Genevieve von Petzinger

Writing in Atlantis

Published June 13, 2010

Writing in Atlantis. The text of Plato makes it quite clear that writing was a feature of Atlantean culture. This is just another element in the overall picture presented by Plato of Atlantis as a Bronze Age civilisation, although there is always the possibility that the inclusion of writing might be a Platonic addition, designed to enhance the underlying core tale of a very ancient civilisation destroyed by flooding. If this flooding coincided with the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age then it could be dated to around 9500 BC, a date that is in agreement with Solon’s apparent date for the demise of Atlantis.

R. Cedric Leonard^(a) has developed the idea that an even older writing system in Western Europe, such as that found on the Glozel Tablets may have had a link with Atlantis. These tablets have been dated to as early as 10,000 BC, but I have some reservations regarding the reliability of this date. Similarly, the writing of the Vinca culture of Eastern Europe is believed to date from around 5500 BC.

However, an article in New Scientist (20.02.10) reports that a study of cave markings at 146 sites in France revealed that a total of just 26 signs were used with a varying frequency between 33,000 BC and 8000 BC. The symbols were only found in Southern France as most of the north was glaciated for much of this period. If these findings are substantiated it will raise questions regarding the date of the arrival of modern man into Europe.

Genevieve von Petzinger a Canadian paleoanthropologist and rock art researcher has studied geometric signs found in caves and other sites dating back 40,000 years. In a 2019 paper, her work is discussed including that she has identified “32 recurring symbols in all cultures of 40,000 years ago.” That was the easy part, now they must be interpreted^(g⁾.

It is generally thought that there is no evidence of any developed writing system until around 3500 BC in Harappa in the Indus Valley, while a few hundred years later the Sumerians were using a sophisticated cuneiform script and the Egyptians had developed a system of hieroglyphics^(d⁾. In 2010, Orly Goldwasser had an article published in the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) in which she traced the development of the Canaanite alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics!⁽ⁿ⁾

In turn, the Phoenicians developed their script circa 1000 BC and from them, the Greeks developed their Linear A & B. However, the discovery in 1993 of the Dispilio Tablet^(j⁾ in Greece has pushed back the use of writing in Greece to around 5200 BC, which is long before the people recognised as Phoenicians emerged in the 2nd millennium BC⁽ⁱ⁾!

In 2017, an ancient ivory comb was discovered and dated to around 1700 BC. It was later spotted that the object had been inscribed with the earliest complete sentence in a Canaanite dialect^(l⁾.

This debate regarding the origins of writing, both when and where will continue for some considerable time. An article on the Ancient Origins website in September 2022 ended with the following comment – “Conventional history dictates that these kinds of Neolithic discoveries are merely evidence of proto-writing, a term which refers to a way of communicating limited information, rather than proof of an entire language. But should additional artifacts comparable to the Dispilio tablet emerge, they could completely change the history of writing and with it the story of humanity.”^(k⁾

Crete had crude writing around 3000 BC, but it would be another 1000 years before the earliest alphabetic inscription discovered so far would be inscribed on a rock, in what is now Southern Egypt. This has been dated to the 1900s BC, two hundred years earlier than expected. This particular epigraph has prompted speculation that what we know as an alphabet originated in Egypt, but it is not unreasonable to think that this revision will not be the last. However, the March/April 2010 edition of the respected Biblical Archaeology Review has an article that identifies the early alphabet as a development of hieroglyphics⁽^c⁾.

This evolution from hieroglyphs to modern European scripts is now available as a chart by Matt Baker^(o⁾.*

Although the Phoenicians have often been credited with the invention of the precursor to modern Western scripts around 1,100 BC, it now appears more likely that they were responsible for the adaptation of an even earlier character system. The earliest known Hebrew writing has now been dated to the 10^th century BC⁽^b⁾.

Peter Daughtrey in his book, Atlantis and the Silver City ^[893] has devoted chapter seventeen to offering the claim that the earliest alphabet developed in southwest Iberia and by extension in Atlantis. An abbreviated version can be read on his website^(h⁾.

