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NEWS October 2024
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 »
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 »
Hispaniola
Ophir
Ophir is referred to in the Bible as a source of gold, silver, precious stones and exotic animals. King Solomon was reputed to have received a cargo of such goodies every three years, a detail which seemingly points to Ophir having been a considerable distance from Israel.
>>The location of Ophir has been the subject speculation from at least the beginning of the 16th century, when Peter Martyr, In a letter written in May 1500, claimed that Christopher Columbus identified Hispaniola with Ophir(k).
Later in the same century, Benito Arias Montano proposed Peru as the location of Ophir, an idea popular with others at that time according to José de Acosta. The suggestion has not been abandoned as the American explorer, Gene Savoy (1927-2007), was still promoting it in the 21st century(l).<<
The exact location of Ophir is the subject of continuing controversy. In broad terms the most popular regions suggested are, or have been, India(g), Africa(f) and the Americas(a), but they were not the only proposed locations, even Australia and the Solomon Islands were considered. Emilio Spedicato has opted for Tibet, where an ancient goldmine fits the bill, which he outlines in his paper entitled Ophir, It’s Location Unveiled(h).
>>The Jewish Encyclopedia offers the suggestion that “The most probable view is that Ophir was situated in Arabia. This is indicated, as mentioned above, by the Biblical reference in Gen. x. 29. An old tradition recorded by Eupolemus (c. 150 B.C.) also assigns Ophir to this region, identifying it with the island of Uphre in the Red Sea.”(j)<<
There is also a claim that the Batanes Islands off the Northern Philippines held the site of Ophir(b). Further west, Dhani Irwanto has claimed that Punt was also known as Ophir(d) and was situated on Sumatera (Sumatra) in Indonesia(c). However, he went further and also located Atlantis in Indonesia in his book, Atlantis: The lost city is in the Java Sea [1093]. His chosen site is just north of Bawean Island in the Java Sea.
However, Irwanto was not the first to link Atlantis with Ophir, Theodore L. Urban was the author of a paper delivered to the Lancaster County Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1897. In it, he denied that Atlantis had been completely destroyed and argued that the biblical Ophir was in fact Atlantis, suggesting that it had been located in the Americas, which explained the three years that the round trip took(e).
Jason Colavito has published articles written by Thomas Crawford Johnston in 1892(i) that he later developed into his 1913 book Did the Phoenicians Discover America [1902+] in which he places Ophir in America!
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophir#Americas
(b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZqYQpmRCx0
(c) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2015/11/14/land-of-punt-is-sumatera/
(d) https://atlantisjavasea.com/2019/06/16/land-of-ophir/
(e) https://openlibrary.org/works/OL10326701W/American_Indians (p.91)
(f) https://www.historicmysteries.com/lost-mine-ophir/
(g) https://www.britannica.com/place/Ophir
(h) Ophir, its location revealed (2010-q-conference.com) *
OPHIR 27-10-09 (2010-q-conference.com)
(i) Phoenicians in America – JASON COLAVITO
(j) OPHIR – JewishEncyclopedia.com *
(k) Ophir – Wikipedia *
Canada
Canada was first suggested to have had an ancient connection with the Mediterranean in a lecture(f) to the Albany Institute of Boston in 1893 by Verplanck Colvin (1847-1920), an American lawyer and topographical engineer. He based this idea primarily on his interpretation of Plutarch‘s On the Apparent Face in the Moon’s Face and specifically named the St. Lawrence River as the site of an ancient Greek colony.
Until relatively recently Canada has had little attention from Atlantis seekers. The nearest to such a claim came in 2002, when New Zealander, Ian A. Fox, published[0782] his theory that Atlantis had been situated between Greenland and Canada’s Baffin Island.
A few years later, the earliest specific suggestion of a Canadian connection with Atlantis, that I am aware of, came from Samuel Poe in a truly dreadful book[0847], in which he claimed the east coast of Canada and the United States had been Atlantean.
Then, Brian Johnston, a retailer of precious stones, created a website(a) advocating Ontario as the location of Plato’s Atlantis. He offers a stone circle and what may be other megalithic standing stones along with many photos of the same as evidence. This is all held together by a large helping of speculation. Finally, after describing in some detail a site in Ontario’s Northumberland County, he concludes that the location “might not be Atlantis!”
Nevertheless, the idea that the ancient Greeks had an awareness of America has persisted, with some claiming that they had colonies in Canada. Among these are Lucio Russo, Ioannis Liritzis(b) and Minas Tsikritsis(d). Now Manolis Koutlis has gone one further and claims[1617] that not only were there Greek colonies in Canada but that Atlantis had been situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence(c). This raises the question of why or how Atlanteans or Greek colonists in Canada would launch an attack on Athens thousands of miles away. In my opinion, neither identification is credible.
