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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 »
Cyprus
Harth, Jordi Guri *
Jordi Guri Harth is the author of a 2024 Kindle book Atlantis – The Cypriot Empire [2092]. It is a feeble attempt to breathe new life into the idea of Cyprus as Atlantis, a claim promoted by Robert Sarmast, with great fanfare, some years ago, but of which, little has been heard from him in recent times.
Thorwald C. Franke has published a short critical review(a) of the book, pointing out a number of weaknesses that he identified in it.
Harth is also the author of a paper on the academia.edu website titled The Odyssey and the Epimenides Paradox(b).
(a) Atlantis Newsletter Archive – Atlantis-Scout (Newsletter 224) *
(b) (PDF) The Odyssey and the Epimenides Paradox | Jordi Guri – Academia.edu
Howells, Caleb
>>Caleb Howells is a British researcher with a passion for ancient history. He has already published a book about King Arthur [2077] and now offers a new look at the story of Brutus the Trojan King of Britain [2076] in The Trojan Kings of Britain. In addition, he has published numerous articles on a wide range of historical subjects(i). A number of these were produced as a content writer for the Greek Reporter website, where he has recently (2023) endeavoured to revive the ailing Minoan Hypothesis (a)(b).<<
Plato came from Athens, a city frequently damaged by earthquakes, he also spent time in Sicily where he must have been made aware of the continually active volcano, Mount Etna. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that Plato could distinguish between an earthquake and a volcano, so when he wrote that Thera had been destroyed by an earthquake, that is what he intended to say. Furthermore, his description of the submergence of Atlantis as a result of the ‘quake sound very much like liquefaction frequently associated with such events. The Minoan Hypothesis does not match Plato’s account.
Although I disagree with Howells’ identification of Atlantis as Minoan, I was pleasantly surprised that in a December 2023 article(c) he tackled the question of the Pillars of Herakles which included many of the points already published in Atlantipedia. He notes the use of the phrase as a metaphor, particularly by Pindar who used it “as an expression denoting the outermost limit of something. His use of the phrase ‘beyond that the wise cannot set foot’ indicates that he was not merely talking about athletic limits, but limits in general.” Howells also points out the multiplicity of locations designated as ‘Pillars’ and that more than one location were so called at the same time. Nevertheless, he cannot let go of a possible Minoan connection and so proposed the Gulf of Laconia where the Capes Matapan (Tainaron) and Maleas in the Peloponnese are the two most southerly points of mainland Greece. They had been proposed over forty years ago by Galanopoulos & Bacon [0263] as the ‘Pillars’ when the early Greeks were initially confined to the Aegean Sea and the two promontories were the western limits of their maritime knowledge at that time. Overall, Howells’ article is interesting but unoriginal.
A few days later (12/12/23) he cast doubts on the Capes Matapan and Maleas as the location of the Pillars of Herakles(d). Howells is like a dog with a bone where the Minoan Hypothesis is concerned and by now should be realising the true complexity of the Atlantis story.
Atlantis was destroyed by submergence following an earthquake, not a volcanic eruption. The Minoans were traders not invaders, so if Crete was Atlantis where is there mention of a war between Athens and the Minoans?(See Below) Atlantis was a confederation of some sort, so who were its constituents? Why did Plato not simply name the not-too-distant Cretans as the attackers of Athens and laud the victory of the Athenians?
In late January 2024, Howells expanded his efforts to bolster the Minoan Hypothesis. This time, using some rather convoluted reasoning, he identifies ancient Crete as the Caphtor referred to in the Bible.
This is another contentious issue among historians. The matter is discussed more fully in the Caphtor-Keftiu entry here, where you will find a number of locations identified as Caphtor, including Cyprus, Crete, Cilicia and the Nile Delta. Although currently the most popular would appear to be Crete, Wikipedia seems to favour the Egyptian region of Pelusium(e)!
