An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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    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 »
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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 »
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Crimea

Crimea is a large peninsula on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. At the time of writing (April 2023) Crimea was still occupied by the Russian military. From an atlantological point of view, it is interesting that one of the principal icons of Ukraine is a stylised trident, the symbol of Poseidon.

Crimea itself has had a number of attempts made to associate it with the location of Atlantis. The most eye-catching promoters of this idea were the late Leon Flying Eagle and Mary Whispering Wind, who published their theory in The Atlantis Motherland [0138] nearly twenty years ago. They claimed(a) that in the Crimean port city of Kerch the nearby Mithridat Hill was the original site of the capital city of Atlantis confirmed by the surrounding topography that matched closely Plato’s description. They have also suggested that the shallow Strait of Kerch between Crimea and Russia as the location of Plato’s ‘shoals(c).

An interesting detail is that the Strait of Kerch was one of several locations that the ancient Greeks referred to as the Pillars of Heracles listed by Robert Schoch in Voices of the Rocks [454.87], but, unfortunately, without citing his source.

They further claim(b) that there is evidence that the Kopet-Dagh fault line, which runs just above the strait, experienced a devastating (8.9) earthquake around 9600 BC destroying Atlantis in the Strait. At this time what we now call the Sea of Azov was the well-irrigated plain adjacent to the city of Atlantis described by Plato. They claim that the earthquake caused a massive influx of water from the Caspian Sea, which had been rising due to the melting ice caps in the north. This combination caused the creation of the Sea of Azov and the flooding of Atlantis.

All this would have been fine except that at the start of their homepage, they announced that “Thirty-nine thousand years ago a primitive tribe of wild robust Neanderthals celebrated the beginning of a new species. Visitors from a distant planet united with their tribe. Together they created the great Empire of Atlantis, the Motherland of all Modern Humans.” For me, this just undermines the credibility, if not the rationality of the authors.

Anatoliy Ivanovich Zolotukhin is a Ukrainian researcher from the city of Nykolaiv (also known as Mykolaiv) who authored Homer: The Immanent Biography [1015],  in which he claims that Homer was born in Alibant (Mykolaiv) on September 14, 657 BC)(f). He follows the views of Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) who believed that most of Odysseus’s travels took place in the Black Sea rather than the Mediterranean. Additionally, Zolotukhin locates Atlantis in the western Crimean area of Evpatoria(d) on his multilingual website with the inviting title of Homer and Atlantis(e).

Werner E. Friedrich is a German researcher who published a bilingual booklet in 2006 [0695] in which he firmly located Atlantis in the Black Sea region circa 10,000 BC on a plain west and east around today’s Crimean peninsula.

Christian & Siegfried Schoppe are a father and son team of German researchers, who firmly assert that Atlantis was located in the Black Sea. More specifically they suggest that Snake Island(h) situated 35km east of the Danube Delta, was the location of the Atlantean capital. Snake Island has also been referred to on a Russian website(i) that discusses a Black Sea Atlantis. It includes some video clips with Russian dialogue. Snake Island has also been adopted by George K. Weller as the location of Atlantis(j). Snake Island also featured in the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In his 2020 book, Apocalypse [1874], Dr Sean Welsh agreed that Noah’s Ark finally rested on Mt. Ararat, but took everyone by surprise by claiming that it was not Ararat in Turkey but Ararat mountain/hill on Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula!

Very ancient pyramids have also been claimed for Crimea(g).

 

(a) http://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html

(b) Great Atlantis Flood (archive.org)

(c) Index (atlantis-today.com)

(d) https://homerandatlantis.com/?lang=en

(e) https://homerandatlantis.com/??-??????/?lang=en

(f) Nikolaev Pushkin club (archive.org)

(g) Archive 3619 | (atlantipedia.ie)

(h) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Island_(Ukraine)

(i) http://survincity.com/2010/04/conspiracy-theory-black-sea-atlantis-the-case-of/ (link broken Dec.2020)

(j) Comparison of Plato’s Critias with George K. Weller’s concept of ancient Atlantis and its actual location. – The Weller Farm (archive.org)

Deluge of Noah *

The Deluge or Noah’s Flood are the commonly used terms when referring to the biblical flood of Genesis. It might perhaps be more accurate to use the plural, as there is evidence of several large-scale catastrophic inundations within the human memory. The Noachian deluge has been the subject of continuous debates: was it real or pure fantasy, was it local, regional or global and is the Ark to be found on Mt. Ararat?

Reginald Fessenden controversially noted in his The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus [1012] that “the traditions were collected, tabulated and compared. This developed the fact that there were only five traditions of an inundation of more than local character.”

1. The Greek tradition; of Deucalion; the Aegean, 100 to 250 miles southwest of the Black Sea.

2. The Egyptian-Phoenician; of Atlantis and the Greeks; the western and northeastern shores of the Black Sea.

3. The Cimmerian; of the Crimea; the north shore of the Black Sea.

4. The Hebrew-Babylonian; of Noah and Atra-Hasis; the southeast shore of the Black Sea.

5. The Phrygian; of Noe; the south shore of the Black Sea.

The Flood of Noah is an echo of the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, which in turn has a resonance with the deluge story of Manu in Indian mythology. If all three relate to the same event it would be of great interest to discover if there was an even earlier shared origin.

Noah is the hero of the Deluge story in Genesis. He was also an accomplished shipbuilder and viticulturist. According to some he was also an Atlantean! Cosmas Indicopleustes a 6th century AD theologian and geographer from Alexandria wrote of Atlantis as a large island in the western ocean. He also added a twist to the tale by recording an ancient tradition that Noah had resided on Atlantis! More recently, Frank Joseph [108.85] has endorsed this daft idea.

Interestingly, so many of the deluge stories include a scenario where the ’hero’ is warned of impending doom. To me, this would make sense that where a landbridge was threatened by gradually rising waters on one side, simple observation would have provided adequate time to warn those at risk on the other side. 

Another identification, by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., is that Noah is Nereus in Greek mythology and widely depicted in Greek art(c). Confusingly, it has also been suggested(a) that Enoch, usually accepted as the grandfather of Noah, was the same person.

According to Plato, Atlantis was destroyed by the gods as a punishment for their wickedness, while the same reason is given in the Bible for the obliteration of Noah’s people. Coincidentally, both Atlantis and Noah’s homeland, which was probably located in Mesopotamia, were destroyed by water leading to the not unreasonable suggestion that the two stories are related.

While the biblical account of the Deluge does not stand up to detailed scrutiny(j), the global ubiquity of Flood stories is seldom adequately explained. Some possibilities that occur to me are related to the ending of the last Ice Age, which had watery consequences around the world. While the rising sea level took place in fits and starts, there were more dramatic events during this period such as the huge meltwater lake discharges and Heinrich Events that occurred across North America and Eurasia. The effect in the southern hemisphere was less spectacular. Survivors would have been forced to migrate in all directions, bringing their account of these floods with them. Another explanation, but in my view, a more likely cause of global floods would have been a close encounter with a large extraterrestrial body, an idea promoted by various researchers such as Emilio Spedicato.

Apart from the story of the actual flood, global or otherwise, the detailed biblical account of the building of the Ark along with the gathering of the animals and the voyage itself does not hold water (sorry)(y). Some decades ago, Roger A. Moore offered a forensic study of the account, which, is still impressive(x).

In March 2019, a paper by Roger M. Pearlman put forward another radical idea, namely, that Göbekli Tepe had been founded by Noah (Noach) and his sons(u).

