Archive 3327

Statement on the Alleged Discovery of Atlantis Off Cyprus

Introduction

The news on the alleged discovery of Atlantis off the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea by Robert Sarmast and his team is hitting the worldwide media real hard. And justly so, since the importance of the discovery – were it real – cannot be overstated. Atlantis is really the same as the Garden of Eden. So, Atlantis’ discovery would also correspond to the finding of Terrestrial Paradise featured in the sacred traditions of most peoples on earth, who all hold similar beliefs, one way or the other: Buddhists, Hinduists, Muslims, Native Americans, and so forth.

As the result of these astounding news, I have been assailed by a host of friends, correspondents and readers of my site and my books, as well as the participants of this Atlantis Forum. They are interested in my opinion and my comments on this important matter, whose details and features generally transcend their competence on certain specific issues such as: Climatology, the Ice Ages, Sea Level Rise, Side-scan Sonar, Plato’s writings, Volcanology, Maritime Archaeology, etc..

Above all, my readers want to know whether this alleged discovery is merely another “publicity stunt” on the part of Robert Sarmast and his associates, or a real achievement done in a thoroughly scientific way, as alleged. After all, the financial interests involved are simply huge. And when money is involved, some people often misbehave.

Not only would Cyprus itself greatly profit from the enormous tourist traffic increase which is bound to occur if the island actually proves to be the real site of the Lost Continent of Atlantis. And this perhaps explains, they all fear, the involvement of the CTO ( Cyprus Tourist Office ), which apparently funded a substantial portion of the substantial cost of the expedition.

As Sarmast himself said : “The discovery could mean a tourism bonanza for Cyprus once the word gets out”. However, even some Cypriot authorities are skeptical of Sarmast’s find, and think his theory farfetched and highly unlikely. According to a CNN report , the chief government archaeologist of Cyprus, Dr. Pavlos Flourentzos, reacted with skepticism to Sarmast’s allegations, telling The Associated Press that: “More proof is necessary”.

And he also added he thinks that “this is all nonsense”. Flourentzos also correctly points out that Plato specifically affirmed that Atlantis was not within the Mediterranean Sea, but outside it, in the Outer Ocean. Dr. Michel Morisseau , a French geologist who lives on the island of Cyprus, is also highly skeptical of Sarmast’s theory and claimed finds.

The specialist even challenged Sarmast to a public debate on the issue, an offer which was apparently rejected by the would-be discoverer. Dr. Morisseau thinks it is highly unlikely that the lost city would have survived such a terrible cataclysm. In his own words, Dr. Morisseau told the Cyprus Mail yesterday: “I was shocked by the news because it has nothing to do with the geological facts and we have to be extremely careful in such announcements”.

Robert Sarmast – and his financial backers such as editors, film producers, media agents, and so forth – would certainly have a lot to gain, one way or the other. If their results really prove positive, they all justifiably earn fame and fortune. But if it turns out to be a flop, they simply pocket and retain the enormous amounts of money which will in no way be returned to their original disbursers. Someone once said that “a fool and his money are easily parted”. And most people reasonably fear being made fools. So, they prefer to consult someone they deem a qualified expert, which is what most people do: judges, politicians, the police, antiquarians, art collectors, and so forth. They want to hear the other side of the history. They want to hear the other side of the story. And such is the real reason which prompted me to write this piece.

Most unfortunately, the experts – the academic specialists, the members of research foundations and the professional scientists – normally refuse to opine on the matter, as they are all scared stiff at the simple mention of the word “Atlantis”, a subject they won’t touch even with a six-foot pole. But they are often willing to point out the obvious hoaxes and falsifications of truth, since bashing Atlantis is politically and scientifically correct.

Being so unilateral, however, the opinion of the academic and professional experts should not normally count a whole lot, and should be looked on as biased, unless it is strictly related to scientific matters inside their own speciality, rather than sheer feeling or mere opinion on matters which often transcend their very limited competence. Said otherwise, one should also be skeptic of incurable skeptics as of all those who have an axe to grind one way or the other.

Moreover, one should keep in mind that the fact that we have a great many hoaxed “finds” of Atlantis and so many sincere but wrong locations which do not stand a closer analysis does not rule out the possibility of Atlantis’ existence in any way. This would be tantamount to basing a seemingly logical conclusion on Induction.

