Gerald Wells

Geomythology *

Published December 7, 2011

Geomythology is a word coined by the geologist Dorothy Vitaliano in her 1973 book Legends of the Earth^[306]to describe “the study of alleged references to geological events in mythology.”

Since then, the term has gradually gained widespread acceptance including an extensive entry in the Encyclopedia of Geology^(a). The status of the subject has been consolidated by its inclusion as a separate course at the University of Puget Sound^(b). Apart from Vitaliano other writers, such as Gerald Wells, have applied geomythology to the study of Atlantis without necessarily using the term^(e). I should point out that mythology is also used to transmit details of spectacular astronomical events as well as more mundane political or military exploits.

Further support for the young discipline came with the publication of Myth and Geology by the Geological Society of London in 2007, with Luigi Piccardi & Bruce Masse as editors^[1541].

Patrick Nunn, an Australian geologist, who, although an Atlantis sceptic has begun to reconsider the possibility of ancient myths containing important geological information^(c). A 2017 paper by Nunn gave examples of where the application of geomythology has offered solutions to some old mysteries^(g).

Also in May 2021, the BBC offered a lengthy paper, by Mark Piesing, on the development of geomythology in recent years and how it may have implications for our planet’s future^(f).

>Professor Timothy John Burbery of Marshall University supports the linkage of the eruption of Thera with the Titanomachy in an August 2021 article^(c). He has recently published his new book, Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events ^[^1873].<

Cindy Clendenon, presumably inspired by Vitaliano, has launched a related new specialised field of study, which she has named ‘hydromythology’ in her 2009 book, Hydromythology and the Ancient Greek World ^[⁰⁸⁰¹^], a review of which is available online^(d).

^(a)Wayback Machine (archive.org) *

^(b)Untitled (archive.org)

^(c) https://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160118-the-atlantis-style-myths-of-sunken-lands-that-are-really-true

^(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20190927120932/https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-08-65.html

^(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20160527131112/https://www.wrl-inc.org/tag/geomythology

^(f)The myths that hint at past disasters – BBC Future

^(g) https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+a+geographer+began+mining+a+myth&cvid=5cae180662dd48d6968fb1c483e2c55d&aqs=edge..69i57.26555j0j1&pglt=43&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=U531

Tagged Bruce Masse, Cindy Clendenon, Dorothy Vitaliano, Encyclopedia of Geology, geomythology, Gerald Wells, hydromythology, Luigi Piccardi, Mark Piesing, Patrick Nunn, Timothy John Burbery, University of Puget Sound

Island, Peninsula or Continent?

Published May 28, 2010

Island, Peninsula or Continent? Advocates of a continental rather than island identification for Atlantis have to contend with the fact that Plato never referred to Atlantis as a continent instead he used the Greek words for ‘island’, namely ‘nesos’ and ‘neson’. Their line of argument is that these words in addition to ‘island’ or ‘islands’ can also mean “islands of an archipelago” or “peninsula”. Furthermore, it is claimed that the ancient Greeks had no precise word for ‘peninsula’.

Gilles le Noan^[912], quoted by Papamarinopoulos^[629.558], has offered evidence that there was no differentiation in Greek between ‘island’ and ‘peninsula’ until the time of Herodotus in the 5^th century BC. In conversation with Mark Adams^[¹⁰⁷⁰^.198] he explains that in the sixth century BC, when Solon lived, nesos had five geographic meanings. “One, an island as we know it. Two, a promontory. Three, a peninsula. Four,

Elena P. Mitropetrou a Greek archaeologist at the University of Patras, delivered two papers to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in Athens ^[750]. She also pointed out that in the 6th century BC, the Greek word nesos was employed to describe an island, but also, a peninsula or a promontory. Mitropetrou herself considers the Iberian peninsula to be the ‘island of Atlantis.’

Robert Bittlestone, in his Odysseus Unbound ^[¹⁴⁰²^.143] also notes that “nesos usually means an island whereas cheronesos means a peninsula, but Homer could not have used cheronesos when referring to the peninsula of Argostoli for two very good reasons. First, it cannot be fitted into the metre of the epic verse and second, the word hadn’t yet been invented: it doesn’t occur in Greek literature until the 5th century BC.”