A more light-hearted look at the story of Noah is also worth a read(n).

Every aspect of Noah’s Deluge story in the Bible has been a source of controversy for centuries. From the nature and cause of the Flood itself, as well as the building of the Ark and its final resting place and of course the date of the event.

Some years ago, Pastor Bertrand L. Comparet (1901-1983), a staunch racist(w), denied that the Flood of Noah had been a global event(v).

2018 began with matters hitting rock-bottom when an English-language newspaper offered the following headline(l) Turkish academic claims Prophet Noah used a cell phone to call his son before the flood.Unsurprisingly, Jason Colavito has covered this story with an interesting blog(m).

DATE

Plato’s Atlantis story contains a curious reference in Timaeus (23a-c) to a series of floods that occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean(ah) since the Atlantean war, namely, those of Ogyges, Deucalion and Dardanus. If based on historical fact, on its own, the Biblical Flood or the breach of a landbridge cannot explain this succession of inundations but suggests that there could be a much more complex story, still to be revealed, which was spread over millennia.

Anastasios Stamou presented a paper [750.183] to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in which he reviewed the evidence relating to three floods that befell ancient Greece and alluded to by Plato. Drawing on ancient Greek texts including the Parian Marble, he places these events in chronological order beginning with the flood of Ogyges, then Deucalion’s and finally that of Dardanos.

Three very ancient global floods are proposed by Marin, Minella & Schievenin in The Three Ages of Atlantis [972] and date them to 10,500, 9600 and 6700 BCE.

Stamou accepts that conventional wisdom has it that these flood events occurred in the 2nd millennium BC and based his paper on that assumption. However, he expressed serious doubts about this dating suggesting a much earlier date for some inundations and promising a future paper dealing with this revision.

Stephen Oppenheimer mentions [0004] three sudden ice melts, 14,000, 11,500 and 8,000 years ago that would have had a global effect. It should be considered that the second date is close to Plato’s apparent date for the destruction of Atlantis.

Since writing, as we know it, did not develop until long after de-glaciation, it is virtually impossible to precisely identify the date, location or extent of any of the early myths relating to these possible de-glaciation inundations.

In an August 2017 paper, on the Migration & Diffusion website(s), Stuart L. Harris put forward his reasons for dating the Flood of Noah to 3161 BC and the Exodus Flood to 1445 BC.

Similarly,  Gérard Gertoux places the Deluge circa 3200 BC in a lengthy paper(z), in which he also controversially touches on subjects such as radiocarbon dating, the age of the patriarchs, the Ice Ages, evolution and more.

China has its own ‘Great Flood’ tradition, which in the August 2016 edition of Science journal had its reality given strong support in a paper(bi) by a mainly Chinese team of researchers, who date the event to 1920 BC.

Recent years have seen the above-mentioned flooding of the Black Sea or even more controversially, the flooding of the desiccated Mediterranean basins, following the breaching of a suggested landbridge at Gibraltar, proposed as possible sources of the story of Noah in the Bible. These inundations are dated to around 5600 BC and their memory should have survived in the traditions and mythologies of the region. In addition to that, the Persian Gulf is also accepted by many to have been dry during the last Ice Age but also began to flood around 5000 BC. In Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea and the Celtic Shelf both suffered post-glacial inundations, while around the same time in the South China Sea the enormous Sunda Shelf suffered extensive flooding.

The flooding of the Celtic Shelf along with parts of southwest Britain and southeast Ireland is the subject of a 2016, thought-provoking book [1166] by Philip Runggaldier

On a more controversial level, Donald Patten and Samuel Windsor presented evidence [0277] for a series of close encounters between Mars and the Earth during the 1st millennium BC. David Rohl, the Egyptologist, dates Noah’s Flood to 3114 BC [0229] and links it with the climatic consequences of a major catastrophe in the Aleutian Islands.

Alexander and Edith Tollman linked the Noachian Deluge with the consequences of a cometary impact in 7552 BC. On the other hand, G.F. Dodwell the Australian astronomer, after studying ancient gnomons, concluded that it was a worldwide catastrophe in 2345 BC that altered the Earth’s tilt, leading to the Deluge. This is comparable with the 1696 claim by William Whiston that the earth had an encounter with a comet in 2346 BC, which caused the Flood of Noah. Emilio Spedicato advocates 3161 BC as the date of the biblical Deluge(ac), which has also been endorsed by Stuart L. Harris(ad).

In a paper(r) revised in 2017, Barry Warmkessel noted that theologians and historians have attempted dating Noah’s Flood event, both recently and as far back as the time of Christ. The following are just a few of the results from these attempts:

  • JOSEPHUS GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3148 BC)
  • HALES GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3155 BC)
  • SEPTUAGINT GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3246 BC)
  • SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH GREAT FLOOD DATE: (2998 BC)

Therefore. theologically at least, it seems quite reasonable (to Warmkessel) that Noah’s Flood occurred between 3000 and 3250 BC and the Ark would have been built slightly before that time.

When Ryan & Pitman(ae) published their 1997 theory that around 5600 BC, the Black Sea had been flooded by water from the Aegean breaching the Bosporus, it did not take long before it was speculated that the event was reflected in the story of Noah’s Deluge. With little delay, strong objections to the idea were raised by many others(af)(bz)*.

T.R.Holme has an interesting article(ax) on the flooding of the Black Sea and the migration from the region that resulted. He also links that event with the work of the late Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994).

Nick Thom, an engineering lecturer at Nottingham University has written The Great Flood [776] which gives an overview of many Flood myths, but more importantly, he identifies the emptying of glacial Lake Agassiz around 6250 BC as the mechanism that caused a tilting of the Earth, which in turn generated a global deluge remembered by the survivors in myth and later recorded in scriptures. This is also fully outlined in a lengthy entitled, A Re-interpretation of the 8.2ky BP Event(ag). Also relevant to our subject is his claim that the flow of water was from the Black Sea into the Aegean rather than the other way around!

The most radical date for the Flood of Noah comes from Rich McQuillen who in a 2022 paper links the flood of Noah to the flood of Ahmose and Atrahasis, and shows it to be a real flood caused by Santorini”!(bv)

THE CAUSE

Jeffrey Goodman, the controversial author of Psychic Archaeology [781], maintains that “Noah’s Flood was, in reality, a tsunami caused by a comet” and supports this contention with a retranslation of Genesis 7:11 (ar).

Kirk Kirchev in a recent (April 2018) two-part article(bb) “offers a unifying scientific hypothesis that connects diverse ancient flood myths with mainstream scientific fact.” and concluded that “If my calculations and assumptions are correct, an object of around 900 km in diameter passing the earth at an altitude of less than 1000 kilometres (621.37 miles) (of average, rocky density) would be large and heavy enough to create a strong localized tidal uplift in the oceans beneath its flight path (approximately 50 times the current tidal amplitude). That is large enough to destroy most of humankind, and a large portion of the fauna, but small enough to not cause a major extinction event or to disturb earth’s orbital path and rotation.”

Immanuel Velikovsky’s controversial cosmological ideas suggest that our Earth had at one point been a satellite of Saturn! In his unpublished book, In the Beginning (bk), he proposed that “The conflict between the larger planets resulted in long-stretched filaments ejected by a disturbed Saturn to cross the Earth’s orbit. The hydrogen of the planet combined with the oxygen of the terrestrial atmosphere in electrical discharges and turned into water” and so generated the Deluge!