And it is now known – after Hume’s work and that of other philosophers – that Induction is not a valid reasoning process David Hume – the famous Scottish philosopher – pointed out in the 18th. century that the fact that the sun rises every day does not at all prove that it is certain that it will rise tomorrow. Something might happen: the sun may go out; the earth can be struck off its orbit, the atmosphere may be darkened by a supervolcanism, and so on.

Consider yet another problem. The fact that so many phony “Holy Crosses”, “Holy Lances”, “Holy Sudarios” and even “Holy Prepuces” produced over the years does not prove that Christ never existed at all, or even that the genuine relics do not exist. They might still be found. And the same is true of Atlantis. Perhaps, all it takes to find Atlantis is to start looking in the right places… Note Added in Proof:

It is recomforting to verify that scams and mistakes such as the one in question here are fated to be rather short-lived nowadays. But Sarmast’s one lasted only a couple of days before it was denounced. Well, this is the problem with choosing a region of the world which is crisscrossed daily by all sorts of researchers, oceanographers and volcanologists included.

Despite these developments – which often happen faster than one is able to write on them – we still believe that our opinion is valid and necessary, particularly to in order to orient the myriads of fans of Atlantis stout enough to keep hoping for better days ahead.

According to a German specialist – Dr. Christian Huebscher, a volcanologist of the reputed Hamburg Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Hamburg – Sarmast’s claims are simply wrong, and “what appeared to be remains of the lost city were in fact submarine volcanoes… [and that] he had identified the phenomenon as 100,000 year-old volcanoes that spewed mud”.

Read this article here: Atlantis Not Found: Mud, Anyone? See more on this here . Cf. also: all 175 related pieces of news . The opinion of Dr. Huebscher expressed in that article deserves to be quoted more in full:

According to Huebscher, however, “these [structures] are old mud volcanoes that are approximately 100,000 years old. These volcanoes were produced because the mud which lies under the salt layers penetrates through fractures and breaks into the salt layers and bulges the bottom of the sea floor. ” Thus, such finds are not as spectacular as the baseless statement that the legendary Atlantis has been discovered.

According to the news blurb just quoted, the German geophysicist and volcanologist, together with colleagues, analyzed and measured this particular area of the sea last summer on board the Dutch research ship “Pelagia” with the same kind of equipment used by Robert Sarmast [mainly side-scan sonar, which is able to take a sonic picture of the seafloor at essentially any depth whatsoever].

These researchers were of course not in search for the lost island of Atlantis. As scientific experts on the mighty salt layers that rest under the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean [the famous Lago-Mare facies commented further below in this article], they wanted to find out more about their geological nature and condition. Their sonar data also detected the very submarine hills which Sarmast now misinterprets as being the Acropolis of Atlantis.

Well, it seems this is the requiem for yet another faulty theory on Atlantis. Sarmast was too hasty – as befits young people eager to make fame and fortune at no matter what risk. Had Sarmast been less eager, he would have consulted the experts on these features, before publishing his results.

Sarmast should have heard people like Dr. Christian Huebscher himself and the many other specialists who work on the Mediterranean seafloor studying it with the very techniques he used, as well as a host of others. This way, he would have spared himself and his backers a lot of shame, as well as the risk of being considered a schemer and perhaps even a scammer. The Rising Interest in Atlantis The Rising Interest in Atlantis

The main problem with Atlantis is that the professional experts well realize that if they did dare to opine positively in any sense, they would inevitably place their jobs and their careers in serious jeopardy, as this subject is taboo for a series of reasons having to do with religion, politics, ethnocentric pride, and a host of inconfessable interests of sundry natures.

So, the professional experts generally prefer to silence. And, in so doing, they utterly fail to perform the duty they are paid for by the public: to unbiasedly orient them in controversial matters such as the one of Atlantis-Eden, perhaps the most crucial bar none for humanity and its long-range survival as a species on earth.

Notwithstanding that fact, this situation is bound to change on a short term, given the rising public interest in Atlantis and related matters such as the reality of the Universal Flood, the possible existence of the Terrestrial Paradise, the fearsome possiblity of Global Climatic Disasters and the growing dissatisfaction with Scientific Positivism as a deus ex machina capable of all sorts of answers to all human problems and anguishes.

