermine Little’s credibility as a researcher.

Ever since Kenneth Arnold saw ‘flying saucers’ near Mt. Rainier in 1947, his report paved the way for the ancient astronaut idea to evolve into the prolific writings of W. Raymond Drake and later Erich von Däniken, among others. In turn, this seemed to lead naturally to speculation of a possible linkage with Atlantis.

Jason Colavito has also drawn attention(a) to an exhibition held in Beijing in July 2012, which purported to offer evidence of these ancient visitors, and has published(b) the official U.S. Government view on ancient astronauts. He also offers an overview of alien theories and scathingly criticises their proponents(c). In 2011 Colavito published a free ebook with the self-explanatory title of The Origins of the Space Gods(j).

Colavito has also an interesting blog for 29/08/14 which quotes from a 1977 magazine that has an article suggesting that Jesus was an American astronaut who came back from the future, no doubt inspired by the film Planet of the Apes!(d)

Bill Hanson and Bert Thurlings are some of the more recent promoters of this idea of an alien origin for Atlantis. Hanson has been joined by the German researcher, Dieter Bremer, who claims(v) that the winged disks found in Sumerian art represent a space station, which crashed! Bremer also provides a spirited defence of The Manna Machine[755]  by George Sassoon (1936-2006) and Rodney Dale, combined with some bizarre theories regarding Christ. Incredibly, Bremer was invited to deliver a paper to the 2011 Atlantis Conference on the concentric circles of Plato’s Atlantean capital. He has published two books on his view of Atlantis[1022/3]. A more rational review of The Manna Machine is offered by Frank Dörnenburg(w).

The late Flying Eagle and his partner Whispering Wind specified the planet Xylanthia((aa) in the Sirius star system as the original home of a visitor who fell in love with an earthling and later became known as Poseidon!

The History Channel’s series entitled Ancient Aliens(y) has been heavily criticised on the Bad Archaeology website(x) and elsewhere. October 2011 saw another claim that the Maya had contact with extraterrestrials and that a documentary providing evidence is planned(z).

A sceptical review of extraterrestrial visitations was published in the 26th January 2014 edition of Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch(ab).

I feel compelled to include a quote from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson who wrote “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that they have never tried to contact us.”

Perhaps even more disconcerting is the results of a survey(h) carried out by Chapman University that show 20% of Americans believe in ancient astronauts!

In 2020, we had a bizarre tweet from the billionaire, Elon Musk, claiming that “aliens built the pyramids”(l), I hope that this was a tongue-in-cheek comment!

Nevertheless, there are still (2021) attempts to promote the ancient astronaut idea using the same material that has failed to convince in the past(k).

An example of this is the 2023 book, Prehistory Explained [2007] by Shane Leach, who recycled some of the ideas of von Däniken and Sitchin and then for good measure threw in the old suggestion that our Moon and the Martian moon Phobos are artificial. Of course, Atlantis was not ignored, which he placed in Antarctica and deemed that Stonehenge had been laid out like the Pleiades constellation!

More depressing is the study by Graham E.L.Holton, which surveyed the ancient astronaut literature and found nothing but superior white blond ‘gods’, usually male, such as Quetzalcoatl(n). This theme was continued in later UFO reports. Erich von Däniken is arguably the best-known of the ancient astronaut proponents, but he was not the first and certainly not the last(n). Jason Colavito has reviewed the racism expressed by von Däniken(o). Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews was equally critical of Däniken’s racist views(p).

2023 also saw the publication of Gods of the Bible [2059] by Mauro Biglino, who also wrote a paper as ‘Author of the Month’ for Graham Hancock’s website(q). In both, he explores the Bible for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial visitors who interacted with humans, just as Zechariah Sitchin had done nearly half a century ago using Mesopotamian texts.

There are also some who have endeavoured to use the Palermo Stone as evidence of extraterrestrial visitors in our ancient past(r)!

Avi Loeb who is probably better known as a contributor to the Ancient Aliens TV series has recently (Nov. 2023) endeavoured to develop his ‘fame’, by offering by offering an alternative to the conventional theories offered to explain UFOs, now redesignated UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). Jason Colavito(ad) has drawn attention to an attempt by Loeb to suggest that UFOs, sorry, UAPs, might be remnants from a very early highly technologically advanced civilisation.

