Archive 7275

PRESS RELEASE FROM PETER DAUGHTREY 2022

Why is the discovery of Plato’s Atlantis being ignored?

The sixty clues that Plato gave for the location of Atlantis were so extraordinarily detailed there could not possibly be two places the same. Now, at last, this precise information has been exactly matched to a unique site. So why is this discovery being ignored? Is it because, after long being dismissed by historians as a mere story concocted by Plato to impress his ideas on the local Athenians, the truth is just too awkward and embarrassing for them to contemplate? If Plato was correct, that Atlantis really did exist more or less as he described, then the accepted time span for civilisation that academics have been teaching and writing about is hopelessly wrong. There is quite likely a much earlier period of human civilised development, possibly spanning thousands of years, which we know nothing about. In his book, “ATLANTIS and the Silver City”, author and researcher Peter Daughtrey claims that he has indisputably proven exactly where Plato was referring to. Astoundingly, he also pinpoints the original site where the small, glittering capital city once existed, for which Plato also gave a wealth of unique information. It is clear, Plato definitely did not make it all up, the place really does exist. You can go and see it, touch it, explore the ramparts of its huge castle and walk the medieval cobbled streets of the town that now sits on the on the small hill that the ancient capital once occupied. You may have already done just that as it is a famous tourist site. Peter’s case is entirely factual and refreshingly straightforward. It is not hypothetical. It is based on forensically examining what Plato wrote to produce an exacting list of sixty clues, then finding the area they matched. As one reviewer remarked, “It was under our noses all along”. Another wrote, “The author matches Plato . . . all of Plato.” The book is definitely not another pseudo-archaeological account. It really does solve one of history’s greatest mysteries. Andrew Lownie, Peter’s Literary Agent, has now arranged for a new updated edition with even more confirmatory evidence, such as very old Egyptian maps. It has just been published by Lume Books in the UK and the USA as a paper back and e-book. Peter is not aware of any reasoned rebuttal of his case since its original launch as a hardback in America a few years ago, Just a disturbing and frustrating silence. Hopefully this time the Media will react and not allow historians to airily dismiss it or to clam up and ignore it. There are more details in the following short document. . . . “Was it an Algarve mega tsunami that destroyed and submerged Atlantis?” Was it an Algarve mega tsunami and earthquake that destroyed and submerged Atlantis? Peter Daughtrey’s interest was first piqued whilst researching a little-known event, “The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755”. He was planning an article for a magazine, one of those published by his company that he had built up in Portugal. Strangely, few know of this enormous quake. Because its power was so destructively awesome, Portugal certainly has good reason not to publicise it, as you will shortly appreciate. Ninety per cent of Lisbon was destroyed, one of the most famous and opulent cities in the West laid waste. Tens of thousands perished. If it happened today, it would flood the news media for weeks. Most earthquakes only result in destruction around their immediate epicenter, at worst in a 25 to 50 kilometre radius. Yet the center of this one in 1755 was over a staggering 300 kilometers distant from Lisbon! It was out at sea off the south west tip of Portugal’s southern Algarve region. So, it was really “The Great Algarve Earthquake”. But hardly anyone had heard of the Algarve then and everybody knew about Lisbon. Europe was gripped by the enormity of the disaster and even today it seems too stupendous to contemplate. You can imagine the damage in the Algarve, where the effect would have been felt much worse than in Lisbon. Practically all habitation was flattened. Destruction was also wreaked eastward along the Andalusian coast up to Gibraltar as well as north Morocco. There were three huge quakes in the space of three hours and the inevitable tsunamis reached a towering 100 feet high in places. Just imagine being confronted by a giant wave the height of a ten story building, roaring in at hundreds of miles per hour. That is around three times as high as the one in Japan that so severely damaged their Nuclear Plant. Geologists have calculated that in places the seabed and land sank 100 feet over a 300 kilometer radius around the epicenter. That would have reached right up to and included the Algarve. Most serious quakes are in the region of 6 to 7 on the Richter Scale. This one is thought to have probably been at least 8.9, that is 100 times stronger than one of 6.9! But there was one further hard fact that really jolted Peter into starting on his quest. Professional university research on the seabed had shown that a number of similar events of equal or even worse magnitude have afflicted this same region between every 1,250 and 2,250 years over the past 14,000 years. That echoed what Plato wrote, that Atlantis was destroyed around 9600BC in a day and night of terrible earthquakes and floods. One of these shattering events would have been capable of dealing the fatal blow to Atlantis. It is universally accepted that the level of oceans around the world have risen about 420 feet as the result of the end of the Ice Age. Most people wrongly assume that this entire increase was caused by a slow, smooth melting due to the collapse of the Ice, when in fact it was largely due to three sudden, worldwide catastrophic events after the Ice Age had