Unless we scientists again dare to go beyond these pillars and the invisible but impassable bounds currently imposed upon the scientific community by the powers that be, the public will again start resorting to witch-doctors of all sorts, as well as to the quacks and charlatans who pose as sages and experts instantly created by some sort of supernatural magical power or inspiration.

It is in this spirit that I come out to say what I think on the matter of the claimed discovery just made off Cyprus, and the many other similar ones recently featured in the media: the tiny islet off Cape Spartel in Gibraltar; the region of Cadiz, in Spain; the Cuban “Atlantis”, fully six hundred meters under the sea; the “Atlantis in Antarctica” cum Pole Shift foolishness; The “Atlantis in Antarctica” cum Pole Shift foolishness; the “Atlantis of the sands” of the deserts of Oman; The “Atlantis of the sands” of the deserts of Oman; Aaron DuVal’s submerged Caribbean “pyramids” off Miami, and so forth.

And, of course, I am not mentioning the more serious, though somewhat aged, traditional solutions of the riddle of Atlantis such as Crete-Santorini, the Canary Islands, Morocco, Sicily, and so forth. Few Atlantologists now propose these traditional sites, which now only attract the lazier tourists in search of sunny beaches rather than really of adventure and discovery. But even these conventional sites do derive a substantial proportion of their tourism from this type of association.

What these maverick, “Indiana Jones” heroic-styled researchers are really after is novelty. It is novelty that attracts the public in their insatiable curiosity for novel developments. So, what these guys normally do is take a long forgotten would-be location of Atlantis – for instance, Tartessos, the Bosporus, Syrtis, Hisarlik, Bolivia, Amazonia, Antarctica, etc. – dust it up, refurbish it with new clothing, and present it to the public as their own breakthrough and novel solution of the old riddle.

Many people fall for their ruse, buy their books, tapes and documentaries, often presented as scientific innovation of a wholly revolutionary character. By the time the wake is through, they and their editors and producers have pocketed many millions of dollars. And they then retire in some sunny paradises, toasting to the gullibility of the millions of suckers who propitiated their cozy otium cum dignitate (“leisure with dignity”) in the best hotels and resorts money can afford.

Despite this recurrent calamity, Atlantis survives in the hearts and minds of most people who are stout enough not to get disheartened by failure after failure after failure. It is true that many persons become so disgusted that they merely give up and stop believing Atlantis as a geographical reality similar to the one so enchantingly described by Plato and others throughout the ages.

However, even though oppressed and abused by all sorts of quacks and charlatans, and though suppressed by all sorts of base interests, Atlantis – like Hope and Freedom – is really immortal. And, unlike the Terrestrial Paradise, Atlantis has the advantage of being impossible to transfer to the never-never land of purely spiritual realities on which we only believe during the Saturday or Sunday ceremonies in our churches, mosques and synagogues, when we take the day off in order to dream of bigger, better things than just everyday doggish survival.

Well, ever since I have started publishing my sensational finds on Atlantis’ reality and true location in the South Seas, starting some twenty years ago, the interest on the Lost Continent, then rather faded, underwent a great revival. This revival is only paralleled by the one of the Renaissance, when intellectuals and explorers of all sorts – Christopher Columbus included, and Ponce de Leon, and a myriad of other such adventurers – started looking in earnest for “the land where gold is born”.

For the first time ever, I proposed a geologically viable scientific mechanism – sea level rise and the catastrophic end of the Pleistocene Ice Age – for the Flood and for the brutal demise of Atlantis along the lines described by Plato. And then all pieces of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle all started to follow in place, again for the first time ever.

One such was the date of the event, that of 11,600 BP [Before Present]. This date coincides with the one given by Plato to better than one decade or so. And this type of coincidence cannot possibly be casual, as scientists all well realize. Moreover, I also found a whole sunken continent, exactly as Plato affirmed, and in frontal contrast to what geologists believed up to this time, firm believers that they all are/were in Darwinian Uniformitarianism and Evolution Theory.

At that time, my scientist colleagues merely smirked politely at my proposals, and hurriedly walked away under some excuse or other. I then naively believed that at least some people – experts and romantics in particular – would instantly realize the truth of what I claimed and pursue the track I had blazed in what had been an impenetrable adamant wall up to then.

But the specialists have long stopped laughing. Instead, my views on Climatic Change and Global Catastrophism are now gaining momentum, and are fast becoming the new paradigm in both the geological and the climatological sciences, not to mention Darwinism itself.

