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NEWS September 2023
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 »
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 »
Flavio Barbiero
Croatia
Croatia has been mentioned several times within these pages. Apart from being the birthplace of Rudolf Steiner and Flavio Barbiero, it also offers a serious rival to Malta as the place where St. Paul was shipwrecked, namely on the island of Mljet! Coincidentally, Mljet is also claimed by some as the home of Calypso’s Ogygia(a).
Vedran Sinožic in his book Naša Troja (Our Troy) [1543]. “Sinožic provides numerous arguments that prove that the legendary Homer Troy is not located in Hisarlik in Turkey, but is located in the Republic of Croatia – today’s town of Motovun in Istria.”
Pero Metkovic recently announced that he had identified a number of pyramids in the vicinity of Dubrovnik. Not content with that revelation, he also claims to have located Atlantis nearby(b). For good measure, he supports the idea of Croatians in America in ancient times!
When the sunken ruins of a city, dated to around 1500 BC were discovered in 2015, near Croatia’s oldest city, Zadar, it generated the usual flurry of Atlantis speculation. There was a media report(c) in early 2017 in which treasure hunter Mark Kempf claimed to have discovered the remains of Atlantis 30 miles off the coast of Croatia.
So, with links to St. Paul, along with Ogygia, Troy, Atlantis and a collection of Egyptian-style pyramids within its territory, it has got to be the holiday destination of all time.
>Nevertheless, although it cannot be directly linked to Atlantis, I feel obliged to add a May 2023 report that a “prehistoric road was discovered under layers of sea mud at the sunken Neolithic site of Soline, and helped connect the Hvar settlement to the now-isolated island of Korcula in Croatia(i). The ‘road’ has been dated to around 5000 BC.<
(b) https://perometkovic.medium.com/mistery-of-dubrovnik-pyramids-3dea77cedc57
(c) http://empirenews.net/lost-city-of-atlantis-uncovered-in-mediterranean-sea/
(d) https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3u7rce/archeologists_in_croatia_announced_their/
(f) http://empirenews.net/lost-city-of-atlantis-uncovered-in-mediterranean-sea/
(h) http://www.acam.it/tracce-di-atlantide-a-venezia/
(i) 7,000-Year-Old Ancient Road Found Buried Underneath the Mediterranean Sea! | Weather.com *
Nestke & Riemer
Fritz Nestke & Thomas Riemer are the German authors of Atlantis – ein Kontinent tau(ch)t auf [064] published in 1989, six years before Rand & Rose Flem-Ath published their ‘Atlantis in the Antarctic’ theory in When the Sky Fell. However, twenty years earlier Flavio Barbiero published a parallel theory [0061], although I don’t know if Nestke & Reimer were aware of his book written in Italian!
In support of their contention, Nestke & Riemer have produced a ‘corrected’ translation of Timaeus 25d which they claim should read;
“… and Atlantis’ island as of disappeared even in its sea (removed from view) why it is now being impossible – because the slush of frozen sea even there is a very real obstacle – close gain access to the island” (p.170).
Like the Flem-Aths, Nestke & Riemer also propose that a Pole Shift played a part in the destruction of Atlantis.
Italian Atlantology
Italian Atlantology can be traced back to the 16th century when Fracastoro, Garimberto and Ramusio, identified the Americas as Atlantis. In fact, we should look to the 15th century when Ficino was the first to translate Plato’s entire works into Latin giving medieval Europe its first access to the complete Atlantis texts. Not much happened until 1788 when Carli attributed the destruction of Atlantis to a close encounter with a comet. In 1840, Angelo Mazzoldi proposed Italy as the location of Atlantis and as the hyper-diffusionist mother culture of the great civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean region. He was followed by others such as Giuseppe Brex(b).
Two years after Donnelly published his Atlantis in 1882 the Italian, D’Albertis followed him and opted for the Azores as the remains of Atlantis.
Not much developed in pre-war Italy apart from Russo’s journal which ran from 1930 until 1932. After the war, other Atlantis journals were established by Gianni Belli(d) in 1956 and Bettini in 1963 and reportedly one in Trieste by Antonio Romain & Serge Robbia(c).
After that, there was a wide range of theories advanced by Italian researchers. Spedicato located Atlantis in Hispaniola, Stecchini opted for São Tomé, Barbiero, who although Croatian by birth was an admiral in the Italian Navy nominated the Antarctic as the home of Atlantis before the Flem-Aths published their Antarctic ideas. Bulloni chose the Arctic, Pincherle identified the Mandaeans as the last of the Atlanteans and Monte links Thera with Tarshish.
In recent years the most widely reported Atlantis theory to emanate from Italy came from Sergio Frau who advocates Sardinia as the original Atlantis. However, this idea is not new having been promoted by Poddighe in 1982. Frau has subsequently been supported by other commentators such as Tozzi and Novo. I cannot help feeling that there might be a trace of nationalism underlying this theory, a suspicion that I have held regarding writers of other nationalities.
The latter end of the 20th century saw the development of the Internet which enabled the instant promotion of Atlantis theories, both silly and serious, to a global audience. Italy was no exception, where websites, such as Edicolaweb that are sympathetic to the exploration of historical mysteries emerged(a).
More recently, Marin, Minella & Schievenin had The Three Ages of Atlantis[0972] published in 2014. This is an English translation of their original 2010 work. In it, they suggest that Atlantis had originally existed in Antarctica and after its destruction survivors established two other Atlantises in South America and the Mediterranean. Perhaps more credible is the theory of Capuchin friar, Antonio Moro who, in 2013, suggested that Atlantis had included Iberia, the south coast of France and the west coast of Italy![0974]
> I must include here a mention of the website of Pierluigi Montalbano where he and various guest authors have written many interesting articles, particularly about Sardinia and its Nuraghic past as well as Atlantis. The site is well worth a browse and as it has Google Translate built-in it is accessible to all(e).<
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20140625081839/https://edicolaweb.net/cerca.htm
(c) Atlantis, Vol 16, No.2, April 1963.