Another researcher, Roger Coghill, echoed the views of many when he wrote on an old webpage that “To the Greeks peninsulae were the same as islands, so the Peloponnesian peninsula was “the island of Pelops” and the Chersonnese was to them “the island of Cherson”. Similarly in describing a place found after escaping the Pillars of Hercules, Plato quite normally describes the Lusitanian coast (modern Portugal) as an “island”, reached, he clearly says, after passing Cadiz”.

Johann Saltzman claimed that ‘nesos’ did not mean ‘island’ or ‘peninsula’ but ‘land close to water’. However, I would be happier sticking to the respected Liddell & Scott’s interpretation of island or peninsula. If Saltzman is correct, what word did the Greeks use for island?

The Modern Greek word for peninsula is ‘chersonesos’ which is derived from ‘khersos’ (dry) and ‘nesos’ (island) and can be seen as a reasonable description of a peninsula. It is worth noting that the etymology of the English word ‘peninsula’ is from the Latin ’paene’ (almost) and ’insula’ (an island).

Jonas Bergman maintains that the Greek concept of ‘island’ is one of detachment or isolation. He also points out that the original Egyptian word for ‘island’ can also mean lowland or coastland because the Egyptians had a different conception of ’island’ to either the ancient Greeks or us. Some commentators have claimed that the Egyptians of Solon’s time described any foreign land as an island.

Eberhard Zangger offers another correction of the Atlantis mystery: If one compares the land-sea distribution in Egypt and in the Aegean Sea, it becomes obvious why the Egyptians used at that time the expression “from the islands”. While today the word “island” has a clear meaning, this was not the case in the late Bronze Age. For the Egyptians more or less all strangers came from the islands. As there had been practically no islands in Egypt, the ancient Egyptian language did not have any special character for it. The hieroglyphic used for “island” was also meaning “sandy beach” or “coast” and was generally used for “foreign countries” or “regions on the other side of the Nile”.

A contributor to the Skeptic’s Dictionary⁽^b⁾ has added “I remind you that the Greek definition of “island” paralleled that of “continent.” To the Greeks, Europe was a continent. West Africa was an island, especially since it was cut off from the rest of what we now call “Africa” by a river that ran south from the Atlas mountains and then west to what is now the western Sahara. This now dry river was explored by Byron Khun de Prorok in the 1920s.”

Reginald Fessenden wrote: “One Greek term must be mentioned because it has given rise to much confusion. The word ‘Nesos’ is still translated as meaning ‘island’ but it does not mean this at all, except perhaps in late Greek. The Peloponnesus is a peninsula. Arabia was called a “nesos” and so was Mesopotamia”. This ambiguity in the written Greek and Egyptian of that period was highlighted at the 2005 Atlantis Conference by Stavros Papamarinopoulos.

Werner Wickboldt pointed out at the same conference that Adolph Schulten in the 1920’s referred to a number of classical writers who used the term ‘nesos’ in connection with the Nile, Tiber, Indus and Tartessos, all of which possessed deltas with extensive networks of islands.

To confuse matters even further, there have been a number of theories based on the idea that the ‘island’ of Atlantis was in fact land surrounded by rivers rather than the sea. These include Mesopotamia in Argentina proposed by Doug Fisher, the Island of Meroë in Sudan suggested by Thérêse Ghembaza and a large piece of land bound by the Mississippi, Ohio, and Potomac rivers offered by Henriette Mertz. However, none of these locations matches Plato’s description of Atlantis as a maritime trading nation with a naval fleet of 1200 ships, nor do any of them explain how they controlled the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia.

>Another Atlantis-island variant is based on the existence of a large inland sea where the Sahara now exists. Gerald Wells has proposed that the Atlas Mountains in what is now Algeria were effectively an island isolated by this inland sea to the south, the Mediterranean to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. He claims that the City of Atlantis was situated on the Hill of Garet-el-Djeter.

