Archive 3606

FROM WAYBACK MACHINE

ATLAND and AFTER

An Introduction

Guy Gervis

Contents

The ‘Megaliths and After’ has been on the net for nearly ten years presenting arguments to show that there was, in prehistoric times, an island in the North Sea, of considerable importance. I called the island Lacuna, but it also answers to Atlantis. Over the ten years there have been important developments, not the least of which is that I have become intrigued by Oera Linda, widely regarded as a hoax, which gives 2193 BC as the date of the submersion of ‘Atland’ an island in the North Sea. Oera Linda does not include much information about this island, but enough to suggest that there should have been an Inheritance of some importance coming from it.

Firstly a brief description of what I call Oera Linda is, but it is also referred to as the Oera Linda Book. The original document, it seems, came to light in around 1850, in the house of an old Friesland shipping family in the Netherlands. It had been passed in secrecy within the family since around 125 AD when, it seems, it had been recopied. The text in general is an account written by important people of what went on, on in Fryasland, which consisted of the North European plain from the Rhine to Denmark in the period which followed the submersion of Atland. The account is not continuous, and there are also some records from texts recorded on the walls of citadels, and others from voyages. The document is available on net.

As an initial test of the reliability of Oera Linda, and to give a brief introduction to it, I pro-pose to compare the account given there, for the period after the submersion of Atland, with current archaeological conclusions for the same period.

Oera Linda explains that sometime before the submersion of ‘Atland’ the Rhine and twelve other rivers to the east, which flow out into the North Sea were fully inhabited by Frya’s people, but it does not explain when this occupation started, it might have been a slow process. It is also made clear that many of Frya’s people were skilled sailors. There are several descriptions of voyages down to the Mediterranean, and even one as far as the Punjab.
Oera Linda says that Frya’s laws were declared, some time before the submersion, and that all her people were said to have collected together on Atland, for the announcement. But in view of the numbers of people involved in these river settlements, this is likely to have been poetic licence to stress that both, they, the people, and the laws, originated in Atland.

The Oera Linda account makes clear the enormous importance of boating to these settlements. I would like here l to refer to Barry Cunliffe’s book ‘Europe between the Oceans’ (1) Chapter 7 deals with the period 270BC – 1200BC; under the heading ‘Bronze Age Dynamics: an outline’ we find the following “Networks of exchange had long been in operation. What changed now were the extent of those networks and the sheer volume of materials that flowed through the arteries of Europe. Most important was bronze” and later on “Many other commodities now entered into the exchange networks in quantity; gold, silver, amber, furs, horses, textiles, oils and exotic stones like lapis and amethyst, are all evident in the archaeological record.” It would seem that the population of these thirteen rivers could well have made an important contribution to these exchange networks.

^[1] “Europe between the Oceans” Yale University Press, 2008

We now move to another more general aspect, starting with another quotation from Barry Cunliffe from the same section. “What characterises the development of Europe in the third and second millennia BC is the speed of change evident in virtually every region. “There is a feeling of energy and vigour and of real enthusiasm for innovation and change. It is almost as if the old- that which is traditional and ancestral – is deliberately put aside”. No explanation is offered for such changes, and we know that such changes can ‘happen’. But Oera Linda states that at a date equivalent to 2193 BC, Atland was submerged and that be-fore this there were no wars, while after it there were many, indicating that Atland had had a fairly profound influence. We do not know precisely what area was covered by this influence, nor how it was achieved. Britain was included and there is a less clear indication that Europe down to the Mediterranean as well as parts of the North African coast were also. Could the submersion of Atland have been a factor in these changes outlined above by Barry Cunliffe? This would certainly seem likely.

It would be helpful at this point to give a brief outline from Oera Linda of the situation of the people who found themselves guarding the land occupied by the settlements, known as Frya’s land, or Friesland, but also, importantly, their culture, which would have been inherited from Atland. There is no evidence of any other equivalent territories in the lands surrounding Atland, in the sense of having been settled, like Fryasland. Britain and Denmark had some allegiance to Fryasland, but this did not last that long, Britain breaking off before Denmark .So Friesland was special; it was the only direct inheritor of Atland.

Much of the history found in Oera Linda, is of efforts to defend themselves against outsiders, and over the centuries they slowly lost both parts of their land and of their culture. This also has some correspondence with the Barry Cunliffe account, “innate aggression could easily flare up into outright warfare. Of this there is ample evidence in the huge quantity of arms and armour found throughout Europe.”

Then there is the question of people being regarded as semi gods. In a further quotation from the Cunliffe book we find “It is likely that paramount leaders were regarded as super-natural beings, serving both secular and religious functions.” In Oera Linda there are a number of accounts of Frya’s people ending up as gods, but in the outside world, not in Fryasland, where such ‘promotions’ were not accepted.

