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 »
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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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Italos

Italy

Italy seems to have an uncertain etymology; Thucydides claims that Italos, the Sicilian king gave his name to Italy, while more recently Emilio Spedicato(h) considers that ”the best derivation we believe to be the one proposed by the Italian nuclear engineer Felice Vinci (1998), in his monograph claiming a Baltic setting for the Homeric epic: he derives Italia from the rare Greek word aithalia, meaning the smoking one.” This is thought to be a reference to Italy’s many volcanoes.

Italy today is comprised of territory south of the Alps on mainland Europe including a very large boot-shaped peninsula, plus Sicily, Sardinia and some smaller island groups, which along with the French island of Corsica virtually enclose the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The earliest proposal that Italy could be linked with Atlantis came from Angelo Mazzoldi in 1840 when he claimed that before Etruria, Italy had been home to Atlantis and dated its demise to 1986 BC. Mazzoldi expressed a form of hyperdiffusion that had his Italian Atlantis as the mother culture which seeded the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean region(b).

Some of Mazzoldi’s views regarding ancient Italy were expanded on by later scholars such as Camillo Ravioli, Ciro Nispi-Landi, Evelino Leonardi, Costantine Cattoi, Guido DiNardo and Giuseppe Brex. Ravioli sought to associate the Maltese island of Gozo with his proposed Atlantis in Italy.

The Italian region of Lazio, which includes Rome, has had a number of very ancient structures proposed as Atlantean; Monte Circeo (Leonardi) and Arpino(a) (Cassaro). Another aspect of Italian prehistory is the story of Tirrenide, which was described as a westward extension of the Italian landmass into the Tyrrhenian Sea during the last Ice Age, with a land bridge to a conjoined Sardinia and Corsica. At the same time, there were land links to Sicily and Malta, which were all destroyed as deglaciation took place and sea levels rose.

Cent MedIt is surprising that so few researchers have commented on Italy’s part in Plato’s Atlantis narrative considering that he twice, without any ambiguity, informs us that the Atlantean domain extended as far as Tyrrhenia (modern Tuscany).

Crit.114c. So all these, themselves and their descendants dwelt for many generations bearing rule over many other islands throughout the sea and holding sway besides, as was previously stated, over the Mediterranean peoples as far as Egypt and Tuscany.  Tim.25a/b. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvellous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover, of the lands here within the Straits they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tuscany. (Bury)

The quotation from Timaeus is most interesting because of its reference to a ‘continent’. Some have understandably but incorrectly claimed that this is a reference to America or Antarctica, when quite clearly it refers to southern Italy as part of the continent of Europe. Moreover, Herodotus is quite clear (4.42) that the ancient Greeks knew of only three continents, Europe, Asia and Libya.

Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD) in his On the Eternity of the World(g) wrote “Are you ignorant of the celebrated account which is given of that most sacred Sicilian strait, which in old times joined Sicily to the continent of Italy?” (v.139).>The name ‘Italy’ was normally used until the third century BC to describe just the southern part of the peninsula(e).<Some commentators think that Philo was quoting Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor. This would push the custom of referring to Italy as a ‘continent’ back near to the time of Plato. More recently, Armin Wolf, the German historian, when writing about Scheria relates(f) that “Even today, when people from Sicily go to Calabria (southern Italy) they say they are going to the ‘continente’.” This continuing usage is further confirmed by a current travel site(d) and by author, Robert Fox[1168.141]. I suggest that Plato used the term in a similar fashion and can be seen as offering the most rational explanation for the use of the word ‘continent’ in Timaeus 25a.

When you consider that close to Italy are located the large islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, as well as smaller archipelagos such as the Egadi, Lipari and Maltese groups, the idea of Atlantis in the Central Mediterranean can be seen as highly compatible with Plato’s description.

If we accept that Plato stated unambiguously that the domain of Atlantis included at least part of southern Italy and also declared that Atlantis attacked from beyond the Pillars of Heracles, then this appellation could not be applied at that time to any location in the vicinity of the Strait of Gibraltar but must have been further east, probably not too far from Atlantean Italy. This matches earlier alternative locations recorded by classical writers who placed the ‘Pillars’ at the straits of Messina or Sicily. I personally favour Messina, unless there is stronger evidence that some of the islands in or near the Strait of Sicily such as the Maltese or Pelagian Islands or Pantelleria were home to the ‘Pillars’.

