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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Oera Linda Book

Winder, David

David Winder is the author of Mysterien der Bronzezeit (Mysteries of the Bronze Age) [1936]. He is in some agreement with the Atlantis theories of Paul Borchardt, Albert Herrmann and Ulrich Hofmann, who all placed Atlantis in the northwest region of Africa. However, Winder’s views are somewhat tainted by an over-dependence on the possibly dubious Oera Linda Book.

Winder also claims that the Typhon story, the attacks of the Sea Peoples and the Trojan War were all part of the same event. Just as unlikely is his dating of the biblical Deluge at 1050 BC.

The atlantisforschung.de website offers a critical review of Winder’s book that ends up looking into the murky waters of racism. Atlantisforschung ends up describing Winder’s offering as ‘Just Disgusting’!(a)

>However, I note that Winder was subsequently invited to write a paper for Atlantisforschung, outlining his theories! Regarding the location of Atlantis, he insists that “It should now be clear to everyone that this can only be the Chott el Djerid(b).<

(a) Buchbesprechung: David Winder: Mysterien der Bronzezeit – Atlantisforschung.de

(b) Atlantis: Vom Mythos zur Realität – Atlantisforschung.de  (German)  *

2200 BC *

2200 BC is frequently referred to as a time of great social and political upheaval in the Mediterranean and what used to be called the Near East. It is also considered to mark the beginning of the Bronze Age in Central Europe(h).

Helmut Tributsch suggested that the island of Gavrinis near Carnac in Brittany had been the capital of this Atlantean civilisation(d). He dated the destruction of Atlantis to 2200 BC.

The Bronze Age in the Mediterranean region saw two periods of great political turbulence, the first, around 2200 BC and the second a millennium later, generally known as the Bronze Age Collapse.

In 2001 Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, studied ancient reports that so many people had died from hunger in southern Egypt that people had resorted to cannibalism. Hassan found evidence of extreme weather conditions around 2200 BC both in Egypt and further afield from a study of cores from ancient lakes(c).

According to some commentators, the Los Millares culture also ended around the same time. W. Sheppard Baird in a paper on the Sea Peoples maintains that the Los Millares culture lasted until 2200 BC and was succeeded by the Argaric named after the el Argar site.

The Oera Linda Book puts the destruction of Atlantis circa 2200 BC(f).

Two of Gavin Menzies‘ specific claims are that transoceanic travel began 100,000 years ago and that the Chinese regularly began visiting America from 2200 BC!

Dr Anton Mifsud has used the reign of King Ninus of Assyria as an anchor for his preferred date for the destruction of Atlantis, in Malta, of around 2200 BC. He points out [209] that Eumelos of Cyrene dated the demise of Plato’s island to the reign of Ninus and links this with the calculation of the Roman historian Aemilius Sura (2nd cent. BC) who placed the reign of Ninus around 2192 BC. Several other authorities attribute similar dates to his reign as recorded by John Jackson in volume one of his 1752 Chronological Antiquities [1555.251].

The collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom also took place around 2200 BC.

A 2022 paper(g) by Huw S. Groucutt et al. has investigated the coincidence of the ending of the Temple Building Period in Malta with the so-called 4.2 ka Event, thought by many to be the result of climate change. However, this would need to coincide with a severe seismic or tectonic event on Malta in order to support Mifsud’s theory of a Maltese Atlantis.

Timo Niroma (? – 2009) from Helsinki in Finland had an extensive website(e) in which he discussed various worldwide catastrophes including two main events around 2200 BC and 3100 BC.

In 2001, Tom Slattery published a paper(a) regarding the Comet Hale-Bopp which had been discovered 1n 1995. He speculated that it may have been seen much earlier in 2213 BC and that a fragment of it may have struck the Earth with dire consequences and may have been the trigger for the widespread collapse of civilisations around 2200! While comets are traditionally considered to be harbingers of doom, they certainly were in this instance when “thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide in March 1997 with the intention of teleporting to a spaceship which they believed was flying behind the comet.”(b)

(a) http://www.mgr.org/comet3.html

(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale–Bopp

(c) BBC News | SCI/TECH | Disaster that struck the ancients

(d)Die gläsernen Türme von Atlantis: Erinnerungen an Megalith-EuropaDie gläsernen Türme von Atlantis: Erinnerungen an Megalith-EuropaDie gläsernen Türme von Atlantis: Erinnerungen an Megalith-Europa – Helmut Tributsch (archive.org)  (German)  *