In 1993, Alexander Tollman and his wife Edith published, Und die Sintflut gab es doch. Vom Mythos zur historischen Wahrheit, “which claimed that Noah’s flood was the consequence of a bolide impact about 9500 years ago, and supported the claim through geology (impact craters, iridium, shatter cones, stress lamination of minerals, radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, a peak of acid in the Greenland ice) and legends and folk traditions.”(bj) Christian O’Brien has endorsed the Tollmans’ ideas(bl).

Aloys Eiling (1952- ) a German researcher has offered a variation on the close encounter theory, suggesting that the Deluge was one of the consequences of the capture of our Moon that took place when our planet was already populated – somewhere between 40,000 and 13,000 BC. He notes(bn) that “the capture of the Moon caused worse than a flood; it changed the geography of the world. Earth’s surface was devastated, millions died, and life in total was brought to the brink of extinction. In the collective memory of mankind, the event indelibly remained in the myths about a Deluge.”

Nevertheless, there is one rather disturbing element to be found alongside some of the flood myths, namely that the deluge event was concurrent with the sun seemingly standing still and in some cases, it is recorded that the Moon also appeared to stop(o)(av)! One explanation on offer is that it is a reference to an eclipse(aw). This might be acceptable if it was compatible with other myths from different parts of the world, which does not appear to be the case. Furthermore, it does not explain the association of the stopping of the sun with the global deluge. A very close encounter between the Earth and another large celestial body might.

As I see it, we are left with the two popular explanations for the global flood myths, either a close encounter with an extraterrestrial body that created a megatsunami that was on such a scale that it swept around the globe, perhaps many times before dissipating or the melting of the Ice Age glaciers produced the cyclical bursting of ice-dams and landbridges and the inundation of vast areas of low-lying land. I’m inclined to believe that the balance of probabilities favours the latter explanation, although I find it difficult to accept that gradual deglaciation would or could have generated floods that ‘covered mountains’ (Gen. vii.19)!

Other floods may have been caused by tsunamis resulting from underwater earthquakes and/or storegga. Quite recently it was discovered(bh) that around 6000 BC, a calamitous tsunami was generated in the Mediterranean when Mt. Etna in Sicily sent approximately 6 cubic miles of rock and rubble crashing into the sea. One could be forgiven for speculating that this event may have triggered the flooding of the Black Sea, which is dated to this same period.

GLOBAL or LOCAL

The scientific case against a global deluge is presented in a paper by Lorence G. Collins.(bt)

In 2013, Geologist David R. Montgomery, a professor at the University of Washington, authored The Rocks Don’t Lie [2029] which offers a fresh open-minded look at Noah’s Flood and how it is viewed today by both science and religion. He concluded – Like most geologists, I had come to see Noah’s Flood as a fairy tale—an ancient attempt to explain the mystery of how marine fossils ended up in rocks high in the mountains. Now I’ve come to see the story of Noah’s Flood like so many other flood stories—as rooted in truth.”

“It appears that humanity’s rich legacy of flood stories reflects a variety of ancient disasters. The global pattern of tsunamis, glacial outburst floods and catastrophic flooding of lowlands like Mesopotamia or the Black Sea basin, fits rather well the global distribution and details of flood stories.”

So Montgomery considers the source of Noah’s Flood to have been a local event such as the flooding of the Black Sea region and refers to Angelos Galanopoulos who similarly associated the tsunamis generated by the mid-second millennium BC eruption of Thera (Santorini) with the Flood of Deucalion. Montgomery’s views were given further exposure on the LiveScience website(bx).

A decade later (May 2023), the Greek Reporter website re-examined the possible extent of Noah’s Flood(by).

THE ARK

An interesting overview of traditional as well as modern thinking regarding the possible historical reality behind the Deluge of Genesis is presented(ai) by Robert Squillace on the New York University website.

On January 1st 2010 it was revealed(b) that a 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet which, unlike the biblical record, describes an ark made of reeds, 70 metres in width and round in shape(aj)(ak). This would have been recorded a thousand years before the Genesis story was written down. Understandably, this has caused the knickers of some fundamentalist Christians to become seriously twisted! The discovery has now been expanded on by a cuneiform specialist at the British Museum, Irving Finkel, in The Ark before Noah [0995]. Jason Colavito offers an interesting review of the book(d).

Even more radical is the result of a high-tech study of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls which suggest that Noah’s Ark was pyramidal in shape(al)! Commenting on this report, Jason Colavito has pointed out that the concept of a pyramid-shaped ark is not new(am).

There is an unexpectedly large number of books written over the last century on the subject of Noah’s Ark that is listed on a specialist website(e). One such offering, resurrected by Jason Colavito(f), provides some comic relief with the claim in 1922 by C. E. Getsinger, who wrote that Noah’s Ark was the Great Pyramid!(g)  Even earlier, John Taylor (1781-1864) claimed [1451] that Noah had built the Great Pyramid! Nevertheless, a recently deciphered fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls has suggested that the Ark was shaped like a pyramid!(h)(i)

Barry Warmkessel also entered the fray with the suggestion that aliens had been involved in the design and construction of the Ark(r)! Nevertheless, that idea certainly competes with the suggestion of Xavier Séguin that the ‘Ark’ of Noah had been an Earth satellite(aa)!

Even more radical is the claim by Hebrew scholar Richard Seary that the Ark never actually existed, but that conventionally accepted understanding of the Genesis text is the result of some incorrect translations(aq). One example is that there is no such material as gopher wood and that the word ‘gofer’ means lava!

A life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark was due to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Holland in the summer of 2016(an). It was built over four years by a carpenter, Johan Huibers, completing it in 2012. It is 410 feet long, 95 feet wide and 75 feet tall. It weighs 2,500 tons and is said to hold more than 5,000 people at any one time. However, there is no provision for live animals! The replica was sold to Aad Peters, a Dutch artist, who in 2019 brought it to Ipswich in Britain. Unfortunately, it has been impounded by the authorities there as it lacks the appropriate paperwork to permit it to leave. There are also serious concerns regarding its seaworthiness and it is also clocking up port fees of £500 a day(ao)(ap).

Michael Hearns, an Irish researcher, has just published (Aug.2023), an interesting article on the Ancient Origins website recounting the many anomalies in the biblical story of the Ark(bw).

UBIQUITY OF FLOOD MYTHS

Flood myths are found throughout the world and for centuries were seen as confirmation of the reality and universality of the Biblical Flood of Noah. However, when it was discovered that the Earth had endured a series of Ice Ages and that following each of these, the melting ice caps led to worldwide inundations with consequent immortalisation of these events through locally developed myths, it led to speculation that Noah’s Flood may have been just a regional but a catastrophic event. It is also probable that separate regional inundations would have occurred as deglaciation continued at the end of the last ice age, so when recounted through mythology many centuries later they may appear to refer to a single global event.

The competing concepts of global deluge versus local inundations are discussed in a brief paper(bc) by L. James Gibson, who concluded that “these local floods do not explain important features of the biblical flood.”

Nevertheless, megafloods are not necessarily only caused by tsunamis and melting glaciers. “A 43-day storm that began in December 1861 put central and southern California underwater for up to six months” a catastrophic event that is now generally forgotten. An extensive 2013 article(bd) in Scientific American has full details.