Related to Wells’ theory is the highly technical approach of Michael Hübner who located Atlantis on the Souss Massa Plain of Morocco, where today the plain and its adjacent valleys are called ‘island’ by the native Amazigh people.(Constraint 2.2.1.2 R102)^[632].<

The waters around Plato’s island are indeed muddy!

⁽^b⁾ https://skepdic.com/comments/atlantcom.html

Tagged Agentina, Algeria, Amazigh, Byron Khun de Prorok, Cadiz, Doug Fisher, Eberhard Zangger, Elena P. Mitropetrou, Gerald Wells, Gilles Le Noan, Henriette Mertz, Herodotus, island, Island of Meroë, Johann Saltzman, Jonas Bergman, Mark Adams, Michael Hübner, Morocco, nesos, Peninsula, Portugal, Reginald Fessenden, Robert Bittlestone, Roger Coghill, Sahara, Solon, Souss-Massa, Stavros Papamarinoupolos, Thérèse Ghembaza, Werner Wickboldt

Wells, Gerald *

Published May 27, 2010

Gerald Wells is an American researcher who had opted for the western province of El Bayadh in Algeria as the location of Atlantis. He uses geomythology to advance the radical idea that Atlantis was destroyed by a ‘tectonic tilting and continental uplift’ at the end of the Younger Dryas.

In another paper^(c), Wells offers further geological evidence that Atlantis did not sink, but only appeared to do so, while it actually rose. If so, I wonder how could such an event create muddy shallows (Timaeus 25d) that existed as a navigational hazard even in Plato’s time.

Wells has offered ten important correlations between Plato’s description and the physical evidence available at his chosen site on the western edge of the Sahara. These include an extensive canal system, red, white and black stone, a complex of meteorite craters (Rings of Atlantis) and hydrothermal springs. Wells further contends that Atlantis was known in pre-dynastic Egypt as Bakhu. However, there is a consensus among other scholars that Bakhu was a mount in the EAST, whereas Wells’ Atlantis/Bakhu is in the WEST. Wells’ ideas were presented to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in Athens and are now available on the Internet⁽^a⁾.

Now that he has been granted tax-exemption status in the U.S. he is hoping to raise $250,000 to fund an initial two-week survey. See his new web address^(b).

Wells also identified his Algerian Atlantis location as having included the biblical Garden of Eden^(e⁾.

Wells has now produced a video^(d) in support of his theories. Apart from that, little has been heard from Wells in recent years. In fact, most of the links to his material are now offline apart from^(c).

In 2008, Wells was a regular contributor to forums on the atlantisrising.com (now closed down) and the atlantisonline websites.

⁽^a⁾ Atlantis-Bakhu | Wells Research Laboratory (archive.org) * six pages

^(b)https://web.archive.org/web/20190128080100/https://www.wrl-inc.org/

^(c⁾ https://www.academia.edu/10055298/A_Focus_on_the_Geologic_Sciences_Related_to_Atlantis-Bakhu

^(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZmdvhh1jIk

^(e⁾ https://medium.com/@geraldjohnwells/atlantis-and-the-garden-of-eden-a-contemporary-view-of-revelation-4a11067994d7

Tagged 2008 Atlantis Conference, Algeria, Atlantis, Bakhu, Garden of Eden, geomythology, Gerald Wells, Plato, red, white and black stone, Younger Dryas

Algeria *

Published May 26, 2010

Algeria is the largest nation by area in Africa and the tenth largest in the world. Most of the population lives in the fertile north, while most of the country is rather arid, including part of the Sahara. Over two thousand years ago, when the climate was more benign, Algeria along with its neighbour, Tunisia, as well as Egypt, were the ‘breadbaskets’ of Rome.

Since the early 18th century Atlantis has been associated by a number of researchers with Algeria, often linked with Tunisia and/or Morocco. These included Ali Bey El Abbassi, Robert Schmalz, Giovanni Ugas and the American researcher Gerald Wells^(a) who specified the western Algerian province of El Bayadh as the location of Atlantis. He offered its exact coordinates as 31.84°N Latitude and 103.03°E Longitude and added that the Garden of Eden had existed in the same region!

