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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 »
Atlantic Ocean
Zaimi, Perparim *
Captain Përparim Zaimi is the Albanian author of the bilingual publication Atlantida – Perandoria e atlantëve dhe shqiptarët… / 
Atlantis – Empire of Atlanteans and Albanians: Discovery of Sunken Island published in 2013.
Zaimi wrote elsewhere “ The island of Atlantis with an area of about 400,000 Km2 (according to my calculations) sinks into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean and almost destroys the earliest and most advanced civilization that the ancient world has seen, always according to the explanations and stories left behind. Together with the Island of Atlantis, a giant land mass, in the shape of a peninsula of about 270 thousand km2, is separated from the Iberian peninsula and plunges into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The existence of this peninsula is discovered and mentioned for the first time by me in the scientific book Atlantis and the Empire of the Atlanteans.”(a)
For me, Zaimi’s credibility is completely undermined by his promotion of the idea of ancient extraterrestrial visitors.
(a) https://inforculture-info.translate.goog/2021/07/28/hartat-me-te-vjetra-te-planetit-toke-dhe-disa-spote-misterioze/ {Albanian) (There is a problem with translating this)
Arcus-Atlantis *
Arcus-Atlantis.org.uk is a British website(a) founded by a semi-anonymous Graham. He offers an extensive section dealing with the many questions raised by the Atlantis narrative. He endeavours to offer credible answers, but in my opinion, many are based on questionable assumptions and so he reaches many incorrect conclusions. Nevertheless, it is an honest attempt to tackle a complex subject and is worth a look.
Graham supports the Atlantic Ocean as the location of Atlantis. Although I disagree with this contention, his well-referenced article contains many interesting quotations from classical authors(b).
The other two sections deal with creation myths and rather incongruously, witches!
(a) Welcome to Arcus Atlantis (archive.org) (new link) *
Civilisation Collapse
Civilisation Collapse has occurred many times over the past millennia in all parts of the world. The American anthropologist, Joseph A. Tainter[1539] defines collapse as “a rapid shift to a lower level of complexity(a) .” Societal disintegration immediately brings to mind the Maya, the Indus Valley and in what are relatively more modern times, the Western Roman Empire.
The causes are usually a combination of factors, such as climate change, warfare, disease or excessive expansionism. Global catastrophes such as encounters with comets or asteroids are rare, while more local events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis can also be thrown into the mix. These have all been encountered from time to time, but have rarely been blamed for the collapse of a society; full recovery from such limited regional events is usually possible.
The Mediterranean has seen its share of all these catastrophic events. A major tsunami on Sardinia, volcanic eruptions in Italy, and earthquakes in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. Close encounters with extraterrestrial bodies have also been proposed in that region.
Perhaps the best-documented civilisation collapse is that which occurred around 1200 BC and affected many societies, particularly in the Middle East(b) . Israel Finkelstein, a leading Israeli archaeologist, has attributed this event to climate change and is of the view that this disruption was global in extent.
Inevitably, Atlantis has been cited as an example of civilisation collapse, particularly among supporters of the Minoan Hypothesis, who link the 2nd millennium BC eruptions of Thera with the demise of the Minoans on Crete. Also popular is the idea that Atlantis had been a large island in the Atlantic Ocean destroyed by a cometary impact or the rising sea levels as the glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age.>However these Atlantic suggestions would appear to be ruled out by Plato’s clear statement that Atlantis was destroyed by an earthquake.<
A variety of other theories have associated Atlantis with the collapse of a civilisation. For example, Frank Joseph claims that 40,000 years ago “sudden sea-level rises triggers migration from Mu around. The Pacific motherlanders settle on a large, fertile island about 380 kilometers due west from the Straits of Gibraltar. There, the newcomers merge with the native Cro-Magnon inhabitants, resulting in a new, hybrid culture – Atlantis.”>Unsurprisingly, Joseph fails to explain why refugees from the Pacific would travel all the way from the Pacific to settle in the Atlantic when their previous homeland was surrounded by more accessible alternatives such as the Americas, Australia, Asia and Africa. He also fails to explain how the migrants had the seafaring ability to travel such a distance. Furthermore, since all the oceans are connected this sudden sea level rise would also have had a similar effect in the Atlantic generating mass migrations there also.<
Moreau, Alain
Alain Moreau is a French writer who has written a series of articles debunking a number of the suggested locations for Atlantis including, the North Sea(a), Antarctica & Spartel Island(b), Socotra(c) and Santorini(d). Throughout his criticisms he loses no opportunity to promote his own preferred Atlantis location. in the Atlantic Ocean.
Jaye, Michael
Michael Jaye is an Associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California. He is a 
confirmed catastrophist focused on cometary impacts. In a lecture to the Geological Society of America in 2011(a) he describes two major events in the Earth’s history that had profound effects on the earth and life on it. The first was a double impact 65 million years ago and is generally accepted to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs and the second 460,000 years ago.
In an April 2015 lecture entitled Resolving the Problem of Atlantis, he expands on his original ideas(b) introducing a third event 13,000 years ago when another cometary impact brought an enormous amount of water to earth, which linked together previously disconnected seas and oceans.
