Bronze Age
Gidon, Ferdinand
Ferdinand Gidon (1874-1944), was a French medical historian, who proposed over seventy years ago [0323] the existence of a Bronze Age Atlantis on the Celtic Shelf near Britain. He dated this inundation to between 3000 and 1200 BC. However, this date is too late as the area had already been submerged for some thousands of years during an event known as the Flandrian Transgression, which began around 7000 BC. A further problem with his theory is that since Atlantis, according to Plato, contained mountains, the submersion of the relatively shallow Celtic Shelf would at least have left their peaks still visible, a feature missing from the Celtic Shelf.
Gidon also translated from German and Spanish respectively some of the work of Leo Frobenius [0324] as well as that of Vivante & Imbelloni [0325].
Horned Helmets *
Horned Helmets have been worn by various warrior groups from ancient times but, despite popular belief, not by the Vikings. Jürgen Spanuth, the leading proponent of a North Sea Atlantis, has identified the Sea Peoples who attacked the Egyptians as North Sea Peoples. The attack was recorded by the Egyptians on the walls of Medinet Habu and where they depicted some of the invaders with horned helmets. Spanuth claimed that “The only known Bronze Age horned helmets come from north Europe”[0015.55]. The illustrations from the Viscø helmets in the Danish National Museum used by Spanuth[0015.31] were more likely to have been for ceremonial use and show no signs of having been used in battle.
An early 2022 report confirmed that recent radiocarbon dating pushed these helmets back to long before the Vikings – “For many years in popular culture, people associated the Viksø helmets with the Vikings,” said Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “But actually, it’s nonsense. The horned theme is from the Bronze Age and is traceable back to the ancient Near East.”(g)
A January 2018 article highlights a horned figure on the so-called Oseberg Tapestry, who appears to be leading a religious procession, contributing to the theory that the few horned helmets found so far were probably used for ceremonial purposes(e). Another textile fragment found at the same site also depicts a horned person, which to my mind is more reminiscent of a nordic shaman than a warrior.
Baruch Halpern in a footnote in his paper(f) on the Sea Peoples informed us that “Sherden-like horned helmets have also been found along the northern shore of the Black Sea and on statuettes in Sardinia, but that these lack the central disks, and may reflect coincidence, appropriation, trade or migration rather than indicate a place of origin. The iconographic connections of the horns and disk would suggest devotion to a lunar god; see Bernett and Keel (1998).”
It is noteworthy that the ‘Gjermundbu Helmet’, discovered in 1943 in Nazi-occupied Norway, is the only helmet documented to have existed during the Viking period and is hornless(d).
Furthermore, he was incorrect in claiming that horned helmets were only used in northern Europe during the Bronze Age. Archaeologist Roger Grosjean (1920-1975) has demonstrated(a) that the Torreans of Corsica did use such helmets during that period. The Sherden/Shardana, considered to be one of the Sea Peoples depicted at Medinet Habu are shown as wearing horned helmets and in every instance, except three, they include a round additional piece on the crest. The Shardana are generally accepted to be from Sardinia and are possibly related to the Torreans on neighbouring Corsica. However, the Sardinian examples do not appear to have the accoutrement at the helmets’ crest depicted at Medinet Habu.
Andrea Salimbeti’s website(b) devoted to the Greek Bronze Age has a section on the helmets used in the Aegean during that period, which depicts some horned helmets used by the Mycenaeans(c).
In conclusion, I think Spanuth’s horned helmet evidence is flawed but also that the Sardinian theory is not watertight. Furthermore, his core claim of an invasion from the North Sea into the Eastern Mediterranean is equally untenable. Bronze Age territorial expansion was always into adjacent or nearby territory. A journey of over 4,000 miles from Heligoland to attack Egypt makes no sense.
