Latest News
NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
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 »
Americas
Schmidt, Erasmus
Erasmus Schmidt (1570-1637) was a German philosopher who gave a lecture in 1602 on the subject of America as Atlantis. This was later added as an appendix to a book, ‘Pindari operacum comment. & Versione’, published by Schmidt in 1616 and translated into German in 1893 by Theodor Wiesehahn from Friederberg.
Sweeney, Emmet John*
Emmet John Sweeney is a Scottish historian, who graduated from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has followed the lead of Immanuel Velikovsky and produced several books[520][845] arguing for a radical revision of the generally accepted chronologies of the early civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean.
He controversially claims that “all the civilisations on both sides of the Atlantic arose more or less simultaneously, sometime between 1100 and 1200 BC” [700.202].
In Empire Of Thebes, Or, Ages In Chaos Revisited [1867] Sweeney returns to the work of Velikovsky and “seeks to complete the work which he commenced, identifying the problems Velikovsky could not solve, and bringing forward a great body of evidence not even mentioned by Velikovsky which supports his identification of Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba. Velikovsky was rejected by the academic establishment because of a number of contradictions in the chronology he outlined. Sweeney shows that despite some gaps and incompletions, his (Velikovsky’s) books were brilliant works of scholarship with much to recommend them. For decades now various scholars have attempted to solve the enigma. Yet the answer was stunningly simple and in front of us all the time. Empire of Thebes provides the solution and finally allows the possibility of a complete and satisfactory reconstruction of ancient history. This work calls for a much more radical shortening of ancient chronology and asserts that Velikovsky ran into a dead end because he placed too much reliance on the Bible as a chronological measuring rod.”
Velikovsky’s (and Sweeney’s) identification of the Queen of Sheba with Hatshepsut was recently endorsed in a paper by Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White (f). However, others, such as Eulalio Eguia, identify the Queen of Sheba with Nefertiti(g).
He further claims that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed around 800 BC(d) and that Atlantis was destroyed around the same period! This date is significant as it coincides with an event that led to devastation in Southern Germany and the Alps involving huge inundations and tilting of lake shorelines which could only be brought about by a very powerful seismic upheaval(b).
“His claim that the Great Pyramid was constructed around 850 BC, rather than 2550 BC, is viewed as unfounded sensationalism. Sweeney’s claims that the pyramid-builders would have needed steel tools to cut granite, basalt and diorite, is said to have been disproved by the researches of Denys A. Stocks, who shows (Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology, 2003) that granite, for example, can be worked by pounding it with a harder stone, such as basalt. Sweeney however has pointed out that while large granite surfaces can be ground down in this way, Pyramid Age sculptors must have been in possession of steel tools, since the carving of basalt and diorite portrait statues, which display details of eyes, nose, ears, etc, can only have been executed using very sharp and fine cutting-tools.”(e)
He has also tackled the Arthurian legend, regarding which he considers Stonehenge to have been Arthur’s ‘round table’. The blurb for his 2001 book Arthur and Stonehenge[918] goes further stating that “As for Arthur himself, he was the primitive bear-god “Artos”, the Celtic version of Hercules. Originally portrayed with a bearskin over his head and shoulders and carrying a great oaken club, he became the prototype of the Greek Hercules when Hellenic traders, braving the wild waters of the Atlantic in search of tin, heard his story from the Britons.”
Sweeney has now ventured beyond his comfort zone and devoted his talents to the Atlantis question. He argues for the existence of a large island in the Atlantic, whose remnants today are the Azores. He sees this island as a stepping-stone to the Americas, which is necessary to explain the evidence of transatlantic contacts in the very distant past. He also takes the opportunity to highlight weaknesses in radiocarbon dating (p218).
The Washington Times, which is owned by the ‘Moonies’, gave his book a favourable review(a)! The reviewer, Martin Sieff, a native of Belfast and Velikovskian catastrophist, is accused by Jason Colavito[915] of using his critique to promote Sweeney more as a catastrophist rather than as an atlantologist and does so without revealing Sieff’s catastrophist background.
A more critical review of Sweeney’s work can also be found elsewhere on the Internet(c).
(a) https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/25/book-review-atlantis/print/
(b) H. Gams and R. Nordhagen, Mitteil. der Geograph. Ges. in Munchen, XVI, H. 2 (1923), pp. 13-348. R. Sernander, ‘Klimaverschlechterung, Postglaciale’ in Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, VII (1926); O. Paret, Das Neue Bild der Vorgeschuchte (1948), p.44.
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20140416073952/https://wikibin.org/articles/emmet-sweeney.html
(d) https://www.algora.com/140/book/details.html
(e) Emmet Sweeney (wikibin.org)
(g) https://cread.jd.com/read/startRead.action?bookId=30564080&readType=1 *
Location Theories
Location Theories regarding Atlantis have identified sites all over the globe as can be seen below. In very general terms the 15th century saw three developments that were to lead to a renewed interest in Atlantis – the discovery of America, the first translation of the complete works of Plato by Ficino and the invention of the printing press. These saw a number of commentators offering their views on the location of Atlantis during the 16th century of which the majority favoured the Americas. Gradually the Americas gave way to an Atlantic location reaching a peak with the publication of Ignatius Donnelly’s famous work. Both the Americas and the Atlantic still have their proponents, although today reasoning rather than speculation is more evident.