At the 2005 Atlantis Conference, Emilio Spedicato also subscribed to the idea of early Greeks in Canada, specifically in the St. Lawrence Region [629.411]. However, he does not refer to Atlantis in this context as he has already nominated Hispaniola as Plato’s lost island.
All these advocates of an ancient Greek presence in Canada are greatly reliant on their interpretations of the writings of Plutarch(g), a matter that has been dealt with by Jason Colavito(e).
>Long after any ancient Greeks came to North America, hard evidence of Pre-Columbian visitors from Europe was confirmed with the discovery in 1978 of an 11th-century Norse settlement at L’anse aux Meadows in Canada. In 2022, the discovery in Newfoundland of a gold Henry VI quarter noble, minted in London between 1422 and 1427 generated some excitement. Unfortunately, coins can remain in circulation for many years, so, without knowing when the coin was lost in Canada, it cannot be claimed with any great certainty that it was misplaced before or after Columbus reached the Americas(h).<
Also See: Henriette Mertz
(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180319084638/https://atlantisincanada.com/
(b) https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/did-ancient-greeks-sail-to-canada/
(f) Atlantis,Vol.23, No.3,May/June, 1970
(g) https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/lectures/plutarch-moonface.pdf
Casas, Bartolomé de las
Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) was a Dominican friar who chronicled the excesses of the Spanish invaders of America. He renounced his earlier views about slavery and spent decades fighting it.
Casas was convinced of the reality of Atlantis, having being strongly influenced by Marsilio Ficino‘s commentary on Plato’s Atlantis narrative.
He also claimed that Columbus had been inspired by Plato’s story of Atlantis. However, S. P. Kershaw[1410.163] quoting from B. Keen[1500] notes that Columbus’ son, Ferdinand ”explicity stated that his father never showed any interest in Plato’s tale.”
Bartolomé himself saw America as Atlantis and in his History of the Indies (Historia de Las Indias)[1521] begun in 1527, he drew up a list of parallels to support his contention.
Emilio Spedicato, who supports Hispaniola as the location of Atlantis was struck by the fact that de la Casas’ description of island matched so many details in Plato’s depiction of Atlantis.
Fauna of Atlantis
The Fauna of Atlantis as described by Plato has done little to pinpoint its location and is clearly a subject for further investigation. However, pinpointing is the wrong word since Atlantis stretched from North Africa as far north as central Italy, so there is probably a wide geographical spread to the fauna noted by Plato.
In Critias he refers to ‘flocks’ (111c) implying sheep and/or goats; bees (111c), elephants (114e); horses (117b); bulls (119d). He also mentions sable clothing (120b) but these were possibly imported.
The most problematic of these is the reference to elephants, a term that could be loosely applied to a number of related species including mastodons, mammoths, the Indian, the African and dwarf elephants. The habitat of the latter diminutive creatures stretched from Siberia as far south as the equator. The remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the islands of the Mediterranean from Sardinia to Cyprus.
Pygmy elephant is the term applied to some species found today in parts of Asia and Africa. However ‘pygmy’ or ‘dwarf’ elephants could hardly be described as “largest and most voracious” of animals (Critias 115a).
However, there is general acceptance that the North African Elephant inhabited the Atlas Mountains until they became extinct in Roman times(b)(e). Atlantis sceptic, Ronald H. Fritze, an Atlantis sceptic, acknowledges[709.25] the existence of elephants in North Africa until the Romans.
The species of elephant used by Hannibal has been a source of debate for years(c). The Numidians of North Africa (202 BC–46 BC) also used local elephants in warfare (d). It would seem to me that the North African Elephant, rather than the Asian or African species, would have been more suited to the trek across the Alps. Needless to say the Atlas Mountains were part of the Atlantean sphere of influence (Timaeus 25a-b).
Eckart Kahlhofer believes that the elephants referred to by Plato were in fact deer, claiming that a scribal error resulted in the Greek word elaphos (deer) being transcribed as elephas (elephant).
>Hyde Clarke proposed that Plato’s ‘elephants were in fact tapirs in an effort to bolster his Hispaniola location for Atlantis. Gene Matlock ‘borrowed’ this idea to suit his Mexican Atlantis. Tapirs are only found in S.E. Asia as well as Central and South America. Apart from that, Plato described his elephants as ‘the largest and most voracious’ (Crit. 114e & 115a), which would clearly exclude tapirs or deer.<
R. Cedric Leonard has written an interesting paper(a) on the early domestication of animals and its possible connection with Atlantis.