(b) http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/index.htm
(c) http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/helmets1.htm (Also see helmets2 & helmets3)
(d) Why Is This the Only Existing Viking Age Helmet? (archive.org)
(e) Mary Ann Bernal: The Confusing Horned Helmets Depicted in the Oseberg Viking Age Tapestries *
(f) SCRIPTA MEDITERRANEA, Vol. XXVII-XXVIII, 2006-2007, 15-32
Coligny Calendar, The
The Coligny Calendar is the name given to a fragmented bronze plaque discovered in 1897 near Coligny in France. It is a calendar that has been attributed to the Celtic Sequani tribe. It is dated to the 2nd century AD, written in Roman script in Gallic and is the longest known document in that language.
Paul Dunbavin in his Atlantis of the West[099] proposed that the Coligny Calendar might be considered a lunisolar calendar. Some years later in 2005 he returned to the subject in Under Ancient Skies[101] and devoted Chapter 5 plus Appendices A & B to a discussion of Critias 119d, which relates how the kings of Atlantis met alternatively every five and six years. Dunbavin suggests that this is reflected in the Coligny Calendar and that it possibly had antecedents that would bring its functions back to the time of Bronze Age Atlantis>(d), if not earlier(e).<Dunbavin’s reaction to the Calendar is best quoted – Now it is this passage more than any other that convinces the present author (Dunbavin) of the authenticity of the Atlantis myth“. He touches on the subject again in his latest offering, Towers of Atlantis [1627] and Prehistory Papers [1758].
Alexios Pliakos, a Greek student of ancient calendars, presented a paper to the 2008 Atlantis Conference entitled A hidden Calendar in the Atlantis Story. He focused on the same Critias 119d text and like Dunbavin has independently concluded that the reference to the five and six years is strong evidence “that Atlantis did not lie in Plato’s imagination.”
There have been attempts to link the Coligny Calendar with the much earlier stone engraving found at Knowth near Newgrange in Ireland(a). An extensive and more speculative discussion of the Calendar is to be found on a New Zealand website(b). Perhaps the most exotic explanation for the source of the Calendar, questions the presumed Celtic origins and offers reasons to consider a claim that it can be traced back to ancient India(c).
>A 2020 paper by Helen Mckay entitled The Coligny Calendar: A Full Reconstruction with Modern Dates from 30 April 2020 to 4 May 2025 is freely available.(f)<
(a) https://www.sequanicalendar.com/egg.html (Link broken Nov. 2018)
See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170305004709/https://www.sequanicalendar.com/egg.html
(b) http://www.celticnz.co.nz/Coligny/ColignyPart1.htm
(c) The Coligny Five Year Yuga | MalagaBay (archive.org)
(d) e5604c_465f3f96346041fb94f8e5f960804f1f.pdf (filesusr.com) *
(e) (99+) (PDF) The Neolithic Calendar in Plato’s Critias | Paul Dunbavin – Academia.edu *
Nicholls, Melville
Melville Nicholls is a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado where he studies atmospheric science, mainly relating to hurricanes. In May 2013, he published Children of the Sea God[944] as a Kindle ebook. One of his main contentions is that Atlantis existed during the early Bronze Age at the time of the Bell Beaker culture, >which he claims originated in Portugal around 2800 BC.<
He also contends that Britain was the large island of Atlantis described by Plato. However he also proposes that the main port city of Atlantis, with the concentric rings of land and water was situated in southwest Spain near Gibraltar. He proposes that this port was destroyed by an event such as a tsunami.
While all these features have been proposed individually as characteristics of Atlantis, Nicholls brings them together in a comprehensive theory, but not without indulging in a liberal amount of speculation.
He devotes a considerable amount of space attempting to link Stonehenge with the Atlanteans. While I was not won over by Nicholl’s book, it is worth a read and might best be studied along with Donald Ingram’s book, The Unlost Island[665].
The idea of ‘two’ Atlantises was probably first promoted by Lewis Spence and more recently by Karl Jürgen Hepke. In fact, were there not ten Atlantises?
In November 2013, Nicholls published a second ebook, The Real and Imaginary Atlantis[945], in which he revisits his theory of a British/Spanish Atlantis and its relationship to the Bell Beaker People. In conclusion, he seems to reluctantly write that “I still come down in favor of the theory that Plato invented the story as the one most likely to be correct.”