(a) http://www.richardcassaro.com/hidden-italy-the-forbidden-cyclopean-ruins-of-giants-from-atlantis

(b) Archive 2509P (Eng) Archive 2943 (Ital)

(c) Archive 2946

(d) Four Ways to Do Sicily – Articles – Departures (archive.org)

(e) https://profilbaru.com/article/Name_of_Italy *

(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org)

(g) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book35.html  

(h) http://2010-q-conference.com/ophir/ophir-27-10-09.pdf

 

 
 

Italos

Italos was king of the Sicels who were early inhabitants of Sicily. It is claimed by the historian Thucydides that Italos gave his name to Italy.

Thorwald Franke submitted a paper to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in Athens in which he identified Atlas with Italos(a) and the island of Sicily with the island of Atlantis.

In October 2010, Franke revised his views(b), admitting that there were weaknesses in his original presentation which requires further research.

(a) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_italos.htm

(b) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/index_engl.htm

Atlas

Atlas was the first king of Atlantis and was the son of Poseidon according to the story of Atlantis from Plato. However, in traditionalatlas, Atlas was the son of the Titan, Iapetus, often identified with the biblical Japheth, and the nymph Clymene. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that the name Atlas is applied to more than one figure in Greek legends.

Atlas is usually portrayed kneeling with the world on his shoulders. However, the earliest known statue of Atlas, the 2nd century Farnese Atlas(c), which is a Roman copy of an older Greek statue, has the sky is represented as a sphere with a map of the stars and constellations known to the Ancient Greeks, which they represented as objects, animals and mythological creatures and characters. 16th century cartographers assumed that the globe represented the Earth, not the sky and since then it has been depicted accordingly.

Edwin Björkman noted the opinion that the name Atlas does not have a Greek root but is generally thought to have a Semitic origin. He also suggested the possibility that the name may have been derived from one of the Greek words for sea, thalassa.

However, Peter James points out[047.190] the name has a clear etymology in the Greek root ‘tlaô’ which can mean ‘to bear’, ‘to endure’ or ‘to dare’.>Tantalis, the capital of ancient Lydia, was apparently named after the legendary King Tantalus, its first king, who shared remarkable similarities with Atlas, the first king of Atlantis; they were both Titans, supported the heavens and had mountains named after them(f).<

Atlas has also been identified with both the Egyptian god Shu and the biblical Enoch, the latter being a more controversial concept. Lewis Spence went further and identified the Meso-American deity, Quetzalcoatl, with Atlas!

A somewhat more conventional view was offered by Thorwald Franke who has written a convincing paper(a) identifying Atlas with king Italos of the Sicels, who gave their name to Sicily and were one of the earliest groups to inhabit the island.

A more radical view has been put forward by Brit-Am writer John R.Salverda, who claims that the biblical Adam is the Atlas of Plato’s Atlantis narrative. A similar theory was proposed by Roger M. Pearlman in a 2018 booklet [1596]. In this small, difficult to read, book the author suggests, a linkage between the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah and Atlantis, places Atlantis in the Jordan Valley and equates Abraham with Atlas – If Atlas as described in Plato’s work was based on a historic figure, Abraham alone meets key criteria.”In a more recent paper(d), Pearlman also suggested that Göbekli Tepe was founded by Noah (Noach) and his sons!

Moving further east, the Hittites had an equivalent if not an original version of Atlas in the form of Tantalus. The Hittites in turn may have developed the identity from the Hurrian god Ubelleris. It was this Anatolian figure that led Peter James to his conclusion that Atlantis had been located in Turkey. Tantalus had a son Pelops, whom some consider Phrygian and according to Herodotus the Phrygians were the oldest race on earth.

Diego Ratti claims “that Atlantis was Avaris, capital of the Hyksos Kingdom and that king Atlas was Shamshi-Shu I: the Amorite Prince of Ugarit who in 1646 BC led a coalition of Foreign Kings to conquer Egypt starting the XV Dynasty of the ‘Hyksos’.”(e)

An even more extreme idea has been proposed by Sean Griffin that the yogic concept of ‘Kundalini’ is contained within part of Plato’s Atlantis story(b). Griffin begins his explanation by pointing out that Atlas is the medical term for the 33rd vertebra of the human spine!