These ancient flood stories are to be found to contain content with a remarkable similarity of detail. It is worth pointing out that none of these legends ever recount the ‘hero’ of their particular tale returning to his former home. One simple explanation for this might be that the original homelands no longer existed. This would not normally be the case if the floods in question were tidal, storm-driven or even giant tsunamis. However, if the inundations were the result of rising sea levels, resulting from the melting of Ice Age glaciers, we could expect two principal effects. The first would have been the gradual submergence of all low-lying flood plains that are now identified as continental shelves. Two of the best known of these would be the Sunda Shelf (Sundaland) and the area stretching from the west coast of mainland Europe across the North Sea encompassing the British Isles and into the Atlantic beyond Ireland. The second effect would have been the dramatic inundation of valleys and basins protected by low landbridges or dams. Again, we have examples, some debatable, such as the Baltic, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and perhaps the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Sea of Japan.

An extensive and more general collection of Flood myths can be found on the internet(be). A USGS list of the world’s greatest floods, ancient and recent, is available as a pdf file(bf). Similarly, a website by Mark Isaak offers an extensive overview of flood myths around the world, although the site does not appear to have been updated for some years(bg).

Despite the existence of these huge collections of worldwide flood myths(ay) there appears to be one glaring omission, from all such databases, namely a contribution from Egypt where, inexplicably, there is no such deluge tradition apart from the predictable annual flooding of the Nile. However, there is the Egyptian story of Hathor/Sekhmet(az)(ba) who flooded the land with blood, which some may interpret as a mythological code for water!

The flooding of all these worldwide locations would have occurred quite slowly over an extended period following the last Ice Age, possibly providing the basis for the widespread existence of these flood myths. However, it could not explain the biblical claim that the flood covered mountains.

Dhani Irwanto, author of Atlantis: The Lost City in Java Sea [1093], offers a number of interesting articles on his website including an extensive overview of the ubiquity of Deluge stories, concluding with the following comment “Thus, Noah and the waters of the great Flood are not only recalled in the ancient traditions of all nations, but their names have also become incorporated in many and varied ways into the very languages of his descendants. The trails are tenuous and often almost obliterated so that some of the inferred connections are speculative and possibly mistaken, but the correlations are too numerous to be only coincidental, thus adding yet one more evidence for the historicity of the Great Flood.(bs)

 Many Atlantologists have sought to link the Deluge with the inundation of Atlantis. As early as 1915, Garrett Serviss put forward the possibility that a lost continent in the Arctic Ocean, containing Atlantis, was destroyed and that this cataclysm also generated Noah’s Flood(ca).

Egerton Sykes was a keen supporter of the idea of a connection between the destruction and Noah’s Deluge. Joseph S. Ellul has interpreted the biblical story to support the idea of a landbridge at Gibraltar, which eventually collapsed when the waters of the Atlantic rose after the last Ice Age. Ellul maintains that Genesis 7:11 ‘All the springs of the Great Deep broke through’ is a reference to the percolation of the Atlantic waters, through the Gibraltar dam, which eventually led to its collapse as the sea level rose or was shattered by seismic or tectonic movements. I find it hard to accept this, because the pressure that is exerted by the Atlantic, would have rapidly changed any such seepage into a major breach and the subsequent collapse of the dam. Gerhard F. Hasel, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology offers a more conventional interpretation of “the fountains of the great deep” in a paper with the same name(ab).

MT. ARARAT

Nevertheless, 2017 finished with renewed interest in Noah’s Ark being generated by media reports(k) of statements emanating from The Geoscience Research Institute, which is sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which claims that a 2010 expedition to Mount Ararat in Turkey, carbon-dated timbers found there to 4,800 years ago.

A sceptical 2019 article has looked critically at many aspects of the story of the Ark, including the most commonly offered Turkish site as the resting place of the Ark – “One of the most famous supposedly-Noah’s-ark sites is the admittedly very boat-looking Durupinar site in the Mount Tendurek area in Turkey. According to Atlas Obscura, the site was exposed in the late 1940s after a series of earthquakes and storms.”(an)

The late David Allen Deal was another investigator to propose the Ararat region as the landing place of the Ark, with Mt. Judi (Judi Dagh) as the specific location(o). A more recent article supports his ideas(p). David Rohl has also been drawn to Mt. Judi as a probable contender(bu). The precise location of the biblical Ararat is a matter of continuing and intense debate(q).

The UK’s Daily Mail added that talking after the initial claims in 2010, Mike Pitt, a British archaeologist, said the evangelical explorers had yet to produce compelling evidence. He said: ‘If there had been a flood capable of lifting a huge ship 2.5 miles [4km] up the side of a mountain 4,800 years ago, I think there would be substantial geological evidence for this flood around the world. And there isn’t.’

In his 2020 book, Apocalypse [1874], Dr Sean Welsh agreed that Noah’s Ark finally rested on Mt. Ararat, but took everyone by surprise by claiming that it was not Ararat in Turkey but Ararat mountain on Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula! Welsh does not explain where Shinar was in relation to his Ararat. Conventional wisdom locates it in southern Mesopotamia, placing them around 2,500 km apart.

Angelo Palegro was an Italian researcher who spent 35 years seeking Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat (Mount Agiri) on the Turkish-Iranian border(bq). Unfortunately, in 2021 he fell ill while in Turkey and died on August 15th, aged  86, and in accordance with his wishes was buried on the slopes of Mt. Ararat(bp).

However, a more valuable offering was a paper(ab) delivered in 2008 to the Sixth International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, PA by Anne Habermehl. She finished her contribution, Review of the Search for Noah’s Ark, with the following conclusions;

“(1) It would appear that the Ark cannot have landed on Mount Ararat, because scientists have shown that this mountain did not exist until some time after the Flood had ended. (Also, the area that Mount Ararat occupies was probably not yet included in Urartu at that time.)

(2)  In light of historical and geographical considerations, Mount Cudi near Cizre, Turkey, is the most likely place where the Ark landed.

(3)  It seems doubtful that anyone has actually seen the  Ark anywhere in modern times. The alleged sightings all seem to evaporate on careful examination.

(4) It is unlikely that very much of the Ark exists today; it is probable that over the millennia it has decayed, and various scavengers have taken most of it away.

(5) Because of 14C dating problems, it may not be possible to prove that any given samples are or are not the right age to have come from the Ark.

(6) More archaeological work needs to be done if we are ever to reasonably prove the Ark’s landing spot anywhere.

(7)  It is probable that no matter what is found in any location, there are those who will remain unconvinced.

(8) Interest in finding the Ark is unabated, and the Ark search will go on.

At the end of the day, we have to face the reality that it may be difficult, or even impossible, ever to prove where the Ark landed. This author would have liked to end on an optimistic note for the soon recovery of a largely intact, proven Ark, but this seems unlikely; and this paper therefore ends, in the words of T. S. Eliot (1925): “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

In 2021, author S.H. Scholar in a short book entitled Heavenly Flood [1891]  modestly claimed to have “uncovered history’s greatest secret – the influence of ancient astrology on the development of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood Tale.” John McHugh has also offered a comparable zodiacal link with the biblical Deluge story in The Celestial Code of Scripture [1892] which has been critiqued by Gary D. Thompson(bm).

Eugenio Ralbadisole who advocates India as the home of Atlantis also locates the landing place of Noah’s Ark in the same region. Based on texts in the Vedas where we read that a man after a catastrophic flood arrived with his ship full of animals in a village called Naubandhana. A location with similar names can be found near “Barda Hills” in Gujarat.” (bo)


(a) The First Eden (archive.org)  *

(b) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular  

(c) http://njbiblescience.org/presentations/Greek%20Mythology%20and%20Genesis.pdf

(d) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2014/05/on-irving-finkels-the-ark-before-noah.html

(e) http://www.throneofgod.com/SBG/sbg.htm

(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/wednesday-roundup-templar-carvings-masonic-pyramids-and-a-bizarre-claim-about-noahs-ark

(g) The Thomson Review, Thomson, Illinois, July 19th, 1922 – p.3,

(i) http://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/christianity/was-noahs-ark-shaped-like-a-pyramid-digitized-dead-sea-scrolls-reveal-new-secrets

(j) https://www.scientificexploration.org/forum/noah%E2%80%99s-ark-the-biblical-flood-reality-or-nonsense

(k) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5020131/Experts-claim-Noah-s-Ark-Mount-Ararat.html

(m) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/turkish-chemist-claims-noah-had-nuclear-powered-ark-called-son-on-cellphone 

(n) https://web.archive.org/web/20190926154926/http://www.jokesoftheday.net/joke-NOAH-S-ARK-2017/2017050249

(o) https://noahsfloodnoahsark.wordpress.com/category/chapter-13-discovery-of-lost-ancient-city/

(p) http://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/evidence-noah-s-ark-landed-mountain-17-miles-south-ararat-009725  

(q) https://web.archive.org/web/20190128072213/http://compmyth.org/journal/index.php/cm/article/view/15

(r)  Archive 3514

(s) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=540

(t) The First Eden – Part One (archive.org)

(u) https://www.academia.edu/38664571/Gobekli_Tepe_founded_by_Noah_and_sons

(v) https://israelect.com/ChurchOfTrueIsrael/comparet/comp19.html 

(w) https://web.archive.org/web/20200608082026/https://truth-over-tradition.com/2018/12/26/god-is-racist-and-you-should-be-too/ 

(x) https://ncse.ngo/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark 

(y) https://www.grunge.com/145325/the-untold-truth-of-noahs-ark/ 

(z) https://www.academia.edu/17026643/Noah_and_the_Deluge_Chronological_Historical_and_Archaeological_Evidence

(aa) https://eden-saga.com/en/looking-noahs-ark.html

(ab) https://www.academia.edu/39177466/A_Review_of_the_Search_for_Noahs_Ark 

(ac) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=498

(ad) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=540

(ae) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222471228_An_Abrupt_Drowning_of_the_Black_Sea_Shelf

(af) https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/why-black-sea-is-not-site-of-noahs-flood.html

(ag) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304674803_A_Re-interpretation_of_the_82ky_BP_Event

(ah) https://web.archive.org/web/20200216200648/http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/mythologyhome.htm 

(ai) Untitled Document (archive.org)  (link broken) 

(aj) https://web.archive.org/web/20170102033030/http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6746/20140128/noahs-ark-round-mesopotamia-flood-cuneiform-instructions-mathematically-accurate.htm

(ak) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/noahs-ark-round/283335/

(al) http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/07/digital-analysis-of-dead-sea-scrolls-says-ark-was-a-pyramid/

(am) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/fringe-writers-shocked-by-text-from-dead-sea-scrolls-claiming-noahs-ark-was-pyramid-shaped

(an) https://www.grunge.com/145325/the-untold-truth-of-noahs-ark/

(an) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/life-sized-noahs-ark-to-sail_us_571f99cbe4b0b49df6a91ffc  

(ao) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan%27s_Ark 

(ap) Noah’s Ark Replica Faces Biblical Fines For Return Voyage To Holland! | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(aq) Fortean Times, April 2014, p.55

(bl) Giant Comet Launched Noah’s Ark (goldenageproject.org.uk)

(ar) http://www.newscientificevidenceforgod.com/2011/03/noahs-flood-was-really-tsunami-caused.html

(as) https://grahamhancock.com/eilinga2/

(at) http://religiondocbox.com/Judaism/67170515-A-r-t-i-c-l-e-s-the-fountains-of-the-great-deep-gerhard-f-hasel-associate-professor-of-old-testament-biblical-theology-andrews-university.html

(av) https://biblehub.com/joshua/10-13.htm

(aw) https://www.timesofisrael.com/3224-years-later-scientists-see-first-ever-recorded-eclipse-in-joshuas-battle/

(ax) http://www.geocities.ws/gardenofdanu/the_great_deluge.htm

(ay) https://web.archive.org/web/20200922201924/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

(az) A Drunk, Bloodthirsty Goddess: The Flood Myth Of Egypt – Parallel Myths (wordpress.com)

(ba) https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=honors-theses

(bb) http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/did-astronomical-body-fly-earth-and-produce-floods-myths-12000-years-ago-021883 

(bc) https://www.grisda.org/origins-52053  

(bd) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atmospheric-rivers-california-megaflood-lessons-from-forgotten-catastrophe/

(be) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

(bf) http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1254/pdf/circ1254.pdf 

(bg) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

(bh) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083754.htm

(bi) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579

(bj) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tollmann

(bk) http://varchive.org/itb/hydrox.htm

(bl) Giant Comet Launched Noah’s Ark (goldenageproject.org.uk)

(bm) Critique of John McHugh’s Astronomical Interpretation of Noah’s Flood (westnet.com.au) (Link Broken)

(bn) https://grahamhancock.com/eilinga2/ 

(bo) City of Atlantis – Atlantide (archive.org) 

(bp) Italian researcher buried in Turkey after decades… | Rudaw.net 

(bq) Studies by Palego (noahsark.it) 

(bs) Great Flood and the Repopulation of Man | Atlantis in the Java Sea (atlantisjavasea.com) 

(bt) https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth 

(bu) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/03/ 

(bv) (99+) A Simple Chronology for Biblical Archaeology | Rich McQuillen – Academia.edu

(bw) Stairway To Heaven In Noah’s Ark | Ancient Origins Members Site (ancient-origins.net) 

(bx) Did Noah’s flood really happen? | Live Science 

(by) https://greekreporter.com/2023/05/15/noah-flood/ 

(bz) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-19-adfg-noah-story.html 

(ca) https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045389/1915-01-03/ed-1/seq-46/ 

* See Atlantis Vol.6, Nos.1,2&3,  May, July & September 1953

Central Mediterranean

The Central Mediterranean is a very geologically unstable region containing as it does all of Europe’s land-based active volcanoes(a), regular seismic(b) activity with the attendant risk of tsunamis. It is now estimated that a devastating tsunami will hit the Mediterranean every 100 years(c). While the Aegean region experiences the greatest number of earthquakes, the Central Mediterranean, particularly around Sicily is also prone to regular tremors.

The idea that Atlantis was situated in this region is advocated by a number of researchers, including Alberto Arecchi, Férréol Butavand, Anton Mifsud, Axel Hausmann, as well as this compiler. Plato unambiguously referred to only two places as Atlantean territory (Crit.114c & Tim 25b) North Africa and Southern Italy as far as Tyrrhenia (Tuscany) plus a number of unspecified islands.

The area between Southern Italy and Tunisia has had a great number of sites proposed for the Pillars of Herakles, while possible locations for Gades are on offer with a number places still known today by cognates of that name.

Plato clearly includes continental territory as part of the Atlantean domain as well as a number of important islands. Within a relatively small geographical area, you have two continents, Africa and Europe represented by Tunisia and Italy respectively, as well as the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Malta together with a number of smaller archipelagos, matching Plato’s description exactly. The later Carthaginian Empire also occupied much of the same territory apart from eastern Sicily and southern Italy which by then was controlled by the Greeks and known as Magna Graecia.

For me, the clincher is that within that region we have the only place in the entire Mediterranean to have been home to elephants up to Roman times – Northwest Africa.

