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NEWS October 2024
October 2024 Hi to everyone I’m taking a break during the first two weeks of October, so there will be minimal activity on the site apart from the ongoing project of replacing broken links. Back Soon, Tony September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we […]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 »
Holy Land
French Atlantology
French Atlantology can be traced back to at least the 16th century when Jean de Serres was probably the first to propose that the Holy Land was in fact Atlantis. However, even earlier, Pierre d’Ailly (1350-1420) argued that Plato’s 9,000 ‘years’ were a reference to lunar cycles, offering an implicit acceptance of the reality of Atlantis.
Whichever starting point is used it is clear from the list below that the French contribution to the study of Atlantis deserves a full volume to do it justice. Although many of those included have only made brief references to Atlantis, in fact, a few are sceptics, but collectively they offer an interesting body of work. My lack of French precluded me from offering more extensive information in most of the individual Atlantipedia entries.
A look at the indexes of Atlantipedia or Thorwald C. Franke‘s Kritische Geschichte der Meinungen und Hypothesen zu Platons Atlantis [1255] can provide a rough overview of the extent of French input to atlantology.
Pierre Lagrange published an extensive paper Les controverses sur l’Atlantide (1925-1940)(a) (The Atlantis Controversies 1925-1940) in which he reviews the Atlantis debates that raged in the early 20th century in France.
Also See: Robert Argod, Paul Aucler, Germaine Aujac, Philippe Aziz, Jean Silvain Bailly, Charles César Baudelot de Dairval, Pierre Benoit, Victor Berard , Alphonse Berget, Etienne Felix Berlioux, Jean-Louis Bernard, Jean-Marie Beuzelin, Eugene Bodichon, Alain Bombard, Jacques-Julien Bonnaud, Bory de Saint Vincent, Olivier Boura, Edouard Brasey, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Philippe Buache, Pierre Buffault, Georges-Louis Buffon, Ferreol Butavand, Jean-Marcel Cadet, Emile Mir Chaouat, Louis Charpentier, Michel-Alain Combes, Paul Couissin, Jean-Leopold Courcelle-Seneuil, Antoine Court de Geblin, Fernand Crombette, Guilleaume Delaage, Jean-Claude Delamethrie, J.B. Delisle deSales, Jean-Pierre Deloux, Jean Deruelle, Roger Devigne, Charles DeBrosses, Leopold deFolin, Leon de Rosny, Adolphe Dureau De la Malle, Henri D’Arbois de Jubanville, Marie-Armand d’Avezac, Jean d’Eraines, Antoine Fabre d’Olivet, Roger Elefant, Henri Estienne II (Stephanus), Roger Facon, Louis Guillaume Figuier, Lionel Filipoff, Jean-Albert Foex, Fortia d’Urban, Chantal Foucrier, Nicolas Freret, Paul Gaffarel, Jean Gattefosse, Rene-Maurice Gattefosse, Gautier of Metz, Louis Emile Gentil, Lucien Geradin, Louis Germain,Therese Ghembaza, Francois Gidon, Antoine Gigal, Pierre Louis Ginguene, Dominique Godron, Sylvain de Golbery, Jacques Gossart, F.P.J. Gosselin, Rene Guenon, Maurice-Erwin Guignard, Amedee Guiraud, Ernest Theodore Hamy, Jacques Hebert, Jean-Michel Hermans, Hans-Peny Hirmenech, Marcel Homet, Pierre Daniel Huet, Louis Jacolliot, Leonce Joleaud, Jean Francois Jolibois, Dominique Jongbloed, J.B. de LaBorde, Gustave Lagneau, Pierre-Andre Latreille, Louis de Launay, Jacques Lebeau, Andre-Pierre Ledru, Paul le Cour, Francois de la Mothe leVayer, Jacques de Mahieu, P.G. Mahoudeau, Rene Malaise, Michel Manzi, Jean Markale, Bernard Marque, Charles Frederic Martins, Thomas-Henri Martin, Jean Mazel, Edme Mentelle, Roger Mermet, Louis Millette, Pierre Mille, Michel de Montaigne, A-C Moreau de Jonnes, Alain Moreau, Theophile Moreux, Gabriel de Mortillet, Jean Emile Mourey, Phocion Negris, Auguste Nicaise, Jerome Nickles, Claude-Mathieu Olivier, Enrique Onffroy de Thoron, Abraham Ortelius, Andre de Paniagua, Fabien Pardo, Jean-Pierre Patznick, Eugene Pegot-Ogier, Isaac La Peyrere, Francois Placet, Georges Poisson, Guillaume Postel, G.T.F. Raynal, Onesime Reclus, Albert Rivaud, Fernand Robert, Godefroy de Roisel, Claudius Roux, Leonard Saint-Michel, Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Francois de Sarre, Jean Seimple, Jean de Serres, Pierre Termier, Charles Tissot, J.P. de Tournefort, Ivan Tournier, Rene Treuil, Sylvain Tristan, Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, Rene Verneau, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Louis-Claude Vincent, Jean-Frederick de Waldeck,
(a) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320471002_Les_controverses_sur_l%27Atlantide
Eys, Peter van
Peter (Petrus) Van Eys was an 18th-century Dutch scholar, who wrote in his 1715 Ph.D. dissertation [1222] on Plato, of the connections he perceived between Moses and the story of Atlantis. This led him to conclude that Atlantis had been situated in the Holy Land, a view popular until that time.