First we find Wodan a chief of Frya’s people, operating in Scandinavia, but ending up as the god Odin. Then there is Teunis, leader of another Mediterranean boating expedition who ended up as Neptune, God of the Mediterranean Sea, also Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, an-other Fryasland sea captain.

Perhaps the most interesting example of this process concerns Minerva whose other name was Hellenia, she was a ‘mother’ an important position in Fryasland, and seems to have been a remarkable woman. She went with a boating expedition to Greece and enjoyed considerable popularity among the primitive Greeks. But after the initiation and construction of Athens with the help of some of the Greeks, other Greeks worked up enmity against the expedition. But despite this when Minerva died she was deified as ‘Hellen’ and numerous images were made of her, much to the annoyance of the people from Fryasland, who did not accept images of their god. It is of interest that shortly after the death of Minerva, Cecrops an Egyptian priest appears in Oera Linda, but he also appears in Greek mythology as the first king of Athens.

There is no indication that all gods came from Fryasland! However it does seem reasonable to say that Atland bred some people of interest and these accounts give examples of the deification process.

That concludes this short study comparing Oera Linda with our current understanding of the period. So where does it leave the “hoax” theory? The “hoax” could not have taken place later than the early 19th century. At that time there was no understanding whatever as to what might have been going on during the second millennium BC, whereas Oera Linda is quite comfortable there, leaving the “hoax” theory in some disorder. Its supporters should now explain why Oera Linda conforms to what actually happened! But this does not amount to a proof hat it is not a hoax, although I am inclined to believe that it is largely genuine. What I propose to do is to proceed with a new study, “Atland and after”, which will replace ‘Megaliths and after’, and will include information given in Oera Linda, to see whether this adds to our current understanding of how events unfolded.

There is of course a similar problem with Plato’s Critias, which has been termed a ‘fable’, and I propose the same treatment, which is to use it, and see what happens.

I should also mention that Tacitus in his ‘De situ acpopulis Germaniae’: records that ‘the Pillars of Hercules was used to describe the Dover Chanel crossing before being moved down to Gibraltar. This helps to confirm the North Sea position for what I now call Atland, because Critias describes it as being beyond these Pillars.

4 – The Atland story.
It has been known for some time that the land now covered by the North Sea would have been a well favoured location for hunter gatherers, but who were they? It is now under-stood that some 65% of the European population derives from the Gravettians and 15 % from the Aurignatians, who had arrived along the Mediterranean some 40,000 years ago, and the Gravettians some 11,000 yea rs later. They had already been responsible, when living up in the Russian Steppes, for a number of innovations. They had worked in partner-ship with wolves, which led to the evolution of the dog. They seemed to have developed the idea of the ‘heroic ideal’. They also developed animal and fish traps (2). A few thousand years after their arrival along the Mediterranean they had to endure over five thousand years of extreme cold before the Ice Age slowly ended. During this cold period many groups must have been isolated and this could well have initiated changes of dialect which eventually led to the different European languages. There is a formal linguistic proposal that this is the origin of these languages, known as Palaeolithic Indo-European. It has not yet been generally accepted.

^[2] Alexei Pashkin, « The Paleolithic Indo-Europeans » Section 5a, &6.

When the climate changed so did the vegetation and these hunter gatherers followed the changes north. Those arriving on the land later covered by the North Sea, and would probably have been in known as Magdalenian. Their forefathers, as we have seen, had been sorely tried and survived and it seems that when they saw the sea encroaching on their favourite valley they stopped to think what might be done. This will turn out to be the most important moment in this saga. It would have taken place a few hundred years before 5000 BC, which is the date usually given for the final flooding of the islands in the North Sea, as the ice melted.

Robert Graves (3) was intrigued by the North Sea site for Atlantis because the North Sea covers the largest land mass lost around Europe as the waters rose after the end of the Ice Age, and he found echoes of the Atlantis story all down the European coast and even into Africa. But he was worried by the distance from Greece, under-estimating in particular, the prowess of early sea travel.

The embankment.
There is no direct evidence at the moment that the island was protected by an artificial embankment around it. If however the island lasted some three thousand years, up to the submersion, it is difficult to envisage any other method by which it might have been protected.

The island would have been of substantial size and organising the continuous maintenance of this embankment would have been demanding as the sea level rose slowly. Discipline and reliability would become instilled in o the population which would be in a unique position. The fact that it was sustained for some three thousand years must have resulted in some outstanding effects. It is likely that the processes of change and development in human technology were faster on Atland than those of their neighbours. This, as we shall see, would be of considerable importance. Later on in this account, towards the submersion of Atland, we will find clear evidence of this increased speed of development which can be regarded as being provisional evidence for the existence of embankments on Atland.

Plato’s Critias has a description of a ditch which surrounded the island. It was Jean Deruelle in his book ‘De la préhistoire à l’Atlantide des megalithes’ (4) who pointed out that it must have been a translating fault. It is interesting that the word dyke in English can mean either a ditch or an embankment. Deruelle was an Engineer and he went on to make a thorough study of embankments. They would have had to be eventually at least 30 metres high and a base width of 180 metres to survive the three thousand years of rising water. He went on to establish that one man every 50 metres would have been sufficient to handle the maintenance and enlargement of the embankments. He also said that the total length of the embankment around the island would have amounted to 1 800 km.