Paradigmatic Changes Take Time to Occur

Alas, as I have now come to realize, such major revolutions in paradigmatic thought, both scientific and religious, take at least a couple of generations to become firmly established and widely accepted. It was thus with Christianity and with Heliocentrism; the Renaissance; Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, Darwinian Evolution; Continental Drift; Plate Tectonics, and so forth.

The younger generations are raised in the light of such doctrines, which in time become an integral part of their superegos. But, as I already said, the idea Atlantis is immortal. Atlantis is the Soul of the World. Invisible, but omnipresent. And it will be discovered, I am pretty sure, some time soon. In “my” side of the world, I am sure. In the “Orient” of which all traditions unanimously speak.

Many people have now come to accept my views and my proposals, and have in fact become adepts of my theory on Atlantis’ true location in the Far East and on its essential identity with Eden and other such Paradises both eastern and western. After all, it is a fact that the farthest west is coterminous with the farthest east, and vice-versa. This is a result of the earth being spherical, and all that, as the ancients – Plato included, and Christopher Columbus among others – well realized.

Some of these fans greatly honor my discoveries and my proposals to the extent of not only reading my books and the articles in my Internet site and elsewhere, but also by having become members of this Atlantis Forum to which I now have the honor of addressing this Statement, in the hope that it be widely read and meditated by all those interested in the pursuit of Truth.

It is most unfortunate that the only experts who have up to now overtly espoused my theory on the true cause and nature of the Atlantean cataclysm are eager mavericks who label themselves instant “experts” on matters on which they don’t have more than a passing acquaintance, scientific methodology and ethics above all.

So, these would-be, instant “Atlantologists” read my articles and my views, and often become instant enthusiasts and adepts. But then, instead of adopting the advances I already achieved, and walking further down along the road, as is normally done in Science, they just grab my material, add it to their own muck, refurbish some old proposals they find somewhere in the new light and present this distasteful blend to the consumers as absolute novelty which they themselves discovered.

Robert Sarmast is just one more of many such hasty would-be Atlantologists. He misappropriated my theory of sea level rise as the cause of Atlantis’ demise, and misapplied it to the Mediterranean region and to Cyprus in a way that will never do. Instead of the 130 meters or so of rise which actually happened at the end of the Ice Age, he blended it to the dry Mediterranean Sea of 5.2 million years ago and presented it as his “wholly new” pseudo-scientific version of the Atlantean cataclysm of 11.6 kiloyears ago of which Plato speaks.

Sarmast’s procedure is most unfortunate, not only because it confuses the readers but because of the low ethical standards involved. Moreover, it tends to annul any worthy scientific contributions to the quest of Atlantis. A retrocession invariably results, as most people – scientists and intellectuals in particular – get profoundly disgusted with the whole thing and tend to just skip it altogether.

Anyone who looks at the enormous numbers of books and articles being published on Atlantis over these last few years will not fail to realize that this enormous rise of public interest is the direct result of our own publications on the matter which brought it under the realm of the Exact Sciences.

And anyone who peruses this vast plethora of publications on Atlantis – mostly junk, by the way – will also not fail to see that they all stem from my own trend-setting discoveries one way or another: sea level rise as the underlying mechanism; the connection with the Flood and the catastrophic end of the Pleistocene and the Ice Age; the Far Eastern location in Sundaland and the South China Sea; the underwater location as the result of flooding; the universality of the Flood legends and the ones on Paradise Lost, and so forth.

Sarmast’s theory and his alleged discoveries off Cyprus is just an instance of a host of similar proposals which we could name here, and which the curious readers can find for themselves by doing a Google Search or one in Amazon Books, on the keyword “Atlantis”. And they will fast realize that this growing interest and great rise in the number of publications invariably starts in 1997.

This was the date I posted my Atlantis Site in the Internet , publishing to the world the discoveries I have made over the long years of dedicated research and study of host of sciences both exact and human, the occult ones included. This material is copyrighted, and was legally deposited in both the USA and in Brazil, and it is hence unlawful to use it in any unauthorized way, particularly when failing to give me full credit for the remarkable discovery.