>Atlantisforschung, commenting on Van Eys, concluded(a) that “it should be noted that the heyday of the ‘Atlantis in the Holy Land’ thesis’ was already over in his day. It is true that in 1826 – a year before the publication of his doctoral thesis – the ‘dissertation sur le Critias de Platon’ by the French scholar Claude-Mathieu Olivier appeared, who took the view that Plato’s Atlantis report basically represents a description of events from the early days of the Jewish people. However, these and similar writings of the 18th century only represented the short-lived renaissance of an already outdated ‘Bible-true view of Atlantis’.”<
(a) Peter van Eys – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Scharbau, Heinrich
Heinrich Scharbau (1689-1759) was a German theologian and bibliophile. He is reputed to have located Atlantis in the
Holy Land in his Observationes Sacrae[1405], an idea that was popular, with some, in his day.
Bonnaud, Jacques-Julien
Jacques-Julien Bonnaud (1710-1792) was a French abbot with a PhD in theology and law. In his 1786 book[0967], Hérodote historien du people hébreu sans le savoir (Herodotus, unknowingly the historian of the Hebrew people), he expressed the view that Plato’s Atlantis story was just a distorted description of the Holy Land. Bonnaud was killed during the 1792 September massacres of the French Revolution.
Fabricius, Johann Albert
Sweden
Sweden was claimed to be the location of Atlantis by Olaus (Olaf) Rudbeck in the 17th century. Before him another Swede, Johannes Bureus, expressed similar views. His friend Carl Lundius supported Rudbeck’s theories, but received none of the acclaim.
In the 18th century Carl Friedrich Baër was happy to follow a fashion, which placed Atlantis in the Holy Land. I am not aware of any major Swedish contribution to Atlantology in the 19th century.*However, the following century saw a number of Swedish researchers make valuable contributions to the subject.*
The discovery of the Mid Atlantic Ridge led René Malaise and Hans Pettersson to suggest the Azores as remnants of Atlantis, an idea still popular today. Around the same time Gunnar Rudberg proposed that Syracuse in Sicily had inspired some of Plato’s description of Atlantis. Arvid Högbom advocated the North Sea as the location of Atlantis in 1915, long before Jürgen Spanuth. In the same region Nils Bergquist opted for the Dogger Bank as has Ulf Erlingsson.
More recently, we seem to have come full circle as Bertil Falk has revived some of Rudbeck’s ideas(a) and a short illustrated 2007 paper (updated 2015)(b) by Robert Fritzius also added some additional modern support. However, for something quite different we have Carl Festin promoting a Mediterranean location.
*Nils-Axel Mörner and Bob Lind, two controversial researchers, have proposed, in a number of papers, that a Bronze Age trading centre existed in southeast Sweden, which had links with the Mycenaeans, Minoans and Phoenicians in the Mediterranean. They suggest that ancient references to Hyperborea may have been generated by this trade. However, although they do not associate Hyperborea with the story of Atlantis, they delivered their theories in papers presented to the Atlantis Conferences of 2008 [750.685] and 2011(c). They also touch on a number of other peripheral subjects including Cygnus, archaeoastronomy and amber. Similar views on early Baltic trade with the Mediterranean have been expressed elsewhere(d).*
(a) https://www.vof.se/folkvett/ar-1993/nr-4/platons-atlantis-diktning-som-tagits-pa-allvar/ (Swedish)
(b) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20100807201746/https://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/vel/atlantis.htm
(c) https://file.scirp.org/Html/1-1140054_59543.htm
Israel
Israel and the Sinai Peninsula are promoted(a) as the location of Atlantis by Jaime Manuschevich. His contention is based on what he claims were the different geographical perceptions of the Egyptians and Greeks that led to Plato misinterpreting Solon’s notes and erroneously placing Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. He presented his radical views at the 2005 Atlantis Conference.
On his website, Manuchevich outlines the reasoning behind his theory(b) in a series of blogs. He also offers further insights in an old Atlantis Rising forum(c).