^[3] « The Greek Myths », 39.2 & 39.3. Penguin Books.

^[4]  « De la préhistoire à l’Atlantide des mégalithes » Editions France Empire.1990

Plato’s account of a ‘ditch’, which we think should read ‘embankment’ for the protection of the island , suggests a translation, which in turn suggests that Plato’s account was based on a document received from elsewhere, rather than a fable of his own making.

There are two different accounts, which were brought back from Egypt by Solon. The longer one seems to have been made, either by someone from Atland or a well informed visitor there. It starts from the foundation, covers a long period but stops abruptly during an important meeting of the kings, without revealing any dates.

The other account claims to stars about 9000 years before Plato, which is difficult to believe and it seems likely that it has been embroidered by Egyptian priests, for the benefit of their Greek guests. However the two accounts claim to be about Atlantis. I have ignored this second account.

It could be argued that for this information to be retained by the Egyptians it would not have been gathered, perhaps from prisoners, but not before 3000 BC, when the Old Kingdom began. This would be some 800 years before the submersion.

The myth recorded by Critias of the foundation is in keeping with other prehistoric foundations. A god falls for a local girl. In Atland Poseidon falls for Cleito, who lives up in the hills. He builds a palace on a circular island, protected by a series of rings of alternately water and land. Five sets of male twins are brought up in the palace, and become ten kings. Much later a road was built to the palace, bridging over the rungs of water.

7 -Kings and government.
The eldest of the ten kings, becomes the chief king. They were governed by strict laws, including the restriction on attacking any of the other kingdoms. There were regular meetings every five or six years between the kings, which could include judgements against any of them, but also formalised ritualised games where all the kings had to face up to bulls. The account suggests that initially each of the kings ruled part of Atland, but later genera-tions of kings, ruled over other territories in Europe, while the Chief King ruled Atland. Critias seems to imply that these other territories included Europe, the Mediterranean is-lands and the North African coast.

It does seem possible in Critias, just before the account stops, that the kings are meeting, possibly in Malta and are about to lose power as a result of corruption in these other territories as well as Atland. Accepting our previous approximate dating this would have left some 800 years to enable other systems of government to evolve, before the submersion.

7 -Atland’s boats.
Critias goes into some detail when describing the development of the harbour area, not far from the Palace. A wide canal, 8 kilometres long, joined the rings of water around the Pal-ace to the sea, and later on there were bridged cuttings between the rings of water, to facilitate boat movement. Large stone vaulted ship births were formed and it seems that much attention was given to the finishing of structures, some being faced with bronze. The harbour area was always full of activity, but no information was given about the boats, which are of great interest to us, because they might give an idea of how far the activities of Atland could have reached.

The frescos uncovered by Dr Marinatos at Akrotiri north of Crete in 1967 are perhaps the best guide we have. The boats shown in the frescos are from a period some 700 years after the submergence of Atland, and can be seen in ‘The Lost Empire of Atlantis’ (5) . This book by Gavin Menzies carries his belief that Atlantis was to be found on Crete. I believe this to be wrong, Crete is likely to have been influenced by Atland and after the submersion, it was able to flower, perhaps as Menzies describes. It is not impossible that the boats shown in the frescoes do not vary much from those that would have been found in Atland, earlier on. They can be described as good general purpose sea sailing boats, indicating that At-lands ‘reach’ could have been considerable.

Menzies put forward a fascinating theory that the boats shown it the fresco would have been involved in delivering large quantities of the exceptional copper ore which seems to have been exported from Lake Superior in North America, starting around 2400 BC. The outward route would have passed through the Caribbean. The Mississippi River links the Caribbean to Lake Superior. The return route would have made use of the Gulf Stream, which would take the boats from the Caribbean up to Lewis and the Orkney Isles, to the North of Scotland. There are extensive archaeological digs on Orkney at present, and one wonders whether any evidence of such traffic will be found. The trade would have been started by Atland, and perhaps carried on by Crete. If the movement of large quantities copper or were to be proved, it would be of considerable interest in terms of judging the scale of Atland’s operations.

8 – Atland and the other territories.
It seems probable that for a long time after the defences against the rising water were initiated Atland was occupied with its own problems, but later on, as boating evolved, contacts would have been made, and later on still it would seem quite possible that a series of kingdoms would emerge, They did after all have ten kings to occupy. It seems that the area covered included most of Europe, some of the Mediterranean islands, and a strip of North Africa. The abandonment of this Empire has already been described.