*(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20161210225952/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Taming.html*
(b) https://interesting-africa-facts.com/Africa-Landforms/Atlas-Mountains-Facts.html
(c) https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/18/science/the-mystery-of-hannibal-s-elephants.html
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(f)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
(f) Atlantide (archive.org) (Italian) *
Younger Dryas *
Younger Dryas is also known as Dryas III was a mini Ice Age that lasted from around 10,700 BC until around 9600 BC. It is named after a wildflower called Dryas octopetala that flourished during this relatively short period. In Ireland, the period is known as the Nahanagan Stadial and in Britain as the Loch Lomond Stadial. For about thirteen hundred years the glaciers had been slowly retreating until within a short timespan temperature dropped and they began to advance again. The cause of this cooling is not entirely clear. One view is that a sudden release into the North Atlantic of vast quantities of freshwater that had been contained by huge ice dams is assumed to have closed down the Gulf Stream, resulting in a twelve-hundred-year lowering of global temperatures. There is evidence that the change only took one or two decades. The same threat is said to exist today with the possibility of the melting of the Greenland ice cap. It also seems that this YD cooling ended with the same rapidity.
In 2011 a paper by Nicholas Pinter et al offered a critical review of the evidence available at that time which, from their perspective, did not fully support the YDIH(z).
A recent application of archaeoastronomy by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis led them to conclude that the carved symbols at Göbekli Tepe recorded an encounter involving the explosion or impact of part of Encke’s Comet around 13,000 years ago, which triggered the Younger Dryas Event that provided the impetus for the Neolithic Revolution. Sweatman later expanded their work in his book Prehistory Decoded [1621] and an article on the Ancient Origins website(k). In June 2021, Sweatman had a paper entitled ‘The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: a review of the impact evidence’ published in the journal ‘Earth Science Review’ of the University of Edinburgh(u).
Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey maintain that a globally catastrophic event occurred 13,000 years ago(j). The kernel of their theory is that originally the Earth had two moons that at some later point collided, producing our current Moon, while the remnant of the second one eventually exploded over North America kick-starting what we refer to as the cooler Younger Dryas period. They are adamant that it was not a comet or asteroid that caused the devastation, and so clash with the conclusions of Richard Firestone and his colleagues.
A completely different view is expressed in Rod (Carl) Martin’s latest book [1623], where he proposes that the Younger Dryas ended as a result of a catastrophic event. Is it possible that there were two cataclysmic episodes? John Ackerman, a keen follower of Immanuel Velikovsky claims that there were two such events related to “the capture of the Moon into its current orbit,” marking the beginning and the end of the Younger Dryas period(q).
A somewhat technical paper, published in July 2020, challenges the comet impact theory because of geochemical anomalies, Instead, they argue that the YD event was a consequence of volcanic activity(s), rather than an impact! Martin Sweatman refutes this in a paper on Graham Hancock’s website(i).
In 2015, a paper constraining the impact date to within 100 years using Bayesian statistical analyses, now proposed as 12,835 -12,735 years ago(h).
Coincidentally, Emilio Spedicato independently concluded that it was a cometary impact in the North Atlantic that was responsible for the Younger Dryas. Subsequently, when temperatures rose again it resulted in the flooding of vast areas of low-lying landmasses that in Spedicato’s opinion included Atlantis, which he locates in Hispaniola.
Conflicting evidence regarding the possibility of the Younger Dryas being caused by such an impact is impartially outlined on the internet(a).
The November 2013 issue of the BBC Focus magazine (p.30) had a brief article on the impact theory, noting that the northern hemisphere saw a drop of as much as 15°C around 11,000BC. In the absence of a suitable impact crater of the right age, there is still much scientific scepticism(b).
However, in early 2017, further possible evidence of an impact at the start of the Younger Dryas was offered by a team led by Christopher Moore of the University of South Carolina, when they identified a distinct layer of platinum in the soil that coincided with the start of YD. Commenting on this anomaly Moore noted that “Platinum is very rare in the Earth’s crust, but it is common in asteroids and comets.”(e) In 2019, Moore published further data(m) supporting the extraterrestrial impact theory, based on studies carried out on sediments, which date back 20,000 years, from White Pond Lake, situated in southern Kershaw County, South Carolina. “Other examples of excessive platinum grains have been found across Europe, western Asia, Chile, South Africa(r) and North America.” (n)
In early 2018, two papers were published online(i), reinforcing the YD impact theory and adding evidence that the event resulted in a conflagration that “may have consumed ~10 million km2, or ~9% of Earth’s terrestrial biomass.” Related to this is a paper by Andrew Collins that draws attention to the ‘Usselo horizon’, a charcoal-rich layer of between 1 and 8 inches, found on all continents, indicating widespread fires, now dated to 12,900 years ago(l). An additional paper by Hans Kloosterman offers additional background information on the charcoal-rich layer(ab).