Cyprus had previously been the most favoured location, about whom Immanuel Velikovsky noted(f) “if Caphtor is not Cyprus, then the Old Tesrament completely omits referenceto this large island close to the Syrian coast.” The Cypriot identification has been endorse by a number of commentators such as John Strange, author of Caphtor/Keftiu: A new Investigation[1052]. I think that with so much controversy surrounding the indentity of the Caphtorim that its possible value as support for the equally controversial Minoan Hypothesis is substantially weakened.
Furthermore, I note that in 2022, Phil Butler published a paper that also suggested identifying the Keftiu as Atlantean.
A number of commentators have supported the idea of Atlantis in the Aegean region. The most convincing, in my opinion, have come from Peter James [047], Eberhard Zangger [483] and more recently Nicholas Costa [2072] , all of whom designated an Anatolian location for Atlantis. They all have their shortcomings but have built stronger cases than Howells for their chosen locations.
>>In September 2024, Howells published a YouTube video complaining about my treatment of his support for the Minoan Hypothesis (MH). To be clear, I bear no ill will towards Caleb, who seems to be an affable individual. For my part, as a grumpy old man, I have become quite intolerant of most of what is written today about Atlantis. The Minoan Hypothesis has developed over the past century, but, in my opinion, has not improved with age. Like most Atlantis theories it aligns with some of the characteristics described by Plato, but never all of them. I shall return to this shortly.
First, Howells was unhappy that I did not seem to give his historical work precedence over his teaching, which was inadvertent and now rectified. His other complaints are more contentious, starting with the war with the Mycenaeans. Until recently, the Minoans were generally considered to have been a peaceful nation. It is only recently that the idea of warlike Minoans have been seriously mooted, led by University of Sheffield archaeologist Barry Molloy(h), but, remains a minority view. My understanding is that the Mycenaeans (Greeks) attacked the Minoans (Atlanteans!), not the other way around as Plato described it. In Howells’ paper investigating Santorini as Atlantis he states “We do not know who the aggressor in this historical war really was.” The same paper(b) suggests that Santorini may have been Atlantis, which, for me, implied that the Temple of Poseidon would have been on the pre-eruption island. Howells, devotes this article to listing the similarities between Santorini and Plato’s Atlantis, but ends without any firm conclusion!
The identification of Caphtor with Crete is generally, but not universally, accepted and is not an issue for me. However, it does highlight how so little in ancient history is clear-cut.
My objections to the MH among other matters include –
>The fact that Plato clearly attributes the destruction of Atlantis to an earthquake and not to an eruption.
>Neither Crete nor Santorini was submerged or created any shipping hazard that lasted until Plato’s time.
>The missing elephants, described by Plato as being “of its nature the largest and most voracious” (Crit. 114e-115a). Certainly, they are not pygmy elephants.
>Where are the mountains situated to the north of the Plain of Atlantis described “as surpassing all that now exists in number magnitude and beauty.”
For me and many others, individually or combined, these facts remove Thera/Crete as a serious contender as the location of Plato’s Atlantis.
Finally, I must insist that I never intentionally set out to misrepresent anybody, I try to offer all sides of a debate, even those I dislike, which is why Atlantipedia includes many thousands of links, allowing readers to decide for themselves. For that reason, I greatly resent being accused of unreliability, when Howells’ real gripe should not be with me but Plato.<<
(a) Was Atlantis’ Temple of Poseidon the Palace of Knossos in Crete? (greekreporter.com)
(b) Was Atlantis a Minoan Civilization on Santorini Island? (greekreporter.com)
(c) https://greekreporter.com/2023/12/07/pillars-hercules-greek-mythology/
(d) https://greekreporter.com/2023/12/12/mythical-atlantis-located/
(f) Ages in Chaos p.210 n.79
(g) The Keftiu: Were They Absorbed and Erased from History? (argophilia.com)
Uluburun Shipwreck
The Uluburun Shipwreck is arguably one of the most important underwater discoveries of the 20th century. It was located in 1982 not very far from the town of Kas in southern Turkey. Eleven consecutive campaigns of three to four months duration took place from 1984 to 1994 totaling 22,413 dives, revealing one of the most spectacular Late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea(a). Because the wreck lay at a depth of 44-61 metres divers could only spend a very limited time 
working on it, hence the large number of dives involved.
