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Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Tony O'Connell
Bircherod, Jens
Jens Bircherod (1664-1720) was a Swiss scholar who believed that Atlantis had been situated in America and also speculated that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians had, by a fortuitous mixture of winds and currents, reached America, as noted briefly in his treatise, De orbe novo non novo schediasma [1473].
The historian, Manfred Petri, commented about Bircherod’s; “detailed and scholarly study,” it says, among other things: ” Most of his arguments served to prove the knowledge of ancient authors of the New World. For support, he consulted numerous passages from ancient writings, which, however, contained only vague hints about America.”(a)
Sennfelt, Diogo
Diogo Sennfelt is the author of Atlantis in Ethiopia: The Lost Island of Dama Ali [2133]. He has opted for the Afar Depression, also known as the Afar Triangle in northern Ethiopia as the source of the Atlantis story. Although he is not the first to make this suggestion, he has focused on a number of geological features in the region that seem to be reflected in Plato’s account.
However, I must point out that many other proposed locations also appear to share some of their features with Plato’s Atlantis, but never sufficient to prove identity. In my opinion, Sennfelt’s claims also fall short. The entry here regarding checklists shows how various authors have produced lists of characteristics shared by their chosen Atlantis location and Plato’s narrative. In one case, 50 points of agreement are claimed, while Sennfelt manages 23.
The book concentrates too much on the geology of the region and could have been edited down to half its size. Overall, I found the author’s style too wordy, and so often today, lacks an index.
Precession of the Equinoxes
Precession of the Equinoxes is a term commonly used to describe the gradual change in the orientation of the rotational axis of the Earth. This involves a slow process that takes about 26,000 years to complete. The 2nd century BC astronomer Hipparchus is generally thought to have discovered precession(a).
Harald A.T. Reiche offered an astronomical interpretation of the Atlantis story, based on precession; a concept discussed at length in Hamlet’s Mill [0524] by Santillana & Dechend, who were colleagues of Reiche at M.I.T. Their view is that “myths were vehicles for memorising and transmitting certain kinds of astronomical and cosmological information.
The African Humid Period (11,000-5,000 years ago) is attributed to the effects of precession. It gave us a ‘Green Sahara’ now associated by some modern researchers, including Sarantitis, Howard, and Kelley, with the time and location of Atlantis.
African Humid Period
The African Humid Period is a description of a time when we had a ‘Green Sahara’, with large lakes and rivers. It is dated to between to around 11,000 and 5,000 years ago. It is attributed to the effects of the 26,000-year-cycle of what is often known as the precession of the equinoxes(a)(b).
In recent years, some researchers, such as George Sarantitis, A.J. Howard and Jack Kelley have placed Atlantis in North Africa during this period.
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
(b) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379199000815
Ships
Ships play little part in the Atlantis narrative except where Plato describes the time of the gods (Critias 113e) being “without ships or sailing”. Later (Critias 117d-e) he describes the bustling harbour of Atlantis as having many triremes. That ships were used in the war with Athens can be inferred from the fact that Atlantis, or at least its capital, was on an island.
However, the history of ships and boats creates a problem for those who adhere to the early date of around 9600 BC for the Atlantean War. The latest proponent of this highly questionable claim is P.P. Flambas.
The oldest surviving boats according to Wikipedia, the two oldest are just canoes dating from 8000 BC and 6500 BC, neither of which would have been suitable as constituents of any invasion fleet. The next is the ‘Khufu ship’ dated 2500 BC. What the supporters of the 9600 BC date cannot explain is how, at that date, the Atlanteans had seagoing vessels, but 7,000 years, later boat building had, it seems, not advanced at all, if the Khufu ship is an example of the state-of-the-art in the 3rd millennium BC. However, over the next thousand years, the Phoenicians managed to develop magnificent trading vessels and warships. How could the previous seven millennia have not seen shipbuilding develop at all?
Howard, Alfred J.
Alfred J. Howard is the author of The Lost Sea of Atlantis [2131], which places Atlantis in a large freshwater lake in West Africa during the African Humid Period (11,000-5,000 years ago.) He draws heavily from the earlier work of George Sarantitis. This is a short book of just over 100 pages, of which 30 are taken up with Plato’s Atlantis text in Greek and English. It also lacks an index.
A year earlier, Jack Kelley published The Atlantis Puzzle [2132], in which the author arrived at a similar conclusion. Once again, Sarantitis has provided the inspiration for this offering.