There is this startling statement in Oera Linda that while Atland was active, there were no wars, but after the submersion, wars were endemic. So how was this peace achieved? One possible clue regarding this, concerns megaliths. Colin Renfrew (6) described it as the central mystery of the megaliths ‘what caused this sudden proliferation of megaliths’. It seems possible that Atland introduced the techniques associated with handling these stones, per-haps associated with religious rites. Stone handling could have become fascinating, obsessive, and competitive, and could well have reduced local warfare. It seems possible that there might have been a previous megalithic period on Atland itself, which would have pro-vided the background for this operation.

It is also possible that later on the ‘networks of exchange’, described in the Introduction, could have been encouraged for the same reasons and as part of that, the promotion of the ubiquitous beaker wares might be included. Such initiatives may have been helpful in stabilising these territories.

^[5] Gavin Menzies « The lost Empire of Atlantis » Orion 2011

^[6] Colin Renfrew « Perspectives improve, central mystery remains » Antiquity Vol.74 N° 285, Sept ; 2000

Another possibility is that Atland achieved some cultural influence over the other territories by circulating tales including the ‘three functions’ (7). Georges Dumézil spent a lifetime collect-ing these stories from a wide range of sources including Irish and Scandinavian myths, and early Roman history. The three functions were 1) Magical and Judicial Sovereignty. 3) Physical Force including that of Warririos, and 3) Abundance and fertility. When Paris made his famous choice he went for Aphrodite, number 3, because that function included beauty.

It might have been more accurate to describe these other territories after the kingdoms were abandoned as’ under the influence of Atland’. Oera Linda makes it clear that the areas facing the Mediterranean suffered very badly after the submergence of Atland. Perhaps this was because this ‘influence’ stopped.

We will stay with the megaliths a bit, because there are some interesting complications. Most of the early megaliths occur within reach from the sea, along the North coast of Europe and down along the Atlantic coast, and to some extent along the Mediterranean coast, including the North African. The details of the megaliths changed, but they continued until the submersion of Atland. In Britain, some activity stopped at this time including the construction of timber palisades, work at Woodhenge, and also work on Stone Circles, with the notable exception of Stonehenge where the work of completion would take another five hundred years (8).

Stonehenge raises another issue. In his book ‘Solving Stonehenge’ (9) Anthony Johnson un-covers the previously unknown but fascinating, procedures involved in its design and con-struction. Laying out the position of the stones on the ground, required pegs and lengths of cord, well handled, which were used for setting out circles from a given point, so that other points could be established. But the design procedure for using this simple surveying procedure is of the highest sophistication. It is related to the procedures used for the fabrication of two little gold sheets engraved with lozenge patterns. It seems probable that these sheets were made in Atland because there is no evidence that the necessary skills, existed in Britain. There was decorative work, but I think no other example of such geometric skill, being found in Britain. The larger of the two gold sheets was found in Bush Barrow among the contents of the tomb of an important man, buried in around 1750BC. This would be during the last stages of construction. The Barrow is within sight of Stonehenge. It seems extremely likely that the design procedure for Stonehenge took place on Atland, and that someone from there also controlled the work on site. The man buried in the barrow was of exceptional height, and likely to have come from elsewhere.

^[7] Dumézil, Mythe et Epopée, 1,11,111. Quarto Gallimard 1995.

^[8] David Souden, « Stonehenge, Mysteries of the Stones and Landscape » pp18&19, English Heritage 1997.

^[9] Anthony Johnson, « Solving Stonehenge » Thames and Hudson 2008.

10 – Languages
I have already explained why it seems likely that the idea that Indo European started in the Paleolithic period will eventually be proved to be correct. It was the language of the Gravettians an innovative people who had left the Steppes, near the Black Sea, during the Paleolithic period, and spread themselves along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe eventually settled the great plain which is now the North Sea. The largest group of these people were called Gravettians because they were first identified by archeologists near the village of Gravette in France, but one notes from Oera Linda that in Fryasland that some important people were known as Grevetmen.

Freise, the current language of Freisland in the North of the Netherlands, is descended from the language of Fryasland, which in turn had evolved on Atland in comparative isolation over some three thousand years. But Freise has some affinity with English, why? Oera Linda gives little information on the level of contact between Atland and Britain before submersion, except for a remark that before the submersion Wr’alda, the monolithic god of Atland was accepted there. We find very little evidence of contact between Fryasland and Britain afterwards. According to Oera Linda there was loyalty to Frya in Britain, immediately after, but this did not last, suggesting that either Atland had closer contact with Britain, soon after the submersion, or that the survivors from Atland were important in spreading their language in Britain. It could also be a mixture of both possibilities.