(d) 025_028.PDF (uranialigustica.altervista.org) *
(e) https://pierluigimontalbano.blogspot.com/2014/04/uno-tsunami-cancello-la-civilta-nuragica.html *
Pole Shift
Pole Shift is a term used to describe a range of theories that includes an alteration to or even the complete reversal of the magnetic poles, a change to the axis of rotation of the entire planet as well as a possible sudden movement of the outer crust of the Earth relative to its axis.
The magnetic poles are always on the move and well documented, while their complete reversal is a much slower process, previous reversals have left us with geological ‘fingerprints’. It is suggested that another reversal is imminent, while some ‘prophets of doom’ have nominated late 2013 for the event, with dire consequences for mankind(f).
The latest data shows drift of about 40 miles a year, with a recent movement of 161 miles in just six months, creating navigation problems and the re-designation of airport runways which are named after their compass orientation(i).
Jason Colavito has unearthed an early reference to some form of an axial pole shift, proposed as early 1883 in a book [1595] by the somewhat eccentric Australian, John Wood Beilby (1818-1903)(q). However, according to Colavito, there was an even earlier reference to a Pole Shift by Brasseur de Bourbourg in his Historical Chronology of the Mexicans of 1873(r). He also linked this event to the destruction of Atlantis(n).>However, it seems that Robert Hooke controversially suggested the idea of pole shift as early as the seventeenth century(z).<
David Hatcher Childress recently (2023) offered another 19th-century reference to pole shift when he wrote that “About 1885, (James)Churchward found his way to Siberia and the valley of the Lena River. He was now looking for evidence of ancient cataclysms, which, if it could be found, would lend credence to the idea that an ancient, advanced civilization such as Mu could disappear. Churchward wanted to see the piles of mammoth bones and tusks washed up in tidal waves on the Lackoff Islands (The Islands of Bones) just beyond the mouth of the Lena. He was convinced by these giant piles of ivory and bones that a ‘pole shift’ phenomenon had occurred in the past, where the earth’s crust slipped several degrees toward the equator causing massive tidal waves to wash over portions of the earth and ultimately cause the sinking of entire continents such as Mu.” (y).
The suggestion that an ancient axial pole shift was the consequence of plate tectonics has been disputed by William Sager & Anthony Koppers of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Although conceding that plate tectonics may have played a part they describe the 16-21 degree change, 84 million years ago as “an odd event.”(t)
The idea of wandering (magnetic) Poles was first proposed by the German priest Damian Kreichgauer(1859-1940)(g) in 1902[513], although at the time he found little support for the concept. The late Terrence Aym was of the opinion(l) that a magnetic pole reversal was a sign that the next Ice Age was beginning! Today, NASA provides us with a more sober view of the phenomenon of magnetic pole shifts(k).
Another theory suggests that a severe reduction in sunspot activity may herald the imminent return of another ‘little ice age’ such as was experienced in the 17th century and known as the Maunder Minimum. During that period only 50 sunspots were recorded instead of the usual 40-50 thousand(w). NASA has denied that there is any such impending cooling and that the possible effect of any reduced solar activity would be more than offset by the warming caused by human activity(x).
There are a number of variations on the basic concept of an axial change and an array of suggestions for the date of the last displacement. Generally speaking, the mechanism required to cause such a catastrophe is believed to be an impact by or close encounter with a large asteroid or comet. The continuing discovery of huge impact craters around the globe reinforces this possibility. However, recent studies have identified other processes that may have led to polar changes in the past(e).
The suggestion of an Antarctic location for Atlantis, as proposed by Rose and Rand Flem-Ath[062], is totally dependent on a pole shift. The Flem-Aths have interpreted the characteristics of our present icecaps as strong evidence for a number of previous pole shifts. This idea was inspired by the work of Charles Hapgood[369], who was convinced by such evidence as the Piri Reis Map and other ancient maps that seemed to indicate the existence of an Ice Age civilisation now partly covered by the Antarctic icecap. Hapgood has noted[1494.71] that in the 1950’s Karl A. Pauly[1496] and George W. Bain[1498] also supported a form of crustal shift, the former building on the work of A. S. Eddington[1497] of some decades earlier.
Nevertheless, a more critical look at Hapgood’s theory reveals a number of flaws(s), which should be considered in the light of the fact that Hapgood was a professor of history and not a geologist and Graham Hancock, who heavily endorsed Hapgood’s ideas is neither.
‘Project Atlantis’ is the title of an assignment(p) given to first-year geology students at Malaspina University-College in British Columbia. It was set by lecturer Professor Steven Earle with the intention of developing the critical thinking of his students. The objective of the task is to investigate the Crustal Displacement theory of the Flem-Aths, whose ‘Atlantis in the Antarctic’ hypothesis is totally dependent on the occurrence of a pole shift resulting from some form of earth crustal displacement. Kyle Bennett has written a book and a number of papers on the subject.
Pole Shift [0795] by John White, frequently associates the destruction of Atlantis with a pole shift and anticipates another one in the near future, but unfortunately, most of the ‘evidence’ he offers in support of this contention comes from psychic sources, which cannot be accepted as reliable. However, it seems that some years later White completely revised his opinions according to a 1996 report(m).
Although the majority opinion is that pole shifts occurred as a result of encounters with extraterrestrial bodies, Hapgood contended that only the outer crust of the earth shifted and that this was the result of a build-up of ice at the Poles causing instability. However, it has since been calculated that the polar ice constitutes such a small percentage of the mass of the crust that it could not possibly have caused the slippage proposed by Hapgood. This idea and others are discussed on the Pole Shift Forum(o).
