An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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    OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
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    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 »
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Gerard Gertoux

Gertoux, Gérard

Gérard Gertoux (1955- ) is a French academic who is best known for his book The Name of God YeHoWaH(a)(b). However, most of his prodigious output is concerned with ancient chronology. Many of the subjects he discusses(c) are touched on in Atlantipedia – The Deluge, Exodus, The Trojan War, Carthage, The Hyksos, all of which are available, in English, on the Academia.edu website

(a) (99+) The Name of God Y.eH.oW.aH Which is Pronounced as it is Written I_Eh_oU_Ah (University Press of America, 2002) | Gerard GERTOUX – Academia.edu

(b) THE NAME OF GOD YeHoWaH. ITS STORY, by Gérard Gertoux (lifes-purpose.info)

(c) (99+) Gerard GERTOUX | Université Lyon – Academia.edu

Patriarchs and Longevity

The Patriarchs referred to in Genesis and their seemingly exaggerated longevity has been a source of continuous debate ever since biblical criticism developed in the 18th century. Cornelius de Pauw referred to the apparently exaggerated life spans of the biblical patriarchs explaining that it was widespread in the Middle East and further afield to name a dynasty or family after its founder and attribute the total years of its reign to that founder. [1756.258]

Before dePauw, Pierre-Daniel Huet expressed similar views to Samuel Borchart, linking the biblical patriarchs and the story of Atlantis in his Demonstratio Evangelica [1007]. >Atlantology’s interest in the apparent longevity of the patriarchs stems from the difficulty created by Plato’s insistence that Atlantis was at war with Athens and Egypt 9,000 years before Solon’s visit to Egypt. This idea defies reason as neither state existed until many millennia later. An astounding number of attempts to reconcile this large discrepancy are on offer (See Dating Atlantis).<

Stephen E. Jones has published an interesting paper in 2005, whose investigation led him to conclude “there is no real conflict on this matter between the Bible and science nor between the Bible and itself”(i). Carol A. Hill has written a paper, Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis, also intended to reconcile the Ages of the biblical patriarchs and science(j) as was a paper by Jim Stump(k).

Lee Mckague has suggested that there may be a biological explanation for the longevity of the biblical patriarchs(h)!

Emilio Spedicato in a paper(f) entitled Large Numbers in Asian Chronology Decrypted includes some radical ideas on how to resolve the mystery of the ages of the patriarchs recorded in the Bible. He also expanded on his ideas regarding large numbers in ancient chronologies with a paper(l) in which he considers “large numbers in days, not in years, that appear in Mesoamerican Mayan and Toltecs chronologies. We show how such numbers, when reduced to years under some hypotheses, provide important information for a period extending over several thousand years BC, related to catastrophic events on our planet and to a special event in the solar system.”

A paper(a) by an unnamed and apparently deceased author was published by Duane L. Christensen. It approaches the ages of the patriarchs from a numerological standpoint with some curious conclusions. I’m wary of all such occult claims but will leave it to readers to decide.

>Over a century ago, George H. Cooper offered the simplistic suggestion that the great ages of the patriarchs recorded in the Bible was the result of confusing lunar cycles with solar years [236.232]!<

 Zoltan Simon has claimed that the ages of the patriarchs were calculated using 90-day ‘years’ [0549.7].

Another paper by Dean Talboys, entitled Methuselah Debunked(b)(c)(d) offers a convoluted explanation for the ages based on Babylonian astronomy/astrology.

Philip Coppens has also touched on a possible astronomical explanation for the patriarchal numbers(g).

In one(e) of his many papers on ancient chronology, Gérard Gertoux he controversially touches on subjects such as radiocarbon dating, the age of the patriarchs, the Ice Ages, evolution and more.