Kelley, Jack
Jack Kelley (1980- ) is the author of The Atlantis Puzzle [2132], published in 2025. It is heavily influenced by the earlier work of George Sarantitis, placing Atlantis in West Africa during the African Humid Period(a). A year later, Alfred J. Howard published The Lost Sea of Atlantis [2131], in which he also proposed West Africa as the location of Atlantis, and also referencing the extensive research of Sarantitis.
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean has produced two principal schools of thought relating to sunken civilisations. The first concerns what is known as Sundaland, which was comprised mainly of land in the South China Sea that was exposed during the last Ice Age and gradually submerged as the glaciers melted. Today, its principal remnants are the islands of the huge Indonesian archipelago. Several researchers have claimed that this inundation of the land inspired Plato’s Atlantis story. The late Arysio dos Santos was probably the first to give the idea widespread publicity. Today, Dhani Irwanto can claim to be its leading proponent.
The second concerns Lemuria and Mu, the former being a vast hypothetical landmass proposed to explain how lemurs reached Africa and India. Mu, on the other hand, is a complete invention by Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1869 as the name given to a mythical continent that supposedly existed in the Pacific Ocean, according to an incorrect translation of the Codex Troano. At the end of the 19th century, his fictional continent was confusingly moved by Augustus le Plongeon into the Atlantic. Subsequently, le Plongeon’s friend, ‘Colonel’ James Churchward, moved Mu back to the Pacific in his 1931 book, The Lost Continent of Mu [0233], in which he presented it as a kind of Pacific precursor to Atlantis.
The Pacific might, at face value, appear to be a most unlikely candidate to be the home of Plato’s Atlantis, particularly as he clearly stated that the Atlanteans came from the ‘Atlantic’. Whether this Atlantic was the same body of water that we today call the Atlantic Ocean is a matter of continuing debate. Nevertheless, Sir Francis Bacon placed a fictionalised Atlantis in the Pacific off the west coast of America.
There are a lot of confusing ideas, old and new, still in circulation regarding sunken civilisations associated with the Pacific. One that springs to mind is that of Louis-Claude Vincent, who, in 1969, published two large volumes (800 pages) on the origins of civilisation entitled Le paradis perdu de Mu (The Lost Paradise of Mu). He claimed that an impact with an extraterrestrial body changed the axis of rotation of the Earth by 90° causing the Deluge and submerging Atlantis in the Pacific!
There is little doubt that the Pacific, along with every other part of the world, has a long, unwritten history of mankind’s spread throughout that vast ocean. Even the inhabitants of the remote and scattered islands of Polynesia can today relate how they developed navigation techniques unknown anywhere else and have developed and used them over very many years(a) .
Other related speculation can be found under Nan Madol, Rutas, Garden of Eden, New Hebrides, Ogygia and Yonaguni.
Denmark
Denmark is seldom mentioned in connection with Atlantis. Consequently, I was intrigued when I came across a reference to such a connection by Ronan Coghlan [727]. He found that the Catalan Wikipedia “says there was a legend placing Atlantis in Denmark, but cites no authority”.
In 2025, it was announced that a submerged Stone Age settlement had been discovered in the Bay of Aarhus off the east coast of Denmark and dated to around 6500 BC(a). Interesting, but, unlikely to be Atlantis. It is possibly more likely to be related to the flooding of Sundaland.
(a) https://fortune.com/2025/08/26/denmark-stone-age-neolithic-atlantis-deep-sea-dive/
Tolworthy, Chris
Chris Tolworthy is the author of a variety books, both fictional and historical, He has recently published a trilogy with a similar theme; The Bible: It’s All True, Prophesy: It’s All True and Atlantis: It’s All True [2126].
The Atlantis volume(a) can be divided into two halves, the first offers a lengthy series of weakly supported statements regarding Plato’s Atlantis, with minimal reference to Plato’s text. My interest in the book dissipated on the first page of the Introduction, where the author arbitrarily, without any justification, accepts the tenth millennium BC of the time of the war between Atlantis and Egypt.
The first half begins with the identification of Lake Tritonis as the location of Atlantis, which Tolworthy seems to think has been deliberately ignored by scholars. By contrast, I, with many others, have also supported the idea of northwest Africa as part of the Atlantean alliance
The second half was a more extensive rant against establishment figures, politicians, scholars, scientists and their universities.
(a) https://www.tedagame.com/books/Atlantis.pdf