Another researcher, S.F.Wells, was prompted by Flem-Ath’s work to examine the Avebury stone circle to see if there was any evidence of a pole shift there. To his surprise, he did discover at Avebury and at other ancient monuments in the locality clear evidence of a pole change of up to 30° in the past. In 2003, he wrote a paper outlining his observations(c).
Flavio Barbiero has written a paper proposing that an impact with an asteroid as small as half a kilometre in diameter could result in a rapid pole shift.
A number of facts are proposed to support the idea of a pole shift. One of the most popular is the extermination of the mammoth, which once again was central to a recent book by Charles Ginenthal, The Extinction of the Mammoth [0514]+, which dates the last pole shift to around 1500 BC. Perhaps the most impressive evidence came from Sweden in November 2009(b) when settlements dating to 9000 BC were discovered in the north of the country in a region that according to accepted theory should have been covered by ice at that time.
Wolter Smit points out that the orientation of some Mayan Temples is apparently out by around 17 degrees from what would be expected. A structural feature at the 4,000-year-old temple of Saar in Bahrain is believed to have been used to record the summer solstice is now out by 10 degrees. Similar anomalies were noted by G.F. Dodwell during his study of ancient gnomons. A further indication that our present knowledge of polar changes may be flawed is highlighted by the fact that on April 15th 136 BC we have a record of an eclipse that completely darkened Babylon that should have had its zone of totality over the Balearic Islands in the Western Mediterranean. This is a difference of nearly 50 degrees and implies that either the Earth has slowed or the polar axis has shifted.
The idea that Pole Shift(s) can be linked to the location and orientation of many ancient sites is explored by Mark Carlotto in his new book, Before Atlantis [1600].
Amy Smith also claims that the Earth ‘tilted’ around 10,000 BC(d) referring to two ancient quotations that may support the reality of this Pole Shift – one from Plato (Tim.22d) and the other from the Book of Enoch/Noah (65.1).
The Hutton Commentaries(a) contain many articles relating to an impending pole shift based on the readings of Edgar Cayce.
In October 2004, Alexander Chechelnitsky, a Russian astrophysicist claimed that Atlantis was located in the Yukon River valley in Alaska[515]. This, he believes, was the result of a pole shift although he admits that scientific evidence is lacking for this theory!
A recent overview of the Pole Shift theory was published in July 2014(h).
[0514]+ Available online: Free Electric Universe theory ebooks and related research papers (archive.org)
(a) Hutton Commentaries – Archives
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20091130170746/https://www.thelocal.se/23546/20091129/
(c) https://grahamhancock.com/wellssf1/
(d) https://www.angelfire.com/ar/josephus/Atlantis.html#Support
(e) See Archive 3029
(f) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztaWff0TtHU
(g) https://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf
(h) Antartica, Atlantis, and the Earth crustal displacement theory | CanadaNewsLibre (archive.org)
(i) See {2268}
(j) https://endtimesand2019.wordpress.com/my-newest-magazine-article-pole-shifts/
(k) https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html
(m) NHNE: Pole Shift Torpedoed by Author (archive.org)
(o) https://www.poleshift.org/index.html
(r) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/historical-chronology-of-the-mexicans.html
(s) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_earthchanges33.htm
(t) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000125053438.htm
(u) https://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/pole-shift.pdf
(v) https://en.was-this-atlantis.info/deplacer-poles.html
(w) https://q-mag.org/a-new-little-ice-age-by-2030.html
(x) https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/2953/there-is-no-impending-mini-ice-age/
Josephus, Flavius
Flavius Josephus, the 1st century AD historian and Jewish priest, has been invoked by Georges Diaz-Montexano to support his belief in an Iberian location for Atlantis(a). Diaz-Montexano refers to Book II. 374-375, which records the incursion by, what appears to have been a tsunami, onto the Atlantic coastal lands of modern Spain and Portugal, while at the time occupied by the Lusitanians and Cantabrians. Diaz-Montexano claims, let it be said, without proof, that this could only have been the same inundation that destroyed Atlantis.
Ralph Ellis has made the wild claim that Josephus was in fact St. Paul!(b) This idea has been put forward by others(c). On the other hand Flavio Barbiero offers the theory that Josephus and St. Paul were certainly known to each other(d). In his book, The Secret Society of Moses [1102], Barbiero expands on the idea that Josephus played an important role in the development of early Christianity.
*Some doubt has been cast on Josephus’ reliability as an historian(c).
(b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsNOAUMyKIo
(c) https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread206916/pg1&colorshift=yes
(d) https://www.q-mag.org/mithras-jesus-and-josephus-flavius.html
*(e) https://www.allabouthistory.org/how-reliable-is-josephus-work-faq.htm*
Exodus
The Biblical Exodus has been linked by some with the time of the destruction of Atlantis. J. G. Bennett has firmly identified the 2nd millennium BC eruption of Thera with the destruction of Atlantis(f) and in turn, the effect of the volcanic fallout on the Egyptian nation generating the Plagues of Egypt recorded in Exodus.
The fixing of the date of the biblical Exodus is still debated, compounding the broader problem of synchronising the Bronze Age chronologies of the eastern Mediterranean. The early arguments were usually the preserve of biblical scholars(t). However, a wider audience became aware of some of the difficulties when Immanuel Velikovsky published Ages in Chaos [039] and offered some solutions. Since then further revisions have been proposed by Peter James and David Rohl, but the Exodus date is still not definitively fixed(m)(y)(z)*. On top of all that, other events that should provide reliable chronological ‘anchors’, such as the Trojan War or the eruption of Thera continue to generate dispute as well.
Dr Hans Goedicke, a leading Austrian Egyptologist, expressed a similar view regarding an Exodus link in a 1981 lecture, leading to quite a media stir(c). Ian Wilson, best known for The Turin Shroud, has calculated that the volcanic plume from the Theran eruption would have been clearly visible from the Nile Delta [979.112].
Riaan Booysen believes(b) that two Exodus events can be linked with three possible Theran eruptions and has identified the Israelites as the Hyksos. Ralph Ellis has also linked the biblical Exodus with the expulsion of the Hyksos and devoted a short book[0656] to the idea.
Russell Jacquet-Acea, an American researcher, has written a three-part paper on dating the biblical Exodus, that includes the radical suggestion that there were three exoduses from Egypt(m)(n)(o).
Immanuel Velikovsky and others believed that the controversial Ipuwer Papyrus provides evidence in support of the biblical Exodus as well as the ‘Plagues of Egypt’(d). In 2018, Anne Habermehl delivered a paper to a creationist conference in which she concluded: “that the Ipuwer Papyrus displays strong extra-biblical evidence for the historicity of the Exodus in its description of a chaotic Egypt that would have resulted from the biblical 10 plagues.”(i).
Emilio Spedicato links the biblical Exodus with the explosion of Phaëton in 1447 BC, without any reference to the destruction of Atlantis, which, based on his interpretation of Plato’s text, he associates with a much earlier catastrophe(a).>He also associates these events with the Flood of Deucalion as well as some people migrations that “took place essentially at the same time”(x).<
Alfred de Grazia offers a radical interpretation of the Exodus in God’s Fire [1538], in which he saw the Exodus as a highly organised, rather than an opportunistic event. He also attributed some level of electrical knowledge to Moses, whom he credits with the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, if not the ‘invention’ of Yahweh himself!
Perhaps the most extreme Exodus theory has been presented by Finkelstein & Silberman, who have claimed that “the saga of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt is neither historical truth nor literary fiction” [280.70]. However, the same disbelieving Finkelstein is now going on a search for the Ark of the Covenant(e)!
Flavio Barbiero has now produced an extensive paper(g) in which he precisely dates the Exodus to the night between the 14th and 15th of July of 1208 B.C. (2/3 July of today).
It is important to point out that the historical reality of the Exodus is now being scrutinised as never before, generating growing scepticism. Both Jewish and Christian scholars have expressed serious doubts(s).
>Walter R. Mattfeld wrote in a 2021 paper “My research on the Exodus has concluded that it is fiction, but a myth or fiction which has behind it real events which can be recovered via archaeological findings. My research endeavors are to identify the possible real events that came to be recast or reinterpreted as the Bible’s fictional Exodus. In other words, What’s behind these events that is recoverable via archaeological findings? Basically, I see two historical events, grounded in archaeological data, as behind the Exodus: (1) The Hyksos Expulsion of circa 1530 BC (2) The Iron Age I settlements that suddenly appear in Edom, Moab and Canaan 1200 BC to 1100 BC.These two events are separated in time by roughly 300 years.“ (w)<
William Austin is just one of many who have devoted years to a study of the Exodus dating controversy. The result of his labours is Before the Exodus, a 500-page offering and a condensed version of From Noah to Moses now available on the academia.edu website(u) together with a number of other papers.
“If and when the Exodus occurred is one of the most controversial topics in biblical scholarship. Religious fundamentalists believe it is absolutely true. Skeptics doubt it occurred at all, and neither has any means to prove their case! My approach to the problem has been to assume that much of the controversy is due to an erasure of factual Israelite history in the Old Testament account. It is very difficult to read the Old Testament, then to scroll through Egyptian history and say, “Aha! There’s the Exodus. Read the Bible here; read the papyrus there… See, it all matches. Case closed.” It is very difficult, or it would have been done. This is not to say that the Exodus didn’t occur, it just didn’t occur exactly as recorded in the Old Testament of Christian Bibles.”
Gérard Gertoux noted that estimates for the date of the Exodus ranged from 2150 to 650 BC and so to narrow such an extensive range, he embarked on a forensic study of the problem. In a book(p), The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy tale or real history? [1890] and a 22-page paper(h)(h2) he identified Pharoah Seqenenre Taa, who died on 10 May 1533 BC, as the Pharoah of the Exodus.
Unfortunately, the biblical Exodus has generated several controversies; was it a historical reality, its precise date, the route taken and the identity of the pharaoh of the Exodus? Regarding the last, Rameses II is linked by many with the Exodus, while others have nominated Tutankhamun (Collins & Ogilvie-Herald [1898]), Dudimose (Velikovsky(j), Rohl [229]), Amenemhat IV (Habermehl(k)) Ramesess V (Aboulfotouh(l)) and to these, we may add many others who have been proposed(k). This debate has a long way to go yet.
A more recent (April 2022) article by Jonah Cohen highlights the range of individuals proposed as the pharaoh of the Exodus and suggests that the mystery may not be solvable!(q) Another 2022 article by Gerald Eising opted firmly for Amenhotep II(r).
As you can see the actual date of the Exodus is disputed, but the difficulties don’t end there. Moses the charismatic leader of the Israelites has generated a separate set of problems. Ahmed Osman is just one commentator who has has identified Moses as the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten [1849]. Graham Phillips, among others, claims that Moses was two different people, living at different times [0034]! Immanuel Velikovsky has linked Akhenaten with Oedipus in Greek mythology [2041]. D.M.Murdock concluded [2058] that Moses cannot be discovered in history, whether as Akhenaten or another historical personage. Compounding all this confusion is the idea that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch and yet, in it, he managed to describe his own death and burial!!