>Readers interested in the attempts to explain the apparently inflated ages of the patriarchs might be interested in a paper on the biologos website where it proposes that “One option is attaching some significance to the fact that all of the 30 numbers can be expressed as combinations of the two “sacred” numbers 60 and 7 in terms of years and months. 60 was culturally significant because it was the number that Babylonian mathematics was based on (the influence of this sexagesimal system is still felt today with our 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute). And 7, of course, has a prominent place in biblical symbolism beginning with the Sabbath. So when we’re told that Methuselah was 187 years when he had his son Lamech (Gen. 5:25), we can see that 187 = 60+60+60+7 years. And then because 60 months = 5 years, when Adam is said to be 130 years at the birth of his son Seth (Gen. 5:3), that can be expressed as (60+60 years) + (60+60 months).” (m)<

 

(a) https://jbburnett.com/resources/ot/christensen-patr-ages.pdf 

(b) https://www.academia.edu/34905518/Methuselah_Debunked_Decoding_the_Biblical_record_for_the_ages_of_Adam_and_his_descendants 

(c) Can the Babylonian Calendar Help Explain the Ages of Patriarchs Recounted in the Book of Genesis? – Part 1 | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(d) Can the Babylonian Calendar Help Explain the Ages of Patriarchs Recounted in the Book of Genesis? – Part 2 | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(e) https://www.academia.edu/17026643/Noah_and_the_Deluge_Chronological_Historical_and_Archaeological_Evidence  (around one-third of the page down)

(f) Migration & Diffusion (migration-diffusion.info)

(g) https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/genesis5/

(h) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253528140_Methuselah_Oldest_Myth_or_Oldest_Man 

(i) Stephen E. Jones: Projects: The ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11 (archive.org) 

(j) https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Hill.pdf  

(k) https://biologos.org/articles/long-life-spans-in-genesis-literal-or-symbolic

(l) https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=23716a85e1f048717b10e1bf05586f52fe2da5ca

(m) Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? – BioLogos *

 

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].

Film-makers Simcha Jacobvici and James Cameron collaborated on the 2006 two-hour documentary The Exodus Decoded, in which, among other matters, it claims that the biblical Exodus took place a couple of hundred years before the generally accepted date(aa). A review in The Jerusalem Post(ab) noted that none of the arguments made in the film were accepted by mainstream archaeology and that Jacobovici freely admitted his lack of academic credentials.

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) 

(d) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/does-ipuwer-papyrus-provide-evidence-events-exodus-006951?utm_source=Ancient-Origins+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7295e85219-Top_Trending_Stories_Nov_No3_REAL_11_14_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2dcd13de15-7295e85219-85158329

(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 

(h2) https://www.academia.edu/30200722/The_Pharaoh_of_the_Exodus_Fairy_tale_or_real_history_Outcome_of_the_investigation 

(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) 

(k) Revising the Egyptian Chronology: Joseph as Imhotep, and Amenemhat IV as Pharaoh of the Exodus (cedarville.edu)

(l) (PDF) LOCATION OF PI-HAHIROTH OF MOSES’S EXODUS IN SUEZ GULF AND THE NEW KINGDOM’S SCENARIO: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH | Hossam Aboulfotouh – Academia.edu 

(m) (99+) Re-calculating the Historical Age of the Israelites in Egypt and the Date of the Exodus (Part One) | Russell Jacquet-Acea – Academia.edu 

(n) (99+) Re-calculating the Historical Age of the Israelites in Egypt and the Date of the Exodus PART TWO | Russell Jacquet-Acea – Academia.edu  

(o) (99+) Re-calculating the Historical Age of the Israelites in Egypt and the Date of the Exodus Part THREE | Russell Jacquet-Acea – Academia.edu 

(p) https://www.lulu.com/en/ie/shop/gerard-gertoux/the-pharaoh-of-the-exodus-fairy-tale-or-real-history/paperback/product-1vjrmky7.html?page=1&pageSize=4  

(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

(aa) https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Documentary-sets-new-date-for-Exodus *

(ab) Documentary sets new date for Exodus – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)  *

Carthage

Carthage is today a suburb of the North African city of Tunis.