Ice cores from Greenland indicate a further cooling period circa 6200 BC that may be related to the abandonment of many Neolithic settlements during this period. Other periods of abrupt climate change have been identified from 3800 BC to 3500 BC and 2800 BC to 2000 BC.
The fact that Plato’s apparent date for the demise of Atlantis, circa 9600 BC, roughly corresponds with the current, best estimate for the date of the Younger Dryas is interesting but unfortunately not conclusive proof of any direct connection. In the absence of any supportive archaeological evidence, a linkage between Atlantis and the Younger Dryas will have to remain a matter of faith rather than fact. Interesting but inconclusive.
In 2017, Graham Hancock reviewed the Younger Dryas debate over the previous decade in a lengthy essay(v). This was prior to the publication of America Before. He finished with the following comment. “Perhaps the lost civilization that I have spent the last quarter of a century trying to track down had its most significant outpost, possibly even its heartland, in North America in the period BEFORE the Younger Dryas cataclysms of 12,800 to 11,600 years ago?” Hancock is inferring here that there was a single global civilisation, a hyperdiffusionist stance that I consider indefensible.
A short paper by John Patrick Hill offers a theory that requires more than faith to accept it; he wrote “Just over 12 thousand years ago, the world was struck by an immense meteor group. It destroyed all of North America and much of Europe and went weIl beyond……… I found proof to support that the creators of the Giza Three and Stonehenge used the Barringer Crater in Arizona as part of the geometry for their massive structures.” Later he reveals that at “Giza, when one takes the distance between the outside corners of the three large pyramids there, that distance is equal to 0.72 miles, the exact distance (diameter) at Barringer.” An expanded version of his paper is available online(t).
In another paper Hill(aa) says that “the Younger Dryas Meteor Event struck 12.8 thousand years ago and it was so large, it is wrote down not only in geologic records but also in holy books, as Noah’s Flood.”
Recent discoveries in northern Sudan of dozens of skeletons, the majority of whom were killed by flint-tipped arrows, have led to the suggestion(c) they were the result of food shortages resulting from the Younger Dryas that in turn led to warfare over diminished food availability.
I note that Robert Schoch claims that there is no evidence to support the Younger Dryas impact theory, instead, he believes that “it was most likely due to reduced solar activity at that time, a solar shut-down.”(o) Schoch’s wide-ranging critique has been refuted by the Comet Research Group.(p)
In 2020, James Lawrence Powell (1936- ), a noted geologist, author, former college president and museum director entered the Younger Dryas debate with the publication of Deadly Voyager [1911]. In it, Powell offers wholehearted support to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), understandably generating a favourable review from Graham Hancock(w).
In 2020, Tony Petrangelo argued that the Younger Dryas event did not destroy Atlantis, but that it was more compatible with the story of Phaeton(ac).
Even more important, is that Powell’s book induced a number of heavy-duty critics of YDIH, including Michael Shermer to change their opinion(x).
Powell offered a further review of the YD debates in a 2022 paper(y).
(b) https://www.livescience.com/39362-younger-dryas-meteor-quebec.html
(f) https://www.space.com/17676-comet-crash-ice-age.html
(h) https://cosmictusk.com/new-paper-younger-dryas-boundary-impact-date-constrained-within-100-years/
(i) https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/02/a-comet-impact-13000-years-ago-set-fire-to-10-of-the-planet/
(j) https://www.academia.edu/38380799/13k_Theory_Atlantis_Revisited.pdf
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/younger-dryas-0012216
(l) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Lommel.htm
(n) https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/29/world/ice-age-extraterrestrial-impact-scn/index.html
(o) https://www.robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html
(p) https://cosmictusk.com/comet-research-group-responds-to-robert-schoch/
(q) Firmament and Chaos (archive.org)
*(s) https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/31/eaax8587
(t) Archive 6555 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(u) The_Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis_MBS.pdf (ed.ac.uk)
(v) The Younger Dryas Impact research since 2007 – The Cosmic Tusk
(w) https://grahamhancock.com/deadly-voyager/
(x) In praise of intellectual honesty – The Cosmic Tusk
(y) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00368504211064272
(z) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825211000262
(aa) Migration & Diffusion (migration-diffusion.info)
(ac) https://atlantis.fyi/blog/atlantis-and-the-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis
Spedicato, Emilio *
Emilio Spedicato (1945- ) was born in Milan. He graduated in physics and is now working in numerical analysis and applied mathematics. He has held a full professorship at Bergamo University since 1984. In addition to his more conventional academic 
pursuits, he also researches ‘non-standard models of planetary evolution and non-standard interpretation of myth and ancient religions.’