“Any technological infrastructure left on the surface of Earth from that early civilization could have been demolished by geological activity including subduction, covered by water or tarnished by meteor impacts and weathering.

However, functional relics could have been preserved in space. Within the past century of modern technology, our civilization has launched many thousands of functional devices in orbit around Earth. A more advanced or longer-lived technological civilization could have used more sophisticated devices. Are there unfamiliar technological relics in our sky?” (ac).

For those interested in having a look at other entries touching on the subject of Atlantis and ancient astronauts see: Jack Countryman, Christos A. Djonis, Andrew Greig, Kurt Jurgen Hepke, Marius Lleget, Louis Millette, Semir Osmanagic, Hubert Zeitlmair.

 

(a) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/07/chinese-government-endorses-ancient-astronauts.html

(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-von-daniken-letter.html

(c) http://www.swans.com/library/art18/jcolav01.html

(d)  https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-bizarre-1977-article-on-jesus-the-ancient-astronaut 

(e)  https://web.archive.org/web/20200731011955/https://www.swedenborgproject.org/2007/09/08/the-life-on-other-planets-question/  or  See: Archive 2262

(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/greg-little-claims-to-have-found-the-first-ancient-astronaut-theorist-except-that-he-didnt

(g) https://apmagazine.info/index.php/component/content/article?id=570

(h) https://blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2015/10/13/this-haunted-world/

(i)  Atlantis, Volume 20, No.3, May/June 1967.

(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/origin-of-the-space-gods.html  

(k) Evidence of Aliens and Ancient Astronauts – Strange Unexplained Mysteries (archive.org) *

(l) Weekend Omnibus: Younger Dryas Volcano, Elon Musk’s Ancient Astronaut Tweet, Steve Quayle’s Plagiarism, and More! – Jason Colavito

(m)  Spaceship or God’s apparition? The Visions of Ezekiel – Mysteria3000 (link broken)  

(n) https://www.academia.edu/30755438/Ancient_White_Astronauts_Race_and_Religion 

(o) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2014/01/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken.html 

(p) https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/is-pseudoarchaeology-racist/ 

(q) https://grahamhancock.com/biglinom1/ 

(r) Reddit – Dive into anything (archive.org) 

(s) Earth, Aliens and The Universe | PDF | Atlantis | Calendar (archive.org)

(t) https://web.archive.org/web/20200219183927/http://triciamccannonspeaks.com/atlantis-the-lost-civilization/  (link broken) See: https://www.triciamccannon.com/dvd-time-travel-ufos-atlantis-and-world-changes/

(u) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2090/

(v) https://www.atlantisbremer.de/

(w) https://web.archive.org/web/20201021072640/http://fdoernenburg.de/alien/alternativ/manna/man01_e.php

(x) https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/i-remember-why-i%E2%80%99ve-never-wanted-satellite-television/

(y) https://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/episodes/season-3#slide-9

(z) Mayan Filmmaker Offers Photo as Proof of Aliens, Says Hawking Agrees (Exclusive) (archive.org) 

(aa) https://atlantis-today.com/Great_Atlantis_Flood.htm

(ab) See: Archive 2098

(ac) https://avi-loeb.medium.com/are-uaps-relics-from-an-earlier-civilization-on-earth-86d1190c6539 

(ad) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/avi-loeb-embraces-lost-prehistoric-civilization-as-possible-ufo-explanation 

Hall, Stan

 
Stan Hall with Fr. Crespi

Stan Hall with Fr. Crespi

Stan Hall (1936-2008) was a Scotsman who has authored, Tayos Gold – The Archives of Atlantis[360] in which he resurrects the old legends of an extensive cave systems in the Andes.>allegedly stretching for hundreds of miles.<

Harold T. Wilkins discussed these ancient tales at length over sixty years ago[363]. However it was one Juan Moricz who was responsible for renewed interest in the Ecuadorian cave system with his claim to have discovered in them a library of metallic books. 