Copper Age, The *
The Copper Age also known as the Chalcolithic Age existed for a relatively brief period between the Stone and Bronze Ages with wide regional variations, in Britain around the 3rd millennium BC(a), while in Serbia it was as early as 5500 BC(b).
As recently as 1969, Lucile Taylor Hansen incorrectly wrote[572.116] “a copper age……..should precede a bronze age. It does not in Europe. Nor in the Mediterranean.” The lesson here is that if we think we know it all now, time will show that we are sadly mistaken.
(a) Feature: British Archaeology 101, July/August 2008 (archive.org) *
Perrone, Giacinto (L)
Giacinto Perrone was an Italian academic who wrote of Atlantis and its contribution to the Bronze Age in a 1928 book, Atlantide Leggende e testimonianze[809], republished in 1986 with the title of Atlantide, l’Impero del Bronzo[810]. He saw the Titans of Greek mythology as Atlanteans with a far flung empire. He attributes to them the invention of bronze and the exploitation of the vast copper deposits of Michigan, an idea now promoted by Gavin Menzies.
Ancient Chronology
Ancient Chronology is a subject fraught with difficulties(a) as well as the focus of intense academic debate, particularly over the past half-century.
Archbishop Ussher (1581-1656) calculated the date of creation to have been October 23rd 4004 BC(d). Incredible as it may seem, even today (2019), there are still people prepared to give further consideration to his ideas (c)(e).
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) became the first ‘modern’ revisionist of accepted ancient chronology. His work was heavily criticised and few serious advances were made until the development of Egyptology following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt at the end of the 18th century.
Difficulties with details of Egyptian dating slowly accumulated, particularly when endeavouring to align it with Greek, Minoan and other Eastern chronologies. The scholarly debates became very public in the middle of the 20th century with the eventual publication of Ages in Chaos by Immanuel Velikovsky and the attempts made to suppress it altogether. The refining of Velikovsky’s theories followed, with important contributions by S. Talbott, Edward Schorr and John Bimson. Some, such as Emmet Sweeney, have accused Velikovsky of being over-dependent on his belief in the inerrancy of biblical chronology.
The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS)(b) was founded in 1974 and produces regular publications. This was followed a few years later by three important books[229][230][232] by David Rohl and Centuries of Darkness [046] by Peter James, who also wrote The Sunken Kingdom in which he places Atlantis in Turkey. Rohl & James were in agreement on many details, but fell out over the identity of Shishak (was he Ramesses II or III?). However, prior to that, in the early 1980s, they had published a joint paper that gave the world a first look at their New Chronology. Rohl republished it in 2012(v).
On the occasion of the SIS Jubilee Conference in 1999 a paper by P. John Crowe was presented, which gave a valuable insight into historical revisionism before and after Velikovsky(a).
In 2002, Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, both distinguished Egyptologists edited a collection of 45 papers presented at a SCIEM Conference in 2000 highlighting the problems of synchronising the chronologies of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BC(w).
Gunnar Heinsohn (1943-2023) was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Bremen but was also an ardent chronology revisionist,< concerned not just with the dating problems of the ancient world(l) but also with difficulties to be seen in the first millennium of the Common Era(m).
One of the most controversial aspects of Plato’s Atlantis story is the old Egyptian priest’s claim that Atlantis was destroyed 9,000 years before Solon’s visit. He also related that Athens, who fought the Atlanteans, was established one thousand years before the Egyptian state or as is more likely, before the foundation of the city of Sais. Apart from anachronisms in Plato’s narrative, the archaeological evidence completely contradicts the dates seemingly offered by the priests of Sais. It is interesting that most of the chronology revisionist debate centres on the second millennium BC which is arguably the most rational timeframe for the destruction of Atlantis based on the Bronze Age references in Timaeus and Critias, provided they are not just anachronistic embellishments.
I should also mention that while the debates regarding the Bronze Age chronologies rage on, further controversy has arisen regarding claims of duplicated centuries in the first millennium of our era. Leading the charge here are Anatoly Fomenko(k) [1823], Heribert Illig(h)(i)(j) and Gunnar Heinsohn(g). A keen supporter of Fomenko’s work is Garry Kasparov the former World Chess Champion(p). A more critical view of Fomenko’s work is on offer from Stephen Sorensen(s).