Spedicato has developed a list(a) of ‘54 theses for reconstructing Earth and human history during the catastrophic period 9500 to 700 BC’(l). This list is partly based on the work of Velikovsky, DeGrazia and Ackerman and is intended to be the basis of a larger work in book form. Some of his ideas will be seen as highly controversial such as the genetic manipulation of humans by extraterrestrial visitors. He locates the Garden of Eden and the ‘creation’ of Adam and Eve in the Hunza valley of modern Pakistan(e).
He ventured into further controversial territory with his support for an updated version of Hörbiger’s moon capture theory(f) and endorsement for pole shifts(g)(0) after long periods of stability following encounters with large extraterrestrial bodies. He considers the last of these to have taken place in the 10th millennium BC.
Spedicato, in a series of papers delivered to the Atlantis Conference on Melos in 2005, linked the biblical Exodus with the Flood of Deucalion, which he dates as 1447 BC(d). He contended that these events were connected with the explosion of a large extraterrestrial body over Southern Denmark remembered in Greek tradition as Phaëton. He also claims that a large object impacted or exploded over the Great Lakes ice cover around 10.900 BC(k).
Atlantis has not escaped Spedicato’s attention and he has put forward the Caribbean island of Hispaniola as the home of Atlantis(b), specifically suggesting that Lake Enriquillo in the Cul-de-Sac Depression, which runs from Haiti across the border into the Dominican Republic. Spedicato accepts the possibility of the destruction of Atlantis around 9600 BC and has written an interesting paper(c) that links the demise of Atlantis with a direct asteroidal impact or a close encounter with a planet-sized body. Not without significance is the fact that Hispaniola is not submerged, in spite of the sea level rising hundreds of feet since the very early date proposed by Spedicato for the destruction of Atlantis, which should have sent it even deeper beneath the waves of the Caribbean.
In his paper entitled Was Atlantis in Hispaniola? Arguments in Favour(n) he outlines his belief that “the Atlantis civilisation developed during the terminal phase of the last great glaciation. It was terminated by a catastrophe, of extraterrestrial origin, which led to the now confirmed fast melting of most ices covering North America (north of a line from Seattle to Washington) and northern Europe; this event is now rather precisely dated at circa 9500 BC. He also considers Plato’s ‘muddy shoals’ to be a reference to the Sargasso Sea.
Furthermore, leaving aside the question of submergence altogether, Spedicato does not explain how an Atlantis in the Caribbean could, in 9600 BC, have attacked Greece or Egypt, which did not exist as structured societies at that time.
Even more intriguing is why they would plan such a venture, considering a distance of 10,000 kilometres lay between them.
Spedicato has contributed at least a dozen papers to the Migration and Diffusion website including one on a possible Indian inspiration behind the Giza pyramid complex(h) as well as a paper(i) on the planet known to the Sumerians as Nibiru and today sometimes referred to as Planet X. He controversially claims that a close encounter with Nibiru around 9500 BC ended the last Ice Age and brought about the demise of Atlantis! A difficulty with that idea, is that if the encounter with Nibiru destroyed Atlantis AND ended the Ice Age how could the location where Atlantis was submerged still be marked by mud shoals 9,000 years later when sea levels had risen by 300-400 feet, as confirmed by Plato in Timeaus 25d?
Another radical idea put forward by Spedicato was expressed in a paper delivered to the 2005 Atlantis Conference [629.411], in which he claimed that what he called ‘the ancestors of the Greeks’ had visited Canada. Based on his interpretation of excerpts from the writings of Plutarch, he specifies a region at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River as the point of contact. Manolis Koutlis goes further, suggesting that the Greeks had colonies there, from 1500 BC until 1500 AD. Then in his book In the Shadow [1617] he adds the even more extraordinary claim that Atlantis had been situated on an island at the entrance to the St. Lawrence!
In 2010, Spedicato published Atlantide e L’Esodo (Atlantis and Exodus) which is currently being translated into English.
In February 2015, Spedicato published another paper(j) with the radical proposal that the alignment of the three main Giza pyramids was not intended to be a reflection of the three stars in Orion’s belt according to the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT), as proposed by Gilbert & Bauval[326], but instead were more closely matched to the arrangement of three volcanoes on Mars! He claims that these volcanoes were visible from Earth during Mars periodic close encounters with our planet between 7000 BC and 700 BC, during a 54-year cycle. However, Andrew Collins has also disputed the OCT and has instead offered evidence that the alignment of the three principal Giza pyramids matches more closely the ‘wing’ stars of the Cygnus constellation than the ‘belt’ of Orion! (m).