11 – Some surprises behind Homer.
We now come to two strange but perhaps significant dates. They are 9th of January 2314BC and 11th of December 2295BC. They mark the beginning and end of a 19 year cycle of lunar/solar rotations, and it will be noted that they are just about 100 years before the submersion of Atland. These dates have been calculated from the texts of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and they mark the beginning and the end of the two stories. These findings were published in two important books, ‘Homer’s Secret Iliad’ (10) and ‘Homer’s Secret Odyssey’ (11), by Florence and Kenneth Wood. These dates, and the realisation that in the Iliad there are multiple references to the stars, to the extent that it could be regarded as a manual, or primer for the stars, are central to this presentation of Atland, but it should be made clear that for the moment the authors are of the opinion that Homer’s work is Greek. Analysis of these two books s brings up the burning question, Did Homer really creates these works, or could he have found them in Greece either in a spoken text, or in written form?

The reasons foe considering Atland as the possible originator of the Iliad and Odyssey are as follows:

1) There is no indication of special interest in stars during the time of Homer in Greece, whereas further North at t around 2300 BC such interests was strong. It has long been understood that many of the thousands of megalithic monuments had been used as observation posts for the stars, many of which were still in use during this time.

2). Imam Wilkens made an extremely detailed study of the geographic features in the Il-iad and Odyssey, in his book ‘Where Troy once stood’ , and concluded that there was far greater geographical correspondence with the text if Troy is located on the Gog Magog hills near Cambridge, in the east of England, than down in Turkey. For our purposes we should also note that this part of England would have been very close to Atland, therefore probably known and thought to b e a good location for the story. Among the large number of geographical correspondences I have chosen the names of rivers which run into the Wash. Here are some of the current names followed by the Greek names in italics, Roding, Rhodium; Grant, Gracious; Ise, Arsipus; Cam, Scamande ;he also notes Thames, Temes. In Turkey it seems, it is not even easy find the rivers. In “Homes Secret Odyssey” the authors decided that Odysseus’ route took place in the stars, rather than the often tried Mediterranean. However Imam Wilkens establishes a clear rote which includes West Africa and the Carrageen islands, a detail to remember when thinking of the range of Fryasland boats.

3) The dates of the lunar/solar cycle make sense in Atland rather than in Greece some 1500 years late.

The Iliad and Odyssey are here regarded as pure fiction, with many hidden star refer-ences, and built on a strict calendar programme, perhaps corresponding to that of the team who composed the works. The story was set on known local territory, except for the travels of Odysseus which took place largely in the Atlantic, also presumed to be known.

It should be noted that if the Iliad and Odyssey were composed in Atland at this time, it is a confirmation that the rate at which human technology develops was considerably higher on Atland than normal. I can still see our friend, who is a classical scholar as well as an archaeologist, sadly shaking his head when I tried to explain to him the possibility that the Iliad had been composed in the Neolithic

The human actors in the Iliad and Odyssey were conceived with great skill, but what about the gods? Were they also a conception, or were they a belief in Atland, probably in the course of being abandoned? The only real clue we have is that just over a hundred years after the lunar/solar cycle that contains these tales, the current belief in Atland was of a single benevolent god, Wr’alda, which could be argued to be consistent, with the idea of a belief in traditional gods which was fading. Critias explained that Poseidon founded Atland, suggesting that traditional gods had been long established.

There is a curiosity that should be noted. The design for Stonehenge is likely to have been conceived shortly before that for the Iliad and Odyssey. If this did take place in Atland, near the time of the lunar/solar cycle. It will be noticed that both conceptions are conceived within a great circle, one in space, the other in time. One is conceived under the stars, while the other conception is saturated with stellar information,. Have we here a glimpse of a cultural ’fashion’? It should be added that the skill with which both conceptions are worked out, is of such quality that we can still be totally absorbed by them today.

This discussion regarding the origin of these works will be concluded when we examine the later Greek end of the story.

^[10] Florence & Keneth Wood, “ Homer’s Secret Iliad “, Jhon Murray, 1999

^[11] « Homer’s Secret Odissey », The History Press, 2011

^[12] Iman Wilkens, « Where Troy Once Stood » Rider.

13 – Fryasland.
We are going to look again at that stretch of territory encompassing the Rhine and twelve other rivers on the North coast of Europe, with Oera Linda, because they present a bit of a puzzle. The point is that it seems that this extensive stretch of territory belonged to Atland before the submersion. What happened to the previous occupants? We have no information. The next question is why was it occupied? There seem to be three possibilities Firstly there might have been a population build-up on Atland, and they ‘needed the space’. Secondly they would be aware that the rising level of the seawater might continue around the island, giving the possibility that they would have to move out, and would need somewhere to move to. Lastly it might be connected with their encouragement of these ‘networks of exchange’ and they wanted to have plenty of their manned boats ready to move goods. It might also have been a mix of these reasons. All we know from Oera Linda is that at the time of the submersion all these rivers were occupied and that the territory was known as Fryasland.

Oera Linda does give us information concerning the government of Fryasland, but we should not assume that this was the same as the government of Atland. The borders of Fryasland, for instance, were much more difficult to protect than those of Atland, which was demonstrated by later history. Another important difference would have been that there were no embankments to be maintained in Fryasland.