(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanology_of_Italy

(b) The Europeam Mediterranean Seismic Centre – EMSC, records all activity in the region.

(c) Tsunami Alarm System – A3M Tsunami Alarm System (tsunami-alarm-system.com)  (German & English)

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.

(a) Wayback Machine (archive.org)

(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

Bendandi, Raffaele (L)

Raffaele Bendandi (1893-1979) was an Italian clockmaker with an intense interest in Raffaele_Bendandi_1951earthquakes and planetary alignments. This led to a lifetime of earthquake prediction with a remarkable level of success.

In 1940 it was reported(a) that Bendandi claimed that Atlantis had been situated in the Atlantic and had been destroyed by an earthquake in the autumn of 9008 BC.

In 2013, Paola Pescerelli Lagorio published (in Italian) Raffaele Bendandi[1174], in which he reviews the life and work of Bendandi.

(a) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/42223115?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc  

Neer, Katherine Fordham

Katherine Fordham Neer is an American writer, editor and researcher. She appears Neerto accept the existence of Atlantis having published a brief paper(a) with the odd title of Shocker: 9 Reasons Atlantis May Have Been Real, which simply recounts the existence of natural catastrophic events such as tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods. Disappointingly, Neer offers nothing to support the existence of Plato’s Atlantis exemplified by number 8 of her ‘reasons’ entitled ‘The Ocean is Really, Really Big’!

(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170504041729/https://roohit.com/b5495a

Survivors

Survivors of the Atlantean destruction are a reasonable expectation given the extent of its influence as described by Plato. The fact that its rulers only met every few years suggests a geographical spread that must have left some, if not most, of the confederation intact, irrespective of the location of the earthquake’s epicentre. Some have proposed that survivors migrated to an extensive range of locations such as Egypt, the Middle East and the Americas, but offer little to substantiate their claims apart from the widely dispersed flood myths that are most likely to have arisen following the melting of glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age.

Sanchuniathon refers to the original kings of Egypt calling them ‘Aleteans’. Albert Slosman claims[551] that survivors from Atlantis had migrated to Egypt. The archaeologist, Marcelle Weissen-Szumianska, in a 1965 book, Origines Atlantiques des Anciens Egyptiens [837], maintained that the pre-pharaonic Egyptians originated in Atlantis, which had been situated in Morocco! Others suggest that Egypt was an Atlantean colony.

Egerton Sykes proposed that the Tuatha deDanaan were refugees from Atlantis in his 1949 edition of Donnelly’s Atlantis. Sean Welsh is one of several who have labelled the Sea Peoples as Atlantean refugees.

All the suggestions put forward are either pure speculation, invention or allegedly derived from some psychic source. W. Scott-Eliot claimed [543] that refugees from an Atlantic Atlantis fled westward to Mexico and became the Toltecs and eastward and built Stonehenge ln Britain! While other European cultures have also had Atlantean roots attributed to them, the most frequently named are the great civilisations of Central and South America – Aztec, Mayan and Incan. Posnansky went as far as to suggest that Tiwanaku in the Andes was built by Nordic refugees from Atlantis! Proof, however, is lacking in all cases.

Thera

Thera is an ancient name for today’s Aegean archipelago of Santorini, which are the remains of a volcanic island.

Only two of the islands are inhabited, the main island, Santorini and Therasia, which had been joined before the 16th century BC eruption. Recent excavations have revealed a pre-eruption settlement on Therasia(x).

Pre-eruption Thera

Pre-eruption Thera

Although it exhibited low-level activity in 1939-41 and 1950-51, it was in 1926 when it last erupted violently, destroying many hundreds of buildings in less than a minute. Eruptions of similarity intensity occurred in 1650, 1707 and 1866. Although Thera is thought to have violently erupted around 54,000 & 18,500 BC, it was not until the middle of the sixteenth century BC that it provided what was probably the most powerful and destructive volcanic explosion in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. Although the exact date of this event is still the subject of some controversy, the most recent evidence(a) indicates a date around 1613 BC ±13years, while archaeologists are more supportive of a date circa 1500 BC.

Professor Floyd McCoy of the University of Hawaii has written and broadcast extensively on the matter of the Late Bronze Age eruption of Thera, including a paper delivered to the 2005 Atlantis Conference. In it, he noted that “New finds of tephra – ash and pumice – both on land and on the seafloor indicate a far larger eruption than previously assumed, suggesting a volume of at least 100 km3 of tephra (bulk volume) ejected, perhaps more. Such a volume ranks the eruption on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) at 7.0, equivalent or larger than the 1815 eruption of Tambora (‘the year without a summer’), ten times larger than the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, and approximately 100 times that of Mt. St. Helens in 1980.”[629.311]

The 1500 BC date was supported by David A. Warburton who edited the Acts of the Minoan Eruption Chronology Workshop in 2007(af). The workshop provided a good overview of the Theran eruption dating debates, Warburton’s comments are to be found in the Epilogue.

While the eruption of the 2nd millennium BC undoubtedly caused extensive damage and disruption in the Eastern Mediterranean, its effect may have been felt much further afield. Some scientists correlate a volcanic winter from the Minoan eruption with Chinese records documenting the collapse of the Xia dynasty in China. According to the Bamboo Annals, the collapse of the dynasty and the rise of the Shang dynasty (independently approximated to 1618 BC) was accompanied by ‘yellow fog, a dim sun, then three suns, frost in July, famine, and the withering of all five cereals’.”(at)

There was a series of eruptions that ended with a final enormous explosion that has been linked to the ending of the Minoan civilisation on Crete, the Plagues of Egypt and agricultural failures throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. For a geologist’s view of the island’s dramatic history, Walter Friedrich’s book[428] is hard to beat. His book supports a 1640 BC date for the eruption although he has subsequently revised this to 1613 BC. Sturt W. Manning supported[957] a 1628 BC date and Mike Baillie offered dendrochronological evidence for the same eruption date at the 2011 Quantavolution conference in Athens(j). This converges with McCoy’s date above. However, the dating of the eruption continues to be controversial as this December 2012 link(i)demonstrates.  At the heart of the problem is that acceptance of an early 17th century BC date for the event conflicts with established Egyptian chronology. While the exact year of the eruption continues to be debated, there is now scientific evidence that it occurred in early summer(s).

A 2014 paper published in Antiquity by Paolo Cherubini would appear to confirm the 16th century BC as the date of the catastrophic eruption ruling out an earlier date as untenable(o). In the same year, the University of Birmingham published a report(u) that supported the 1625 BC date. The earlier Antiquity paper prompted a response by a group, led by Sturt Manning later in 2014(y).

In August 2018, an interdisciplinary group led by dendrochronologist Charlotte L. Pearson published a paper(ab)(ad), which concluded that the eruption of Thera took place in the 16th century BC. This conclusion was the result of using a combination of ‘dendro’ along with high-resolution radiocarbon dating methods. In April 2020, a new report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explained how a new study of the wood of an ancient grove of juniper trees, which suggested that the volcano blew its top around the year 1560 B.C.”(ae)

October 2018 saw further evidence for an early 16th century BC date for the eruption emerge after the radiocarbon dating of some olive wood found on Therasia, one of the Santorini island groups (z). The same month saw the publication of a paper on the ResearchGate(aa)  website dating the event to 1727-1600 BC!