finished. They resulted in massive floods and huge loss of life and land. They were around 10800BC, 9600BC and approximately 6000BC. Consequently, unbelievable amounts of habitable land were lost, in south-east Asia alone an area twice the size of India has disappeared! Academic critics of books or documentaries about Atlantis, or of claims about other ancient civilisations, smugly dismiss them by asking, “Why have we found no evidence?” That barb needs deflecting back at them. It is because they haven’t bothered looking on the ocean floors in areas that were once eminently habitable land around 14,000 years ago. There are a few exceptions, but as the explorations were not carried out by archaeologists, the discoveries have been conveniently dismissed as not professional. Many settlements inevitably develop on or close to the coast, or around river mouths, and massive amounts of that type of land have been lost as a result of these disastrous events. Think what New York, London, Sydney and all the world’s great ports would look like if the seas were to rise another 420 feet. All the globe’s islands were also much bigger before these calamitous disasters, many had been joined to each other to make considerable land masses. For example, Easter Island was much larger and part of a chain. You could have walked from Dublin to London, onto Paris and then Malta without crossing water and quite possibly all the way to Cape Town. Note the date of one of those disasters, 9600BC, the same date that Plato gave for the destruction of Atlantis. Don’t you think that was a very lucky guess if he made it all up? A one in nine thousand chance! How many punters would bet on those odds? Before uncovering the full horror and ramifications of the 1755 earthquake, Peter had already noted that, from what little he could remember of Plato’s account, the Algarve and the adjoining coastal area of Spain’s Andalucía seemed uncannily similar to it. He also found it surprising that there were no records of any substantial ancient civilisation having developed there when conditions were pretty well ideal. So he set to and very carefully analysed copies of Plato’s two Dialogues that featured Atlantis. The result was an extensive list of around 60 clues that even today we could still possibly hope to match. They included 18 very detailed and specific ones for the site of the small capital city. Collectively, these constituted such an individual and extensive list there could not possibly be two places the same in the whole world. It seemed entirely logical that, if you were going to look for Atlantis, first you should look for somewhere that matched these 60 clues. Then look for archaeological evidence on the ground and seabed to support it. So many have attempted the reverse, finding some old ruins or anomaly and then trying to fit them up with a few of Plato’s clues. Yes, just a few. For instance, the academics’ and BBC’s favourite site, Santorini, barely matches 6. It was destroyed at the wrong time, in the wrong way, was in the wrong place, had the wrong vegetation, the wrong animals and it was the wrong size, etc, etc. Yet historians cling to it, obstinately claiming that Plato based his account on the real event of Santorini’s destruction. It gets them off the hook of not having to denigrate such a hugely respected figure as Plato by accepting his account as being purely allegorical. After twenty years of research on the ground in the Algarve, including across the border into Spain, Peter was able to satisfy all but a few of the clues, including those very exacting ones for the site of the capital city. Only a few proved problematical, probably because of the huge passage of time and involving so many seismic upheavals, or simply down to Plato’s well known fault of embroidering his accounts although keeping his core story accurate. The plain, factual evidence is overwhelming, it is not in the slightest theoretical. If a similarly convincing body of evidence was presented at a murder trial, the Jury would only bother to adjourn to partake of their tea and biscuits before returning with a guilty verdict. Those 60 demanding clues include its geographical position, climate, irrigation, vegetation, crops, animals, topography, the source of huge wealth and how it was destroyed. Also included are the precise measurements of the three rings of water and two huge embankments surrounding the capital on its small hill and the three different coloured stones that the city was built from, but all quarried from that same little hill. Even the exact position of the same city’s bustling inland harbour and its distance from the sea. Yet they only amount to five of the eighteen clues about the capital. . . all the others are equally exacting and demanding . . . and all matching Peter’s site. From 711AD to 1189AD the Algarve had been a Moorish Kingdom. Its capital was on the same site as this one identified by Peter as the Atlantis capital. During this Moorish period the city was one of elegant graceful buildings, tinkling water gardens, of learning and poetry. Way before that, over 2,500 years ago, he presents evidence that it was then the capital of the enigmatic Tartessos/Tarshish civilisation and known as “The Silver City”, ruled for a long time by the famous “Silver King”, Arganthonius (Argan meant Silver in Greek). His kingdom spanned what was left of the old Atlantis one, from the south west of Portugal to Gibraltar. This is again at odds with establishment dogma which maintains Tartessos was probably just a small state in Spain. Later, in Roman times, the people living in this region claimed to have written records of their history dating back to at least 6000BC. That alone is way before the date generally accepted by historians for the first stirrings of civilisation in places