A more frequent suggestion is that the chotts of Algeria and Tunisia had been the location of the legendary Lake Tritonis when the Sahara was a more fertile place with a wetter climate. Ulrich Hofmann supports this view while Alberto Arecchi contends that Lake Tritonis was the ‘Atlantic Sea’ referred to by Plato, with the Pillars of Heracles situated at the Gulf of Gabes. A related claim has been made recently by Hong-Quen Zhang^(b).

^(a) Atlantis-Bakhu | Wells Research Laboratory (archive.org) * ^6 pages

^(b)https://medcraveonline.com/IJH/is-atlantis-related-to-the-green-sahara.html

Tagged Alberto Arecchi, Algeria, Ali Bey el Abbassi, Atlantic Sea, chotts, Garden of Eden, Gerald Wells, Giovanni Ugas, Gulf of Gabes, Hong-Quen Zhang, Lake Tritonis, Pillars of Heracles, Robert Schmalz, Sahara, Tunisia, Urich Hofmann

Garden of Eden *

Published April 5, 2010

The Garden of Eden, like Atlantis, has excited the imagination of many over the centuries. Its location has been the subject of what was sometimes wild speculation that offered a range of locations compared with the variety of sites proposed for Atlantis.

The traditional belief was that the ‘Garden’ had been situated in Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris as noted in the Bible. Athanasius Kircher, who is better known to many for his speculative map of Atlantis located in the Atlantic Ocean also produced a plan of the Garden of Eden in what is now southern Iraq. David J. Gibson (1904-1966) arrived at a similar conclusion placing ‘Eden’ just south of Baghdad in his book, The Land of Eden Located, now available online^(t).

The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism offers a clue to the sort of difficulties that ‘Garden seekers’ must deal with, in the Garden of Eden entry. “as an earthly garden, its specific location within both the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature. Thus, some texts place it in the east (Gen 2:8; 1En.32; Jub 8:16; 2 En. [rec.32] 42:3, 65:10; Philo QG 1:7; Leg 1:56; Josephus, Ant. 1.3), while others place it in the west (Gen 3:24; Josephus, JW 2.155), north (Ezek 28:13; 1En. 61.1), or northwest (1 En.24-25, 70:3).”^(ap)

More recently, Robert McRoberts in an article about the rivers of Eden included a map by Arianna Ravenswood, who placed Eden northwest of Babylon in what is now the Iraqi Province of Diyala^(u).

Within the same region is a submerged location at the head of the Persian Gulf promoted by journalist, Dora Jane Hamblin (1920-1993),^(av)who highlighted^(av)the work of archaeologist, Juris Zarins (1945-2023)^(w). In his theory, the Bible’s Gihon River would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would match the Wadi Batin river system that had drained the now dry, but once quite fertile central part of the Arabian Peninsula. His suggestion about the Pishon River is supported by James A. Sauer (1945–1999) formerly of the American Center of Oriental Research although strongly criticized by the archaeological community^(x).

A number of commentators have suggested that the site of Eden is now under water, where lower sea levels during the Ice Age would have revealed land now submerged, such as in the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea has also been proposed.

Kircher’s Garden of Eden

The conventional idea has been enhanced in the opinion of some by the discoveries of the German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, who believed that his excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have unearthed artefacts dating to 8000 BC when the people there changed from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This region also contains Ur and Harran, mentioned in the Old Testament and since Göblekli Tepe is located between the Tigris and Euphrates and is within view of the Taurus Mountains, it conforms remarkably to the topographical description of Eden in the Bible. Tom Knox speculated on this in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail Online^(aa).

It was no great surprise when I found at that least one commentator has proposed Göbekli Tepe and the surrounding area was the site of the Garden of Eden^(au).

Garold Spire jr, an American researcher, offers a strong case for placing Eden in southern Turkey at the Karaca Dag shield-volcano. He studied the sacred books of the Abrahamic religions and drew up a short list of characteristics that the Garden must have;

1) It must have been warm enough to be comfortable without protective clothing. Gen 2:25.