Later in 2015, the prolific Spedicato published another paper(k) in which he linked Mayan catastrophes with those of Hesiod, Plato and the Bible.
(a) http://www.cartesio-episteme.net/ep8/ep8-spedic.htm
(b) https://www.academia.edu/10973532/ATLANTIS_IN_HISPANIOLA
(c) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(d) https://www.2008-paris-conference.org/mapage13/deucalione-testo-inglese-1-.pdf
(f) https://aisberg.unibg.it/bitstream/10446/316/1/WPMateRi05(2008)SpedicatoPetruzzi.pdf
(g) https://www.unibg.it/dati/bacheca/63/21825.pdf
(h) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=353
(i) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=351
(j) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2015&id=453
(m) (99+) (PDF) Orion: The Eternal Rise of the Sky Hunter | Andrew Collins – Academia.edu
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is a region of the North Atlantic surrounded by ocean currents. Its limits are roughly 70-40° W and 25-35° N. It has a number of remarkable features, (i) it is very salty, (ii) it contains masses of seaweed of the genus ‘Sargassum’, giving the region 
its name, and (iii) it is the place where the European eel migrates to, in order lay their eggs. The spawning habits of the European eel are indeed a mystery!
Wikipedia notes(b) that “The Sargasso Sea may have been known to earlier mariners, as a poem by the late 4th-century author Rufus Festus Avienus describes a portion of the Atlantic as being covered with seaweed, citing a now-lost account by the 5th-century BC Carthaginian Himilco the Navigator.” This early reference is used by supporters of the idea of the possibility of very early visits by Phoenicians or Greeks to America.
Chedomille Mijatovich, the Serbian politician, was probably one of the first to associate the Sargasso Sea with Plato’s ‘shoal of mud’ in a letter to Hyde Clarke.
In 2000, Andrew Collins in an effort to justify his Cuban location for Atlantis needed to find Plato’s ‘shoals of mud’ in the Atlantic and for me, in what seems to have been an act of desperation he decided that the Sargasso Sea fitted the bill [072.42]. Emilio Spedicato, promoting Hispaniola as Atlantis, also opted for the Sargasso as the ‘shoals of mud’. However, nobody has explained how anyone can mistake seaweed for mud!
In 1925, Dr A. Selwyn Brown wrote an article in the New York Herald, which was relayed around the world(a) in which he supported the Sargasso Atlantis theory. Around the same period the American naturalist, William Beebe, following an intensive study of the Sargasso was also reported(b) to have subscribed to the idea of the Sargasso as the location of Atlantis.
It is obvious that the Sargasso Sea is centred to the west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and not over it as implied by some writers, particularly those who want to link it with an Atlantis situated on the MAR. Clearly, Plato’s account of the aftermath of the sinking of Atlantis describes impassable waters due to mud, not seaweed. Contrary to popular belief the Sargasso Sea is not a hindrance to navigation, however, for those under sail, a lack of wind presents a bigger problem.
(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Phoenician_discovery_of_the_Americas
Collins, Andrew
Andrew Collins was born in England in 1957. Several of his earlier books are concerned with psychic questing(v). However, he eventually shifted his focus to a study of alternative history.
Over the past twenty years, he has been investigating the possible existence of ancient advanced civilisations. He has written three books on the subject of pre-history[072][073][074]. His volume on Atlantis has been well received as an example of how the subject should be researched. Although Collins initially thought that Antarctica had been home to Atlantis, he eventually concluded that Cuba was its location and provided a wealth of evidence to support this view in his book, Gateway to Atlantis. David Rohl wrote a sympathetic Introduction for the book and repeated and expanded on his expressed views at a subsequent lecture(h).
What did surprise Collins, was that following the publication of his carefully-argued ‘Gateway’ was that most responses to his book indicated that the dominant theory regarding the location of Atlantis favoured Antarctica!(ac)
Collins also wrote of why his chosen Cuba is a better candidate for the location of Atlantis than the Bahamas(r). He seems to have been reluctant to exclude the Bahamas completely from the Atlantis story. In an article in Atlantis Rising magazine(z), he commented “There is no question that if the Bahamian landmass did once support a prehistoric culture, then it was also present on Cuba as well”.
Collins has recently written another controversial book[075], on the place of the constellation Cygnus in prehistoric consciousness. Arising from this study, it appears that the position of the Cygnus stars correlates more accurately with the Giza pyramids than those of Orion, which was proposed some years ago by Robert Bauval. Incredibly, a fifteen-year-old Canadian boy has produced a comparable theory(e) involving Mayan cities and a star map. The site proposed by him has now been identified, by people who personally know the location, as either an abandoned cornfield or a marijuana crop(f).