(a) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_italos.htm

(b) https://www.scribd.com/doc/211332861/Atlantis-and-Kundalini

(c) https://www.dioi.org/ggg.htm

(d) https://www.academia.edu/38664571/Gobekli_Tepe_founded_by_Noah_and_sons

(e) Atletenu | Atletenu (archive.org) 

(f) https://www.jstor.org/stable/262536?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents *

Franke, Thorwald C.

Thorwald C. Franke was born in 1971 in Konstanz in southwest Germany. He studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe and now works as a software developer. Since 1999 he has been promoting the idea of Atlantis having been located in Sicily. He has written a paper, which makes the case for identifying Atlas with king Italos of the Sicels, who was one of the first tribes to inhabit Sicily and gave their name to the island.

In October 2010, Franke announced that a part of his theory has some elements in it that require further research(f).

He believes that the war with the Atlanteans was recorded by the Egyptians as the conflict with the Sea Peoples of whom the Sicilians are generally accepted to have been part.

Franke has a well-presented website(a), in English and German, where he cogently outlines his views. He has also written a lengthy, 23-page paper on the need for a classification of Atlantis theories. Even though this item is in German, English readers may find it quite interesting using their browser’s translator. Franke has also compiled an extensive list of Atlantis-related websites(d) that he expanded further in a new format in October 2011.

His paper for the 2nd Atlantis Conference in Athens in 2008 is available on the Internet(c) in which he expanded on his Sicilian location for Atlantis.

Franke has also published a book, in German[300] that focussed on Herodotus’ contribution to the Atlantis question(p). In the same paper, he dealt with the true meaning of the word meizon in Timaeus 24e which tells us that Atlantis was ‘greater’ than Asia and Libya combined, which he clarified as actually referring to their combined power rather than size. However, Franke proposed that the Egyptian word ‘wr’, whose primary meaning is ‘big’ and is sometimes used in a metaphorical  sense, may have influenced the wording of the Greek text

Then in a more recent (2010) book[706] regarding Aristotle and Atlantis, he disputes the generally perceived view that Aristotle did not accept the existence of Atlantis. He builds his case on an 1816 misinterpretation by a French mathematician, Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, of a 1587 commentary on Strabo’s Geographica by Isaac Casaubon. Combined with other evidence he has presented a case that removes the only prominent classical writer alleged to have dismissed the existence of Atlantis. In late 2012 Franke published an English translation with the title of Aristotle and Atlantis[880]. Franke’s views regarding Aristotle have been well received and his book is frequently cited, most recently by Dhani Irwanto in his Atlantis: The Lost City is in the Java Sea[1093.110].

Franke has now augmented his book on Aristotle with a YouTube video in English(l) and German(m). This important book can now be read on the Researchgate website.(ae)

2012 also saw the publication, by Franke, of the first English translation of Gunnar Rudberg’s 1917 monograph Atlantis och Syrakusai, now Atlantis and Syracuse[881]. This is a welcome addition to Atlantis literature in English. Students of the Atlantis mystery owe a debt of gratitude to Herr Franke.

In 2006, Franke published a paper outlining Wilhelm Brandenstein’s contribution to Atlantology which in 2013 he published in English(g).  This was followed by a translation(h) of his overview of the work of Massimo Pallattino, who had adopted some of Brandenstein’s approaches to the Atlantis question.

On the 30th of May 2013, Franke announced(i) that his Atlantis Newsletter, which until now was only available in German, in future will also be published in English. Today he discusses the antics of extremist Atlantis sceptics and the abuse of Wikipedia. I encourage everyone to register and congratulate Thorwald on this development.

There is also a video clip available of Franke showing his library of Atlantis-related books(e). 2017 has seen Franke produce a number of 30-minute videos, which readers will find informative. They are available in both German and English, (Just Google Plato’s Atlantis – Thorwald C. Franke – YouTube).

Franke has now (July 2013) revamped his website (https://www.atlantis-scout.de/)

More recently, July 2016 saw the publication, in German, of Kritische Geschichte der Meinungen und Hypothesen zu Platons Atlantis[1255] (Critical history of the hypotheses on Plato’s Atlantis). This tome of nearly 600 pages will undoubtedly be a valuable addition to any serious researcher’s library. There is a promotional video, in German, to go with it(j). Hopefully, an English translation of the book will follow. However, Franke does provide an English summary of the book(af). In June 2021, Franke announced the publication of the second edition of this remarkable book, but again, in German only. It is now in two volumes, totalling over 800 pages, which include hundreds of new references(y). Two publications in one week is a record to be proud of.