Nathaniel Lloyd had written an extensive three-part paper on the history of chronological revisionism(t). This should be read in conjunction with a paper entitled The Glorious Stupidity of Fomenko’s New Chronology(u).
Up to this point, I have outlined some of the problems and theories concerning the accurate alignment of specific events with particular years. A clash of archaeology and accepted history, secular and religious. has generated libraries of debate. However, our problems do not end with the counting of years, but contention has also arisen over the length of the day before the seventh century BC. Evidence is available to show that there was a 360-day year in use around the world in those ancient times.
Some religious sites have proposed that before the Deluge we had a 365-day year, then it changed to 360 days and then reverted to the current 365.2422 days(q). By way of complete contrast Danny Faulkner, a creationist astronomer rejects the idea that the world was created with a 360-day year, although it is a view held by many creationists(r).
William Whiston was one of the first ‘modern’ commentators to conclude that in very ancient times a 360-day year was used(n). More recently, Immanuel Velikovsky devoted a chapter of Worlds in Collision to The Year of 360 Days(o). The Brit-Am movement endorsed Velikovsky’s views in this regard, as does William F. Drankenbring.
(b) Welcome – Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (archive.org)
(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
(e) https://www.academia.edu/36854822/Ussher_Explained_and_Corrected
(f) See (a)
(g) https://www.q-mag.org/_search.html?req=heinsohn
(h) The Phantom Time Hypothesis • Damn Interesting
(i) Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist? (ecplanet.org)
(j) Jan Beaufort: 30 questions about chronology (cybis.se)
(k) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)
(l) THE RESTORATION OF ANCIENT HISTORY (archive.org)
(m) https://www.q-mag.org/_search.html?req=heinsohn
(o) I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, Part 2, Chapter Viii, p.316
(p) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(q) http://xwalk.ca/360vs365.html
(r) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265167051_On_the_Caution_about_the_360-Day_Year
(s) Fomenko’s New Chronology – Ctruth
(t) https://www.historicalblindness.com/blogandpodcast//the-chronological-revision-chronicles-part-one-the-fomenko-timeline (new link)
(v) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/11/
(w) The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the … – Google Books *
Mining
Mining as a human activity dates back many thousands of years in various parts of the world Recently, the earliest example of mining in the Americas was an iron oxide mine in Chile dating back to around 10,000 BC(a). However, metals, such as gold, silver, copper and tin were not the only material extracted in this way, pigments, flint and salt were also mined in ancient times. The silver mines of Lavrio in Greece employed 29,000 slaves at its peak.
In the Mediterranean itself, Cyprus was an important source of copper, giving the island its name. However, the most important mineral source was probably Sardinia, which for the Romans was one of the three most important sources of metals, along with Spain and Brittany. Although there was a limited amount of tin mined in the Mediterranean region, most came from Spain, Brittany as well as Devon and Cornwall.
Mining in Atlantis is recorded by Plato in Critias 114e where he states that there were many mines producing orichalcum as well as other metals. Mrs. Whishaw contended that the pre-Roman copper mines of Southern Spain was the source of the Atlantean orichalcum.
However, the most extensive ancient mines were probably those of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where copper mining was carried on between 3000 and 1200 BC. It has been guesstimated that up to 1.5 billion pounds of the metal was extracted. It is further speculated that much of this was used to feed the Bronze Age needs of Europe and the Mediterranean(b)(c). This is hotly disputed by local archaeologists(d).
(a) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-05/uocp-auo051811.php
(b) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/WakefieldJS1.php
(c) https://www.superiorreading.com/copperhistory.html
(d) https://www.ramtops.co.uk/copper.html (offline Sept. 2017) (see Archive 2102)
Michigan *
Michigan entered the Atlantis gazetteer when Frank Joseph claimed that copper was at the heart of Atlantean wealth. He further maintained that a major source of this copper was the Michigan North Peninsula from where millions of pounds of the metal were extracted. Conventional wisdom has never explained the source of the vast quantities of copper required to feed the needs of the European Bronze Age. Researchers, such as Joseph, are convinced that the abandoned Michigan mines were exploited by pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic mariners, possibly Atlanteans, in order to satisfy the demands of the Mediterranean Bronze industry.