In Meso-America, the Olmecs appear to have been the first to develop a writing system around 900 BC, 600 years earlier than the Maya. However, the late emergence of a script there would appear to argue against a common Atlantean source for cultures on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1905, Flinders Petrie and his wife, also an archaeologist, discovered strange signs on the side of a mine in the Sinai Peninsula, which they identified as alphabetical. After a decade of study, Sir Allan Gardiner published a decipherment of the symbols in 1916^(f). They became known as proto-Sinaitic script and dated to between 1850 and 1550 BC. However, there were individual ‘letters’ whose identities were disputed. In 2017, Douglas Petrovich claimed to have solved all outstanding issues ^[1767]. Today, Orly Goldwasser, an Israeli Egyptologist, is arguably the leading promoter of the idea that this was the earliest example of an alphabet discovered so far^(e).

The insistence by some on the great antiquity of ancient scripts is driven by those Atlantis researchers who blindly accept the 9,600 BC date for the destruction of a literate Atlantis given by Plato. If an early date for writing cannot be more fully substantiated then Plato’s date must be reappraised.

>An “Atlantean language was created for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire by Marc Okrand, who worked with John Emerson, a designer at Disney, to produce an alphabet for the language. The language is spoken and written by the people of Atlantis in the film and is integral to the plot.”^(m⁾<

^(a⁾ https://web.archive.org/web/20170615131537/http:/atlantisquest.com:80/classical.html

⁽^b⁾ https://phys.org/news/2010-01-ancient-hebrew-biblical-inscription-deciphered.html

^(c)https://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06 (link broken) *

^(d) https://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s17999.htm

^(e)https://www.academia.edu/38014205/Goldwasser_O_2016_The_Birth_of_the_Alphabet_from_Egyptian_Hieroglyphs_in_the_Sinai_Desert_in_Daphna_Ben_Tor_ed_Pharaoh_in_Canaan_the_untold_story_Exhibition_catalogue_Jerusalem_Israel_Museum

^(f) Who Invented the Alphabet? | History | Smithsonian Magazine

^(g) There are 32 recurring symbols in all cultures of 40,000 years ago – The Tapestry of Time (larazzodeltempo.it)

^(h) http://atlantisandthesilvercity.com/atlantis-blog/?p=28

⁽ⁱ⁾ Greek Writing System Spans Millennia and Did Not Originate From the Phoenicians – HistoryDisclosure.com (archive.org)

^(j) https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/dispilio-tablet-the-oldest-known-written-text

^(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/dispilio-tablet-00913

^(l) First sentence ever written in Canaanite language discovered: A plea to eradicate beard lice (phys.org)

^(m) https://omniglot.com/conscripts/atlantean.htm

⁽ⁿ⁾ https://www.torahinmyheart.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/00_Origins_of_the_Aleph-Bet.pdf

^(o) https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-the-alphabet-usefulcharts/ *

Tagged Allan Gardiner, Bronze Age, Canaanites, Crete, Disney, Dispilo Tablet, Douglas Petrovich, Flinders Petrie, Genevieve von Petzinger, Glozel Tablets, Harappa, Indus Valley, Matt Baker, Maya, Olmecs, Orly Goldwasser, Peter Daughtrey, Phoenicians, Proto-Sinaitic script, R. Cedric Leonard, Sumerians, Vinca, writing

Ice Ages

Published May 28, 2010

Ice Ages have been a fact of life on Earth for aeons, according to conventional ice age theory. There is now evidence that during the very early existence of our planet, the entire Earth was completely glaciated, possibly twice!^(w)

However, the exact cause of the onset of any ice age is still a matter of active debate^(ab). Ralph Ellis has now proposed a new theory based on a cyclical alteration of polar albedo by atmospheric dust⁽ⁿ⁾.

In any study of Ice Age Theory, due consideration must be given to the radical views expressed by Allan & Delair in their well-received book, Cataclysm ^[014].