Radiocarbon dating techniques and the presence of identifiable pottery types place the date of the wreck as sometime in the late 14th century BCE, probably between 1330 and 1300 BCE.
>Peter James wrote a highly critical paper regarding the dendrochronological dating of the Uluburun shipwreck explaining “why the Uluburun date is dubious in the extreme and how its status as a ‘scientific’ date has gradually unravelled”(e).<
The main cargo of the ship was raw materials. The largest items were copper ingots, 348 of them, totalling 10 tons in weight. These took the form of ‘oxhide’ and circular buns, which refers to the shape they had, forms common in the Bronze Age Mediterranean(b). Isotope analysis revealed the ingots were pure copper and from Cyprus(c). Additionally, the cargo included a ton of tin ingots. These metals were estimated to be enough to make 5,000 bronze swords.
It did not take long before this discovery generated some wild speculation J.S. Wakefield & Reinoud DeJonge proposed that the Uluburun copper had come from the Michigan mines in their book Rocks & Rows, Sailing Routes across the Atlantic and the Copper Trade [760]. The late Gavin Menzies went further and proposed that not only was the Uluburun copper from Michigan but that it had been brought from America by the Minoans identified by him as Atlantean.
Now that exploration of the wreck has finished, scientists are engaged in a study of the amazing array of artefacts salvaged. Articles in 2022 and(d) 2023(f) revealed some of the unexpected discoveries made, including the source of the tin ingots.
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluburun_shipwreck
(b) https://www.worldhistory.org/Uluburun_Shipwreck/
(c) Isotope analysis reveals origins of Uluburun shipwreck cargo | The Past (the-past.com)
(e) https://www.centuries.co.uk/uluburun.pdf *
(f) https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/2023/02/18/a9360-lost-in-time-uluburun-shipwreck/ *
Bates, Robert Stanley
Robert Stanley Bates is a retired US naval officer. He is a supporter of Robert Sarmast’s theories that Atlantis and a/the Garden of Eden had been situated in the Eastern Mediterranean in the region of Cyprus. In 2004, Bates was the expedition leader to the suspected site of the First Garden of Eden/Atlantis. In 2006 he was the consultant to the History Channel for the second expedition in their lead story for its “Digging for the Truth” series.
Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years, in two papers in 2014(a) and 2017(b) Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s ideas(a) with a claim of fresh evidence. This new support is the 1978 claim of Ya‘akov Petrovitch Malovitskiy (1932-2002) that the Levantine Basin was a sunken continent. In my opinion, Malovitskiy’s claim along with Bates’ rehashing of much of Sarmast’s arguments fails to locate Atlantis and/or the Garden of Eden.
>In April 2022, it appeared that Sarmast was once again trying to resurrect interest in his Cypriot Atlantis location(c). I have not had this report confirmed. However, I now see that Bates is due to have a short book [1961] published in February 2023 entitled The Eden-Atlantis Project which puts forward the case for a third expedition to find Eden/Atlantis near Cyprus. This proposed expedition is apparently to be led by Bates, now promoted to commodore, with minimal reference to Sarmast(d).<
(a) https://squarecircles.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/FirstEdenAnalysis.pdf
(b) EAP-Essay-FINAL.pdf (evolving-souls.org)
(c) https://www.travelmole.com/news/atlantis-discovered-near-cyprus/ *
Fenning, Nicolas Brian
Nicolas Brian Fenning has been promoting an underwater feature south of Cyprus shaped like a scarab, at 33°N 33°E, as the location of Atlantis. In a rather convoluted blog(a) he draws on Freemasonry, Renaissance and Egyptian art, as well as Chinese characters to support his theories.
Gielow, Robert L.