We are now in the process of publishing it in English in book and other forms, as well as in the process of organizing an Oceanographic Expedition to the site in order to check some highly interesting submarine features which we have already discovered in this unique region of the world. But all this takes a lot of time and effort, if it is to be done seriously and without having to actually “sell your soul to the devil” in order to become an instant bestseller the way Sarmast and others are currently attempting to do, rushing to try to beat me to my goal.

In my Atlantis book I discuss in detail – from both a scientific and a commonsensical traditional perspective – the various alternative proposals on Atlantis’ location which have been made since the times when Plato first lifted the veil on its reality and true identity with Paradise Lost.

And this of course includes recent alternative proposals such as Sarmast’s Cyprus; Hancock’s Antarctica; Montexano’s Spain; Collina-Girard’s Spartel; Collins’/Zelitsky’s Cuba; Blashford-Snell’s Bolivia and so on. I don’t yet disclose everything here or elsewhere, in order not to preempt my future publications and undertakings such as documentaries, researches, etc..

My naming of these authors does not mean I support this or that “discoverer” of the specific proposal. In fact, the way they are fighting among themselves well proves the low ethical standards often adopted by those mavericks. To be sincere, most of these locations – and perhaps all such – have been proposed ever since Classical antiquity itself. The very fact that these authors generally fail to realize this fundamental issue irrefutably proves their ignorance of the subject they are attempting to lecture on. Had they done their homework more carefully, they would not only acknowledge the previous contributions, but would have avoided the previous mistakes which led to the doom of these proposals as well.

Again, my naming of these authors does not mean that they are all ripping my material, even though they generally based their own proposals on mine – for instance, sea level rise and the Ice Ages – without giving me any credit for this remarkable discovery. But this misbehaviour is probably due to their ignorance of scientific ethics and methodology, with which they are obviously unacquainted.

Had they bothered to search the vast scientific literature on the issue – as they would have done had they really researched the issue all by themselves as claimed, rather than just picked it up from me ready and perfect – they would readily have realized that I and no other made the great leap forward, certainly for the first time ever. Again, this omission of credit is tantamount to a confession that they did not research the issue on themselves or, even worse, that they are simply ripping me, period.

Sarmast’s Alleged “Discovery” off Cyprus

After this short preamble, we are now prepared to discuss in some detail Robert Sarmast’s alleged “discovery” of the site of Atlantis off Cyprus, the charming island in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. A mere scam? A publicity stunt? A real breakthrough as claimed? Pure wishful thinking? Or simply a ruse ployed against the more gullible public, avid for novelty in order to make a fast buck at their expense? A combination of all these?

These are the questions which occur to most people who listen to the sensational claims made by Robert Sarmast and his team. But their most anguishing question is: to whom may we resort for reliable, unbiased answers? To Bob Sarmast himself? His team? The media? The priests? The politicians? Our teachers and counselors? The academic and the specialized research institutions? The Atlantologists? But what if they all have interests at stake, and answer falsely?

To be sincere, the possibility that people would think this way about myself almost dissuaded me from coming forward and writing this piece. But my friends and my readers and correspondents keep urging me to do it, no matter what. And so, here I am, ready to do what they all feel is my duty.

First of all, I do not have an axe to grind in this case or any other. I am so absolutely sure of my find that, were Sarmast’s find prove real in any sense, it would only be one more so far unsuspected local civilization or, at the very best, a Mediterranean colony of Atlantis. And this would logically be patterned after the empire’s capital in the Far East, its true location. Why not, if this most curious pattern was copied over and over again all over the world, the Americas included?

So, Sarmast’s find, if real, would actually improve my case for the reality of Atlantis-Eden which, as I already affirmed, can only have been located in the Far East. Or – since the island of Cyprus actually lies westward of Palestine – is the Bible lying when it affirms that “the Lord God planted a Garden eastward, in Eden”, that is, in the Far Orient, eastward of Palestine?

Can anyone really believe that humanity and civilization actually arose in the tiny island of Cyprus or, even less, in the nearby abyssal plains which were never above water since the last five million years or so? Everything in Cyprus is wrong: wrong depth;: Wrong date; Wrong climate; Wrong size; no metals but copper; absence of traditions on paradisial connections; site not located in the Ocean, as Plato specifically states, and a dozens such features we comment next.

A List of Sarmast’s False Claims A List of Sarmast’s False Claims

Let’s now list and briefly comment some of the main improprieties we have found in Robert Sarmast’s claims made in both his book and his oceanographic expedition off Cyprus. As we just said above, several more are listed and commented in more detail in my forthcoming book on Atlantis.