2) It must be uphill geographically, due to the fact that four rivers exited

from it, these are the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pishon, and the Gihon. Gen 2:10-14

3) The Pishon must compass or border Havila where there is gold and onyx. Gen 2:11, 12.

4)The Gihon must compass or border the whole land of Cush. Gen 2:13

5) It must account for a flaming sword on its east side. Gen 3:24

6) It must be well watered, Gen 13:10 by a mist (in Hebrew) not rain, Gen 2:5-6, which came up from the earth.

Spire maintains that his Turkish location has all these features^(an).

Christopher Columbus believed that the source of the Orinoco River, in what is now known as Venezuela had been the location of Eden. Antonio de León Pinelo (1590-1660) was a Spanish chronicler who spent some years in South America and was also convinced that the Garden of Eden had been situated between the great rivers of South America^(k)!

The imaginative Augustus Le Plongeon claimed the Yucatan as the location of the ‘Garden’^(s)an idea endorsed by his wife, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon.

In more recent times, Ramiro Gonzales Yaksic (1966- ), the author of Earthly Paradise: The Garden of the Andes ^[1055] in which he claims to have identified the biblical Garden of Eden in his native Bolivia^(ar). Dieter Groban has written in support of Yaksic^(as).

James Bailey published Sailing to Paradise ^[^0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.

^[0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.

General Gordon of Khartoum fame was so impressed by the island of Preslin in the Seychelles that he declared it to be the Garden of Eden and its famed Coco de Mer and breadfruit plants to be the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil. Science writer, Karl Shuker, has written an extensive article, Forbidden Fruit, for the January 2016 edition of Fortean Times, in which he gives the background to Gordon’s obsession and his inability to garner any serious support for it.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, it was reported^(r) that G. F. Becker (1847-1919) a geologist with the USGS nominated Luzon in the Philippines as the site of the biblical ‘Garden’, while Sven Hedin (1865-1952) a much-decorated Swedish geographer chose Janaidar a mythical city in Central Asia.

George H. Cooper, the American writer, identified Salisbury Plain ^[⁰²³⁶^.111] as the Garden of Eden along with its Wiltshire river system matching the Euphrates and Tigris in the Genesis story. W. Comyns Beaumont chose Britain’s Glastonbury as the site of the original Garden.

In the middle of the last century, a Baptist preacher, Elvy E. Callaway, announced that the Garden had been located in the vicinity of Bristol, Florida^(j).

David Rohl has studied the matter in great detail ^[²³⁰^] and located the ‘Garden’ in the northern Iranian province of East Azerbaijan near the city of Tabriz^(ad)(aj). Rohl’s reasoning is worthy of study and perhaps a comparison with the views of Emilio Spedicato, who offers his explanation for placing Eden in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley in two papers on the Internet⁽^b)(y⁾. Rohl was partly inspired by the work of Reginald A. Walker ^[1388/9].

The inventive David Hatcher Childress published an article in issue 31 of the Atlantis Rising magazine with the title of Central Asia’s Ancient Heart and a subtitle that asks the question ‘Could Afghanistan Once Have Been the Garden of Eden?’ He then proceeds to offer a couple of pages about ancient Mongolia, with little reference to either Afghanistan or the Garden of Eden!

Andrew Collins claims ^[⁰⁷³^] that the original Mesopotamian name for Eden was Kharsag, a view echoed by the late Christian O’Brien^(q). O’Brien’s nephew, Edmund Marriage, identifies the Bekka Valley in Lebanon as the location of Eden of Genesis. A new Lebanese location site is the subject of a website and forum^(h)(i). An excerpt from O’Brien’s book, relating to Eden, can be read online^(v).

Ari Zuker bravely suggests that the land of Israel was the Garden of Eden^(ao). John Appelt, an American pastor also supports this idea ^(at).

The Sabbah brothers, Roger and Messod, controversially place Eden in Egypt ^[³¹⁰^]and offer a range of evidence to support this contention. Ralph Ellis has also opted for Egypt in his book, Eden in Egypt^[⁰⁹⁵¹^] and claims that Adam and Eve were in reality, Akhenaton and Nefertiti! Ellis also supports his theory with two online papers providing excerpts from his books^(o)(p).