Al Barone wrote(k) that it “was founded by Phoenician settlers from the city of Tyre, who brought with them the city-god Melqart. Philistos of Syracuse dates the founding of Carthage to c. 1215 BC, while the Roman historian Appian dates the founding 50 years prior to the Trojan War (i.e. between 1244 and 1234 BC, according to the chronology of Eratosthenes). The Roman poet Virgil imagines that the city’s founding coincides with the end of the Trojan War. However, it is most likely that the city was founded sometime between 846 and 813 BC.

Gerard Gertoux argues(h) that recent discoveries push this date back to at least 870 BC, if not further. Prior to that, the Roman poet, Silius Italicus (100-200 AD), tells us that according to legend the land there had been occupied by Pelasgians(e).

South of Carthage, in modern Tunisia, there are fertile plains that were the breadbasket of Rome and even today can produce two crops a year, despite a much-disimproved climate.

In 500 BC Hanno, the Navigator was dispatched from Carthage with the intention of establishing new African colonies. Around a century later another Carthaginian voyager, Himilco, is also thought to have travelled northward(f) in the Atlantic and possibly reached Ireland, referred to as ‘isola sacra’. Christopher Jones has claimed on his website(d) that Himilco reached Britain and Ireland in the 5th century BC.

Cecil Torr (1857-1928) the British antiquarian and author published a paper in 1891 entitled The Harbours of Carthage(j) in which he suggested that the layout of Carthage may have inspired some of Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis. However, we are now aware that some of these features did not exist until after Plato’s time.

>Sometime later Victor Bérard,  pointed out[0160] the similarity of Carthage with Plato’s description of Atlantis. The prominent Atlantis sceptic Sprague de Camp at least complimented Bérard that his theory was ” more difficult to eliminate ” than those of other researchers and authors. After all, de Camp concedes that Carthage was ” in the right direction from the point of view of Greece “, which cannot be said of Crete, for example. Atlantisforschung discusses at some length de Camp’s view of Bérard’s Atlantean Carthage theory(I).<

Frank Joseph followed Lewis Spence in suggesting that Carthage may have been built on the remains of an earlier city that had been Atlantis or one of her colonies. In like manner, when the Romans destroyed Carthage after the Punic Wars, they built a new Carthage on the ruins, which became the second-largest city in the Western Empire.

The circular laycarthagenorthafrica200bcout of the city with a central Acropolis on Byrsa hill, surrounded by a plain with an extensive irrigation system, has prompted a number of other authors, including Massimo Pallotino[222] and C. Corbato[223] to suggest that it had been the model for Plato’s description of Atlantis. This idea has now been adopted by Luana Monte(c).

Andis Kaulins has suggested that “ancient Tartessus (which was written in Phoenician as Kart-hadasht) could have been the predecessor city to Carthage on the other side of the Strait of Sicily. Plato reported that Tartessus was at the Pillars of Herakles.”(a)  Kaulins places the ‘Pillars’ somewhere between the ‘toe of Italy’ and Tunisia.

Richard Miles has written a well-received history[1540] of Carthage, a task hampered by the fact that the Carthaginian libraries were destroyed or dispersed after the fall of the city, perhaps with the exception of Mago’s agricultural treatise, which was translated into Latin and Greek and widely quoted.

Delisle de Sales placed the Pillars of Heracles in the Gulf of Tunis.

A book-length PhD thesis by Sean Rainey on Carthaginian imperialism and trade is available online(b).