The dear readers are of course free to make their own decisions on the data I now present. But they invited to read on and meditate what follows and, above all, to use their ordinary commonsense in this, as in all important matters we humans have to face in life.

We start by proving that the Mediterranean was full (or almost) during the whole Ice Age, the times of Atlantis. So, Sarmast’s theory is scientifically impossible. And what is impossible is no more than idle speculation. However, we will play along and show that, even we concede him this, we are still left with a whole lot of insuperable difficulties. Whenever possible, we provide links to independent sources so that the readers may check the accuracy of our assertions by themselves.

It is known for sure that the Isthmus of Gibraltar has been open – and the Mediterranean Sea consequently full, or nearly so – for over five million years, (ever since the end of the Messinian Salinity Crisis . Cf. more detailed technical papers here ).. Sarmast cites no contrary evidence whatsoever, except for a very dubious interpretation of the myth of Hercules and Geryon. This myth is really a transplant from Sunda Strait where the event really happened at the end of the Ice Age, as we argue in more detail elsewhere. Sarmast also quotes a SF writer (HG Wells) and a maverick Atlantis writer (HS Bellamy), none of which are really scientists. Besides, neither ever did any in situ research or even read a quotable source supporting their incredible assertions. So, Sarmast’s arguments are at best specious and at worse misleading, false and unfounded. And since this conclusion is so irrefutable, Sarmast’s theory is kaput, unless you are prepared to believe that Civilization first flourished underwater or at a time humans did not even yet exist.

In contrast to what Sarmast affirms, marine sediments are completely different from subaerial or lacustrine ones, due to the organisms included. So, they can readily be told apart, particularly by the specialists. In particular, we have, in the Mediterranean, the so-called Lago-Mare facies (“lake-sea interface”) separating one condition from the other. If the Mediterranean had dried later, a similar layer would have again formed, unequivocally indicating both the fact and its date. This scientific knowledge is the result of literally thousands of independent oceanographic researches of all sorts, some of which off Cyprus itself. Affirming that this is wrong is tantamount to calling all these myriads of investigators both utterly blind and incurably stupid.

Is Sarmast really prepared to demonstrate that the Mediterranean Sea was flooded “in a single day and night of pain”, as Plato actually affirms of Atlantis? According to this interesting article here, this filling took place over at least ten years. Other authorities say far more: centuries or millennia. So, this filling happened at the maximum possible rate of under one inch per hour, allowing everybody to walk out, justifiably annoyed, but otherwise unharmed. Very much the same thing also happened at the Black Sea Flood and others such closed seas, as is well known.

Changing subjects to Archaeology. We note the absolute lack of archeological artifacts dating back to the Pleistocene in Cyprus. The oldest artifacts found so far in Cyprus date from the Neolithic Period ( oldest site about 7,000 BC ). And this is strange, since the island, located so near the Atlantis Capital itself, according to Sarmast, must have been the focus of a great activity, were it the site of populous city itself. Besides, to be accepted as even “possibly Atlantean”, the archaeological artefacts eventually found must be dated and found to be older than 11,600 BP [Before Present], the date of Atlantis’ demise, according to Plato. This never happened.

Plato repeatedly affirms that Atlantis was located “outside the Pillars of Hercules”. Moreover, he repeatedly affirms that Atlantis was located in the “true Ocean” (alethinos Okeanos), which he contrasts to the puny Mediterranean Sea. It is not very clear what Plato actually meant by “true Ocean”: either the modern Atlantic Ocean now so named; or the World Ocean; or the Atlantic + Pacific Ocean, then believed coterminous. This belief subsisted down to the times of Columbus, when the existence of the interposed Americas came to be more widely known. No matter what, a close reading of Plato’s text will disclose that in no way did he mean the Mediterranean Sea as the true location of Atlantis. Besides, how could the philosopher affirm that “a continent larger than Africa and Asia put together” could fit within the modest Mediterranean Sea without becoming the laughing-stock of the whole Athens, a no-nonsense, highly skeptical people?