Robert L. Gielow is a retired American aeronautical engineer and a fundamentalist 
Christian. In his latter capacity, he has written Noah’s Flood[808], which is an attempt to offer a technical justification for accepting the literal reality of the biblical seven days of creation and Noah’s Ark. He dates the Deluge to 2300 BC.
Not content with advocating one lost cause he devotes a chapter to Atlantis in which he jumps on the slowing bandwagon of Robert Sarmast’s* ‘Atlantis off the coast Cyprus’ theory. He fails to apply any critical thinking to Sarmast’s ideas and accepts them in the same unquestioning manner with which he embraces a literal interpretation of Genesis.
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) *
Meizon
Meizon is given the sole meaning of ‘greater’ in the respected Greek Lexicon of Liddell & Scott. Furthermore, in Bury’s translation of sections 20e -26a of Timaeus there are eleven instances of Plato using megas (great) meizon (greater) or megistos (greatest). In all cases, great or greatest is employed except just one, 24e, which uses the comparative meizon, which Bury translated as ‘larger’! J.Warren Wells concluded that Bury’s translation in this single instance is inconsistent with his other treatments of the word and it does not fit comfortably with the context[787.85]. This inconsistency is difficult to accept, so although meizon can have a secondary meaning of ‘larger’ it is quite reasonable to assume that the primary meaning of ‘greater’ was intended.
Jürgen Spanuth addressed this problem in Atlantis-The Mystery Unravelled [017.109] noting that “In other parts of the Atlantis report misunderstandings easily arose. Plato asserts that Atlantis was ‘larger’, ‘more extensive’ (meizon),than Libya and Asia Minor. The Greek word ‘meizon’ can mean both ‘larger in size’ and ‘more powerful.’ As the size of the Atlantean kingdom is given between two hundred and three hundred miles, whereas Asia Minor is considerably bigger, in this context the word ‘meizon’ should be translated not by ‘larger in size’ but by ‘more powerful’, which corresponds much better to the actual facts.”
In 2006, on a now-defunct website of his, Wells noted that “Greater can mean larger, but this meaning is by no means the only possible meaning here; his overall usage of the word may show he meant greater in some other way.”
It is also worth considering that Alexander the Great, (Aléxandros ho Mégas) was so-called, not because of his physical size, apparently, he was short of stature, but because he was a powerful leader.
The word has entered Atlantis debates in relation to its use in Timaeus 24e ’, where Plato describes Atlantis as ‘greater’ than Libya and Asia together and until recently has been most frequently interpreted to mean greater ‘in size’, an idea that I previously endorsed. However, some researchers have suggested that he intended to mean greater ‘in power’.
Other commentators do not seem to be fully aware that ‘Libya’ and ‘Asia’ had completely different meanings at the time of Plato. ‘Libya’ referred to part or all of North Africa, west of Egypt, while ‘Asia’ was sometimes applied to Lydia, a small kingdom in what is today Turkey. Incidentally, Plato’s statement also demonstrates that Atlantis could not have existed in either of these territories as ‘a part cannot be greater than the whole.’
A more radical, but less credible, interpretation of Plato’s use of ‘meizon’ came from the historian P.B.S. Andrews suggested that the quotation has been the result of a misreading of Solon’s notes. He maintained that the text should be read as ’midway between Libya and Asia’ since in the original Greek there is only a difference on one letter between the words for midway (meson) and larger than (meizon). This suggestion was supported by the classical scholar J.V. Luce and more recently on Marilyn Luongo‘s website(a), which is now closed.
Luongo attempted to link Mesopotamia with Atlantis, beginning with locating the ‘Pillars of Heracles‘ at the Strait of Hormuz and then using the highly controversial interpretation of ‘meizon‘ meaning ‘between’ rather than ‘greater’ she proceeded to argue that Mesopotamia is ‘between’ Asia and Libya and therefore is the home of Atlantis! She cited a paper by Andreea Haktanir to justify this interpretation of meizon(a).