(aPillars of Heracles – Alternative Location (archive.org)

(b) https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/4354

(c) ARTICOLO: Cartagine come Atlantide? (archive.org)

(d) https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/high-north-carthaginian-exploration-of-ireland/

(e) http://www.loebclassics.com/view/silius_italicus-punica/1934/pb_LCL277.425.xml?result=1&rskey=K0cyB6&readMode=recto

(f) http://phoenicia.org/himilco.html

(h) https://www.academia.edu/2421053/Dating_the_foundation_of_Carthage?email_work_card=view-paper

(i) Atlantis Rising magazine  #39 p69  http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At

(j)  The Classical Review5 (6): 280–284. June 1891

(k) https://www.academia.edu/5333030/The_Amazingh_Warriors_of_Amazon_and_Carthage

(l) Atlantis in Karthago – Die Lokalisierung des Victor Bérard – Atlantisforschung.de (German) *

Atlantis in Carthage – The localization of Victor Bérard – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (English) *

Hyksos

The Hyksos is the name applied to two dynasties of foreign kings who ruled Egypt around 1650-1530 BC(a). Gerard Gertoux suggests three dynasties reigning from circa 1750- 1530!(l) They are generally accepted to have been Semitic people, from an unknown land, who invaded Egypt around 1710 BC. They ruled for over a hundred years until defeated by the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis I.

Their name was originally taken to mean ‘Shepherd Kings, but more recently, it is accepted that the Egyptian term ‘heqa-khase’ which means ‘rulers of foreign lands’ gives us a simple but credible title of ‘Foreign Kings’. It has been suggested by David J. Gibson (1904-1966) that the modern interpretation indicated that the Hyksos ruled a vast empire and has devoted a book[1507] to justifying this view(g). This empire lay mainly to the east of Egypt with the possible exception of Crete. Gibson identifies the Hyksos with the biblical Edomites!

Walter Baucum summarises his view on the subject as follows, “The Early Hyksos Shepherd Rulers of Egypt were descendants of Shem and identical with Typhon and the Titans, the peoples of Set, and to some degree with the Hebrews. The early Hyksos were to a large degree Israelites but after they left, the Amalekites conquered Egypt and were also referred to as Hyksos”.

Hyksos Pharoah

Hyksos Pharoah

This identification of the Hyksos with the biblical Amalakites was supported by Velikovsky, Rohl and Donovan Courville(o). This identification is disputed by Emmet Sweeney [1867], who is generally sympathetic to Velikovsky’s revised chronology, but disagrees with him in this instance. In a recent (2023) paper(r) on the Academia.edu website Donald Keith Mills was highly critical of Velikovsky’s research on the Hyksos and Amalakites in Ages in Chaos.

“Repeatedly, when faced with conflicting accounts of pre-Islamic (and essentially prehistoric) events, Velikovsky selected only those that met his purposes. The damaging aspect of this criticism is the fact that, almost without exception, he did so without discussing the alternatives, without providing reasons for rejecting them, and without even acknowledging their existence.

There have also been persistent suggestions that there were strong links between the Hyksos and Crete, as referred to both above and below. But the exact nature of the links is unclear and may not be more than you get between nations trading over an extended period. The relevance of such links, if they were ever shown to be political rather than commercial, would take on new significance for supporters of the Minoan Hypothesis. Time will tell.

Peter A. Clayton, an Egyptologist and author of Chronicle of the Pharaohs suspected that the Hyksos had their origins in Crete. E. J. de Meester has suggested links between Crete and the Hyksos, an idea included in an article by Philip Coppens(b). In a similar vein, Diaz-Montexano claims that a study of the names of the Hyksos pharaohs suggests to him that they were proto-Greek or Mycenaeans.

An example of the diversity of opinions regards the origins of the Hyksos is a brief article written by Emilio Spedicato who identifies them with the Scythians. Gunnar Heinsohn (1943- ) is a German professor emeritus at the University of Bremen, who presented a paper entitled ‘Who were the Hyksos’ to the 6th International Congress of Egyptology in 1993, in which he concluded that they were to be identified with the Old-Akkadians(j).

Perhaps even more radical is the suggestion by Riaan Booysen that the Hyksos were the fleeing Israelites in the biblical Exodus story(c). He claims that there were two ‘exoduses’ which coincided with two separate eruptions on Thera. This idea is not as new as it might seem as something similar was proposed by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus(d).

Nick Austin also identifies the Hyksos as Jews [1661.184] but is more generous than Booysen claiming that there were four separate eruptions of Thera. Like many others, he has also associated the biblical Exodus and the Plagues of Egypt with the Theran eruptions.