>(See: Red Sea)<
(a) https://interval.louisiana.edu/conferences/2007_Stenger/Slides_of_talks/mose8-6.pdf
(b) https://riaanbooysen.com/misc/167-book-announcement (link broken) See (v)
(c) Archive 2490 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(e) https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/02/new-search-begins-for-the-ark-of-the-covenant/
(f) https://www.systematics.org/journal/vol1-2/geophysics/systematics-vol1-no2-127-156.htm
(g) https://www.q-mag.org/a-precise-chronology-of-exodus.html
(h) (99+) (PDF) Absolute chronology of Exodus | Gerard GERTOUX – Academia.edu
(i) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329770320_The_Ipuwer_Papyrus_and_the_Exodus
(j) The True Story of Moses and the Pharaoh According to Velikovsky (hermetics.org)
(q) Who was the Exodus Pharaoh? (jns.org)
(r) Who was the Pharaoh of Exodus? – Tidings
(s) https://aroyking.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/has-archaeology-proven-that-the-biblical-exodus-is-a-myth/
(t) https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_exodus_date.html
(u) https://www.academia.edu/20426570/The_Hebrew_chronology_from_Noah_to_Moses_corrected_for_half-years
(v) Microsoft Word – Addendum to Thera_and_the_Exodus -Nov_2020.docx (riaanbooysen.com)
(w) (99+) The Archaeological Evidence for the Exodus being a Myth | Walter R. Mattfeld – Academia.edu *
(x) The-Deucalion-catastrophe.pdf (atlantis.fyi) *
(y) bmh_exodusdate_kmtsummer94.pdf (biblemythhistory.com)*
(z) Talk Reason *
Barbiero, Flavio
Flavio Barbiero was born in 1942 in Pula, Croatia. He entered the Naval Academy at Livorno in 1961. He pursued his scientific studies at Pisa’s University from where he graduated as an engineer in 1967. He has spent most of his professional life in the Research Centre of the Italian Navy, working on interdisciplinary projects, where he became a specialist in gyroscopic phenomena. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Admiral.
Barbiero is quite clearly a cultured man with a wide range of interests and has been fortunate in being able to combine his naval career with his other activities as a researcher, writer, and lecturer. He has organized and led two scientific expeditions to the Antarctic (in 1976 and 1978). As a member of the Italian Scientific Institution – Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, he participated in archaeological researches in Israel. Barbiero is the author of many articles and books on a variety of subjects, ranging from geology to the Bible. His most recent book, La Bibbia Senza Segreti[1425], is still to be released in an English translation under the title The Book of the Law.
He has also written a paper(f) on the location of Mt. Sinai, which he places in the Negev Desert at Har Karkom, following the work of Prof. Emmanuel Anati
Since 1974, Barbiero has, been an ardent promoter of the controversial idea of Atlantis being located in Antarctica. This belief is the result of his studies into the possibility of a rapid pole shift. He submitted a paper on the subject to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in Athens. Some excerpts are available online(b) with an English translation provided. A more extensive paper in support of his views was published on Graham Hancock’s website in 2006(a).
It is worth noting that although his book[0061] predates the more widely publicised work of the Flem-Aths, it was published in Italian and was probably unknown to them when they published their own book[0062] and as far as I can determine, Barbiero’s original work, Una civiltà sotto ghiaccio, (One Civilisation Under the Ice), is still only available in Italian. Like the Flem-Aths, Barbiero has also proposed a Pole Shift that was caused by an impact with an asteroid or comet(d).
In 2007, Barbiero delivered a paper(e) to the 2007 Conference on Quantavolution in the Swiss town of Kandersteg. The theme of his address concerned the possible effects of an asteroidal or cometary impact with the Earth with particular reference to pole shifts. He has some interesting comments, but for many, such as myself, the section with the mathematical formulae is rather daunting.
However, in 2010 he published, in English, The Secret Society of Moses[1102] , in which he investigates the disappearance of Moses’ descendants from the historical record.
Barbiero has also written an extensive paper(c) in which he precisely dates the biblical Exodus to the night of the 14th and 15th of July of 1208 B.C.
>In 2020, Barbiero published A Frozen Civilisation: Atlantis in Antarctica [1746] and The Bible without Secrets [1745], both in English, which appear to be translations of earlier works. As an engineer, he takes a scientific approach to the question of Atlantis’ location and where necessary throws in a formula or two to support his thesis.<
(a) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BarbieroF1.php
>(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20160401211555/http://www.carro.it/amici/flavio/english.html<
(c) https://www.q-mag.org/a-precise-chronology-of-exodus.html
(e) https://www.2007-q-conference.grazian-archive.com/changesofrotatio/confer-kandersteg-poles-ingl.pdf
(f) https://www.qconference-athens-2011.grazian-archive.com/flaviobarbiero/mount-horeb-1-.pdf
Arecchi, Alberto *
Alberto Arecchi, born in 1947, is an architect and professor of Design and history of Art, in Pavia in Italy, where he lives. He is president of the Cultural Association Liutprand. He has spent fifteen years in Africa working on international development projects. He is the author of many books relating to European History.
Arecchi has also written about Atlantis in Atlantide, Un mondo scomparso, in which he builds on investigations originally begun in the 1920s by F. Butavand and Jean Gattefosse. Arecchi’s book [079] contains some radical ideas:
(i) it supports the theory of an extensive Sicilian land bridge between Europe with Africa,
(ii) it locates Atlantis off the coast of modern Tunisia and
(iii) it posits the existence of a large inland sea, the original Atlantic ‘Sea’, in part of what is now the northern Sahara, where the chotts of Algeria and Tunisia now are.