At this point, he introduces Atlantis or more correctly the alleged Google image of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean that Jaye now claims was the Plain of Atlantis. As I have previously stated, the image in question
shows lines that would have been kilometres in width and could not have been streets and so are also too wide to have been the irrigation ditches described by Plato. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also debunked the silly Atlantis claims generated by these images(e). However, the problem remains, that some people believe what they want to believe not what can be demonstrated.
Jaye does not accept the explanation for these anomalous lines given by Google, joining conspiracy theorists in the process. I personally think that he should stick to geology and leave the subject of Atlantis to others.
Jaye has also given me a link(c) to a video of one of his lectures. In it, one of his claims is that most of the Earth’s water is the result of a collision with an icy comet around 12,800 years ago. However, the widespread distribution of fossil fish far exceeds the areas occupied by original unconnected bodies of water suggested by Jaye. This is just one of many inaccuracies offered by him. His ideas can be read on Graham Hancock’s website(d) and in his slender 2017 66-page book, The Worldwide Flood [1549].
Jaye has failed to explain how his claim of a relatively recent acquisition by the Earth of most of its water, can account for the recurring Ice Ages that our planet has endured over many millions of years. Ice Age theory is well established, but according to him, the Earth would not have had enough water over that timespan to produce the glaciers that enveloped large areas of the globe, sometimes to a depth of 3 or 4 km, leading to the measurable isostatic rebound we still experience today.>>Incidentally, where I’m sitting right now had a glacier of around a kilometre thick overhead during the last Ice Age and is thought to be the last part of Ireland to be deglaciated.<<
!
Jaye also published a paper entitled Mu and the Worldwide Flood, in which he found some support for the late Flood theory.(g)
Carl Feagans, an ardent sceptic, has published a lengthy refutation of Jaye’s theories, in particular his idea of a global flood.(f)
(b) The Explorers Club – Events – NYC – Public Lecture Series feat. Michael Jaye (archive.org)
(c) https://vimeo.com/126026401
(d) https://grahamhancock.com/jayem2/
(e) https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/atlantis.html
(f) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2019/11/the-pseudoarchaeology-of-michael-jayes-worldwide-flood/
(g) Mu and the Worldwide Flood | My-Mu.com Guest Blog (archive.org)
Sea of Kronos
The Sea of Kronos (Cronos), according to modern researchers such as Alan Alford and Frank Joseph as well as Immanuel Velikovsky, is a name frequently applied to the Atlantic Ocean by ancient writers. Velikovsky cites Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria and Aristotle in support of this contention(a). If Plato believed that Atlantis had been located in the Atlantic why did he not simply say that it was situated in the Okeanos or the Sea of Kronos?
The 1624 Argonautica Map by Abraham Ortelius has the Adriatic Sea designated as ‘Cronivm Mare’. Eratosthenes in his Map of the Oecumene referred to the frozen Cronian Sea as being seven days north of Britain. Diodorus Siculus (Bk.III 61.3) describes Kronos as lord of Sicily, Libya and Italy!
Until it can be shown otherwise, I am inclined to think that Plato did not know precisely where Atlantis had been located but used the term ‘beyond the Pillars of Herakles’ as indicative of a place outside the ambit of what was common Greek maritime knowledge at that time!
>However, Plato was aware that Atlantean territory included part of North Africa, Southern Italy and some of the islands in that region (Tim 25a). Not only does this imply that, according to Diodorus, Atlantis was ruled by Kronos, but that the Pilllars were east of that realm!<
Strait of Sicily
The Strait of Sicily is the name given to the extensive stretch of water between Sicily and Tunisia. Depending on the degree to which glaciation lowered the world’s sea levels during the last Ice Age; three views have emerged relating its possible effect on Sicily during that period:
(i) Both the Strait of Messina to the north, between Sicily and Italy together with the Strait of Sicily to the south remained open.
(ii) The Strait of Messina was closed, joining Sicily to Italy, while the Strait of Sicily remained open.
(iii) Both the Strait of Messina and the Strait of Sicily were closed, providing a land bridge between Tunisia and Italy, separating the Eastern from the Western Mediterranean Basins.
I find it strange that what we call today the Strait of Sicily is 90 miles wide. Now the definition of ‘strait’ is a narrow passage of water connecting two large bodies of water. How 90 miles can be described as ‘narrow’ eludes me. Is it possible that we are dealing with a case of mistaken identity and that the ‘Strait of Sicily’ is in fact the Strait of Messina, which is narrow? Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD) in his On the Eternity of the World(a) wrote “Are you ignorant of the celebrated account which is given of that most sacred Sicilian strait, which in old times joined Sicily to the continent of Italy?” (v.139). Some commentators think that Philo was quoting Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor. The name ‘Italy’ was normally used in ancient times to describe the southern part of the peninsula(b).
Armin Wolf, the German historian, noted(e) that “Even today, when people from Sicily go to Calabria (southern Italy) they say they are going to the “continente.” I suggest that Plato used the term in a similar fashion and was quite possibly referring to that same part of Italy which later became known as ‘Magna Graecia’. Robert Fox in The Inner Sea[1168.141] confirms that this long-standing usage of ‘continent’ refers to Italy.