Around 1900 Sir Arthur Evans was beginning to uncover the remains of the Minoan civilisation on Crete. Subsequently, in the same manner that the discovery of America led to the identification of the New World with Atlantis when Evans revealed the glory of the civilisation that had existed on Crete, the early part of the 20th century saw the formulation of the Minoan Hypothesis, which linked Crete with Atlantis. This concept got a dramatic boost with the discovery of the 2nd millennium BC eruption of Thera and the possibility that it inspired aspects of Plato’s Atlantis narrative. This idea is still the most popular after nearly a century of both study and speculation.
Atlantis theories have proliferated but in general, are more carefully and scientifically argued today. However, the work and reputation of serious atlantologists is frequently undermined by the ravings of occultists and mystics and their channelled gibberish. It should be obvious that if there was any communication with another plane of existence that by now we would have been told the location of Atlantis, but none has been forthcoming.
Non-specific clues to the location of Atlantis are the fact that most major cities are sited at the mouths of rivers and as the 2010 BBC documentary series How the Earth Made Us demonstrated, so many ancient civilisations developed close to tectonic fault lines because of the range of mineral wealth frequently found adjacent to them. However, fault lines are prone to earthquakes, a feature compatible with Plato’s description of Atlantis’ demise. In addition, the late Ulf Richter reasoned that the plain described by Plato was in fact a river delta. So it is probable that the capital of Atlantis was built on a river delta near a tectonic fault line.
A chronological list of theories and their authors is available here. I recently (2014) counted that a full 40% of those listedsupported an Atlantic location. However, as I demonstrate elsewhere ((5105)) the Atlantic ‘Sea’ referred to by Plato (Timaeus 24e, 25a & Critias 109a, 114a) could not have been the Atlantic Ocean that we know today.
While it may appear that recent years have seen a considerable increase in the number of people publicly expressing their views regarding the location of Atlantis, we must allow for two developments; the expansion of self-publishing and the use of the Internet. Unfortunately, this has led to a greater proliferation of nonsensical ideas about Atlantis alongside the more thoughtful and valuable contributions to the subject.
>A novel approach to determining the location of Atlantis was published in 2022 by Neo Khala. Using the Chronology of Locations published here he placed them all in a spreadsheet. “The spreadsheet contains 690 entries, which include almost a hundred different locations. For each location, I looked up the corresponding coordinates on the globe. From these values, I calculated the average of the latitude and the longitude. The result: 31°5’3.012″N 14°21’15.084″W. So Atlantis was found in the North Atlantic Ocean, north of the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco, at the same level as Essaouria. As you can see, finding Atlantis was child’s play. You can also see that my approach encompasses all other localizations that have ever existed. I must add, it also includes all the locations that could ever exist. The search is over. For once and for all, Atlantis is found.”(a)
Whatever happened to the Scientific Method?<
Altiplano
The Altiplano, which simply means ‘high plain’ is a vast plateau in the Andes straddling South-Eastern Peru and Western Bolivia. For Atlantis seekers it is of interest as the location of Jim Allen’s Pampa Aullagus which he controversially maintains is the site of Plato’s lost city(a).
>In 1973, James Bailey published The God-Kings and The Titans [0149] , in which he claimed that the Americas were colonised as early as 5000 BC and provided the copper and tin for the development of the Bronze Age in the Old World. He was an early proponent of the idea that Atlantis was located in Bolivia or Peru, with its capital city being either Tiahuanaco or Chan Chan, on the coast.
Bailey published a follow-up book, Sailing to Paradise [0150] in 1994 in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.. He also noted that the irrigation systems of Mexico allowed farmers to raise three crops a year [p.63] and similarly on the coastal plains of Peru, offering echoes of Plato’s description of agriculture in Atlantis.<
Oviedo y Valdéz, Gonzalo Fernández
Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo y Valdéz (1478-1557) was a Spanish historian and in 1519 the author of what was probably the first literary work produced in the New World, Libro del muy esforzado e invencible caballero Don Claribalte.
On his return to Spain, Oviedo wrote an important history of the Spanish Indies, La historia general y natural de las Indias[1117], which included what is believed to be the first illustration of a pineapple. Most of his work was not published until the mid-19th century. (volume one available online(a))
Sprague de Camp, without citation, listed[0194] Oviedo as having located Atlantis in what is modern Iraq and that the survivors of its destruction escaped to the Americas. Thorwald C. Franke has drawn attention to the absence of any such reference in ‘La Historia’.
*In his Historia, Oviedo identified the Antilles as the legendary Hesperides.*
Stephen P. Kershaw notes[1410.227] that Oviedo attributed the peopling of the Americas to Phoenicians and/or Carthaginians.
(a) https://archive.org/details/generalynatural01fernrich