He claims that all this ended around 1225 BC when seismic activity in the region caused the land bridge to disappear and the dam that contained the inland sea to rupture and Atlantis to vanish. His date is based on the interpretation of Plato’s 9,000 ‘years’ as 9,000 lunar cycles. Arecchi further claims that the Gibraltar Dam was breached around 2500 BC. He also envisages the Maltese Islands connected to both Sicily and Tunisia before this breach.
An outline of his understanding of the Atlantis story, in Italian and English, can be found on the Internet(e) in a 2004 paper entitled Empire of Atlantis: From the Mediterranean to the New World, in which he reviews the evidence for early Mediterranean influences in the Americas and particularly the work of the controversial Barry Fell, who identified North African scripts on markers at a number of locations in North America. Arecchi sees this as support for his Atlantis location off the coast of today’s Tunisia and that there was trans-Atlantic Atlantean influence!
In fairness, the contentious opinions of Fell deserve a look, so a vindication of his epigraphic work(h) should also be read, as well as further corroboration by more recent DNA studies(i).
Part of Arecchi’s theory includes a landbridge between Italy and North Africa, in his own words – “At that time, the sea today known as the Mediterranean Sea had to be divided into two parts, placed at different levels and deprived of mutual communications. The western Mediterranean and the Tyrrhenian were – as they are today – in communication with the Ocean, through Gibraltar, opened more than a thousand years before. The eastern part – i.e. the Greeks’ Mediterranean – was properly an “interior sea”, like a lake, from the Small Syrte to the Syro-Palestinian coasts, including lower Adriatic and Candia Sea (while the Aegean territory, all emerging, was a plain, crowned by volcanic mountains). Its waters would be approximately 300 m under the level of today. We will note this level as “level zero”, in order to measure the relative altitudes.” (see map)
The suggested Sicilian land bridge was more than a possibility if the Gibraltar Dam was a fact. By cutting off the waters of the Atlantic, desiccation in the Mediterranean would have brought the level of its water below that of the Atlantic, creating at least two very large inland lakes and exposing the Sicilian land bridge. Diaz-Montexano supports the idea of this isthmus or land bridge, an idea reinforced by the comments of both Strato and Seneca.
However, in November 2011, I came across an Italian website(b) that included two articles by Arecchi which offer maps of two different locations for Atlantis. Nave di Atlantide? includes the North African site mentioned above. La Vera Atlantide incorrectly attributes Atlantis as a unified and much enlarged Balearic archipelago to Arecchi. I contacted Professor Arecchi, who confirmed that he is only advocating a site 100 miles SE of Malta (see map). The reference to Mallorca in the other article he attributes to a “free-interpretation” of his only thesis.
Arecchi claims that the people known as ‘Tjehenu’ or ‘Tenehu’ by the Egyptians were the Atlanteans of Plato’s narrative, an idea echoed by Ulrich Hoffman.
Arecchi’s book, referred to above, is now available as a free pdf file(c), unfortunately, it is in Italian and pdf files are sometimes difficult to translate. Several papers relating to his architectural interests can be found on the academia.edu website. Two short reviews of Arecchi’s book by Flavio Barbiero and Emilio Spedicato are available online(j).
I believe this book to be an important contribution to the Atlantis debate so if I can find an efficient means of translating it, I will post it here. In the meanwhile, an abstract of his book, in English, is available online(d). A more extensive précis of his theories, in English and Italian, can be read in Archive 6912.
As a supporter of the idea of Atlantis in the Central Mediterranean, I find Arecchi’s concepts quite credible, although I would like to know more about the scientific evidence underlying them. An English translation of his book would help.
(a) https://www.liutprand.it/Atlantis.htm
(b) PETROGLIFI DI QUIACA (archive.org) *
(d) https://www.liutprand.it/articoliMondo.asp?id=111
(e) https://www.liutprand.it/impero_atl.pdf (Ital) & https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2529/(Eng)
(g) http://www.antikitera.net/news.asp?ID=9728
(h) http://www.equinox-project.com/DRFEL.HTM
(i) The Arabian Horizon – The Cherokee Compass | MalagaBay (archive.org)
Antarctica
Antarctica takes its name from the Greek Anti Arktos, which means opposite the Arctic. Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, led an expedition that discovered the northwestern shore of the Antarctic’s peninsula in January 1820(af), just three days after a Russian expedition found what was later to be known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf. However, a recent study suggests that an earlier discovery took place over a thousand years before that by Polynesians(ai).
The earliest literary reference to a city in Antarctica seems to have come from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe in his only full novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’ (z). The idea of an Antarctic civilisation was also part of another novel, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder[1532], by the Canadian author, James De Mille (1833-1880), published posthumously in 1888. In 1897, Jules Verne published An Antarctic Mystery(ab), which has been described as a response to Poe’s novel.
The earliest media claim of an Antarctic location, that I have found, is in The Boston Sunday Globe of April 11 1897, which regaled its readers with the following headline – “Mouse Reveals Atlantis”. It tells the story of a small marsupial discovered in South America related to an Australian species. The ‘experts’ of the day decided that this could only be explained by a landbridge linking the two landmasses. “A direct line joining Australia with Patagonia runs through the South Pole. In all probability, then, our new-found Atlantis must have been an Antarctic continent.” If you fail to see the logic in this, you are not alone.ca).
Antarctica first entered the Atlantis debate as far back as 1923 when René-Maurice Gattefossé maintained that Atlantis had been located in the Atlantic and culturally influenced by an even earlier civilisation that had existed on Antarctica. In the same year another Frenchman, Dominique Sévriat, published a novel with the backdrop of an Atlantean Antarctic. H.P. Lovecraft published a short novel in 1931, At the Mountains of Madness[1522], which also used an Antarctic – Atlantis link.