(e) Astronomical Aspects of Mankind’s Past and Present, Jupiter and Sun, Solar Influence upon Climate (archive.org)

(f) https://earth-history.com/europe/book-the-oera-linda-book/1173-oera-intro  

(g) (PDF) The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period” (researchgate.net)

(h) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139705&type=printable 

Frisland *

Frisland is the name given to one of the legendary islands of the North Atlantic, ‘located’ just south of Iceland. The story goes that it was discovered around 1380 by the Venetian, Nicolo Zeno (1326-1402) and that a record of his adventures there, together with a now-famous map (see below), was published in 1558 by a descendant. A decade later the celebrated Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), published a comparable map, which also showed Frisland at much the same location and with a similar outline. Cornelius Wytfliet produced a map of the North Atlantic in 1597 depicting Frisland at the same location(c). It did not take long for doubts to be expressed about both the map and its accompanying narrative. Donald S. Johnson in his excellent Phantom Islands of the Atlantic[0652] concluded that Frisland was probably a case of ‘mistaken identity’, incorporating “the geography of the Faroe Islands and the contour of Iceland.”

The Malagabay website offers a comprehensive illustrated review of the cartographic evidence favouring the relatively recent existence of Frisland(k).

A January 2018 National Geographic article(e) also discusses the story of non-existent islands, including Frisland, which are the subject of a new book, The Un-Discovered Islands[1545], by Malachy Tallack.

Stuart L. Harris has identified Frisland as the Hyperborea of Greek mythology and Atland in the controversial Oera Linda Book (i) and in a second paper(j), he describes its demise on October 24th, 2194 BC and the catastrophic consequences “when it partially slid down the Judd Anticline toward the Icelandic Basin, 2 km deep. A remnant remained, the Faroe Plateau, topped by the Faroe Islands. The resulting tsunami, about 185m high, terminated other groups of islands, plus the Bell Beaker people in Britain and Ireland, plus most farmers in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, Poland, Finland and Estonia.”

Riaan Booysen who controversially locates Atlantis on a large landmass of which Australia is a ‘remnant’(a) has also written about Frisland(b). He concluded that Frisland along with many other ‘mythical’ North Atlantic islands shown on Mercator’s map can be matched with present-day underwater features in the ‘relatively’ shallow waters suggesting that they were dry land during the last Ice Age when sea levels were considerably lower. He believes that their inclusion on extant maps is the result of copying much earlier charts that recorded those exposed landmasses.

D.S. Allan & J.B. Delair in their acclaimed book Cataclysm [0014] discuss the Zeno map at some length and conclude that its depiction of Greenland is based on earlier maps, “which apparently antedate Greenland’s present glacial regime” and “there are, apparently no genuine arguments for regarding the Zeno map – curious though it may seem to modern eyes – as portraying anything but that which actually once existed on Greenland in the not so very remote past.” [p.249]

Dr. Gunnar  Thompson, the author of Early New World Maps(m), has offered a staunch defence of the reliability of the Zeno Map, including the following interesting comment  “I suspected that maps of Frisland were made in the 13th or 14th century using the magnetic compass – thus, all Frisland Maps were disoriented with respect to true geographical coordinates as seen on modern maps. I further suspected that the error of declination could be resolved by tipping the maps upside down to account for the fact that in the 14th century, the Magnetic North Pole was situated someplace between Labrador and Foxe Basin near Baffin Island. The magnetic error was about 180°.”(l)

Jason Colavito has also highlighted the controversy surrounding the Zeno Map (see below)(d).

At the end of September 2018, the UK’s Daily Star, a well-known comic for adults, tried to revive the idea of Atlantis in Frisland(f). They based their brief article on the speculations of Matt Sibson, presented as an ‘expert’, who admits that “there are still some questions that need clearing up.” I would like to know why Frislanders in the middle of the last Ice Age would want to attack a non-existent Athens 4,000 km away? If Sibson is considered to be an expert historian, my cat is a brain surgeon. Colavito had a few words to add regarding Sibson’s pathetic claims(g).

Incredibly, a week later the same ‘newspaper’ cited Sibson again, this time claiming that Rockall was the remains of Atlantis(h), an equally silly idea that is not new.