The arrangements were as follows: Fryasland had an elected king, with a three year term, who could not stand again, until seven years had passed. He was head of the armed forces, but could not himself carry arms. In matters of peaceful administration his decisions had to be agreed to by a ‘Mother’, a fascinating figurer with wide responsibilities. She had a large group of maidens, who, after seven years training, had responsibilities for helping people and giving advice. The ‘Mothers’ were elected from among the maidens, who had to resign if they got married.

One oddity concerning Fryasland should be noted. Oera Linda describes three different races in the world. There were those who were descended from Frya, who were white, from Lyda, who were black, and from Finda, who were yellow. Their qualities were noted, and of course Frya’s lot were the best! The oddity is that their immediate neighbours were all white, but not accepted as being descended from Frya. They seem to have tried to avoid any mixing with their neighbours, see their marriage practices, but at the same time, in the days of Atland, acted like good uncles to their neighbours, as they seem to have done over the megaliths but later on Fryasland often referred to their neighbours as Finda. This oddity is probably the result of the changes after the submersion. Before this the other territories were considered as friends by Atland, but afterwards, this did not apply to Fryasland, often with good reason.

Continuing with Fryasland, Frya herself was an enigmatic figure of some importance. She had composed a revision to the letters used for writing, on Atland, and had issued some laws to be recorded on the walls of the Citadel of Texland, which seems to have been the headquarters of Fryasland. The laws were issued on Atland, where the Fryasland people were invited, here are some examples from Oera Linda

Do not appeal to Wry-alda (the monotheistic God of Atland) until you have tried all other means at your disposal to deal with the matter
Aid your neighbour when he needs it. Do not wait for him to appeal to you.
Choose upright men who will fairly divide the labour, so that no man may be exempt from work or from the duty of defence.
If one of your people shall sell his freedom, he should be expelled. Likewise if any man deprive another of his liberty, even his debtor.
If a foreigner wishes to marry your daughter, and she is willing, explain her folly, but let her go in peace, if she wants; likewise for your son, but do not let them return.
Prosperity awaits the free. I can only recognise as free, one who is neither a slave to another, nor to himself.

It could be argued that these laws could also be taken as an indication that Atland had ‘de-veloped’ faster than other countries at that time.

The end of Atland.
It is perhaps not surprising that since the existence of Atland has not been acknowledged, its destruction has not been given much attention. Presumably as the multi sourced story of Atland evolves, there will be some moment at which it will no longer be ‘unscientific’ to investigate the possibility of Atland’s disappearance!

There are at Stonehenge, soon after the submersion, indications of considerable confusion, even within the monument, as a result of temporary structures which archaeologists have detected at this time. Were there immigrants following the disaster of submersion, who gathered at Stonehenge for safety? Many of the people from Atland would not have spent their whole life there. Those who were elsewhere when the submersion occurred would have had to make a decision whether to stay where they were, or go elsewhere. For various reasons some might have decided to go to Britain.

Their presence might be detectable. I have thought for some time that Silbury Hill, near Avebury, must have been erected as a monument to Atland, and these ‘displaced’ Attainders would have made important contributions. However the latest study, reported in ‘Cur-rent Archaeology’; August 2014, while confirming that the way it was built up consisting of more or less continuous additions, would fit in with this idea, and the height approximates to the height of the embankment on Atland. However the date given for the start of the work at around 2,450 BC is just over 250 years too early. Maybe this date will be adjusted! It can however be noted that ‘permanent’ homes are considered to have started shortly after the submersion, and ‘Celtic’ fields are found a little later. Perhaps these could be the re-sult of the displaced Atlanders.

There are four myths which must have been based on the submergence, two from Hesiod’s Theogeny which we will discuss in greater detail later on, when we are in Greece, one from Scandinavia a former neighbour of Atland and the most ancient and distant, from Gilgamesh, in Mesopotamia, who journeys to make contact with Utnapishtim the old leader of the now submerged Atland, seeking immortality. This seems to have happened not long after the event. Utnapishtim’s account of the submergence is notable for the outburst of the goddess Ishtar who cried out like a woman in travail, the lovely voiced lady of the gods lamented…”How could I say evil things in the assembly of the gods ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people” (13) . This is interesting because it ignores the common reaction to the submersion in Europe of assuming that the people from Atland were guilty in the eyes of the gods.

In these accounts we frequently find bright lights in the sky, as well as intense heat; there are earthquakes and dreadful storms at sea. One suggested cause has been a large meteor making a low level impact. However such an impact has not as yet been reported.

That brings us to the end of this ‘History of Atland’. The history of Fryasland given in Oera Linda continues, and is sometimes depressing, as they lose land to their neighbours, and their culture becomes diluted. In addition there are dreadful flooding events, causing further difficulties. Our interest is to try to pick up any cultural in heritance from Atland, and the groups of boats which go down to the Mediterranean from Fryasland carry this interest.

