Atalya

Atalya

(1) is the name of an ancient ceremonial mound in Biarritz in the French Basque Country.

(2) is the name of a sacred mountain in the Valley of Mexico venerated by the Aztecs.

(3) is in Gran Canaria in the Canaries, where the Guanches built a pyramid of black, red and white volcanic rock.

(4) Frank Joseph has suggested^[104.33] that Atalya or Atalia was, through time, transformed into Italy, adding that Atalia means ‘Land of Atlas’. This entry in The Atlantis Encyclopedia has been copied on a number of websites.

Joseph also speculated that“Clearly, “Atalya” carries the same meaning in Euskara, Iberian, Guanche, and Nahuatl, the Aztec language; namely, the description of a sacred mountain, mound, or mound-like structure, and apparently derivative of “Atlas,” the holy peak at the center of the island of Atlantis. The “Atalya” of the Basque, Iberians, Guanches, and Aztecs were probably meant to commemorate, in both word and configuration, that original Mount Atlas, from which their ancestors fled the destruction. Indeed, they all preserved stories of a great flood that preceded the establishment of their own civilizations.”[p.67]

However, the etymology of ‘Italy’ is not clear, but the most common proposal is that  “Latin Italia may derive from Oscan víteliú, meaning “[land] of young cattle” (Latin vitulus “calf”, Umbrian vitlu), via Greek transmission (evidenced in the loss of initial digamma). The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes”^(b). In passing I should mention that Plato tells us that the Atlanteans who controlled southern Italy as far as Tyrhennia^(c) also had a bull cult.

Some sites suggest that the name ‘Italy’ derives from ‘Atalia’, when, according to Etruscan tradition surviving in Virgil’s Aeneid, Atlas ruled there in prehistory. ‘Italy’ means. literally, ‘the Domain of Atlas’, whose daughter was Atlantis!

At their best, none of these references can be offered as having anything more than the most tenuous link with the original Atlantis.

Also See: Atalaia

^(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Italy

^(c) Timaeus 25b & Critias 114c