In 2018, Gustavo Muniz posted a number of videos on YouTube suggesting an Orion connection with a site in the Amazon Basin(i)!>His ideas were developed into a book, Orion: The Connection between Heaven and Earth [2082].<
However, Collins has not been completely seduced by Bauval’s discovery and prudently remarks that the correlation may just be a coincidence. Jason Colavito has written a brief critique(b) of this book.
In 2002 Collins teamed up with Chris Ogilvie-Herald to write Tutankhamun [1898]. It is a great read involving as it does, unexplained deaths, political intrigue and possible blackmail. Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon are also accused of looting some of the treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb. However, for me, the core weakness in this book is that it is dependent on a claim that the plunder taken by Carter and Carnavon had included papyrus documents, the contents of which allegedly contained material that was still deemed politically sensitive even three thousand years later! Without the papyrus, there is no book.
In 2007, he wrote an article(q) for Alternate Perceptions Magazine reviewing the comet impact theory of Richard Firestone et al and its possible implication for his Atlantis theory.
In 2005, Collins published The Cygnus Mystery[075]in which he explored the significance of the Cygnus constellation in the ancient cultures of America, Egypt and Britain. (a condensed version of the book is available online(s)). Furthermore, in August 2013 he published a paper(c) with Rodney Hale suggesting that the Göbekli Tepe site is probably aligned with the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. This idea has now been expanded on in Collins’ 2014 book, Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods[0983], although his treatment has been heavily criticised as pseudoscience(g).
In a recent paper(t), Andrew Collins disputed Bauval‘s Orion Correlation Theory and instead offered evidence that the alignment of the three principal Giza pyramids matches more closely the ‘wing’ stars of the Cygnus constellation than the ‘belt’ of Orion! Greg Little offered some rather lukewarm support for Collins’ alternative to the OCT(u).
Nevertheless, Little & Collins teamed up as co-authors of Denisovan Origins [1672] in 2019, a literary bromance that has led to another joint offering, Origins of the Gods due for publication in 2022, in which the authors explore “how our ancestors used shamanic rituals at sacred sites to create portals for communication with non-human intelligences”. If that does not sufficiently whet your appetite, the news that the well-known convicted fraudster Erich von Däniken has written the Foreword should clinch it for you.
Collins has made some dramatic claims regarding the significance of Cygnus including the proposal that “The veneration of Cygnus as a bird associated with cosmic life and death goes back 17,000 years to when the constellation occupied pole position in the northern night sky” and perhaps even more extreme, the idea that “Cygnus is at the root of all the world’s religions.”
Collins continues with the Cygnus-Giza connection in a subsequent offering Beneath the Pyramids[631]. This book reveals the tunnels and chambers beneath the Giza pyramids and their possible connection with the “Hall of Records” predicted by Edgar Cayce to be located there and due for discovery.
In a paper(d), co-authored with Rodney Hale, published in April 2016, Collins returned to the theory of a Cygnus-Giza correlation based on a master plan that they claim can now be demonstrated mathematically.
Collins has now moved on to new ground with his Lightquest[895], in which he attempts to offer a new explanation for the UFO phenomena. He claims that what has been described as UFOs are “the product of sentient light forms and light intelligences that co-exist with humanity, and have done so since time immemorial.”
Nevertheless, Collins returns to the subject of Atlantis with a new book, Atlantis in the Caribbean[1197], which is a revised version of Gateway to Atlantis. In it, he follows some of Otto Muck’s ideas and “Explains how Atlantis was destroyed by a comet, the same comet that formed the mysterious Carolina Bays“.
Collins, who proposes Cuba as one of the legendary Hesperides and also the location of Atlantis, has offered a critical response to Emilio Spedicato‘s Hispaniola theory in both Gateway to Atlantis and its revised version Atlantis in the Caribbean, which can be read online(ad).
When the Denisovans were recently identified as an extinct species of hominid, related to the Neanderthals It did not take long for speculative history enthusiasts to jump on board this new bandwagon. Andrew Collins has now published The Cygnus Key[1509], in which he claims to present “compelling evidence showing that the earliest origins of human culture, religion, and technology derive from the Denisovans, the true creators of the lost civilization long known to exist but never before proved.” Jason Colavito also presents a critique of this latest ‘Cygnus’ book in a two-part(m)(n) offering.
While the first Denisovan remains were found in Siberia, now there is evidence that they were also the earliest hominins on the Tibetan Plateau(j).
Before the identification of the Denisovans, Colin Wilson had claimed that the Neanderthals “were the civilising force behind Atlantis”![0336] One cannot help wondering if another early hominid species is discovered, which is quite possible, will they also be claimed as the progenitors of Plato’s lost civilisation?
