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NEWS September 2023
September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]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 »
Atalya
Fasold, David (L)
David Franklin Fasold (1939-1998) was an American marine salvage expert, who is best known for his book The Discovery of Noah’s Ark[1054], in which he claimed to have identified the landing site of the Ark. However his location was not on Mount Ararat but Mount Masher Dagi some seventeen miles away. A critical review of his research is available online(a). This was not the only controversy with which he was associated. He was also involved in claiming that the Mount Sinai of biblical fame was not in the Sinai peninsula but further east across the Gulf of Aqaba in Saudi Arabia. The story is told in The Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum[1434].
Fasold refers briefly to Atlantis in his ‘Ark’ book (p.298), where he cites a Portuguese tradition that “Atlantida, existed west of their shores.” He also mentions a southern Spanish belief that identified the Canaries as ‘Atalya’, which coincidentally is the preferred Atlantis location of Charles Berlitz, who wrote the Introduction to Fasold’s book. He also devotes some pages to discussing the possibility that Tiwanaku was a pre-Flood city (p.299).
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.*
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.
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