A Christian website, logoschristian.org, used to also claim that Eden had been located in the eastern Nile Delta, specifically named Al Mansura. In 1933, John G. Jackson wrote a paper advocating an African origin for the legend of the Garden of Eden. Jackson’s extreme Afrocentric views may have coloured his view of this subject!

Further to the west is the Tunisian town of Oudna, which has been nominated as Eden by one Patrick Archer on his somewhat sparse website⁽^d⁾.

Gerald Wells also identified some of his Algerian Atlantis territories as having included the biblical Garden of Eden^(aq⁾.

Another African location was put forward by Georg Hinzpeter over half a century ago when he suggested that the Ethiopian plateau had been the home of Adam & Eve before their eviction^(z).

Stephen E. Franklin has also opted for an African location for the Garden of Eden, placing it south of the Ahaggar Mountains near the Wadi Tafanasset in southern Algeria.^(ah⁾ He also claims that Mt. Tahat, the highest peak in the Ahaggars, was, according to Franklin, the original Atlas mountain referred to by Herodotus as the home of the Atlantes (sometimes Atarantes^(ai⁾). Sprague De Camp noted ^[194.191]that Paul Borchardt also identified the ancient Mt. Atlas with the Ahaggar Mountains rather than the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb! I should add that this identification of Mt. Atlas remains moot.

In 2014, Stan Deyo chose Tanzania as the location of the Garden of Eden^(h). Paulo Riven has also supported the region as the site of the ‘Garden’^(ak). This idea has been echoed elsewhere and more recently on a website dealing with the history of Israel^(f) and on a Christian website where the Ngorongoro Crater is specified^(g).

Carl Seaver has also offered an African location for the Garden. In a 2022 article, he reports that according to recent research, Botswana is the most likely location of the Garden and where humans originated. Eden sat in the Kalahari Desert, which used to be a wetland where the early humans lived. During this time, Lake Makgadikgadi stretched from Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe^(am).

In 2023 an African location for the Garden was again proposed by journalist, Tom Hale, who wrote^(al) “The so-called Cradle of Humankind can be found in South Africa around 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. This site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. Among the thousands of fossils found here, researchers have unearthed the remains of Australopithecus, an early ape-like human species dated to around 3.4 to 3.7 million years old.

It wasn’t until 200,000 to 300,000 years ago that modern Homo sapiens evolved. Once again, Africa was the location of this development, with modern humans most likely first emerging somewhere around modern-day Ethiopia.

So, if we’re looking for a scientific Garden of Eden, it looks like South Africa and Ethiopia are our best bet. Whether these sites were once home to a paradise where four rivers once met remains to be seen, however.”

What may appear just as implausible to many is the claim by Felice Vinci^[⁰¹⁹^], that the Eden story was imported from northern Europe, specifically from Finnish Lapland^(af⁾. At the end of the 19th century, William Fairfield Warren placed the Garden in the Arctic ^[0078].

Even more incredible is the assertion by the likes of William C. Chappell that the Garden of Eden was situated in the United States. His Mormon-inspired views are available as a free eBook⁽^c⁾ on the Internet. Interestingly, Jackson County, Missouri was the location of Eden revealed by Joseph Smith^(ac). the founder of Mormonism and well-known collector of wives.

A more ‘commercial’ suggestion has come from Dennis Brooks who suggested that Tarpon Springs, Florida, was originally the location of the Garden of Eden and that Tampa Bay contained the port of Atlantis.

The Urantia Book promotes the idea of two Edens, one near Cyprus and a second further east! In 2003, Robert Sarmast compiled a list of similarities between Plato’s account of Atlantis and the description of the Garden of Eden in the Urantia Book^(l).

In his 2004 book Finding Atlantis he claimed one of the Edens, noted in The Urantia Book, along with Atlantis had been situated near Cyprus, now in waters a mile deep! Two expeditions were organised to verify his claims, but nothing conclusive was found. Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years, in 2018, Robert S. Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s ideas that the Mediterranean region around Cyprus had been home to both Atlantis and the Garden of Eden^(ae).