Erich von Däniken, the champion of the ‘ancient astronaut’ theory, who embellished it to produce another bestseller,>The Gold of the Gods [272]. In it he claimed to have seen a library of gold plates. This was just a collection of lies(g).

Philip Coppens wrote a paper on the caves, which included a lot of background information(h).<

In 1976, Hall, who also met Moricz, organised an expedition of over a hundred people that included the astronaut Neil Armstrong, to explore the Tayos Caves in Ecuador. While in Ecuador, Hall met Fr. Crespi, the then guardian of the so-called Crespi collection of strange artefacts. Although no metallic books were discovered Hall proceeded to publish his book, which claims to link the undiscovered books with Atlantis. Such wild conjecture is totally unjustified. A website dedicated to Hall’s work is available(a).

In 2017, Hall’s daughter, Eileen, was promoting a documentary about her father’s 1976 failed expedition to the caves and, incredibly, was trying to revive interest in organising another expedition to find the Tayos Gold!(b)

A recent (2018) two-part(c)(d) sceptical review of the whole ‘Tayos Gold’ saga offers more information.

>2020 brought us Mysteries of the Tayos Caves [1768] by Alex Chionetti, another wannabe Indiana Jones, who tries to revive interest in the Ecuadorian caves and the various failed, and sometimes non-existent, attempts to locate the library of gold books once reputed to have been seen there. Jason Colavito found the book “maddeningly incoherent”(e).<

(a)  https://web.archive.org/web/20170331172042/https://www.goldlibrary.com/index.html

(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/daughter-of-ancient-astronaut-believer-plans-to-continue-fathers-effort-to-find-ecuadoran-cave-of-alien-gold

(c) https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4637

(d) https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4638

 

>(e) Review of “Mysteries of the Tayos Caves” by Alex Chionetti – JASON COLAVITO

(f) Cueva de los Tayos – Wikipedia

(g) Erich von Daniken, The Tayos Cave Scandal and the Crespi Collection Forgeries – Malcolm Nicholson (wordpress.com)

(h) “As We Walked Through The Tunnels of Gold…” (bibliotecapleyades.net)<

Brazil

Brazil was arguably (re)discovered by the Pinzon brothers, before Columbus first reached the West Indies according to Steven Sora(g).

Brazil has had few serious investigators propose it as the location of Atlantis. Although, in 1947 Harold T. Wilkins claimed[0363.97] that Quetzalcoatl was from Atlantean Brazil. Earlier in the 20th century, Col. P.H. Fawcett, the famous explorer, disappeared while searching in the Brazilian rain forest for a ‘lost city’ that he called ‘Z’. A 2009 book by David Grann about Fawcett’s searches in Brazil, entitled The Lost City of Z [0772] was the basis for a film released in 2016. Sprague de Camp listed[0194.329] a George Lynch supporting a Brazilian Atlantis in 1925. In fact, Lynch was a fund-raiser for Fawcett.>However, the Atlantisforschung website is adamant that there is no evidence that Lynch favoured Brazil as the location of Atlantis(i)!<

However, although there is growing evidence of ancient roads, plazas and bridges in Brazil’s vast tropical forests, further data is needed before we can attempt to fit these structures into any specific culture or chronology.

An article(e) in the August 2017 edition of Antiquity offers evidence that humans lived in Brazil more than 20,000 years ago, which is many millennia before the Clovis people arrived in North America.

>Americo Huari Román is a Peruvian electrical engineer who was born in the former Inca capital of Cuzco. He is the author of La Atlantida y el Imperio de los Incas (Atlantis and the Empire of the Incas) [1448]. Before the Great Deluge, Huari claims that most of central Brazil had been a huge inland sea and that Atlanteans and Arawacs lived around this lake and that the one artefact left by them is the enormous carved Ingá Stone(j).<

The possibility of Phoenician contact with Brazil has a number of supporters and a range of websites supports this controversial view(a). One such advocate, Ronald Barney, maintains[1185] that they concentrated their influence in the northeastern region of the country citing the work of Ludwig Schwennhagen[1550] and Apollinaire Frot(f). There would appear to be evidence for 3rd century AD Roman contact with Brazil(h).

fotomapaMay 2013 saw a flurry of media interest when a Japanese submersible found evidence in the form of granite suggesting of a previously unknown continental mass that sank about 900 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Members of the expedition have played down any attempt to link this discovery with Atlantis(b)(c).