Comments on the image provided by Sarmast [Side-scan Sonar?] follow. The [unexplained] parallel lines are instrumental artefacts produced by the equipment used, and hence mean nothing at all. This site is claimed to be Atlantis capital city itself. But nothing fits. Plato affirms the city was circular, not rectangular, as shown. Besides, the is said to be centered on the Acropolis, rather than to its side. And its walls were circular, not straight . (Cf. image here ). (See image here ). I never saw a river run parallel to a mountain. They invaribly flow off them, as we all know. Nor did I ever see bifurcated walls like Sarmast’s. Sarmast’s site is far from being a plain, and sits on a mountain slope, in flagrant contrast to Plato’s assertion just linked. Cf. also here . Cf. also here . Is Plato wrong once again?

The other images provided by Sarmast are even worse. Their resolution is very poor, so that it is hard to tell for sure. But Plato specifically affirms that “the part about the city was all a smooth plain, enclosing it round about, and being itself encircled by mountains”. That such is not at all the case is easy to see in Sarmast’s photo here . By comparing these photos with Plato’s text just linked, it is again obvious that nothing at all fits Sarmast’s alleged find. And, as we skeptics all know, “remarkable claims demand remarkable proof”.

In his book, Sarmast affirms that Plato made a mistake, and that the Great Plain of Atlantis was not 3,000 stades x 2,000 stades (600 x 400 km2) as the philosopher affirms , but only 300 stades x 200 stades (60 x 40 km2 Instead. This of course reduces the area of the Great Plain by a factor of a hundred. This Procustean force-fitting was performed by Sarmast in order to adequate his would-be Atlantis to the tiny area of the island of Cyprus (9,250 km 2 ), which it exceeds by a factor of 25 times or so. But, even this modest plateau is nowhere to be seen in Sarmast’s published photos. Whatever happened to it? However, not even this “error of Plato” is not Sarmast’s brainchild, as it is often claimed by other authors as well. And they all also do the same in regards to Plato’s date of “9,000 years before Solon”, which they reduce to a mere 900 years. But how could Plato or Solon or even Sonchis have possibly added a surplus zero, if their people had never used the figure?  The numeral system used by both the Greeks and the Egyptians circumvented the absense of the zero in the clever way described in the sites just linked. And this leads to numbers such as, say, /q for 9,000 and ? for 900 (in Greek). How could anyone possibly confuse these two numerals? Moreover, Plato reaffirms these numbers in various ways, rendering his text foolproof.

In his book, Sarmast affirms that Cyprus produced all the metals and gemstones mentioned by Plato as being profuse in Atlantis. And this is false. Cyprus is remarkably poor in mineral resources. Cyprus in fact produced some copper, a metal of rather reduced value. But tin had to be imported , along with most other metals. But tin had to be imported , along with most other metals. However, Plato affirms that this metal – crucial for the production of bronze, an alloy of 90% copper and 10% tin – was particularly abundant in Atlantis, along with others such as gold, silver, orichalc (brass?), and so forth. In contrast to Atlantis, Cyprus is/was also remarkably poor in fuels, gemstones, fauna and flora. The only minerals produced there are: copper, asbestos, iron pyrites, gypsum and chrome ore.

We could go on with this list of missed items and features almost indefinitely. But the above ones must suffice until my book is published. It is by now quite clear, I hope, that none of the features actually found or claimed by Sarmast in fact corresponds to the one’s of Atlantis-Eden. Of course, the most absurd of these claims concerns Sarmast’s assertion that the Mediterranean Sea was dry down to the catastrophic end of the Pleistocene, a mere “tick” of the geological clock.

And, since a single impossibility suffices to disprove any claim whatsoever, we must consider Sarmast’s claims as utterly false and actually impossible, as no civilization is liable to develop underwater, at least insofar as we humans ourselves are concerned.

As someone once said, words are like people; “torture them hard enough, and they will eventually confess to just about anything”. And that is precisely what Robert Sarmast does in his book. Come to think of it, Sarmast also tortures his scientific data and evidence just about as much. Such is the reason why scientists generally insist that scientific data be open to all, and subject to independent analysis and verification.

Whatever cannot be independently verified is highly suspect and hence scientifically invalid and unacceptable. So, my counsel to all and everyone, specially my readers is: let’s us all wait and see until Sarmast’s data and alleged finds are independently validated by several independent researchers and, at the barest minimum, until he produces more acceptable proof. It is always stupid to believe the word of the interested party. And the interests at stake here are simply enormous…

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