Stephen Oppenheimer has pointed out^[⁰⁰⁴^] that Genesis 2:8 reads that “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden”. He argues (p.409) that this supports the idea of a ‘paradise’ in the Sundaland region. However, Oppenheimer does not equate Eden with Atlantis.

As Monty Python used to say “now for something completely different” – The North Pole. This suggestion has come from Gene Matlock who advocated that ‘Eden was the North Pole’ in a paper of the same name^(ab).

The Garden of Eden has been suggested by some as another name for Atlantis, representing as it does a mythical time of peace and abundance. However, Eden is never spoken of in terms of military might and commercial success attributed to Atlantis. One of the better-known proponents of this idea of an Atlantean Eden was the late Professor Arysio dos Santos⁽^a⁾ who was convinced that it was located in the South China Sea before the ending of the last Ice Age submerged large areas of Sundaland. Confusingly, he referred to Eden as ‘Lemurian Atlantis’, but added that “This Lemurian Atlantis of ours should not be confused with the purely fanciful counterparts of the Theosophists and other such followers of Mme. Blavatsky. Their ‘Lemuria’ is a hypothetical sunken continent of the mid-Pacific region, one which never existed at all.

Shortly before his death in 2005, Santos published ^[³²⁰^] his theories, expanding on material that he had made available on the Internet for some years. Frank Joseph also claims ^[¹⁰⁶^][¹⁰⁷^] that the Garden of Eden was located on the lost island of ‘Lemuria’ located in the Pacific.

Bill Hanson, who has authored a number of books on ancient ‘mysteries’, has recently written a work ^[³⁵²^] that links the Garden of Eden with Atlantis. He identifies five similarities between the two accounts:

Both prehistoric locations are regarded as ‘lost paradises’
The four rivers of Eden are reflected in the four waterways of Poseidon the island capital of Atlantis.
Atlantis started with ten kings and the Bible speaks of ten patriarchs.
Zeus destroyed Atlantis because mortals and gods mated, whereas the Bible records the mating of the ‘sons of God’ and human females.
Atlantis was flooded just as the Age of the Patriarchs ended with the flood of Noah.

The late Joseph Robert Jochmans identified^(g⁾ Atlantis with Eden in a comprehensive article on his website. John Nichols also wrote a long article^(e⁾ identifying Atlantis with the Garden of Eden and placing it on the Celtic Shelf about a hundred miles off the coast of France due west of Brest.

Frederick Dodson in a hefty 523-page book^[989]claims an Atlantis-Garden of Eden connection⁽ⁿ⁾. In 2018, the Catalan researcher, José Luis Espejo also equated Atlantis with the Garden of Eden^[¹⁶⁰⁷^].

In 2022, a writer, hiding behind the nom de plume of ‘gserpent’, produced a lengthy article blending Atlantis, Eden and Lemuria into one heap of literary manure⁽^ag⁾.

Currently. the sadly benighted Iraq is trying to lure tourists to spend their holidays in ‘the Garden of Eden’^(m⁾!

⁽^a⁾http://www.lost-civilizations.net/atlantis-corroborating-evidence-page-12.html

⁽^b⁾kharsag (grazian-archive.com)

⁽^c⁾http://losttruthfound.com/gardenofedenfound.pdf

⁽^d⁾https://patrickofatlantis.com/

⁽^e⁾ https://jjswn35.wordpress.com/article/atlantis-eden-how-to-find-2vfxjftuay98o-9/

⁽^f⁾ The Garden of Eden – Tribes of Atlantis (archive.org) *

^(g) See: Archive 3602

^(h)The Garden of Eden – Found in Rashaya El-Wadi – the-lebanon.com (archive.org) ^or Archive 3182

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.christianforums.com/threads/the-garden-of-eden-origin-of-agriculture-found-near-rashaya-el-wadi-lebanon.7535161/*

^(j) Weird Florida (archive.org)

^(k) See: Archive 2999