Zeno-map

Zeno-map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(a) http://www.riaanbooysen.com/ *

(b) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus/87-terraproof1?start=7 (link broken)

(c) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20191013063349/https://lib-dbserver.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/northwest-passage/wytfliet.htm

(d) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/apps/search?q=Zeno+Map

(e) Ancient Maps Show Islands That Don’t Really Exist (archive.org) 

(f) https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/732388/Atlantis-found-Brit-historian-sunken-lost-city-coast-Ireland-conspiracy-video

(g) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/dissecting-this-past-weekends-faulty-claims-about-ancient-history

(h) https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/734235/Atlantis-pictured-tip-lost-city-discovered-Ireland-British-historian-video

(i) https://www.academia.edu/36044603/Identification_of_Hyperborea_with_Atland_and_Frisland

(j) https://www.academia.edu/36044703/Catastrophic_demise_of_Hyperborea_Atland_Frisland_on_October_24_2194_BC?email_work_card=view-paper

(k) Finding Frisland | MalagaBay (wordpress.com) 

(l) The Isle of Frisland on Zeno Map (1380) is Real! – Ancient America 

(m) Early New World Maps – Ancient America 

 

Atlantis II Deep (l)

Atlantis II Deep is the name of the largest submarine basin in the Red Sea reaching a maximum depth of 7,160 feet where hot brine is produced at 56°C. The Red Sea is an extension of the Rift Valley and is in a tectonically active region.

Atlantis II Deep

Gene Matlock quotes Rajeswar Gupta(a), the Bengali historian, who states that the Red Sea and the Mediterranean had in earlier times been connected by a strait. Coincidentally, the controversial Oera Linda Book supports this contention(b).

(a) https://www.mondovista.com/ancientturks.html

(b) https://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/olb/olb29.htm
(p.105)

Bergquist, Nils Olof

Nils Olof Bergquist (1897-1989) was a Swedish engineer with an interest in ancient history. In 1954 he published The Moon Puzzle[786]  which is probably a reworking of his 1946 Swedish publication[1186]. In it he describes a very close encounter of the earth with a large extraterrestrial body some millions of years ago. As it grazed the earth it caused the ejection of a large mass from what is now the Pacific Ocean. This mass became our Moon.

Although his theories differ in many respects from those of Hörbiger, Bergquist never once referred to Hörbiger’s ideas, which were still popular at that time. Berquist was content to link together the Deluge of Genesis, the Atlantis story and the Nordic Niflhem saga.

>The Dellen Lakes of Central Sweden were identified by Bergquist as having been formed by material from the Moon which fell down as a meteorite on the surface of the Earth(a)!<

In 1971, he published, in Swedish, Ymdogat-Atlantis[785]which looked at Atlantis in the light of Norse mythology. He also studied The Oera Linda Book and in the end endorsed the Dogger Bank as the most likely location of Atlantis.

(a) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/11035896809451894?journalCode=sgff19 *

Linear A

Linear A (1800-1450 BC) is the designation given to one of two scripts used by the Minoans. Although Linear B, which has been deciphered, is similar to Linear A, there have been many failed attempts to decipher it, variously linking it to the Greek, Etruscan, Tyrhennian, Anatolian or Persian(d)  languages. The most exotic suggestion that I have encountered is that Linear A is related to Japanese(l).

Linear A-2

However, there is some evidence that a writing system was in use in Greece as far back as the sixth millennium BC, which was not adopted from the Phoenicians(h).

Patrick Archer moved further east for a solution, claiming that Linear A is possibly related to Chinese pictographs! Gretchen Leonhardt(m) also sought a solution in the East, offering a proto-Japanese origin for the script, a theory refuted by Yurii Mosenkis(j), who promotes Minoan Linear A as proto-Greek. Mosenkis has published a number of papers on the Academia.edu relating to Linear A(k)(q)*. 

Another of the many exotic solutions was offered by the American, Stuart Harris, who identified the language as being related to Finnish(a)(f)(g). Harris also quotes the controversial Oera Linda Book as evidence that the Cretans spoke Finnish (e). He follows Felice Vinci in identifying the Baltic as the source of much of Greek culture including Homer’s epics(b), in which connection they both locate Troy in Finland.

So far, no single translation theory has gained general acceptance.