Over the last three million years, a period referred to by geologists as the Pleistocene Epoch, at least thirty Ice Ages have been ‘identified’. The exact extent of the polar ice caps during the last Ice Age is the subject of some debate with new evidence from northern Sweden and Norway, suggesting a less extensive cap than previously believed. However, there is evidence that Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which is now 13,803 feet above sea level,” had a large glacial ice cap of about 70 square kilometres until 14,500 years ago.”^(ag)

Various theories have been proposed to explain the onset and the ending of these Ice Ages ranging from changes in the Earth’s orbit^(g) around the sun to the effects of the Earth’s passage through the spiral arms of the Milky Way.

Over recent decades we have been consistently told that global warming is underway with a constant threat of rising sea levels. Consequently, it was no surprise when, in April 2018, The Guardian had a headline declaring that Glacier loss is accelerating because of global warming^(r). However, an equally up-to-date website^(s) claims that most of the world’s glaciers are actually growing and makes the comparable assertion that sea levels have stopped rising^(t). Over a decade ago the well-known botanist David Bellamy made similar claims, that were refuted in a revealing article by George Monbiot, also in The Guardian^(u).

Emilio Spedicato has proposed⁽^a⁾ that glaciations are started by asteroidal or cometary impacts on land and terminated by impacts with an ocean. The late Sir Fred Hoyle and his equally radical colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe concurred with this view. They believe that an impact of sufficient size would have vaporised and ejected billions of gallons of water into the upper atmosphere creating an immediate ‘greenhouse effect’ that then led to the melting of the glaciers. In a 1999 paper, Hoyle & Wickramasinghe wrote of the positive effect of greenhouse gases in staving off the next ice age^(aa).

Another impact theory has been proposed by Jon Nelo Juganaru, writing as Raven Alb J, in his rather bloated offering Why and How the Ice Age Ended ^[^1051]. In it he suggested that an asteroidal collision with the Earth effected a pole shift and that caused the Great Flood and the last ice age!

Another recent 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^(ah). 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^(ai).

Spedicato contends^(z) that circa 9,600 BC, an impact in the Atlantic by an Apollo Object led to the demise of Atlantis, an idea similar to the earlier contention of Otto Muck.

In 2003, scientists at Kansas University drew a lot of attention with their claim that gamma-ray bursts can cause an ice age and mass extinctions. However, the suggested frequency of a gamma-ray explosion that might affect the Earth, every few hundred million years runs counter to conventional ice age theory which proposes that the frequency of ice ages runs to hundreds of thousands of years^(ad).

The last Ice Age reached what is known as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 25,000 -15,000 BP, according to Ray & Adams^(q). LGM describes the time when the glaciers reached their maximum extension.

Remarkably, the very existence of an Ice Age was only first conceived just over 150 years ago when Louis Agassiz first published his theory^[⁰⁰²^][⁰⁰³^]. It took another century before it was fully realised that some of the consequences of the melting of the glaciers at the end of each Ice Age, would have been the flooding of continental shelves and the breaching of low-lying land bridges.

An example of such events would have been the submergence of the majority of the Celtic Shelf separating Britain and Ireland from mainland Europe. In the South China Sea, large chunks of what is known as Sundaland were also flooded. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Bosporus was breached flooding the Black Sea, and more controversially some claim that there had been a breach of a landbridge at the Strait of Gibraltar.

Prompted by the fact that the date given by Solon/Plato for the destruction, 9600 BC coincides with the retreating of the glaciers of the last Ice Age, all the above submergences and breaches have been included in the Atlantis debate.

New studies have shown interesting confirmation of the ‘Out of Africa‘ theory, which had recently come under attack. The effects of the last Ice Age on the population of Europe were quite dramatic^(l). In 2013, journalist, Paul Salopek set out on a 21,000-mile walking journey from East Africa, across Asia, and down the west coast of the Americas in an attempt to emulate mankind’s long odyssey as he (mankind not Saklopek) populated the planet^(v).