This reminiscent of the reaction in 1931 when two islands were reported to have emerged from the sea off Brazil and within a short time, claims that they were a returning Atlantis were widely quoted(d).

Any suggestion that the land of Hy-Brasil in Irish mythology has any connection with Brazil or Atlantis is just wild speculation.

(a) https://phoenicia.org/brazil.html

(b) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/brazilian-atlantis-japanese-submersible-atlantic-ocean_n_3231437.html?utm_hp_ref=world

(c) https://www.counselheal.com/articles/5276/20130507/scientists-found-atlantis-coast-brazil.htm

(d) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/98134066?searchTerm=Atlantis&searchLimits=

(e) https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/stone-age-people-brazil-20000-years-ago

(f) https://web.archive.org/web/20200430123023/https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/biados/texts/brazilph.htm

(g) See: Archive 3480

(h) https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/05/the-mysterious-ancient-underwater-roman-relics-of-brazil/

(i) George Lynch – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

(j) http://www.messagetoeagle.com/unsolved-enigma-of-the-inga-stone-and-its-mysterious-ancient-undeciphered-signs/ *

Ashe, Geoffrey *

 *Geoffrey Ashe (1923- ) is a recognised authority on the Arthurian Legend and has written extensively on the subject. He is the author or co-author of a number of books, including The Quest for Arthur’s Britain, Camelot and the Vision of Albion, The Discovery of King Arthur, and Mythology of the British Isles. He was co-founder and secretary of the Camelot Research Committee that Geoffrey Asheexcavated Cadbury Castle in Somerset.  He was Associate Editor of The Arthurian Encyclopaedia and The New Arthurian Encyclopaedia; collaborated with Norris Lacy on The Arthurian Handbook, and has held visiting professorships at several American universities.

In the fifth century, the neo-Platonist Proclus, quoting a first-century BC geographer named Marcellus, spoke of three islands of ‘immense extent’ located in the Atlantic Ocean. The inhabitants of the central one of these islands was said to have preserved the memory of a former landmass, identified by Proclus with Atlantis, which had existed thereabouts. In 1962, historian Ashe identified Marcellus’ three great islands with the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Moreover, he pointed out that the indigenous peoples of the region preserved the memory of a cataclysm, which had split up a former landmass leaving behind the islands that make the archipelagos, we see today. All but a few human beings were drowned in this all-encompassing event.

Could this have been a memory of the destruction of Atlantis preserved in the Caribbean and brought across the Atlantic by ancient mariners such as the Phoenicians and Carthaginians? However, as Andrew Collins noted[072.109] Ashe was not the first to make this connection. In 1885, the American historian Hyde Clarke, in a paper delivered to the Royal Historical Society used the same indigenous legends to identify Hispaniola as the location of Atlantis.

Atlantisforschung has drawn attention to the work of Harold T. Wilkins who, in 1952 had pointed out the mythology of the islanders of the West Indies in Secret Cities of Old South America [364], and in particular to the almost astonishing similarities between West Indian-Caribbean and Irish myths. Wilkins also noted: “In the hinterland of the British West Indies island of Trinidad, the Natives of Aboriginal origin affirm that Trinidad is a very old country, and formed part of ‘the greatest country in the world’ many thousands of years ago. This was a time ‘when there was no sea at all’. This large, antediluvian country or continent is called IERE by the natives, which is pronounced almost exactly like EIRE for Ireland . And ancient Trinidad too, the natives say, was known as Iere before the great cataclysm that sank the lost continent.” (a)

In the late 1950s, it was reported in Sykes’s Atlantis journal that Ashe was planning to emulate St. Brendan’s voyage across the Atlantic in a currach, a feat later achieved by Tim Severin. However, Ashe never made the trip but settled for writing a book on the subject, Land to the West [740].

Two books with an Atlantis theme have been published by Ashe, Atlantis: Lost Lands, Ancient Wisdom[082] & Atlantis: The Legend of  Lost City[083].