Nevertheless, I have always been surprised that the British who managed to unravel the workings of the German Enigma Machine during World War II have failed to decipher Linear A, even though today’s supercomputers are so far ahead of what Alan Turing had to work with, Linear A remains undecoded!

In 2018, Brent Davis, one of the leading experts on Bronze Age Aegean scripts and languages published a paper in which “based on a close statistical analysis, shows that the while both the Phaistos Disc and Linear A are undeciphered writing systems, he can demonstrate that the both are, with a high degree of certainty, encode the same language!”(i)

Material quantity was another advantage that Michael Ventris had in deciphering Linear B. There were 20,000 examples of Linear B signs occurring in inscriptions, compared to just 7,000 examples of Linear A signs, which Davis notes “is about three-to-four A4 pages worth. Mathematicians tell us that if we are to crack Linear A, we’ll need something like 10,000 to 12,000 examples of signs, which means we aren’t that far away, – but it all depends on archaeology. Discoveries are still being made, so I’m optimistic, but what we really need to find is a palace archive, which is where we are likely to find enough Linear A to finally decipher it.”(p)

In an article by Ashley Cowie, he highlighted the work of Professor Silvia Ferrara of Rome’s Sapienza University and her recent decipherment of Linear A numerical fractions using new computational models along with traditional methods(n).

In 2021  Dr Ester Salgarella published her latest investigations into the genetic relationship between Linear A and Linear B, which should assist with the eventual decipherment of the former.(o)

>In 2022, Mark Cook, a forensic accountant, took a fresh look at Linear A and concluded  “The Linear A Tablets are partially complete accounting records so an accountant reviewing them makes sense”. His approach to deciphering Linear A is revealed in his book Rewriting History: The decipherment of Linear A [2075]. A review by Zeta Xekalaki is available(r).<

(a) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?subject=linguistics&id=281

(b) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?subject=linguistics&id=301

(c) https://patrickofatlantis.com/

(d) Sinking Atlantis | Full Episode | Secrets of the Dead | PBS (archive.org)

(e) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2011&id=279

(f)  https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2011&id=282

(g) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2011&id=283

(h) Greek Writing System Spans Millennia and Did Not Originate From the Phoenicians – HistoryDisclosure.com (archive.org) 

(i) https://gath.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/brent-davis-on-the-languages-of-the-phaistos-disc-and-linear-a/

(j) Gretchen Leonhardt is up against some stiff competition from Urii Mosenkis concerning her so-called proto-Japanese origins of Minoan Linear A | Minoan Linear A, Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae (archive.org)

(k) https://www.academia.edu/31443689/Researchers_of_Greek_Linear_A

(l) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-3930-2/

(m) https://konosos.net/2011/12/12/similarities-between-the-minoan-and-the-japanese-cultures/

(n) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/linear-script-0014236

(o) http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/minoan-linear-a-script-09329.html 

(p) https://brewminate.com/minoan-linear-a-how-do-you-crack-the-code-to-a-lost-ancient-script/

(q) (99+) Researchers of Greek Linear A | iurii mosenkis – Academia.edu *

(r) https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/publishig/mark-cook-rewriting-history/ *

Raubenheimer, Alewyn J.

Alewyn J. Raubenheimer is a retired South African engineer and a member raubenheimerof the South African Archaeological Society. In 2010 he published Survivors of the Great Tsunami[0744], in which he links Noah’s Deluge with the flood, dated at 2193 BC, which is referred to in the controversial Oera Linda Book. He suggests that this flood was caused by the impact of the asteroid which created the submarine Burkle Crater in the Indian Ocean.

Raubenheimer touches on the subject of Atlantis, but is reluctant to identify it with the Atland destroyed in the Oera Linda Book.

Raubenheimer’s defence of the OLB has generated considerable support(a)(b).

On the other hand while there is little doubt that the OLB is also widely believed to be a hoax or a forgery, a contribution to Wikipedia on the subject notes that “The current article mentions several times that the book is a hoax/parody/forgery. The sources (from the article) which I have been able to check do not go in to detail about why the book is a hoax.(c)

(a) https://www.merkuriusz.wieczorna.pl/historia-starozytna/pseudohistoria-czy-autentyczna-relacja-ksiega-oera-linda  (Polish) (offline Jan. 2018)

(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20161012193633/https://home.nordnet.fr/~jacfermaut/pointdevueheemstra02.html (French)

(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oera_Linda_Book

North Sea

The North Sea has been advocated by a variety of writers as the original site of Atlantis. Jürgen Spanuth specified his native Heligoland as its location in his well-researched work, Atlantis of the North[015]. >However, Spanuth was not the first to make this suggestion as Heinrich Pudor, had advocated Helgoland as Atlantis in the 1930’s [1693][1694], but was unreferenced by Spanuth.<

Robert Scrutton drew heavily on the contents of the controversial Oera Linda Book to support his view of an Atlantis or Atlantean colony in the Frisian Islands of the North Sea[117][118].