16 – The Inheritance.
There is a question that might well be asked; “If the inheritance is of such importance why do we not know more about the deceased? “To which the short answer should be that it concerned the submersion. At that time nearly everyone understood that the world was ruled by the gods. If the gods decided that a people should be destroyed, it would be for a good reason, and the likely reason would have been that the people had sinned. There was a silence and fear about the submersion that had a long history. Oera Linda was written by the descendants of the people of Atland. They dated the submersion, making it zero on their new calendar, which gives us some useful dates, but giving hardly any information about Atland. This silence was taken up over all of Europe, and at the time there was a lot of movement for the exchange of goods, and information travelled with it.

16 – Early sea trips, from Oera Linda.
Much of the inheritance travelled by boat, and the people from Fryasland did a lot of boat-ing. It is interesting to note that some of the vessels at least, carried sails. We know this because in the laws controlling Navigation we find: – “If a topsail man is lost, his heirs shall receive a whole portion”. We should also remember the elegant sailing ships recorded on a mural in Santorini, which were about 700 years after the submersion.

We should follow some of their trips, but we should remember that there are no confirmed archaeological records of major sea trips at this date. The accelerated advance of human technologies still seems to be having an effect through Fryasland, although Atland no longer exists.

^[13] « The Epic of Gilgamesh » translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, Stanford University Press, 1989.

Teunis was a Sea Captain, as was his uncle, and around 2000 BC he took some boats down to the Mediterranean, and ended up on an island in the eastern Mediterranean, where he founded the city of Tyre. The priests on the adjoining mainland were a powerful lot, and he joined up with them for a trip to the western Mediterranean, and founded what eventually became Marseille, somewhat earlier than the Greek ‘foundation’ which was around 700 BC. The priests liked to have great events at which there were ‘wine that was sweet and poisonous and wanton women’. Oera Linda often says what was thought of the priests in this kind of way.

A point of interest is that Teunis had brought down iron weapons for trading, but it is never made clear whether it was old stock from Atland or whether the skill had been passed on to Fryasland, but it should be noted that this is early for the manufacture of iron in Europe. Teunis later on became King of Tyre, and when he died he was honored as the god Neptune of the Mediterranean.

Some five hundred years later another Sea Captain Jon, took a large group of boats to the Mediterranean, and with him was Minerva, an important ‘Mother’ whom he had rescued from social strife in Fryasland. They eventually landed in Greece. It seemed that goat herd-ing was the main occupation, and the herders there, who were dressed in skins. They did not like it when they heard that the incoming party refused the practice of slavery.

It seemed that Minerva liked talking to the people and trying to get them to change their ideas about life, and later, when she died they declared her to be a goddess, Helen. This was derived from her second name, Helena. Many statues of her were made much to the annoyance of the other Fryaslanders, who did not make statues of gods, nor deify their leaders.

By the time of Minerva’s death, Jon had taken about half the party away, but the construction of Athens, with stone walls, and with the help of some of the Greeks, was in progress. Later the Greeks tried, without success to capture Athens, but a new figure, an Egyptian priest called Cecrops, who was advising the Greeks, came into play and invited some rather wild mountain soldiers from Tyre to come and help the Greeks. Cecrops managed to avoid a full confrontation, but persuaded most of the remaining Fryaslanders to depart on a new venture.

Their boats were joined by some others with women and children from Tyre, who were able to lead them through the old Dead Sea route to the Red Sea. Not long afterwards this route was closed as the result of an earthquake. The boats went on and landed the party in the Punjab, where they can be located many years later during the campaign of Alexander.

Minos was another seaman on the trip with Minerva, whom he admired a lot, and later recorded some of her discussions with the Greeks, which are to be found in Oera Linda. Later he went to Crete, and seems to have been of some importance there, making laws, but eventually left quietly and returned to Fryasland; however he was deified in Crete.

18 – The People from the Sea.
Jean Deruelle proposed that the event known as ‘The People from the Sea’ was initiated by people from the North of Europe. Our knowledge of the very active sea fleets there, lends weight to this suggestion, and the participation of the strip of North Africa, which had been part of At land’s territories, fits in well with this proposal.

But why should such a venture have been attempted. It must have had some connection with Atland which was submerged about a thousand years before. There may well have been feelings of trying to re-establish an important past, with the knowledge that there were rich cities around the Mediterranean. It should perhaps be mentioned that although ‘The People from the Sea’ have been discussed fairly often, none of the other proposed warriors have had the same recruiting rage or unity of purpose. It also seems possible that the losses and disorganization caused by this venture, in the long run, enabled the Gauls to establish their network of hill oppida across much of Europe.

We do not know the leadership of the expedition, though it might well have been Denmark. There was a gathering of boats there before the Troy Event, and we should remember the Vikings some centuries later. It seems likely that Fryasland would have been against the expedition, but that many soldiers and sailors from there decided to go. There is no mention of the event in the Oera Linda records, in fact there seems to be a break in the records, which could be a witness to tensions.