(a) Iere – Das Atlantis der Kariben – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

Oera Linda Book

The Oera Linda Book, sometimes referred as the Ura-Linda Chronicle, is a highly controversial book from Holland that occasionally is referred to in books and articles relating to Atlantis. It is claimed to be one of the oldest books ever discovered.

>The Oera Linda Book came to light in 1867 when Cornelis Over de Linden (1811–1874) handed the manuscript, which he claimed to have inherited from his grandfather, via his aunt, over to Eelco Verwijs (1830–1880), the provincial librarian of Friesland, for translation and publication. Verwijs rejected the manuscript, but in 1871 Jan Gerhardus Ottema (1804–1879), a prominent member of the Frisian Society for History and Culture, published a Dutch translation. Ottema believed it to be written in authentic Old Frisian(r).<

While a Dutch translation appeared in 1871, it was not until 1876 that the first English translation of the Oera Linda Book by William R. Sandbach was published by Trubner & Co(k). This was allegedly a translation of a 13th-century Frisian manuscript based on much earlier traditions.

The book tells the story of the destruction of a large landmass in the North Sea known as ‘Atland’ following earthquakes and tidal waves.  Atland means Old Land in Frisian. It dates this catastrophe to 2193 BC. However, the current consensus is that the landbridge between the Shetlands Isles and Norway was submerged around 5500 BC and not the date given in the Oera Linda Book.

Nearly seventy years were to pass before the book came under scrutiny again in Britain, when Harold T. Wilkins wrote an article in Egerton Sykes’ first issue of Atlantis magazine, supporting its authenticity. Thirty years later another English writer, Robert Scrutton, wrote two books[117][118] on the Oera Linda Book. These again opened up the controversy regarding the authenticity of the book.

Andrew Collins has written a short paper(g) casting doubt on the authenticity of the book.

Now Anthony Radford presents a new review of the Book and offers the first edition of his book free online (f).

Andi Zeneli, the Albanian researcher, has used the text of the Oera Linda Book in an attempt to support his claim of an Albanian connection with Atlantis. Georg Lohle also follows the Oera Linda Book in suggesting[446] a North Sea location for Atlantis.

The English text of the book is available on the internet(b)(c) with the original 212 Frisian language pages, which is accessible on a Dutch site(d). A recent (2012) vindication of the OLB is now available online(h).

It is reported(p)  that when Heinrich Himmler was given a translation of the OLB by his friend Hermann Wirth he was totally besotted with its contents and it became known as ‘Himmler’s Bible’. However, even within the Nazi party, there were many sceptical voices, which led to much dispute. Finally, “The two opposing camps officially “squared off” during a panel discussion centred on The Oera Linda Book that took place on May 4th 1934 at the aforementioned University of Berlin. The discussion turned into a heated debate, but in the end, The Oera Linda Book was officially declared “a hoax” by the NSDAP, and “Himmler’s Bible” receded once again into obscurity.”

I must mention that the American neo-Nazi  National Socialist Movement has taken an interest in the Oera Linda Book(e), promoting it as ‘positive’ reading material!

*The late Antonis Kontaratos was favourably disposed to quote the OLB in support of Atlantis, in a paper delivered to the 2005 Atlantis Conference [629.435], although he also noted that “the authenticity of the Oera Linda Book still awaits official approval or disapproval”.*

Alewyn J. Raubenheimer has theorised[744] that an asteroid impact created the Burckle Crater in the Indian Ocean which in turn generated a megatsunami recorded in the bible as Noah’s Flood and in the Oera Linda Book as the flooding of Atland in 2193 BC. With regard to Atlantis he states categorically (p.49)“that no attempt is made here to equate Atland with Atlantis although there may be a connection.” His defence of the Oera Linda Book has been hailed by some as an important scholarly contribution(i) while others have endeavoured to discredit the book’s authenticity(j).

James Nienhuis also accepts the historicity of the OLB(n), but today’s leading proponent of its authenticity is arguably Jan Ott, a Dutch researcher, born in West Friesland, who has released video and audio interviews on YouTube(l)(m) in support of his views. A list of all translations of the OLB can be accessed on his website(o) as well as many other aspects of Oera Linda studies. Ott has been interviewed on Red Ice Radio, a Swedish right-wing broadcaster.