A 2014 paper by David Hoffman offers an interesting history of the Michigan copper story from 1536 until 1879(e). Adding to that is the early claim in 1867, by Bishop Patrick Nieson Lynch of Charleston, South Carolina that the ancient exploitation of the Michigan copper had to be carried out by the Phoenicians.
A short paper in the Migration & Diffusion website(d) by Gerard Leduc in 2017, suggests a possible route that may have been used for the exportation of the Michigan copper to the Atlantic Ocean, before heading for the Mediterranean and/or Northern Europe.
Professor Ilias Mariolakos in a 2010 paper(c) supported the idea of Old World miners in Michigan, identifying prehistoric Greeks as participants.
In 1982, an ancient shipwreck was discovered near Uluburun in Turkey. On board were 10 tons of copper ingots whose purity led some to conclude that it could only have come from the Michigan mines. J.S. Wakefield has written a paper supporting this view(a), although he does not directly attribute this copper trade to Atlanteans. An isotopic analysis of the Uluburun copper ingots clearly showed them to have originated in Cyprus(k). This scientific fact undermines those seeking to link the Uluburun copper with the Michigan mines.
John Jensen has noted that “curiously, North American Indian mounds have been found to contain copper sheets made in the shape of animal hides. Called “reels,” their function, if any, is unknown. The reels do, however, resemble oddly shaped copper ingots common in European Bronze Age commerce. Their peculiar shape earned these ingots the name “oxhides” and has been found in Bronze Age shipwrecks, and are even said to be portrayed on wall paintings in Egyptian tombs. The standardized hide-like shape, with its four convenient handles, was useful in carrying and stacking the heavy ingots. Could the reels from the North American mounds have been copied from the oxhides? It is tempting to speculate that the Copper Culture miners were actually an Atlantic rim colony.“(j)
However, Gavin Menzies in The Lost Empire of Atlantis claims that Minoan Crete was in fact Atlantis and that the Minoans not only discovered America but were also responsible for the extensive exploitation of the Michigan copper mines.
Nevertheless, this remarkable claim was endorsed by science writer, Jeff Danner(f), who cites Plato’s reference to an ‘opposite continent’ as an allusion to America. More recent support has come from marine Captain, Richard deGrasse in his 2021 book, The Influence of Stonehenge on Minoan Navigation and Trade in Europe [1923](g).
It must be stated that this idea of the Michigan copper mining being the work of Old World traders is hotly disputed by local Michigan archaeologists(b).
Nevertheless, the late Bernhard Beier published two articles(h)(i) on the debate surrounding the astounding quantity of copper apparently mined in Michigan. It is clear that he is sympathetic to the idea that Old World miners, such as Phoenicians, Berbers or Egyptians were involved.
(a) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=174
(b) See: Archive 2102
(c) https://www.geology.upatras.gr/files/diavgeia/geology_congress/XLIII,%20Vol%201.pdf (link Broken Oct 2010) See: http://greeceandworld.blogspot.com/2013_08_01_archive.html
(d) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2017&id=528
(g) The Influence of Stonehenge on Minoan Navigation and Trade in Europe: How Michigan Copper Arrived in the Mediterranean During the Bronze Age (bookpump.com) (first 25 pages)
(j) (99+) Ancient Canal Builders – Overview | John Jensen – Academia.edu (p.32)
(k) Isotope analysis reveals origins of Uluburun shipwreck cargo | The Past (the-past.com) *
Brogger, Anton Wilhelm
Anton Wilhelm Brøgger (1884-1951) was a leading Norwegian archaeologist during the first half of the 20th century. He was also a museum director, politician and a member of the board of the National Theatre. He was imprisoned during the Second World War.
He was convinced that extensive developments in seafaring during the Bronze Age led to the very early discovery of America by Europeans and that this ‘New World’ was the factual kernel within the Atlantis story recounted by Plato.