Ralph Ellis, among others, has endorsed(e)(f) the idea that the biblical Exodus and the historical Expulsion of the Hyksos describe the same event. There are theories, many and varied, regarding the origins and post-Egyptian settlement of the Hyksos. 

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

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

In July 2020, it was reported that “new research led by Bournemouth University archaeologists supports the theory that the Hyksos, the rulers of the 15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, were not from a unified place of origin, but Western Asiatics whose ancestors moved into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom lived there for centuries, and then rose to rule the north of Egypt.”(k)

The full facts relating to the Hyksos’ rule are only slowly emerging(m) and I expect that it will be some years before a definitive history can be agreed upon. Just over a year after I wrote this, In March 2021, Diego Ratti published Atletenu, in which he identified the Hyksos as Atlanteans, with their capital situated at Avaris in the eastern Nile Delta(n).

Ratti explains “that the first king of Atlantis called Atlas by Plato was a prince of Ugarit called Shamshi-Shu I who led a coalition of Foreign Kings to conquer Egypt. Plato’s “Critias” mentions the name of the first 10 kings of Atlantis: in “Atletenu” author Diego Ratti explains that the names of these 10 kings provide us with an indication of the origin and ethnicity of the Hyksos.

It was a coalition of 10 foreign Hyksos kings to invade Egypt in 1646 BC: some of them were from Southern Canaan and Northern Sinai while their majority was from Northern Syria and Lebanon. The prevalent ethnicity of the Hyksos coalition was the Amorite one: they had Amorite names, Amorite customs, traditions and religion. The prince of Ugarit leading the coalition of Hyksos was an Amorite.

The legend of Atlantis was the history of the Hyksos: this fascinating thesis is discussed in the book “Atletenu” with supporting archaeological and textual evidence.” (q)

A paper by the distinguished Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak entitled Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos(p) should be read in conjunction with Ratti’s theory.

>Arguably, the most exotic suggestion put forward regarding the Hyksos comes from a Chinese geochemist, Professor Sun Weidong(h)(i) at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei in eastern China stirred up a debate with the suggestion “that the founders of Chinese civilization were not in any sense Chinese but actually migrants from Egypt. He conceived of this connection in the 1990s while performing radiometric dating of ancient Chinese bronzes; to his surprise, their chemical composition more closely resembled those of ancient Egyptian bronzes than native Chinese ores.” Sun specifies these culture bearers as the Hyksos. A paper(t) by Ricardo Lewis on the Academia.edu website offers more details and background information.<

 

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20180203181622/https://history-world.org/hyksos.htm

(b)  See: Archive 2133

(c) https://riaanbooysen.com/misc/167-book-announcement

(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Hyksos

(e) https://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/exodus.htm

(f) https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2000-January/006340.html

(g) See: Archive 3468

(h) https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-civilization-come-from-ancient-egypt-archeological-debate-at-heart-of-china-national-identity/?utm_content=buffer7bb49&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

(i) https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/09/05/controversial-theory-suggests-ancient-egyptians-were-founders-of-chinese-civilization/

(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20111202130828/https://www.egyptologie.be/6IECT_1993_hyksos_heinsohn.htm

(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20200902181329/http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/immigrant-hyksos-dynasty-08646.html

(l) https://www.academia.edu/2414447/Dating_the_war_of_the_Hyksos

(m) Did the Hyksos Pull Off a Peaceful Invasion of Egypt? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(n) Book Author | Atletenu (archive.org) 

(o) https://en.everybodywiki.com/Donovan_Courville 

(p) https://www.academia.edu/10071070/Avaris_Capital_of_the_Hyksos 

(q)  Hyksos | Atletenu (archive.org) 

(r)   (99+) VELIKOVSKY AND THE AMALEKITES | Donald Keith Mills – Academia.edu 

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

(t) Does Chinese Civilization Come From Ancient Egypt? – Foreign Policy *