>A 2022 critical review of the OLB by an Indian researcher, Bipin Dimri, added support to the more generally accepted view that the OLB is a forgery. He suggests that Either Cornelis Over de Linden or Eelco Verwijs (or possibly an acquaintance of both men) are the two most likely authors, writing a comedy text to poke fun at an overtly nationalistic audience in the late 19th century. It was likely never to be taken seriously(q).<

(b) https://archive.org/stream/oeralindabookfr00sandgoog#page/n40/mode/2up

(c) https://www.earth-history.com/Europe/index.htm

(d) https://archive.org/details/oeralindabookfr00ottegoog

(f) https://earth-history.com/Europe/God-king/radford-intro.htm

(g) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/northeur.htm  

(h) https://www.historum.com/speculative-history/36777-oera-linda-book-7.html

(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AOera_Linda_Book

(j)https://spiritualitydiscussiongroup.yuku.com/topic/793/The-Oera-Linda-Book

(k) https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forgottenbooks.org%2Fdownload_pdf%2FThe_Oera_Linda_Book_1000847682.pdf&ei=vhw3U9WULZDT7Abd34GIBA&usg=AFQjCNHcQ7T8MwZfRDYovr0BdftweYTKBA&bvm=bv.63808443,d.ZGU

(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kflHJpB9f1s

(m)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CAoZS52CoU

(n) https://dancingfromgenesis.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/netherlands-ancient-dutch-history-friesland-oera-linda-bok-frisian-timeline-chronology-king-adel-sons-friso-saxo-bruno-navigators-great-flood-end-ice-age-sea-level-rise-covered-doggerland-atland-atlan/

(o) https://fryskednis.blogspot.ie/2017/12/inventory-of-earlier-oera-linda.html

(p) https://joshualightningwarrior.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/the-fryan-question-part-i/

(q) https://www.historicmysteries.com/oera-linda/ *

(r) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oera_Linda_Book *

Wilkins, Harold Tom

Harold Tom Wilkins (1891-1959) wrote on a range of controversial subjects, from hidden treasure to UFOs [0361][0362] to Atlantis [0363]+ [0364]+. He was of the opinion that if the Americas had not been the home of Atlantis it had at least been populated by refugees from there, but offers little hard evidence to support this contention. Wilkins gives a lot of attention to the inscriptions in a variety of unidentified scripts that have been found in both North and South America.

He covers a lot of familiar ground including lost cities, sunken kingdoms and extensive underground tunnel systems. Wilkins includes[363.p80] a fascinating tale of an isolated Andean tribe in North-Western Argentina speaking ‘pure’ Gaelic and more pertinent to this work a white tribe known as the Paria who lived in a village called Atlan located in the forest between the Orinoco and the Rio Apure. He also claimed that Quetzalcoatl, the ‘white god’ of the Aztecs was from Atlantis. Recently, Jason Colavito revealed(a) that Wilkins had lifted passages from Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine in his Secret Cities of Old South America[364]. If true, it could be that he also borrowed some material from a book published earlier by Richard O. Marsh entitled White Indians of Darien [1551] in which he recounted his meeting with ‘white Indians’ in the remote jungles of Panama!

In 1948, in the first issue of Egerton SykesAtlantis magazine, Wilkins wrote an interesting article on the Oera Linda Book giving its authenticity his support.

Wilkins reported in his book[363] that on column 8 of the Great Hall of Ramses at Karnak there is an inscription referring to the loss of a drowned continent in the Western Ocean. I can find no corroboration of this claim. Even R. Cedric Leonard, who quotes Wilkins and is familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphics, has, surprisingly, not verified this inscription for himself.>Many of Wilkins’ claims were widely criticised as pseudohistory(b) and fabrications.<

[0363]+ https://archive.org/details/mysteriesofancie035488mbp/mode/2up *

[0364]+ https://books.google.tt/books?id=hkRHSzwIU2oC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false *

(a) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-giants-of-thera-a-case-of-repeated-copying

(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_T._Wilkins *