Antarctica – without ice
Many other exotic claims have been made relating to Antarctica including that it was a UFO base(i) and that a refuge for Hitler had been built there in an area that was known as Neuschwabenland(h). An even more astounding claim was made in the title of a recent book – Earth’s First Civilization, Antarctica, 55 Million B.C.(aj). Books like this lead me to question the wisdom of allowing unbridled free speech!
However, the earliest suggestion of Antarctica as the home of Atlantis seems to have come from a Chilean professor, Roberto Rengifo, who also proposed, in 1920, that Antarctica was the original home of modern man until a catastrophic pole shift forced migration northward into the Americas and eventually worldwide! According to R.V.Eissmann, Arthur Posnansky made a similar suggestion around the same time.
Half a century was to pass before Antarctica itself was again promoted as the probable site of Atlantis by Flavio Barbiero in his book[061] published in Italian.
Twenty years later Rand & Rose Flem-Ath[062], supported by a well-designed website(a), published a similar theory that received widespread exposure in the English-speaking world. Subsequently, Rand Flem-Ath co-authored with Colin Wilson a second book[063] that added more background to the theory. Colin Wilson has more recently abandoned his support for Antarctica, as he eventually found the idea of Atlantis based here waging war against Athens,14,000 km away, untenable and then transferred his support to Robert Sarmast’s idea of Cyprus as the location of Atlantis.
Andrew Collins is another writer who was initially attracted to the Antarctica hypothesis but eventually opted for Cuba as the location of Atlantis. He later wrote a brief refutation of the Antarctic theory(aa).
>In 2005, Gernot L.Geise & Reinhard Prahl published Auf der Suche nach der Mutterkultur (In Search of the Mother Culture) [730], in which they also opted for Antarctica as the location of Atlantis.<
In 2007, David Stewart Jnr., a prominent Mormon writer, offered support for Flem-Ath’s theory in an article on his scripture history website.
The Antarctic theory is dependent on the acceptance of a number of hotly debated fundamentals, among which are: earth crust displacement (Pole Shift), a 10,000 BC date for Atlantis, Posnansky’s dating of Tiahuanaco and a particular interpretation of the Piri Reis Map.
The late Robert Solàrion produced his own ‘pole shift’ theory of Polar Axial Displacement that he outlined on the website(ah). The Flem-Aths have cited the Solar Typhoon Hypothesis(y) of Jared Freedman in support of their Atlantis location theory. Nevertheless, I must point out that even if there had been some sort of Pole Shift, it does not prove that Antarctica had been home to Atlantis as it still conflicts dramatically with the geographical pointers offered by Plato.
An ice core, 3 km long, which was recently recovered from Antarctica, has shown a continuous record stretching back 740,000 years. This would appear to indicate that the region was never without ice cover during that period, fatally weakening the Flem-Ath theory of Plato’s Atlantis being in Antarctica. This argument is tackled in Appendix 6 of The Atlantis Blueprint.
Another author who claims that the Antarctic ice sheet is not more than 6,000 years old is the Australian archaeologist Peter ‘Mungo’ Jupp. He has expanded on his views in a DVD(d). His principal claim is that ice core data has been misinterpreted as it is based on a false assumption that there is a layer per year, while there is evidence that more than one layer has been created annually(e). He does not directly enter the Atlantis debate but the evidence he adduces to support his thesis is more usually employed to support the Atlantis in Antarctica viewpoint.
Two German writers, Fritz Nestke & Thomas Reimer, have also supported the idea of Atlantis in Antarctica with their own 1988 book[064]. Patrick Geryl & Gino Ratinckx have predicted[066] a catastrophic pole reversal in 2012 and are ‘certain’ that an earlier pole change resulted in Atlantis being situated under the ice of the South Pole.
The controversial Nigel Appleby in his Hall of the Gods[0076] expressed the view that there had been a previous worldwide civilisation and “that a major portion of this civilisation still remains practically intact beneath the ice of Antarctica.“
Although not directly connected to the Antarctic-Atlantis debate, the late French mariner Robert Argod has given us a fascinating book[065] that supports the idea that the Polynesians originated in Antarctica and that their influence is to be found further afield.
The French science-fiction writer, René Barjavel, used the Antarctic Atlantis location in his 1968 novel, La Nuit des temps.
Arguments against the idea of ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’, by Paul V. Heinrich, can be found on the Internet(c).
Those that still have the temerity to support the concept of an Antarctican Atlantis may find this recent (March 2013) image of the continent ice-free(f) published by Scientific American(f) interesting. An overview of the Antarctic Hypothesis published in July 2014(g) may be of use for anyone new to the idea.
2013 also saw the publication of The Three Ages of Atlantis[972] by Marin, Minella & Schievenin, in which they proposed the existence of three Atlantises, with the original Atlantis situated in Antarctica and destroyed 15,000 years ago!
Around the same time, there was a media report claiming the discovery of three pyramids in Antarctica! Naturally, the story did not stand up to scrutiny(k) and slowly melted away.
In 2015, Britt du Fournet published an extensive blog reviewing the range of Atlantis theories on offer. In conclusion, she found the Antarctic location the most credible(j). 2016 saw two French researchers, Jean Seimple(l) and Fabien Pardo(v) join the Antarctic Supporters Club and thrill us with the even more bizarre claim that an Antarctic Atlantis is ‘clearly’ indicated by the features and the dimensions in the Great Pyramid(r)!
Another ‘off the wall’ suggestion is that Atlantis = Aztlan = Antarctica’(t).
In June 2016, an anonymous article(m) also supporting the Atlantis in Antarctica idea was being recycled around the Internet. It trotted out the usual ambiguous ‘evidence’ – the Piri Reis and the Oronteus Finaeus maps, fine-grained sediments, ancients forests, combined with a huge dollop of speculation. The purveyors of this nonsense know that they will be long dead before the icecap melts, if ever, and the irrationality of their claims are finally exposed. Apart from that, an Antarctic location seriously conflicts with Plato’s description of Atlantis, which he describes as extending from Libya (North Africa) to central Italy.