Pearson published another paper in 2023(ar) in which she highlighted the difficulties attached to using dendrochronology and olive wood, with particular reference to the dating of the olive shrub found on Therasia.  However, this sample has proved highly controversial because olive trees do not necessarily produce annual growth rings in the way that pine or oak trees might. While some studies have shown that annual growth rings in olives are possible, others have shown that the nature of olive growth may mean that a stem or branch with bark may have actually ceased to accumulate growth bands several decades before the death of the tree.” 

William Austin, an American researcher, offers, with great insistence, the precise date of 1612 BC for the eruption of Thera, in a lengthy 2016 paper (updated 2022) paper that begins with an open letter to Manfred Bietak and Sturt Manning. “The conclusion is that the radiocarbon date c.1613 BC was spot on. The Minoan eruption was in the spring of 1612 BC, via astronomy, via ice cores, via tree rings, via a stalagmite, via Babylonian chronology; all arrows point to the same exact year.” This is a carefully thought-out argument and useful addition to the literature on the subject(ap).

Nevertheless, in 2022, another report(aq) from Pearson, of the University of Arizona and her team claim that they have narrowed the eruption date to three possible dates – 1611 BC, 1562-1555 BC and 1538 BC!

After the eruption, we learn from Herodotus that Thera was resettled in the thirteenth century  BC by the Phoenicians and around a century later by the Dorians(am).

The doctoral thesis of Dr David Sewell explores the cultural effects of the Theran eruption and can be read online(h).

Many centuries later the volcanic ash deposited by the Theran eruption was used in huge quantities to manufacture cement for the construction of the Suez Canal. It was during the mining of this material that workmen encountered large stone blocks under the layers of pumice, indicating buildings of great age.

Luana Monte has written a rather ‘forced’ argument in which she claims that Thera can be identified as biblical Tarshish(ac).

It is claimed by many that a garbled Egyptian description of this devastating event was the basis for the story of the destruction of Atlantis. Louis Figuier was the first, in 1872, to publicly link the demise of Atlantis with the explosion on Thera. Opponents of this theory counter it by pointing out that Plato describes the inundation of an island much larger than Santorini or Crete, located in the Atlantic following an earthquake, not a volcanic eruption many thousands of years earlier. Various attempts have been made to reconcile this Minoan Hypothesis and its obvious inconsistencies with Plato’s text. They are discussed separately under

Date of Atlantis’ Collapse

Pillars of Heracles

Size of Atlantis

It was announced at the end of February 2010 that the BBC was about to air a dramatisation of the Theran disaster as well as a documentary on the eruption and its influence on the development of Plato’s story of Atlantis. June 2010 saw the historian, Bettany Hughes, front a disappointing BBC Timewatch Special, which also promoted the idea of the eruption on Thera as the inspiration for Plato’s story of Atlantis. The material introduced as evidence was highly selective and, for me, unconvincing. A few parallels between Thera and Plato’s description were trotted out, while the more numerous differences were ignored!

Alain Moreau has written a highly critical review(v) of the idea that the island of Thera/Santorini had been home to Atlantis.

Dr Dora Constantinidis who studied under Prof. Christos Doumas delivered a lecture in Melbourne on May 29th 2014 with the inviting title of Unravelling the Atlantis Myth at Akrotiri. However, the primary purpose of the talk was not to advance our knowledge of Atlantis but to encourage the sale of Bronze Age-inspired merchandise(p). Nevertheless, in late 2020, one commentator did speculate that Akrotiri may originally have been Atlantis!(aj)

It is noteworthy that Unlike Pompeii, no human remains have been found at Akrotiri, and only one gold object was found on the site, suggesting that the Minoans performed an orderly evacuation before the eruption, and they had time to take their valuables before they fled.”(ak)

Another twist on the Thera explosion is offered by Andis Kaulins who suggests that there is a connection Theran eruptionsbetween that event and the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah(g), while Riaan Booysen has linked two separate Theran eruptions with two Exodus events in the Bible(k), offering as evidence, the existence of two distinct Theran ash fallout areas, caused by different wind directions at the time of the events.

Vulcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson of the University of Rhode Island following a 2006 study of Santorini estimated that the eruption of Thera was 120 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Sigurdsson expressed his personal view that “the mythology born out of this largest eruption must be responsible for the Atlantis legend.”(au)

Initially, it was thought that the collapse of the Theran caldera generated very destructive tsunamis, but new studies have concluded(w) that instead of that it was the violent entry of pyroclastic flows into the sea that triggered the tsunamis. Dale Dominey-Howes has published a paper suggesting that some claims relating to tsunamis generated by the Theran eruption(s) are exaggerations. However, a 2022 report indicates that a series of four tsunamis resulting from the eruption hit the Turkish coast at  Çesme-Baglararasi, with one known fatality.(ao)

>In July 2023, National Geographic published an article on its website offering further information regarding the tsunamis generated by the eruptions of Thera and the evidence for it being investigated at a site in the resort town of Çesme on the coast of Turkey 100 miles north-northeast of Santorini. Archaeologist Vas?f ?aho?lu of Turkey’s Ankara University has worked there since 2009(aw).<

A further possible consequence of the Theran eruption(s)  was proposed after the discovery of the Nebra Sky Disk(n), which was buried about 3,600 years ago. This is suggested Nebra Sky Diskto have resulted from the volcanic ash generated by the eruption blotting out the sun for up to 25 years. It is thought that the Disk had been used to synchronise the lunar and solar calendars(l) and when this was no longer possible the Disk was buried as some form of offering. A contrary view is offered elsewhere on the Internet(m), as well as further controversy(t) led by Peter Schauer from the University of Regensburg.

Andis Kaulins has also written an extensive paper on the Nebra Sky Disk. A 2014 update(r) on the Disk was posted by Claudia Bracholdt.

2020 brought further debate with the claim, in a lengthy paper, that the date of the Disk should be brought forward to the 1st millennium BC(ag). This was followed by a shorter but vehement rebuttal(ah)(al).

In December 2020, the Discovery Channel aired a new documentary, which attempted to revive the Minoan Hypothesis, placing Atlantis on today’s Santorini. This recycled claim adds little that is new and has been taken up by several media outlets(ai), repeating an old error that claims that Plato said that Atlantis was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, when in fact he clearly states that it was the result of an earthquake.

Paul Dunbavin in Prehistory Papers [1758] discusses the Minoan Hypothesis and the extent to which it is inconsistent with the details provided by Plato. Despite the support from some academics for the idea that the story of Atlantis is linked to the Theran eruption, Dunbavin reiterates that “whenever you find a conflict between the opinion of a modern expert and that given in an ancient text then you should always prefer the source closest to the events.” [p160]  The relevant chapter 15 is available as a separate paper online(av).

Before he retired, R. Cedric Leonard published a paper listing 18 reasons why he does not support the Minoan Hypothesis(as).

An extensive bibliography of books and articles on the subject of Thera can be found on the Internet(b).