This interpretation is quite interesting, particularly if the Lydian explanation of ‘Asia’ mentioned above is correct. Viewed from either Athens or Egypt we find that Crete is located ‘midway’ between Lydia and Libya.
Jacques R. Pauwels also supported Andrews’ controversial interpretation of Plato’s text (Tim.24d-e) in his 2010 book Beneath the Dust of Time [1656]. Therefore, he believes that the text should have described Atlantis as being between Libya and Asia rather than greater than Libya and Asia combined, arguably pointing to the Minoan Hypothesis.
As there are hundreds of islands ‘between’ Libya and Asia in the Aegean, this interpretation is very imprecise and useless as a geographical pointer.
In 2021, Diego Ratti, proposed in his new book Atletenu [1821], an Egyptian location for Atlantis, centred on the Hyksos capital, Avaris. In that context, he found it expedient to interpret ‘meizon’ in Tim. 24e & Crit.108e as meaning between Libya and Asia, which Avaris clearly is. I pressed Ratti on this interpretation and, after further study, he responded with a more detailed explanation for his conclusion(d). This is best read in conjunction with the book.
>>Some years ago, the late R. Cedric Leonard offered the following contribution to the meizon debate:
In Plato’s time (4th century B.C.) he would have written in large (all-capitals), continuous (no spaces between words), Athenian characters. The old Greek word meson would look like MESON in the Athenian script of Plato’s time. But mezon would look like MEION – the ancient Z closely resembled our modern capital letter I – the difference between the S and Z in the large Athenian script is obvious. (The Greek Z resembling our Roman Z is modern and does not apply to the older Attic scripts.)
But even in the later minuscule script the s and z in no wise resemble each other. A minuscule z (zeta) looks like ? while a medial s (sigma) looks like ? (absolutely nothing alike). The final backbreaker is that Plato included the same comparison in his Critias (108), in which his copyists would have to have made an identical mistake in that work as well. The odds are against the same identical mistake occuring in two separate works.(e) (see link for actual characters)<<
In relation to all this, Felice Vinci has explained that ancient mariners measured territory by the length of its coastal perimeter, a method that was in use up to the time of Columbus. This would imply that the island of Atlantis was relatively modest in extent – I would speculate somewhere between the size of Cyprus and Sardinia. An area of such an extent has never been known to have been destroyed by an earthquake.
Until the 21st century, it was thought by many that meizon must have referred to the physical size of Atlantis rather than its military power. However, having read a paper[750.173] delivered by Thorwald C. Franke at the 2008 Atlantis Conference, I was persuaded otherwise. His explanation is that “for Egyptians, the world of their ‘traditional’ enemies was divided in two: To the west, there were the Libyans, to the east there were the Asians. If an Egyptian scribe wanted to say, that an enemy was more dangerous than the ‘usual’ enemies, which was the case with the Sea Peoples’ invasion, then he would have most probably said, that this enemy was ‘more powerful than Libya and Asia put together’”.
This is a far more elegant and credible explanation than any reference to physical size, which forced researchers to seek lost continental-sized land masses and apparently justified the negativity of sceptics. Furthermore, it reinforces the Egyptian origin of the Atlantis story, demolishing any claim that Plato concocted the whole tale. If it had been invented by Plato he would probably have compared Atlantis to enemy territories nearer to home, such as the Persians.
This interpretation of meizon has now been ‘adopted’ by Frank Joseph in The Destruction of Atlantis[102.82], but without giving any due credit to Franke(b). No surprise there.!