Georg Lohle in his book[446] on world history identifies a location between England and Denmark that was inundated about 2000 BC. He also makes extensive use of the Oera Linda Book. His German language website(a) has a wide range of photos and diagrams. Lohle daringly resurrects the old idea of the Earth being hollow and then combines it with another controversial concept, namely that it is still expanding(b).

In the middle of the 20th century we find Robert Graves and Rachel Carson were probably the first to suggest the Dogger Bank as the location of Atlantis. More recently Jean Deruelle(e), Sylvain Tristan(c) and Guy Gervis(d) have all opted for a location near the Dogger Bank, now more popularly known as Doggerland.

The most recent challenger for the Atlantis title is located in the vicinity of Rockall, an uninhabited islet north west of Ireland.

(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161113122829/https://www.erdexpansion.de/atlantis.htm

(b) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180307141731/https://www.grisda.org/origins/15053.htm

(c) See: https://spcov.free.fr/site_nicoulaud/en/empire.php

(d) See: Archive 3606

(e) https://doggerbank.org/

 

Niroma, Timo

Timo Niroma (? – 2009) from Helsinki in Finland had an extensive website(a) that discusses various worldwide catastrophes including two main events around 2200 BC and 3100 BC. The former supports the suggested Atlantis destruction date of Anton Mifsud while the latter date agrees with the work of Duncan Steel and David Furlong. Niroma touched on the Atlantis question and seemed to support an Atlantic location destroyed by an extraterrestrial impact. He also seemed inclined to accept that Oera Linda Book may have some historical value.

Niroma was an astrophysicist who was convinced that global warming was about to change and that based on his study of sunspot activity over the past three centuries he anticipated(b) a return to a mini Ice Age!

As early as the 1960’s Niroma identified Lake Lappajärvi in his native Finland as an impact crater, an idea that was greeted with almost universal scorn. In time he was proven correct and subsequently a further seven impact sites have been found in Finland(c).

Niroma has also examined the distribution of the planets in an effort to understand the mechanics behind Bode’s Law(d).

Readers are encouraged to study Niroma’s work.

 (a)  Astronomical Aspects of Mankind’s Past and Present, Jupiter and Sun, Solar Influence upon Climate (archive.org)

(b) The Cyclicity of Sunspots (archive.org)

(c) https://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind9801&L=TIE-L&E=0&P=92156&B=–&T=text%2Fplain

>(d) As Above So Below – Timo Niroma | MalagaBay (archive.org)<

Lohle, Georg

Georg Lohle is a German researcher, but unfortunately, he has had his book, Die Weltgeschichte – Der wahre Ursprung[446], only published in German. However, Lohle’s website(a) has a considerable amount of its content in English. There are a number of excerpts from his book, in German, that can be read online(c).

His book has chapter two focused on Atlantis, in which he relies heavily on the controversial Oera Linda Book and not surprisingly leads Lohle to believe that its location was in the middle of the North Sea.

Lohle is also a keen exponent of the ‘Expanding Earth Hypothesis’ and he has compounded his nonconformist views with his acceptance of the old theory of a ‘hollow’ Earth.

The prominent Australian geologist Dr. James Maxlow is also a supporter of the idea of an expanding Earth and estimates that it is currently doing so at a rate of 22mm per year. A more technical explanation of the theory, in English, can be found elsewhere on the Internet(b).

A report in early 2007 added a further confusing element to the subject when it was announced by Dr. Chris MacLeod, of Cardiff University, that the earth’s crust appeared to be completely missing in an area thousands of kilometres across in the Atlantic between Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160731211043/https://www.vanaheim.de

(b) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180307141731/https://www.grisda.org/origins/15053.htm

(c) https://www.hohle-erde.de/?s=Georg+Lohle