Mexico

Mexico, according to the most recent evidence has pushed back the arrival date of the first people to the southern regions of the country to around 30,000 BC^(e).

Mexico has not been ignored by Atlantis seekers. As early as the 17^th century Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora suggested that the indigenous people of Mexico had come from Atlantis after an earlier migration from Egypt. Louis de Launay, the French geologist, proposed in 1936, the possibility of such a link possible in 1936. More recently Gene Matlock has promoted the idea again^[472][474] with his own twist to the theory involving a link with ancient India. His ideas are available online^(d).

An interesting attempt at linking Plato’s Atlantis story with the Valley of Mexico can be found on the Internet^(a) in an article by Ed Ziomek that looks at possible links between the Old World and the Americas 5,000 years before Columbus.

In Frank Joseph’s Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America ^[934.217] a chapter by Kenneth Caroli has offered evidence that Olmec Mexico was the Land of Punt in Egyptian legend.

Dustin Kolb is a German researcher who has opted for a Mexican location for Atlantis^(h). Somehow or other he arrived at the conclusion that Plato’s description of Atlantis could only have been a reference to America. He then ‘reasoned’ that since the capital of Atlantis was in the middle of Plato’s island, this must have been a reference to Central America! Moving steadily along, he next decided that the concentric rings of the Atlantean capital could only have been an impact crater. He finally settled on the region of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico as the original home of Atlantis.

Clyde Winters has published his views that the Olmecs were descendants of Atlanteans who came from Libya in North Africa.   However, another Afrocentrist Paul Barton claims^(c) that the Olmecs came from the Mende people of West Africa who are now one of the principal ethnic groups of Sierra Leone.

>>Writing over a century ago, George H. Cooper, an American, speculated that ‘ancient Mexico enjoyed a British civilization’ ^[236.187], Britain being his presumed location of Atlantis.<<

Philip Gardiner has written a short article^(g) in which he suggests America held the land of Atlantis, being the only large landmass beyond Gibraltar, where he believes Plato’s ‘Pillars of Heracles’ were located. Based on several factors including linguistics, he favours Mexico as the location of Plato’s lost land!^(f)

A Mexican engineer, Eduardo Robles y Gutierrez, while working in Vera Cruz, discovered the foundations of an ancient city about 30 miles from the coast, in and near what is now the jungle-covered region of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. He has identified that ancient city, with its concentric channels lined with high banks, as had Plato’s Atlantis. The site had been pillaged by the Spanish who consigned considerable treasure back to Spain. His investigations were also published in Mexico as La Atlántida Está en México ^[480].

The fact that many Mexican placenames begin with ‘atl’ has prompted a number of commentators to erroneously assume a connection with ‘atl’antis.

A Mexican website^(b) informs us that there is a village called ‘Atlantis’ in the Municipality of Cacahoatán (State of Chiapas). It has 8 people and is at a height of 550 meters.

In 2015, Leonard Wolf published a lengthy paper⁽ⁱ⁾  on the Graham Hancock website in which he endeavours to demonstrate that off the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula lie the remains of Atlantis. He uses a mixture of Google Earth imagery, an unidentified coin linked to Stonehenge, Tarot cards and much more all bound together with unbridled speculation.

In March 2024, my attention was drawn to an undated paper on the Academia website written under the pseudonym of ‘The Mumble’ and titled Mexico City & the Site of Atlantis^(j). Its basic contention is that the Olmecs were originally Hyksos, who ruled an empire stretching from America to India! Unfortunately, real evidence is in short supply here to support this wild hypothesis. The paper is full of misquotations and other inaccuracies that are offered throughout.

Rather than trudge through the entire paper, let us take one glaring error, which is at the heart of the matter, namely that Mexico City was city of Atlantis described by Plato. Unfortunately, Plato’s Atlantis was situated close to the sea, while Mexico City is roughly 200 miles from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Canals led from the city to the sea – where are the 200-mile-long canals in Mexico? Additionally, Mexico City lies at a height of 7,350 feet and could not have been inundated by either ocean. According to Plato, Atlantis disappeared underwater, but Mexico did not! I think it was a good idea for ‘The Mumble’ to write under a pseudonym.

^(a) https://www.world.mysteries.com/gw_edziom2.htm (offline) see https://www.eupedia.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-9206.html

^(b) Mexico.pueblosamerica.com/i/la-Atlantean/ (offline)

^(c) https://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/ancientamerica.htm

^(d) https://www.viewzone.com/atlantis.html

^(e) New clues suggest people reached the Americas around 30,000 years ago | Science News

^(f) https://old.world-mysteries.com/PhilipGardiner/atlantis_pg.htm 

^(g) See: Archive 2920

^(h) Atlantis was in Mexico – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)

⁽ⁱ⁾ The Quest – Graham Hancock Official Website

^(j) (99+) Mexico City & the Site of Atlantis | The Mumble – Academia.edu