In June 2018, Franke published a YouTube video in English(r) and German(s) highlighting how Plato’s 9,000 years have been alternatively accepted and then rejected many times over since the time of Plato. Franke proposes that the 9,000 years recorded by Plato were comparable with the accepted age of Egypt in his day, at 11,00 years. However, archaeology has demonstrated that Egypt was only 3,000 years old or less when Plato was alive, suggesting that the 9,000 should be reduced by a comparable amount to arrive at the real-time of Atlantis.

In his Newsletter No.90, Franke has highlighted that a small German right-wing group, Pro Deutschland’, has cited on their website the ‘superior civilisation’ of Atlantis in support of their extremist views.

Franke’s Newsletter No. 103 has now provided us with five parallel versions of the Atlantis texts(n), Two English; Jowett & Bury and Two German; Susemihl & Müller as well as a Greek text from the Scottish classicist John Burnet (1863 – 1928)[1492].

Franke’s Newsletter No.104 offers an overview of the difficulties involved in accepting Plato’s writings too literally(o). He gives particular attention to the 9,000 years claimed to have elapsed between the Atlantean War and Solon’s visit to Egypt.

In November 2017, Franke published an uncompromising critique(q) of Stephen P. Kershaw’s recent book, A Brief History of Atlantis[1410].

Franke has now published two new videos(t), in both German and English, in which he reviews a number of Atlantis-related books, both supportive and sceptical. He does so in his usual balanced manner and also exhorts students of Atlantology to learn German to have access to important works only available in that language.

The difficulty of independent researchers getting their work published in academic journals was highlighted by Franke some time ago(a). However, he has had some academic recognition(a) and has modified his view on the function of the academic press vis-á-vis independent writers(a).

In June 2021, Franke announced the publication of his latest book(x). Platonische Mythen (Platonic Myths)[1858],  currently in German only. In May 2022 a favourable review, also in German, of Franke’s book was published on the atlantisforschung.de website(ag). I have archived an English translation in atlantipedia.ie(ah).

The following month, Franke published Newsletter No.175 in which he accuses the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR) of scientific bias and inconsistency(z). The full Newsletter should be read but in particular his conclusions below.

“Let us sum up what we have: BMCR claims to accept no self-published books, but it did review such a book [mine-AO’C]. BMCR claims that it accepts only peer-reviewed books, but besides the question, of what this exactly means, they do indeed review books that were not peer-reviewed. BMCR claims to accept translations but did not accept the translation of Gunnar Rudberg [Franke’s]. BMCR claims to review bad Atlantis books of a certain intelligence in order to debunk them, but at the same time, they avoided a review of a bad book by an Atlantis sceptical Oxford scholar. They claim to treat every author with respect but failed to do so in my case, and not only once. And the same scholar who admits that his scientific view was impacted (!) by one of my books writes BMCR reviews about other Atlantis books, but my books are not reviewed. Long story short: BMCR acts in an arbitrary way and damages its credibility. They screwed up everything that can be screwed up. And it was not me who lead them up the garden path. They did that all by themselves.”

In Franke’s Newsletter No.158 published in early 2021, he reviewed a lecture, previously unknown to him, given by Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, in Bologna, a few years ago(aa) during which he apparently misrepresented Franke’s Atlantis theories. Shortly afterward Nesselrath issued a rather intemperate reply to Franke’s criticisms.(ab) A further document(ac) from Franke detailed his continuing annoyance with what he perceives as ‘a breach of trust’ on the part of Nesselrath. Now in August 2021, Nesselrath has reignited matters again with a further assault on Franke’s views(ad), many of which I share. In a further postscript dated 20.08.21(ab) Franke fired off a few more salvos. I think it’s time for an armistice?

However, in April 2023, Franke issued his Newsletter No. 212(ao), with the following introduction;

“Professor Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has once again written and published two PDF articles(ak)(al) to defend his Atlantis scepticism against the arguments brought up by me. One is directed against my internet article “The Dark Side of Atlantis Scepticism” from 2021, based on my book about the reception history of Plato’s Atlantis story from 2016/2021. The other one makes the attempt to undermine especially the literary arguments of Wilhelm Brandenstein, which I cultivated and will cultivate even more in my next publication.”