Conspiracy theorist David Wilcock has managed to weave the Atlantis in Antarctica story into his twisted idea that the world is controlled by a cabal of evil aliens and human conspirators. Jason Colavito has highlighted that Wilcock has even tried to charge for his particular brand of male cow effluent(s). There is also the report that Wilcock claimed to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce and wished to have a position in A.R.E., where he would also be offering ‘readings’. He was questioned by Cayce’s son and grandson “for a little over an hour and quickly realized that he couldn’t answer a single question. They felt he was full of crap within minutes but to give him a fair chance they entertained him by asking him the questions that Cayce prepared while still alive to test the people who would come forward claiming to be his reincarnation.”(ae)
An overview, including a video, of the origins of Antarctica commencing when it was part of the Gondwana, the supercontinent, can be viewed online(n).
The British tabloid The Daily Star(o) and many others(q) offered further recycling of the Atlantis in the Antarctic theory in December 2016 in a pathetic attempt to breathe new life into it. One site(p) in particular, demonstrates its lack of research, describing this theory, with a near century-old pedigree, as the “newest” Atlantis location.
Further claims emerged in May 2017 that “some scientists think that they’ve found Atlantis, and it’s underneath Antarctica. They’ve discovered a series of gigantic structures buried underneath this South Pole ice cap”.(u) Fake News!
This recent flurry of media interest in Antarctica and Atlantis has been milked by attention-seeking ‘researchers’ such as Joseph P. Farrell, who went further and managed to tie it all in with flying saucers, Edgar Cayce and the Kennedy assassination(w)(x). Farrell has studied Patristics, which is concerned with the study of the early church Fathers and, in my opinion, he should have stuck with that subject.
As I have alluded to above, it seems to me that those who promote the daft idea of an Antarctic Atlantis, do so in the knowledge that the icecap there is unlikely to disappear within their lifetime, which might reveal evidence for or against the proposition. However, the most telling argument against this polar location is the nonsensical idea that any civilisation situated there would launch an attack on Athens and/or Egypt, situated over 14,000 km away. It was the realisation of this, however belatedly, by the late Colin Wilson that led him to withdraw his support for the Antarctic location.
My view on the subject is, that even if the controversial degree of axial shift advocated by the likes of the Flem-Aths was proven correct and then if the remains of an ancient civilisation were to be found in the Antarctic, it could not be the Atlantis of Plato which attacked Athens and Egypt, as they were 14,000 km away from Antarctica – not within what you could call an ‘easy striking distance’. I prefer to accept the words of Plato, who unambiguously noted on two occasions that Atlantean territory stretched from southern Italy to North Africa, providing more rational launching pads for attacks on Greece and Egypt.
Late February 2020 saw a further attempt to breathe life into the silly ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’ idea. An Indian commentator, Piyush Gupta, on seeing some anomalous features on Google Earth proceeded to link them to Plato’s Atlantis(ag). This impetuous suggestion leaves me wondering if unfettered free speech is such a good idea after all.
Also in 2020, Barbiero published A Frozen Civilisation: Atlantis in Antarctica [1746] and The Bible without Secrets [1745], both in English, which appear to be translations of earlier works. As an engineer, he takes a scientific approach to the question of Atlantis’ location and where necessary throws in a formula or two to support his thesis.
Shane Leach added his support to the idea of an Antarctic Atlantis in his 2023 Kindle book, Prehistory Explained [2007], in which he recycles many of the ideas of Charles Hapgood and Rand Flem-Ath. The entire book is contaminated with lots of nonsense about ancient astronauts á la Erich von Däniken, Zechariah Sitchin and Richard Hoagland.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20171115013204/https://www.flem-ath.com/nn
(c) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/atlantis.html
(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA73tcg5yYc
(e) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2013/03/21/antarctica/
(f) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-antarctica-looked-like/
(h) https://atlanteangardens.blogspot.ie/2014/05/antarctica-and-lost-land-of-thule.html
(i) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/antarctica/antartica11.htm
(j) https://brittnearfm.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/atlantis-re-investigated-atlantis-defrosted/
(k) https://hubpages.com/education/Debunking-the-Pyramids-of-Antarctica-myth
(l) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spVVCMC8szM
(m) See (q)
(p) https://sputniknews.com/world/201612131048479535-theorists-say-atlantis-in-antarctica/
(q) Ancient Olmecs: Survivors of the city-continent of Atlantis (archive.org)
(r) https://www.poureuxlelivre.fr/welcome/atlantis Link broken see text only (English) at Archive 3287 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(t) Was Aztlan –the legendary ancestral home of the Aztec people—Atlantis? | Ancient Code (archive.org)
(u) https://www.ladbible.com/more/interesting-has-the-location-of-atlantis-just-been-discovered-20170511
(v) Jean Seimple & Fabien Pardo – Hym.media (archive.org) (French) Slow loading
(x) See: https://www.darkjournalist.com/s-farrell19.php
(y) http://www.solartyphoon.com/default.htm
(z) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51060
(aa) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/antartica.htm
(ab) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10339
(ac) https://archive.org/details/mouserevealsatla00unse/page/n2
(ae) https://www.quora.com/Is-David-Wilcock-really-the-reincarnation-of-Edgar-Cayce
(af) https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2020/0126/1111022-edward-bransfield-explorer/
(ag) Antarctica’s Long Atlantis Has Been Located Through Google Images (archive.org)
(ah)http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cosmic_tree/atlantis.htm
(ai) Archive 6533 | (atlantipedia.ie)