In this new book Collins also “explains how the stars of Cygnus coincided with the turning point of the heavens at the moment the Denisovan legacy was handed to the first human societies in southern Siberia some 45,000 years ago, catalyzing beliefs in swan ancestry and an understanding of Cygnus as the source of cosmic creation.” Hmm.
Collins and chartered engineer, Rodney Hale have studied the Gunung Padang site in Indonesia, which has generated claims of antiquity greater than that of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. While their investigation raised a number of minor matters, they were unable to endorse the rather extreme dates suggested until more convincing data is available(x).
Collins and Hale have also co-authored a paper on the possible astronomical significance of images on what is known as Pillar 43 or sometimes the ‘Vulture Stone’ at Göbekli Tepe(af). This is not the first such suggestion, but their new interpretation should be considered.
In June 2019, Collins published a two-part article(l) on the Ancient Origins website, in which he explores the possibility of Giza’s Great Pyramid having sound technology incorporated into its construction and that “its Dead-end passage function as an infrasound generator?”
Later in 2019, Collins had his 1996 book, From the Ashes of Angels, banned in Turkey(p), it is not clear yet if he is personally banned as well. Apparently, it all stems from some perceived support that Collins gave to the Kurdish cause in ‘Ashes’! I hope he refrains from mentioning the Armenians. A YouTube video from Collins offers his account of the episode(y).
Collins has seemingly made peace with the Turkish authorities as he is now planning a tour of Karahan Tepe later in 2022(ab). This link has some interesting images.
Andrew Collins maintains a useful website(a) that has plenty of information on his books and lectures. He also offers an extended section relating to his Atlantis theories(o). Nevertheless, he does seem to have retained his interest in metaphysical subjects, which is where he started.
An article on Graham Hancock’s website offers a rebuttal of a series of Collins’ claims(ae).
Collins is now a regular contributor to Ancient Origins. His website lists the articles published there so far(aa).
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/10/did-cosmic-rays-from-cygnus-create-religion.html
(c) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(h) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/mysteries/drohl.htm
(i) Gustavo Muniz – YouTube and Bing Videos (Spanish) *
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/great-pyramid-0012166
(l) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/great-pyramid-0012179
(m) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-the-cygnus-key-by-andrew-collins-part-1
(n) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-the-cygnus-key-by-andrew-collins-part-2
(o) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/Atlantisfile.htm
(p) https://www.reddit.com/r/kurdistan/comments/d6u3zu/another_attack_to_the_kurds_in_turkey_andrew/
(q) https://andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Firestorm.htm
(r) https://andrewcollins.com/page/interactive/bahamas.htm
(s) The Cygnus Mystery (archive.org)
(t) (99+) (PDF) Orion: The Eternal Rise of the Sky Hunter | Andrew Collins – Academia.edu
(v) Psychic Questing (andrewcollins.com)
(w) Andrew Collins – author – books & DVDs
(x) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/gp.htm
(y) Andrew Collins Book Ban in Turkey and Abuse at Gobekli Tepe – Bing video
(z) Atlantis Rising magazine #37 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(aa) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/AO_articles.htm
(ab) Andrew Collins – Earthquest News – January 2022 (ymlp.com)
(ac) QC2K – Andrew Collins (archive.org)
(ae) http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=122922&t=122922
(af) Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 43 – The Vulture Stone (andrewcollins.com)
Clarke, Hyde
Hyde Clarke (1815-1895) was English philologist, engineer and historian who 
suggested[242] in 1885, that “the head seat of the great king (of Atlantis) was possibly in the Caribbean Sea; it may be in St. Domingo (Hispaniola)”. His book can be read online(a).
Clarke also held the view that ‘Atlantis’ was the name of the king rather than the kingdom. Another of his odd suggestions was that the elephants of Atlantis were in fact tapirs! He further claimed that Australia had been known in remote antiquity(d).
>In 1874 Clarke delivered a paper to the Royal Anthropological Institute, in London, in which he claimed that the Caucasus had been home to an Egyptian colony(f). A few decades later Flinders Petrie suggested that the Egyptians had originated in the Caucasus(e). Both cannot be right!<
Jason Colavito reviewed Clarke’s Atlantis ideas in a June 2014 blog(b), the following day, Colavito’s article was republished under the name of author Gabriel Cohen!(c)
(a) https://www.archive.org/stream/examinationlege00clargoog#page/n6/mode/1up
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/hyde-clarkes-unusual-opinions-about-atlantis
(c) See: Archive 2466
(e) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/connexions-between-egypt-and-russia/5CC9FECE9A13B6B336F6F4A57386B2DC Antiquity, Vol. 15, Issue 60, Dec. 1941 p.384-386 *