I had suggested in ‘The Megaliths and after’ that there must have been what I called the ‘Troy Event’ in which the forces trained and gathered together before heading South to the Mediterranean. The nature of the event would have been modeled on the Iliad, which, as we shall see must have been current, and the earthworks that they produced there, some of which can still be seen, between Cambridge and the Wash, seem to have been inspired by the Iliad. There would have been no point in Atland carrying out these works before the submersion.

It seems probable that more of these warriors stayed down south than we are aware of, the Etruscans, a group with a very special background, being one possibility.

19 – Greece and her gods.
Oera Linda explains that many countries around the Mediterranean suffered badly after the submersion, without explaining which countries, nor what the nature of the suffering was. But we can say that it is possible that Greece suffered at that time.

Over the next seven hundred years it seems probable that a proportion of the mythological and other tales circulating in the wake of the submersion arrived in Greece, and that some of it appealed to them. It is also possible that their appreciation of Minerva/Helena, who was declared to be a god after her death, was related to their appreciation of these previous tales, although Minerva herself so far as we know, was not talking about them.

It was another seven hundred years before Homer, associated with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Hesiod who was the author of the first collection of Greek mythology, the Theology, are active. It is interesting that it is considered that the mythology in these two very different works were very similar. Hesiod obviously made a collection of the favorite mythology, in circulation. Some but probably not all of the collection would have been altered in some way in Greece, but not by Hesiod himself. Two of the longer poems are of special interest to us because they derive from the submersion.
The first of these describes Zeus’ conquest of the Titans; who had been the special gods of Atland and who were eventually imprisoned way down in the depths. The action involves the heavens, the earth, the sea and the fire. There is no direct mention of the submersion.

The second describes Zeus’ battle with Typheus and includes much more fire, since Typheus has many heads with flaming tongues, but is killed never the less. The background of the heavens, the earth, and the sea is similar; again there is no mention of the submersion.

I have summarized them because they are long and absorbing. We do not know whether there was a direct reference to the submersion when the poems reached Greece but we can be sure that Greek priests would have understood what they were about.

There are some other shorter poems where we can perhaps detect that changes had been made. Take the story of Cronos, the chief god of the Titans, the special gods of Atland, who was probably accused of failing to save his ‘people’ when the poem entered Greece, but ended up ‘swallowing his own family’. The story of his father Ouranus went through similar changes

These are by no means the only tales in Hesiod which came from ‘the north’, but Greece claims that no tales came from there, something that seems to be accepted by certainly some scholars This is worth thinking about, and probably concerns priests.

This problem must go back to the issues already discussed concerning the submersion, which by the time of Hesiod was some 1400 years earlier. We have no means of knowing when the Greeks started to ‘adopt’ the gods they found in these stories, but it seems likely that some priests became concerned that gods from Atland who were being adopted, be-cause of the fear surrounding the submersion. They realized that it was impossible to block the entry of further stories, so they decided on a double declaration. Firstly, that ‘Atland had never existed’, and secondly that ‘no material from the north had, or would get into Greece’. These measures were agreed at all the necessary meetings, and carried by the strength of the priests. The Greek gods were saved!

This of course is supposition; but something like it must have taken place. The remarkable thing is that the declaration still seems to hold today!

We now have to decide whether it is possible that the Iliad and Odyssey were conceived in Greece. It has been accepted for some time that Homer’s handling of the verse is of such competence that there must have been several generations of local poets evolving the skill, although there is very little evidence of these poets.

But the heavy problems start with astronomy and the mathematics of astronomy found in the two works, and presented in ‘Homer’s Secret Iliad’ and ‘Homer’s Secret Odyssey’. The authors explained that with its inheritance from the Minoans and Mycenaeans they would have been well furnished with such information and skills but where are the precedents? I have already mentioned my own view, that in Atland this task of composition must have been taken on by a team.

To expect that Homer should have had the skills of one of the world’s greatest writers in association with the mathematics and astronomy necessary to place the stories some 1400 years earlier, for what reason we have no idea, and to establish a whole series of relation-ships between the actions in the story and the movements of the stars, and all this at a time when there is doubt as to as to whether writing was in use, does not make sense. Homer must have been a translator. I believe that the authors together with Edna Leigh have done a fantastic job of presenting the Iliad and Odyssey in a new light, which has enabled a glimpse of Atland t to appear but I hope that they will soon be able to throw off their Grecian yoke!

However we should realize that Homer did a number of remarkable things. Firstly his translation, was of such high quality that it is still possible to extract the astronomic information. In addition he must be credited with saving the Iliad and Odyssey, which could so easily have disappeared. Finally in doing these things he has become the primary guardian of the memory of Atland which could also have vanished. Homer is not diminished!

23 – End note.
To learn, as we have, that many of the Greek gods are second hand, is at first somewhat disturbing! But when we remember that what is emerging is that Atland existed, that pre-history was hiding a pearl, we can look forward with some excitement!