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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 »
Antilles
Aztecs
The Aztecs of Mexico are believed by many writers to have originated as refugees from Atlantis. Their own traditions claim that they came from Aztlan, a land to the east. Francisco López de Gómara was the first European to suggest this link with Atlantis in 1551[332]. Ignatius Donnelly wrote at length on the subject and had his views frequently reflected in the work of writers at the beginning of the 20th century. Even today, some still associate Atlantis with the Aztecs(b), while others think that the Olmecs, predecessors of the Aztecs and Maya were Atlantean refugees(c).
Tenochtitlan was the capital the Aztec Empire and at the time it was captured by the Spanish it was probably one of the largest cities in the world with an estimated population of 200,000.
It is remarkable that the descendants of Moctezuma, the last Aztec emperor are alive and well and living in Spain today as the noble house of Grau-Moctezuma de Toleriu(a).
The Aztec drawing on the left is interpreted as representing the migration of the Aztecs from an island in the Atlantic to the mainland of America. The assumption is that the island in question was Atlantis! The case for a clear Aztec-Atlantis connection is far from proven.
The first Latin writer of Aztec history was Ixitilxochill, himself of Aztec lineage, who maintained that the Olmecs had come to Eastern Mexico from the Antilles via Florida.
>In 1913, Thomas Crawford Johnston claimed that the Aztecs were Phoenician in origin – The civilisation of the Aztecs, using the name as a generic term, came from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean [1902.248].
Aztec Calendar Stone
A few years later, George H. Cooper, an American, proposed that the Aztec Calendar Stone (see right) “is a miniature, in another and advanced form of art, of Stonehenge [236.30]! Additionally, he claimed [p58]that the Pillars of Herakles mentioned by Plato is a reference to the monoliths of Stonehenge! Cooper goes further and nominates Salisbury Plain, where Stonehenge is located, as the site of the Garden of Eden [p105]!<
(a) The House of Moctezuma | andrewcusack.com
(b) Tenochtitlan: The Atlantis of the Ancient Aztec Empire – Pyramidomania
(c) Ancient Olmecs: Survivors of the city-continent of Atlantis (archive.org)
Antilia
Antilia (Antillia), according to Aristotle, was the name by which a large island in the Atlantic was known to the Carthaginians. It may be worth noting that in Portuguese the word, ante-ihla, can be translated as ‘before’ or ‘in front of the island’. Aristotle, who had been one of Plato’s students, was the first to criticize his story of Atlantis. However it was Aristotle who wrote of a huge island in the Atlantic Ocean known by the Phoenicians as “Antilia” and so he appears to have unwittingly ended up supporting Plato‘s story.
Part of Toscanelli’s 1474 Map
Antilia is also the name of a landmass shown on medieval charts, varying in size and location between the Azores/Canaries and the Caribbean. In 1474, Paulo Toscanelli (1397-1482) produced a chart(a) showing the island of Antilia in the mid-Atlantic due west of the Canaries. The same map also includes the mythical St. Brendan’s Isle as a larger landmass further south. Battista Boccario shows Antilia on a 1435 map as did Zuane Pizzigani a decade earlier. After the discovery of the West Indies it assumed its present plural form of ‘Antilles’ to describe the large archipelago there.
In 1492, Martin Behaim (1436-1507) a German geographer constructed the earliest globe that we still have today. On it he depicts ‘Insula Antilia Septa Citida’ [The Island of Antilia of the Seven Cities] with an associated comment that relates how in 734 AD after the Moorish invasion of Spain the archbishop of Porto with six other bishops occupied this island. The legend of the Seven Cities was widely recorded, but its exact location is shown on old, and often not totally reliable, charts, as ranging from the Azores to the West Indies.
William H. Babcock writing in the 1920’s[071] firmly opted for Cuba as Antilia, but was rather sceptical about the existence of Atlantis. On the other hand a more recent writer, Andrew Collins, is convinced[072] that Cuba had been home to Atlantis.
Lewis Spence, writing in the 1920’s suggested that Antilia was a land bridge between Atlantis and the Americas. He proposed that refugees fleeing from a sinking Atlantis used this land bridge from the centre of the Atlantic and headed for what is today the Yucatan peninsula.
‘Antilia’ is also the name given to what is reputed to be the world’s first billion dollar residence. It is located in Mumbai and is the home of the Indian billionaire Mr Mukesh Ambani.
(a) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Toscanelli_map.jpg
Kelso DeMontigny, Alan H. (m)
Alan H. Kelso de Montigny ( -1972) was an American anthropologist of Dutch extraction, who is probably best known for his 1949 booklet How Did Language Originate.
He also identified a feature in the eastern Caribbean that appeared to be that of an asteroid impact. Kelso De Montigny published a paper in 1954[649] in which he concluded that this impact occurred 5,000-6,000 years ago destroying a landbridge linking the Lesser Antilles and the South American mainland and furthermore was possibly instrumental in the destruction of Atlantis. He arrived at his dating theory after collating native traditions in the region.
This impact may be connected with the creation of the Carolina Bays and/or the other impact sites in the Atlantic as noted by Otto Muck.