It is worth pointing out that the Strait of Messina is sometimes referred to in ancient literature as the Pillars of Herakles and designates the sea west of this point as the ‘Atlantic Ocean’. Modern writers such as Sergio Frau and Eberhard Zangger, among others, have pointed out that the term ‘Pillars of Herakles’ was applied to more than one location in the Mediterranean in ancient times.
The Strait of Messina is frequently associated with the story of Scylla & Charybdis, which led Arthur R. Weir in a 1959 article(d) to refer to ancient documents, which state that Scylla & Charybdis lie between the Pillars of Heracles.
In 1910, the celebrated Maltese botanist, John Borg, proposed[1132] that Atlantis had been situated on what is now submerged land between Malta and North Africa. A number of other researchers, such as Axel Hausmann and Alberto Arecchi, have expressed similar ideas.
The Strait of Sicily is home to a number of sunken banks, previously exposed during the Last Ice Age. As levels rose most of these disappeared, an event observed by the inhabitants of the region at that time. The MapMistress website(c) has proposed that one of these banks was the legendary Erytheia, the sunken island of the far west. The ‘far west’ later became the Strait of Gibraltar but for the early Greeks it was the Central Mediterranean.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20200726123301/http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book35.html
(d) Atlantis – A New Theory, Science Fantasy #35, June 1959 pp 89-96 https://drive.google.com/file/d/10JTH401O_ew1fs8uhXR9C5IjNDvqnmft/view
>(e) Wayback Machine (archive.org) See Note 5<
Atlantology
Atlantology as a distinct field of study is accepted by most to have begun with the works of Ignatius Donnelly, however flawed many of his ideas may have been. Since Donnelly, it has developed into a very complex multidisciplinary subject. Students of the topic are known today as Atlantologists although an earlier designation was Atlantists, a term now used to describe supporters of political and economic co-operation between the USA and Western Europe. The inventive Zia Abbas prefers to use the term ‘Atlantisology’!
N. Zhirov, the leading Russian Atlantologist, has offered the following formal definition of the subject: “It may be regarded as a department of the biogeography of the modern, Quaternary period (Anthropogen) of the Earth’s geological history, a department chronologically relating to the period of the emergence of intelligent man, a period directly preceding our historical epoch beginning with the last glaciation.” He believed that Atlantis was primarily a geological problem that could only be resolved through a study of the geological history of the Atlantic Ocean.
A less cumbersome definition might be “the study of all aspects of Plato’s references to Atlantis”
A forum dealing with Atlantology(a) and suggested parameters for its study may be found interesting by readers. I personally disagree with a number of the headings proposed for inclusion, such as ‘Rudolf Steiner’, ‘Ireland & Tara’ and ‘Shangri-la’, as I consider them unrelated to Plato’s Atlantis.
>Seachild the official seller of copies of Egerton Sykes Atlantis journals, has also produced a number of papers(c)(d) relating to scientific Atlantology and fields of study under which it should be investigated. These documents are now twenty or more years old and badly in need of revision.<
Over the years that I have spent compiling Atlantipedia it became clear that different theories became ‘fashionable’ from time to time, because of new discoveries, the opinions of prominent individuals or as a consequence of heavily publicised books. The 15th century saw Gutenberg develop the printing press in 1436 and the first complete works of Plato, translated by Marsilio Ficino were published in 1484, so when Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, there were many who speculatively identified the Americas as Plato’s Atlantis. This idea persisted until the end of the 19th century and even today some think it a possibility.
More specifically, when the monumental structures of the Maya and Incas were gradually revealed to Europeans, once again a link with Atlantis was proposed for South America and still has some support today.
However, the most popular and enduring theory is that Atlantis had been situated in the Atlantic Ocean, with the Azores as the prime candidate. It received a boost in support with the discovery of the Mid Atlantic Ridge in the 19th century and was used by Ignatius Donnelly in the formulation of his Atlantis theory.
In 1872, the elements of the Minoan Hypothesis began to appear when Louis Figuier was the first to link Atlantis with the 2nd-millennium eruption of Thera. Today, this idea is probably the most accepted, apart from the Atlantic location.
There are many other theories regarding Atlantis, some more exotic than others, but, in my opinion, none match all the criteria that can be gleaned from Plato’s account, although their authors would disagree.
In 1971, John S. Bowman [193] apparently coined the term ‘atlantist’ as an improvement on ‘atlantologist’ to describe those who have a keen interest in the study of Atlantis, but it got little support.
A potted history of Atlantology from Donnelly until Sykes, is available at the Atlantis Online website(b).
(a) https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread412294/pg1
(b) https://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?action=printpage;topic=778.0
Mare Tenebrosum
Mare Tenebrosum meaning Sea of Darkness is an ancient name for the Atlantic Ocean(a). According to Michael Hübner, Cape Noun south of Agadir was originally the start of Mare Tenebrosum as it was dangerously shallow and muddy.
(a) Saudi Aramco World : Pillars Of Hercules, Sea Of Darkness (archive.org) *