(a) https://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/Bronze.age.AK.html

(b) Archive 2196 | (atlantipedia.ie)

(f) https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/02_february/26/atlantis.shtml

(g) Sodom & Gomorrah & The Age of Thera and the Volcano Santorini (archive.org)

(h) See: Archive 2199

(i) See: Archive 2200

(j) https://www.qconference-athens-2011.grazian-archive.com/michaelbaillie/index.html

(k) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/thera

(l) https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413876

(m) Nebra Speculation | Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (archive.org) 

(n) https://www.dw.de/bronze-age-sky-disc-deciphered/a-1915398-1

(o) https://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/08/greek-island-of-santorini-volcano-erupted-in-16th-century/

(p) https://neoskosmos.com/news/en/akrotiris-link-to-atlantis

(q) Wayback Machine (archive.org)

(r) https://admin-test.nautil.us/the-amazing-sky-calendar-that-ancients-used-to-track-seasons-2774/ 

(s) Fossil Insects Tweak Date of Deadly “Atlantis” Eruption (archive.org) 

(t) https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6722953.stm

(u) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141009100924.htm

(v) https://web.archive.org/web/20200926061503/http://www.mondenouveau.fr/continents-disparus-les-fausses-atlantides-de-santorin-partie-2/ 

(w) https://www.livescience.com/56791-santorini-tsunamis-caused-by-volcanic-flow.html

(x) https://www.tornosnews.gr/en/greek-news/culture/27727-santorini-island-excavation-unearths-bronze-age-settlement.html

(y) https://dendro.cornell.edu/articles/Manningetal_Antiquity_2014.pd

(z) https://www.archaeology.org/news/7086-181022-greece-thirasia-wood

(aa) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7136349_Santorini_Eruption_Radiocarbon_Dated_to_1627-1600_BC

(ab) Annual radiocarbon record indicates 16th century BCE date for the Thera eruption | Science Advances (archive.org)

(ac) Archive 3919

(ad) https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dating-ancient-minoan-eruption-thera-using-tree-rings

(ae) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-volcanic-eruption-dated-through-rings-dead-trees-180974603/

(af) (99+) (PDF) Manning, S.W. 2009. Beyond the Santorini eruption: some notes on dating the Late Minoan IB period on Crete, and implications for Cretan-Egyptian relations in the 15th century BC (and especially LMII). In D.A. Warburton (ed.), Time’s Up! Dating the Minoan eruption of Santorini. Acts of the Minoan Eruption Chronology Workshop, Sandbjerg November 2007 initiated by Jan Heinemeier & Walter L. Friedrich: 207-226. Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens Volume 10. Athens: The Danish Institute at Athens. | Sturt Manning – Academia.edu

(ag) https://www.dguf.de/fileadmin/AI/ArchInf-EV_Gebhard_Krause_e.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1Ej3wkUGtIAdiPY59Yh6QKCrRyCueND7LK-5IvFSZTPdbHPShD4GlcZIg (link broken)

(ah)  https://www.lda-lsa.de/aktuelles/meldung/datum/2020/09/03/himmelsscheibe_von_nebra_eisenzeitlich_eine_richtigstellung/

(ai) New Findings on Santorini Point to “Lost Island of Atlantis” Origins | GreekReporter.com

(aj) The Prehistoric Buried City of Akrotiri – Discovered in 1860 (thevintagenews.com)

(ak) https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/prehistoric-town-of-akrotiri

(al) Archaeologists Are Caught Up in an Intense Fight Over Just How Important the Mysterious Nebra Sky Disk Really Is | Artnet News

(am) https://www.santorini-view.com/history-of-santorini/ 

(an) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377027303002841 

(ao) First victim of the tsunami that trashed the Eastern Mediterranean found | Ars Technica 

(ap) https://www.academia.edu/30389193/Astronomy_date_of_the_Minoan_eruption_part_II 

(aq) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220502142621.htm 

(ar) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33696-w 

(as) Could the island of Santorini be Atlantis? (archive.org)  

(at) https://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/472552606

(au) https://www.travel-to-santorini.com/article.php?article_id=50 

(av) https://www.academia.edu/80337025/Catastrophes_from_Atlantis_to_the_Aegean

(aw) 3,600-year-old tsunami ‘time capsule’ sheds light on one of humanity’s greatest disasters (nationalgeographic.com) *

.

Stewart, Iain

Iain Stewart (1964- ) is a Scottish geologist and former child actor. Stewart lectured on geology at the University of Plymouth and now is a senior lecturer in Geography and Earth Sciences at Brunel University.  In 2007 a newly identified species of ant, Cerapachys iainstewarti, was named after him, when it was discovered during the filming of a TV programme presented by him.

hzn_iainstewartHowever, he gave up his acting career to study geology and geography and eventually received a PhD. No doubt assisted by his acting experience Dr Stewart has gone on to present a number of science programmes on television. The first of which was Helike: The Real Atlantis (2002), in which he proposed that the submergence of Helike was the inspiration for elements of Plato’s Atlantis story(a).

In 2014, he updated the article providing interesting information regarding the effects of earthquakes in Greek history, concluding with a reiteration of his support for Helike as an important influence on the development of Plato’s story of Atlantis. He returned to the subject again in June 2015(b).

Stewart was a member of the steering committee of the 2008 Atlantis Conference held in Athens.

(a) https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/atlantis_01.shtml

(b) See: Archive 2571

 

Mycenaeans

Mycenaean is the name given to the culture of ancient Greece (excluding Crete) during the Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 BC). They were also called Achaeans. The controversial writer Felice Vinci maintains that a Northern European tribe was referred to as Achaeans by Homer and that they migrated south and founded the Mycenaean civilisation.

Among the many geographical identifications of Homeric locations in the Baltic by Vinci is his claim that Mycenae was probably located on the same site as Copenhagen and associated Thebes with Stockholm [019.218]. Compare this with Iman Wilkens‘s claim that Mycenae had been situated in northern France [610.121] !

However, it was Martin Persson Nilsson (1874-1967), a Swedish historian, who was an earlier proponent of a Nordic origin for the Mycenaeans. A Northern European location for Mycenae (and Sparta) has also been proposed by John Esse Larsen, who has specified Hareskov in northeast Denmark(d).

However, recent genetic studies suggest that the mainland Mycenaeans and the Cretan Minoans share a common ancestry with Neolithic populations of what are today Turkey and Greece(c).

Stavros Papamarinopoulos claims[750.73] that the Athens described by Plato in the Critias is an accurate description of Mycenaean Athens>and then leaps to the conclusion that because the details of Athens provided by Plato are correct then it must follow that his depiction of Atlantis is equally reliable! For me, this is an unacceptable non sequitur, as Plato lived ln Athens and would have been fully aware of the city’s landmarks and tradition. On the other hand, he had not been to Atlantis, in fact, he was somewhat vague regarding its actual location. Jason Colavito also took issue with Papamarinopoulos’ contention(f).

There is evidence of Mycenaean warriors fighting alongside Egyptian soldiers of the 18th Dynasty(e)!<

Austen Atkinson in his Impact Earth[109] suggested the possibility that the unexplained ending of the Mycenaean civilisation could be explained as a consequence of Earth’s encounter with Phaëton referred to by Plato (Tim.22c-d).

However, there are current studies(a) being made into the possibility that earthquakes were responsible for the demise of the Mycenaeans and the start of the Greek ‘Dark Ages’.

However, the earthquake theory is also under attack(b), with the proposal that either an uprising or invasion was responsible for the demise of Mycenaean Greece.

A recent outline[226] of the Mycenaean culture has been produced by Rodney Castleden, who has also written about Atlantis.

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20170702144950/https://www.seeker.com/did-an-earthquake-destroy-ancient-greece-1767465731.html

(b) https://www.tornosnews.gr/en/greek-news/culture/30911-new-study-mycenaean-civilization-might-have-collapsed-due-to-uprising-or-invasion.html

(c) https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-mystery-of-where-the-minoans-came-from-solved-1.5439462

(d) http://odisse.me.uk/the-danaan-islands-seeland-and-arcadia.html 

(e) https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/x4z1qi7hp27q8mjvo74cbzz9uc8irm?rq=abydos *

(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-minor-atlantis-mystery-did-plato-correctly-describe-mycenaean-athens-in-the-critias *