Franklin, Stephen E. *

Stephen E. Franklin offers a wide-ranging website^(a) which includes a book ^[1387], as yet unpublished, that ambitiously aims to reconcile the chronologies of the ancient Hebrews, Assyrians and Egyptians^(e). This has been an area of great contention particularly since the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky were published in the 1950s. David Rohl has published a series of books on the subject in recent years with further contributions from Peter James and Emmet J. Sweeney.

Franklin’s book has chapter 8^(c) devoted to the Garden of Eden and  Atlantis where he maintains that the 9,000 ‘years’ of Plato refer to the three ‘seasons’ in the Egyptian year, an idea that seems to be gaining acceptance (see Radek Brychta, Rosario Vieni and Axel Hausmann).

This reassessment of Plato’s years enabled Franklin to claim that Athens was founded circa 3565 BC and Sais circa 3231 BC. Coincidentally the latter date is very close to the generally accepted time for the establishment of pharaonic Egypt.

Franklin has claimed that the Phaistos Disk is a king-list of Cretan rulers and also that it has a calendrical function^(d).

Some years ago Franklin published a book on the origins of the Tarot deck. Its subtitle was A Study of the Astronomical Substructure of Game and Divining Boards ^[301]. This can be downloaded for free from his website^(b).

He has also engaged in the Shakespearean authorship controversy.

^(a) Forgotten Origins: Steve Franklin’s Web Site (lordbalto.com) *

^(b) Appendix C (lordbalto.com) *

^(c) Eight: Adam and Atlas–Eden and the Fall of Atlantis (lordbalto.com) *

^(d) Fourteen: The Phaistos Disc and the Early Kings of Crete (lordbalto.com) *

^(e) One: Solomon and Shoshenq (lordbalto.com)  ^*