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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 »
Carl Feagans
Cocaine, Nicotine and Atlantis
Cocaine and Atlantis is an association that developed after the discovery of traces of nicotine in an Egyptian mummy in 1976 by Dr. Michèle Lescott from the Museum of Natural History in Paris and later confirmed by Dr. Svetlana Balabanova, a forensic toxicologist at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Ulm in Germany, who also found traces of cannabis, tobacco and cocaine. She discovered traces of nicotine and cocaine in a number of other mummies(a). The interpretation of these findings remains disputed, with contamination and methodological concerns having been raised.
“The deeply, disturbingly strange part of all this is that neither the coca plant (from which cocaine is derived) nor the tobacco plant (which produces nicotine) is native to Egypt. Nor are they indigenous to Africa in general. Or Europe. Or Asia, even. Those two plants are indigenous only to South America.”
Tobacco first came to Europe from South America during the time of Columbus, 2700 years later, apparently ruling out the possibility of tobacco being present during the reign of Ramses circa 1213 BC – or does it?
The nicotine discovery may have its significance weakened by the conclusions of an article published in the April/May 1949 edition of Egerton Sykes’ Atlantis Research magazine entitled Did Tobacco Originate In Africa?, by M. Brenda Francklyn. In it the author quotes from an earlier book, The Ivory Coast, which recounts a myth from West Africa that suggests that the tobacco plant originated there and was in fact exported from there to the Americas!
It did not take long for supporters of Balabanova’s conclusions to propose that specific drugs found in the mummies were evidence of ancient transatlantic travel, while others linked this with the theory of a South American Atlantis. A 2023 article by Richard Milner is typical of the thinking behind this idea(d).
Another site offers an interesting overview of the cocaine mummies debate(c).
However, the story does not end there because Carl Feagans has offered a rational argument in support of a more sceptical view of the transatlantic claim, concluding that “in order accept that ancient Egyptians between 1000 BCE and 1100 CE traveled back and forth to South America, bringing back tobacco and coca leaves we must assume:
1) The Egyptians had sea-worthy boats
2) They didn’t find the journey significant enough to write about
3) There were no sources of THC, nicotine, or cocaine available from Africa, the Near East, or Asia.
There are some other assumptions as well, but these would seem to be the most significant.” (b)
The Hall of Maat website offers an extensive article on this whole subject that included two comments in its conclusions that may be considered relevant(e).
(1) “The discovery of cocaine in Egyptian mummies is however not so easy to account for as no direct evidence unequivocally supports any particular contention.”
(2) “Cocaine containing plants, such as E. monogynum, which is present in India, could have been acquired by the ancient Egyptians or in neighbouring areas which the Egyptians traded with.”
(a) https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/egyptian-mummies-0011354
(b) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2018/05/new-world-drugs-and-old-world-mummies/
(c) http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/ethnic/mummy.htm
(d) https://www.grunge.com/1156183/why-ancient-egypts-cocaine-mummies-hint-at-the-existence-of-atlantis/
Feagans, Carl
Carl Feagans is an American archaeologist and a dedicated sceptic who has occasionally featured in these pages. His most recent offering is a critique of Marco Vigato‘s Empires of Atlantis [1830], in which he ended his harsh assessment with “Vigato began his book with a conclusion. He tried to support that conclusion with pseudoscientific and fictional accounts he apparently gathered for 15 years.”(a)
He has also offered a lengthy attack on Michael Jaye‘s Global Flood theory.(b)
See: Brien Foerster, Fuente Magna Bowl, Spain, Sumerians & Yonaguni
(a) Book Review: Empires of Atlantis – Archaeology Review (ahotcupofjoe.net)
(b) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2019/11/the-pseudoarchaeology-of-michael-jayes-worldwide-flood/
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)
Gunung Padang
Gunung Padang is a megalithic site on the Indonesian island of Java, which was first surveyed in 1914 by the Dutch colonial authorities and published as Rapporten van de Oudheidkundige Dienst (Report of the Department of Antiquities). A post-war Australian investigation concluded that the site was much older than previously believed. Now, with presidential support, local archaeologists are carrying out an extensive investigation of the site.
The site has recently been claimed as part of 
Atlantis. Evidence that the site contains hidden chambers prompted Graham Hancock to speculate whether it “Could it be the fabled “Hall of Records” of Atlantis?”(k). Apart from contradicting Edgar Cayce this piece of unbridled conjecture was debunked in a YouTube video(k). Furthermore, in their book Keepers of Genesis [1050], Robert Bauval and Hancock had already designated a location under the rear paws of the Giza Sphinx as the home of the Hall of Records!
A few years ago, the late Arysio dos Santos was the leading proponent of Sundaland, which included Indonesia, being Atlantis. Then, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (DHN) an Indonesian geologist, has made a similar claim in his Kindle ebook, Plato Never Lied: Atlantis Is in Indonesia[961]. In it, Gunung Padang plays an important role. Mount Padang has also been claimed as the world’s oldest pyramid! Although I do not support the idea of an Indonesian Atlantis, I am forced to admit that a far more interesting case for it has been made by Dhani Irwanto.