(b) https://lost-origins.com/atlantis-no-lost-continent/ (offline Jan. 2018) See: Archive 2349
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20070212101539/https://greekatlantis.com/
(d) More on Atlantis between Asia and Libya (archive.org)
(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20170113130726/http://www.atlantisquest.com/Plato.html *
Sarmast, (Robert) Behzad
(Robert) Behzad Sarmast is an Iranian-American and an architect by profession. He abandoned his career to pursue his lifelong passion for ancient history. He is the author of a book[535], in which he controversially placed Atlantis near Cyprus. His website(a) has an interesting collection of maps and diagrams. Coincidentally, the Urantia Book had previously identified a site in the Eastern Mediterranean as the location of Atlantis. Their description matches closely the underwater topography of Sarmast’s site and the
However, a 2016 sermon by Sarmast on the Urantia religion was published online
Urantians have not been slow to exploit this coincidence(b). However, the link between Sarmast and the Urantians has not been actively admitted, although Sarmast’s publisher, Byron Belitsos, revealed that Urantian funding had been used to obtain the 3D computer modelling of the underwater topography of the seafloor off Cyprus where Sarmast claims Atlantis was located. In October and November 2008 several blogs appeared under the name of Robert Sarmast(c). The content of these is religious in tone, although they make some references to Atlantis. However, a 2016 sermon by Sarmast on the Urantia religion was published online.
In 2003 Sarmast compiled a list of similarities between Plato’s description of Atlantis and the Urantia Book’s ‘Garden of Eden’(d).
Sarmast organised an expedition in late 2004 that produced ‘evidence’ of manmade structures, including two ‘walls’ over 3 km long. The site is about seventy miles east of Cyprus towards Syria. At a press conference to announce his discoveries Sarmast was challenged by, Michel Morrisseau, a French geologist who lives on Cyprus, to prove that the Mediterranean had been inundated more recently than the conventionally accepted five million years. Sarmast had no convincing response. However, after that he attempted to bolster his views with the unsupported assertion that earliest geographers knew of the breaching of the Gibraltar Dam and that ancient traditions had it that Hercules used his giant mace to smash open the Dam and allow the Atlantic to flood the Mediterranean and so led to the association of Hercules with Gibraltar.
Much more work must be done before Sarmast can rightfully claim that he has discovered Atlantis. In the meanwhile, raise funds for the next expedition, his website sought to charge a monthly fee to provide interested ‘members’ with additional information on the preparations for the second expedition. This took place in 2006 with inconclusive results.
Sarmast returned to Cyprus in June 2011 to film a documentary in support of his theory. He had support from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation as well as the History Channel together with some private investors. Filming took place during the Kataklysmos Festival which interestingly celebrates the Deluge and/or Flood of Deucalion.
Since 2013, almost nothing further has been heard from Sarmast, his blogspot(c) is empty and there are no updates on the Discovery of Atlantis website(a)! It is informative to contrast today’s silence with the rhetoric of the initial 2003 press release(e).
However, in 2014, Sarmast had the more than dubious honour of being included in the online Encyclopedia of American Loons(h).
The Arysio dos Santos website offers a critical review of Sarmast’s book(g). Benny Peiser was even more disparaging, describing Sarmast’s claim as The Great Atlantis Hoax(i) on his CCNT network in 2004.
Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years two papers in 2014(k) and 2017(j) by Robert S. Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s idea that the Mediterranean region around Cyprus had been home to both Atlantis and a/the Garden of Eden. Around the same time, Sarmast was given an entry in the Encyclopedia of American Loons(l).
(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180417053508/https://discoveryofatlantis.com/
(b) The theory of evolution What scientists believe it is and isn`t (archive.org)
(c)https://robertsarmast.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20180710105515/https://www.squarecircles.com/articles/atlantiseden.htm
(e) https://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/30/1064819881656.html
(f) https://urantiareligion.com/transcript-for-urantia-religion-video/ {link broken May 2020}
(g) Archive 3327
(h) https://americanloons.blogspot.ie/2014/07/1109-robert-sarmast.html
(i) https://www.livescience.com/amp/91-claimed-discovery-atlantis-called-completely-bogus.html
(j) EAP-Essay-FINAL.pdf (evolving-souls.org)
(k) https://squarecircles.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/FirstEdenAnalysis.pdf
(l) Encyclopedia of American Loons: #1109: Robert Sarmast *