Franke responded with two papers(am)(an) that should be read in their entirety.

Franke’s Newsletter #193 reviews an interview with sceptic Flint Dibble(ai). He followed that in July 2022 (#194) with a critique of an article ‘Not Exactly Atlantis’ by Professor Carolina López-Ruiz that Franke identifies as over-dependent on the arguments of promoters of the ‘invention hypothesis’ particularly those of Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Diskin Clay. Franke then proceeded to offer a list of her many errors(aj).

>In January 2024, Franke published his Newsletter #215(ao) where he references a 2023 Graham Hancock lecture(ap) in which “He just takes the numbers in Plato’s text literally, and on this basis he makes his conclusions and calculations. He never asks the question, not for a second, that Plato’s numbers could be wrong. Wrong in a very typical and understandable way, when looking to the historical context. Because, all the ancient Greeks were wrong about the age of Egypt (where the Atlantis story allegedly, or really, had come from). They thought, Egypt was 10,000 years old, and older. But in fact, Egypt was founded only around 3,000 BC. Therefore, if an ancient Greek text points to an event 9,000 years before its time, of which it got to know from Egypt, this means in fact a time after 3,000 BC.

Once you realize this, the whole narrative of a prehistorical Ice Age civilization melts down to nothing, and a completely different picture of the Atlantis question appears.<

(a) http://www.thorwalds-internetseiten.de

(c) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_sicily.htm

(d) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlanlinks.htm

(e)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r2yDLEYfjA

(f) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/index_engl.htm

(g) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_brandenstein_engl.htm

(h) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_pallottino_engl.htm

(i) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm

(j) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1orj7aqdTo

(k) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm

(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inWb6IVNWFQ (English)

(m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDG7a09xkZE (German)

(n) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-timaeus-critias-synopsis.htm

(o) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-historical-critical-engl.htm

(p) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/Franke_Herodotus_Atlantis2008_Proceedings.pdf

(q) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/kershaw-brief-history-atlantis-review-engl.htm

(r) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2RlO_vhk8c

(s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb-24rxELnc

(u) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-academic-journals-engl.htm

(v) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-success-engl.htm

(w) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm

(x)(y) https://www.amazon.de/Bücher-Thorwald-C-Franke/s?rh=n:186606,p_27:Thorwald+C.+Franke

(z) The scientific bias of the BMCR review – Atlantis-Scout

(aa) Review of: Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, News from Atlantis? 2017. (atlantis-scout.de)  (See first half

(ab) Review of: Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, News from Atlantis? 2017. (atlantis-scout.de) (See last half) 

(ac) Severe breach of trust by Heinz-Günther Nesselrath (atlantis-scout.de)

(ad) (99+) (PDF) And still no evidence for Atlantis … On Thorwald C. Franke’s further reactions to my refutation of his Atlantis hypothesis | Heinz-Günther Nesselrath – Academia.edu

(ae) (PDF) Aristotle and Atlantis – What did the philosopher really think about Plato’s island empire? (researchgate.net) 

(af) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-geschichte-hypothesen.htm 

(ag) Buchbesprechung: Thorwald C. Franke: Platonische Mythen – Atlantisforschung.de 

(ah) Archive 7104 | (atlantipedia.ie)

(ai) Atlantis Newsletter Archive – Atlantis-Scout  

(aj) Review of: Carolina López-Ruiz, Not Exactly Atlantis – Atlantis-Scout

(ak) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369918810_In_Defense_of_Atlantis_Scepticism_Countering_Thorwald_C_Franke’s_Misleading_Allegations_2023/link/64343f9aad9b6d17dc4b75dc/download 

(al) (99+) Revisiting a Flawed Atlantis Classic: W. Brandenstein, Atlantis, Größe und Untergang eines geheimnisvollen Inselreiches, 2023 | Heinz-Günther Nesselrath – Academia.edu 

(am) Response to: In Defense of Atlantis Scepticism – Countering Thorwald C. Franke’s Misleading Allegations, by Heinz-Günther Nesselrath – Atlantis-Scout 

(an) Review of: Nesselrath, Revisiting a Flawed Atlantis Classic: W. Brandenstein, Atlantis – Atlantis-Scout 

(ao) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm

(ap) Graham Hancock: Beyond Ancient Apocalypse | Presentation @ Logan Hall, London – YouTube *