In his review of Hancock’s Magicians of the Gods, Jason Colavito refers to “Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (DHN), the Indonesian geologist who declared the site of Gunung Padang on Sumatra to be ten or twenty thousand years old, and thus making Indonesia the cradle of civilization. Natawidjaja is a true believer in fringe history and suspects that Plato was speaking of Gunung Padang when writing of Atlantis. His opinions are noteworthy only because the previous government of Indonesia gave him the money and resources to excavate the site in search of proof of Indonesian primacy in history before the current government shut down the investigation for becoming an international laughing-stock. Like Semir Osmanogich in Bosnia, Natawidjaja sees artificial layers of construction in the deepest layers of what his colleagues in Indonesia and archaeologists around the world believe to be a natural hill crowned with later ruins.” (n).
Nevertheless, a recent (May 2017) assault on Natawidjaja’s theories in an open letter(i) from Rebecca Bradley has laid bare the weaknesses in his claims.
DHN, in an address to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 2018, said that radiocarbon dating suggests the top layer of the site could be up to 3,500 years old, the second layer somewhere around 8,000 years old, and the third layer anywhere in the vicinity of 9,500 to 28,000 years old(j).
Graham Hancock has written a review(b) of the excavations at Gunung Padang and in October 2014 added further comments(d)(m).
In the 2001 Netflix Apocalypse TV series, Hancock returned to the subject of Gunung Padang as well as Nan Madol. Fortunately, there was a YouTube video(u) that forensically analyses Episode 1, revealing a litany of errors and misleading statements that seriously undermine Hancock’s credibility.
Robert Schoch has also offered a geologist’s view of the site(f).
One report that I thought rather interesting was that “aside from its age, is that during coring it was found that much of the buried structure was reinforced with a type of cement. This bonding agent, which has been used as a mortar and sort of glue in certain parts of the site, consists of 45% iron ore, 41% silica and 14% clay. It’s said that this mixture provides for a very strong and durable mortar base, and is surprising evidence of the level of sophistication of the building technique.”(l)
Andrew Collins has now added an article(h). to his website that examines the preliminary claim that the lower levels at the site could be 12,000 years older than Gobekli Tepe. If confirmed, it will undoubtedly require some rewriting of history books. Do not lose sight of the fact that radiocarbon dating has limitations, being accurate for up to around 6,000 years, with increasing unreliability up to perhaps 50,000 BC after which it is generally useless.
We now (Nov. ’14) have a report(e) that some type of ‘electrical device’ has been discovered at the site ‘made out of gold and copper and seems to resemble a primitive electrical capacitor.’ Until further information is available, this claim must be treated with caution.
There are, however, dissenting voices as reported by journalist, Michael Bachelard(g), such as vulcanologist Sutikno Bronto, who says, “Gunung Padang is simply the neck of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid. Danny Hilman is not a vulcanologist. I am.” As for the carbon-dated cement between the stones, on which Hilman relies for his claims about the age of the site, Sutikno believes it is simply the byproduct of a natural weathering process, ”not man-made”. Other sceptics are even tougher. One archaeologist, who does not wish to be named since the President took such an interest, says the presidential taskforce is deluding itself. ”In the Pawon cave in Padalarang [about 45 kilometres from Gunung Padang], we found some human bones and tools made of bones about 9500 years ago, or about 7000 BCE. So, if at 7000 BCE our technology was only producing tools of bones, how can people from 20,000 BCE obtain the technology to build a pyramid?” the archaeologist asks.
In October 2023, Danny Hilman endeavoured to return to the limelight with a paper in the journal Archaeological Prospection(o), published by Wiley, in which he recycled some of his earlier claims identifying Gunung Padang as an Ice Age pyramid. Jason Colavito commented briefly(p) on this latest feeble offering from Hilman and cites a more forensic article by Carl Feagans(q) as an effective rebuttal. It was subsequently revealed(r) that the journal and its publisher have launched an ethics investigation into the flawed paper, according to a report in Nature!
March 2024 saw Archaeological Prospection retract this flawed paper(s).
Danny Hilman et al published their reaction to the retraction on Graham Hancock’s website, describing the rescindment as ‘unjust’(t).
(c) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/gp.htm
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG10-Gunung-Padang-Latest.php
(h) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/eq_0515.htm
(i) https://www.skepticink.com/lateraltruth/2017/05/14/gunung-padang-open-letter-danny/
(j) Long-Hidden ‘Pyramid’ Found in Indonesia Was Likely an Ancient Temple | Live Science
(k) Gunung Padang: The lost records of Atlantis? — Secret History — Sott.net
(l) Gunung Padang and The Lost City of Atlantis | Mysterious Universe (link broken)
(n) Magicians of the Gods Review – JASON COLAVITO
(0) http://web.archive.org/web/20250628005027/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/arp.1912
(p) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/on-the-fantasy-of-a-primeval-gunung-padang-pyramid
(r) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03546-w
(s) Archaeological Prospection | Archaeological Journal | Wiley Online Library
(u) Potholer54 Debunks Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse Theory – Search Videos (bing.com) (link broken)