such as Sumeria, Egypt and The Indus Valley. Not to mention an alphabet to write it, but Peter claims to have found that as well. If Plato was correct, 3,600 years before that, in 9600BC, this old “Silver City” was the glittering capital of Atlantis its walls shimmering in the bright sunlight from cladding in precious metals. Today it is called “Silves”, an attractive medieval town, still crowned by the massive repaired Castle left by the Moors. Coachloads of tourists are deposited there every day to ogle it. In his book, Peter clearly demonstrates how Plato’s information matches this area of south west Iberia, stretching westwards from Gibraltar, along the coast of Spain’s Andalucía and then the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The great agricultural plain that Plato described as being submerged in the disaster now forms a substantial part of the seabed in front of this region. Before so much coast and interior land was lost, Morocco was much closer and would have formed a part of the original Atlantis homeland. As a result, the straits of Gibraltar stretched much further west into the Atlantic and would have been very narrow. Much of North Africa, including the Sahara, was then green and fertile with great rivers. (Climate change is not a new phenomenon.) With the exception of this narrow channel of sea, (Plato describes it as a strait), North Morocco would have been like a continuation of the Atlantis plain that Plato made much of. Peter points out that this seabed, stretching scores of miles south from the Iberian coast, is initially shallow and only slopes a few metres in every kilometre. There are then three intermittent drops of around 100 metres spaced over many more kilometres, which could well be the result of sudden large rises in sea levels or land subsiding. The Portuguese Bathymetric chart of this seabed even describes it as a plain (Planalto) and clearly depicts ancient riverbeds that once linked with several still existing on land, confirming that the area was once above water. More coastal land and some small islands have been sunk by each subsequent massive earthquake or been swallowed by rising sea. Many small areas are marked “Unknown obstacle” or “Rocky area” on the seabed chart, but have not been explored. An obscure, centuries old Portuguese book records that a group of submerged buildings were seen exposed way out on the seabed when the ocean withdrew before the 1755 tsunamis roared in. According to Plato there would have been many towns and ports dotted over this whole plain, but these would have had to have been very well built to survive earthquakes and tsunamis. This seabed is ripe for investigation. But we have to remember that Plato’s catastrophe supposedly occurred just over 11,600 years ago, and since then the area has been subjected to many more similar disasters, with terrain progressively sinking or dramatically thrust upward, together with tsunamis repeatedly flooding the whole coastal land area up to the northern mountains and Silves, before dragging top-soil and debris back out to sea as they receded. Like those seen in 1755, some buildings might have survived submergence on the ocean floor thanks to their construction from stone and possibly in the ancient earthquake-proof Polygonal style. Imagine what ruins might be preserved with parts being temporarily exposed by the shifting sands. There is one place on shore that could also deliver fascinating results. It is the inland harbour, in the outer of the three wide rings of water that surrounded the capital. This appears to have been in continuous use right up to Roman times, and an earlier Phoenician trading post overlooking it has already been excavated there by archaeologists. It is now largely silt and marsh. The tsunamis would have flooded up the river to this harbour and smashed or sunk the many boats docked there. Quoting Plato, “….the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts…”. If Plato was correct, just imagine what might be preserved deep down in the mud, from many other eras as well as Atlantis. It is now a demonstrable fact that the very area that Plato was indicating for Atlantis has been revealed. He definitely did not make it all up. Why is it being ignored? Why the silence? ” ATLANTIS and the Silver City” is published by Lume Books. aubrie@lumebooks.co.uk Ebooks and Paperbacks are available from Web sites such as Amazon and book shops. Author Peter Daughtrey welcomes media approaches for more information, interviews or to answer questions. (m.daughtrey@sapo.pt) 01425 653649 For feature articles, or excerpts from the book, contact Andrew Lownie ( lownie@globalnet.co.uk ) Permission is given for the use of any of the foregoing copyrighted written material and picture, providing the title of the book and author are included. Other relevant illustrations can be supplied on request. Suggested picture caption:- Atlantis reflections. The city of Silves, mirrored in the Arade tidal river that connects it to the sea and that had supplied the seawater that once filled the canals surrounding it. In his book, ATLANTIS and the Silver City, author Peter Daughtrey claims that this medieval city, in Portugal’s southern Algarve region, now occupies the site of the Ancient Atlantis capital. It matches exactly what Plato described in such exacting and unique detail, there could not be two places the same. It is a fact of history combined with geological research that over the past 12000 years, at intervals between every 1000 to 2250 years, this whole south west Iberian region and north Morocco has been devastated by truly awesome earthquakes and tsunamis up to 100 feet high. The last was in 1755. Daughtrey claims that they have consigned a huge area of what was habitable Atlantis land to seabed, just as Plato had indicated.