The most recent genetic studies suggest that “a vast inland oasis in present-day northern Botswana was once home to the founder population of all modern humans.” ^(x)

A first-rate work ^[³⁹⁰^] by Steven Mithen on the aftermath of the last Ice Age was recently published.

Fundamentalist Christians who believe in a literal seven days of creation have great difficulty with modern Ice Age theory⁽^b⁾and some propose that an ice age occurred after the biblical Deluge⁽^f). For some fundamentalists the (only) Ice Age lasted from around 2500 BC until 1500 BC^(o⁾, otherwise, it will not fit into Archbishop Ussher’s 4004 BC date for the creation of the world!

Furthermore, it would be dishonest if I did not record that there have been more credible attempts to debunk the ‘conventional’ Ice Age Theory. The late Peter K. Bros (1939-2007) expressed such views in J. Douglas Kenyon’s Forbidden History^[802.44] and in Atlantis Rising magazine^(ae).

Dr. Horst Friedrich (1931-2015) was strongly opposed to Ice Age Theory and in one of the many papers that he published on the subject, he invoked the earlier work of C.G.S. Sandberg in support of his views^(aj).

Furthermore, Allan & Delair offer similar views in Chapter 12 of Part One of their acclaimed book Cataclysm^[014]as does Richard E.Mooney ^[^0842.87]. An essay by Kurt Johmann entitled “Debunking Ice Age” is also worth a read. The Thunderbolts website has a forum^(h) dealing with whether Ice Ages occurred at all! Those interested in this particular controversy will find some worthwhile comments there. The same site has linked to an article that offers further challenges to conventional Ice Age and global warming theories. This report^(j) concerns the discovery of the remains of a 4,000-year-old forest in the Alps at the edge of a retreating glacier, which added further evidence that warmer climates than at present were experienced since the last Ice Age. A regular Thunderbolts contributor, Rens Van Der Sluijs, also deals with global warming during the last Ice Age as revealed through mythology^(k). However, Thunderbolts ‘Electric Universe’ concept has also received some highly critical reviews^(m).

An interesting side issue is the work of Genevieve von Petzinger^(y) who has collated recurring geometric symbols found in the Ice Age caves and rock carvings, not only across Europe but in Asia and less frequently in Africa and the Americas.

The University of Sheffield has now produced a set of maps showing the shrinkage of the last glacial ice sheet that covered most of the British Isles at the end of the last Ice Age^(d). That particular ice sheet contained enough water to raise the world’s oceans by 2.5 metres when melted. Further maps have been published on Don Hitchcock’s website⁽ⁱ⁾.

The retreating ice sheets also produced drumlins, with as many as 20,000 to be found in Ireland, with many of these and other Ice Age creations featuring in the placenames of my country^(p).

We should not forget that Mother Nature can still spring weather surprises on us, such as the Great European Freeze of 1709 that led to widespread death of humans and livestock, crop failures and food riots⁽^af⁾.

⁽^a⁾ Wayback Machine (archive.org)

^(b) https://creation.com/do-greenland-ice-cores-show-over-one-hundred-thousand-years-of-annual-layers

^(d) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170714171242/https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris/britice

^(f)https://www.accuracyingenesis.com/iceage.html

^(g)https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100406133707.htm

^(h) Questioning the Ice Ages – Thunderbolts Forum (v2.0) (archive.org)

⁽ⁱ⁾https://donsmaps.com/icemaps.html

^(j)https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/08/receding-swiss-glaciers-incoveniently-reveal-4000-year-old-forests-and-make-it-clear-that-glacier-retreat-is-nothing-new/

^(k) Global Warming in the Ice Age – The Thunderbolts Project™ (archive.org) (new link) *

^(l) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/04/climate-shifts-dramatically-upended-the-lives-of-prehistoric-humans-according-to-scientists/

^(m) See: Archive 922

⁽ⁿ⁾ https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/why-do-ice-ages-occur-new-paradigm-shift-prehistoric-problem-005683?nopaging=1