More tangible but no more credible is the site of Atlit-Yam of the coast of Israel, which the media insist on referring to as “Israel’s Atlantis”. Atlit-Yam is one of six “marvelously preserved” prehistoric settlements running along the Israeli coastline from Haifa to Atlit that were submerged roughly 7,000 years ago(e).
Ryan Pitterson, the author of Judgement of the Nephilim [1620], contends that Atlantis was situated on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Galilee and currently occupied by Israel. The region is home to Gilgal Refaim, an archaeological site consisting of several concentric stone walls with demonstrable astronomical alignments. In a US promotional radio interview, the subject of Atlantis was touched on by Pitterson and was later highlighted by the UK’s Express newspaper with the hackneyed ‘Atlantis Found?’ headline(d).
Between the 16th and the 19th centuries a number of commentators added a theological element to the search for Atlantis by identifying it with the Holy Land.
(a) http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis (link broken)
(b) Background on Why Israel Was Atlantis (II) | Atlantis is Israel (wordpress.com)
(c) Atlantis Rising: Atlantis in Israel (archive.org)
(e) https://www.timesofisrael.com/remains-of-neolithic-atlantis-found-off-haifa-coast/ *
Serres, Jean de
Jean De Serres (1539-1598) was a French historian, who was also known as Serranus. He was a Protestant pastor of Nismes, but his learning has been described as “very inaccurate”. He produced a Latin translation of Plato’s Dialogues in the style of Ficino.
In 1578 Serranus was probably the first to suggest that Atlantis was located in what was referred to as the Holy Land, later Palestine and that the Flood of Noah had destroyed it.[1652]
>There is some dispute regarding whether Serranus had specified a location for Atlantis that he favoured. Thorwald C. Franke has suggested that Pierre Vidal-Naquet had erroneously implied that Serranus had opted for America or the Holy Land as Atlantis. Nevertheless, what Franke makes much clearer is that Serranus was in no doubt about the reality of Atlantis when he wrote;
“So the narration of this entire dialogue is completely historical … … … not as a mythical commentary, but as a bare and simple historiography … … … Plato rightly denies that it is a myth , and on the other hand confirms that it is true logos …” (a)<
(a) Jean de Serres (Serranus) – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term used to refer to that part of the eastern Mediterranean that the Old Testament records as having been given to the Israelites by God. It is now comprised of Israel, Palestinian territory, along with parts of Jordan and Lebanon.
The Holy Land was suggested by Serranus (Jean de Serres) in 1570 as the location of Atlantis. This idea was later echoed by Gerardus Johannis Vossius and Carl Fredrich Baër who was Swedish but lived in France during the 18th century. Another Swede, Johannes Eurenius also placed Atlantis in Holy Land in his 1751 book.>Peter Van Eys, a Dutchman, also favoured the idea in a 1715 dissertation [1222]. Further support came from the German scholar Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736).<Another 18th-century scholar, Jacques Julien Bonnaud was of the opinion[0967] that when Plato wrote about Atlantis, he was imperfectly describing the Holy Land! His book, Hérodote historien du peuple hébreu sans le savoir is available as a free ebook(a).
>Atlantisforschung, commenting on Van Eys, concluded(c) that “it should be noted that the heyday of the ‘Atlantis in the Holy Land’ thesis’ was already over in his day. It is true that in 1826 – a year before the publication of his doctoral thesis – the ‘dissertation sur le Critias de Platon’ by the French scholar Claude-Mathieu Olivier appeared, who took the view that Plato’s Atlantis report was basically represents a description of events from the early days of the Jewish people. However, these and similar writings of the 18th century only represented the short-lived renaissance of an already outdated ‘Bible-true view of Atlantis’.”<
In recent times a more radical view has been proposed by Professor Jaime Manuschevich who has identified modern Israel together with the Sinai Peninsula as the true site of Atlantis.
Ryan Pitterson, the author of Judgement of the Nephilim [1620], contends that Atlantis was situated on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Galilee and currently occupied by Israel. The region is home to Gilgal Refaim, an archaeological site consisting of several concentric stone walls with demonstrable astronomical alignments. In a US promotional radio interview the subject of Atlantis was touched on and was later highlighted by the UK’s Express newspaper with the hackneyed ‘Atlantis Found?’ headline(b).
(a) https://books.google.ie/books?id=QQooAAAAYAAJ&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=y (French)
(c) Peter van Eys – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Eurenius, Johannes Jacobi (L)
Johannes Jacobi Eurenius (1688-1751) was a Swedish pastor who wrote Atlantica Orientalis[1320], published in 1751, in which he located Atlantis in the Holy Land and argued forcefully against Rudbeck’s Swedish location. In the same book he devoted 140 pages arguing that the Norsemen were descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel!