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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 »
Iain Stewart
Stewart, Iain
Iain Stewart (1964- ) is a Scottish geologist and former child actor. Stewart lectured on geology at the University of Plymouth and now is a senior lecturer in Geography and Earth Sciences at Brunel University. In 2007 a newly identified species of ant, Cerapachys iainstewarti, was named after him, when it was discovered during the filming of a TV programme presented by him.
However, he gave up his acting career to study geology and geography and eventually received a PhD. No doubt assisted by his acting experience Dr Stewart has gone on to present a number of science programmes on television. The first of which was Helike: The Real Atlantis (2002), in which he proposed that the submergence of Helike was the inspiration for elements of Plato’s Atlantis story(a).
In 2014, he updated the article providing interesting information regarding the effects of earthquakes in Greek history, concluding with a reiteration of his support for Helike as an important influence on the development of Plato’s story of Atlantis. He returned to the subject again in June 2015(b).
Stewart was a member of the steering committee of the 2008 Atlantis Conference held in Athens.
(a) https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/atlantis_01.shtml
(b) See: Archive 2571
Earthquake *
An earthquake, not a volcanic eruption resulted in the inundation of Atlantis according to Plato’s account. Although, for those who believe that the destruction of ancient Santorini was the inspiration behind Plato’s Atlantis story, it is not difficult to imagine an earthquake accompanying an eruption such as that which occurred on Thera in the 2nd millennium BC, particularly in an area that had been prone to frequent earthquakes over thousands of years.
My reading of Plato’s description of the demise of Atlantis is that there is no suggestion whatsoever of a volcanic eruption causing its destruction, which rules out the Minoan Hypothesis. Instead, Plato describes it as sinking into a shallow watery grave following an earthquake. Many commentators have suggested that this was the result of a tsunami generated by the earthquake, which can be a common occurrence. Usually, flood waters created by tsunamis eventually return to the sea, exposing the land again. So I have concluded that the most likely explanation is that Atlantis sank as a result of liquefaction, which can accompany earthquakes, depending on the type of soil upon which structures have been built.
Stavros Papamarinopoulos at the 2005 Atlantis Conference highlighted(h) the part played by earthquakes in the description of the ancient Athenian Acropolis in the Atlantis narrative, which he saw as a part of a 50-year ‘seismic storm’ which ravaged the Eastern Mediterranean around the 12th century BC [629.499]. Amos Nur & Eric H. Cline have written about this period of intense seismic activity in a paper on the Academia.edu website(l).
Later, in 365 AD, a massive earthquake near Crete, killed thousands, caused damage in Alexandria and submerged the Roman city of Neapolis on the east coast of Tunisia, which has only recently been rediscovered(j). On Crete, some land was uplifted by as much as 30 feet.
However, earthquakes in the region have continued ever since. Dr. Iain Stewart recounts how an earthquake in Greece in the 5th century BC led to the death of 20,000 Spartans(i).
Earthquakes were once thought to be a form of divine retribution, so when an earthquake in 1570, caused death, damage, and the alteration of the River Po’s course, ‘infallible’ Pope Pius V declared it to be the consequence of god’s wrath against the Jews!(b)
A Ph.D. Dissertation by Jamie Rae Bluestone investigates early understanding of earthquakes, which inevitably touches on the Atlantis story(a).
A recent paper by Marc-Andre Gutscher discussed the Cadiz subduction zone, which appears to be ‘locked’ and consequently liable to generate very strong earthquakes over long return periods. Gutscher offered evidence of deposits dated to 12000 BC which ‘may correspond to the destructive earthquake and tsunami described by Plato’. However, he recognised that Plato describes a Bronze Age society, while Spartel Island in the Strait of Gibraltar would only have been inhabited by ‘simple fishermen’ unlikely to have merited a mention in the records of the Egyptian priests.
In the Mediterranean, the Aegean and Turkey are the most seismically active, followed by Italy (including Sicily)(f) and North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia. There is a European Earthquake Catalogue that graphically illustrates earthquake activity over the past 1,000 years(e). Italy is also home to most of the active volcanoes in the Med.
Ben Davidson, promotes the idea that earthquakes are caused by solar activity (c) and offers what he considers compelling evidence on a YouTube clip(d).
Up-to-date earthquake information is available on the Geofon website(g).
A recent (April 2022) report(k) offered evidence “For the biggest earthquake in human history”……. “a terrifying magnitude-9.5 megaquake that caused a 5,000-mile-long (8,000 kilometers) tsunami and prompted human populations to abandon nearby coastlines for 1,000 years.
The earthquake struck about 3,800 years ago in what is now northern Chile when a tectonic plate rupture lifted the region’s coastline. The subsequent tsunami was so powerful, it created waves as high as 66 feet (20 meters) and traveled all the way to New Zealand, where it hurled car-size boulders hundreds of miles inland, the researchers found.”
[The words ‘seismology’ and ‘epicentre’ were coined in 1858 by an Irishman, Robert Mallet (1810-1881)]
(b) https://www.newser.com/story/211354/medieval-quake-rocked-city-moved-big-river-forever.html
(c) https://www.suspicious0bservers.org/
(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBvo7lvf
(e) https://www.emidius.eu/SHEEC/catalogue/
(f) https://gisetc.com/european-earthquake-risk-concentrated-around-the-mediterranean/
(g) https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/eqinfo/eqinfo.php
(i) https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/atlantis_01.shtml
(j) Submerged Ancient Roman City Of Neapolis Discovered In Tunisia (archive.org) *
(k) Scientists find evidence for biggest earthquake in human history | Live Science
(l) (99+) 2000 Nur and Cline JAS “Poseidon’s Horses” article | Eric H Cline – Academia.edu
Achaeans *
Achaean is a term that has been applied in a variety of ways over the past 4,000 years to identify different groups and geographical areas. Originally it described the first of the Greek-speaking peoples who arrived on mainland Greece around 2000 BC. Homer also referred to them as Achaioi as well as Argives and Danai (Strabo 8.6.5). Achaioi was probably the Anatolian name for them. Argives refers to the inhabitants of Argos and the Danai were the descendants of the Egyptian Danus who moved to Argos. Homer used Danai as a general term applied to all Greeks. Similarly, it is quite possible that Atlantis and the individual members of their alliance had each been known by a number of different names.
The Achaeans were the founders of the city of Mycenae, in the North-Eastern Peloponnese, which gave its name to the Mycenaean civilisation of Late Bronze Age Greece (1700-1200 BC). There is no consensus regarding their origin. There is some agreement that the Hittites knew them as Ahhiyawa. Rodney Castleden expands on this idea in his Mycenaeans[226]. Helike, one of their cities, was destroyed in 373 BC, by inundation following an earthquake in a similar manner to the destruction of Atlantis as described by Plato.Iain Stewart also supports Helike, the former capital of the Achaean League, as the most likely inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis story(b).
Today Achaea is the name of an administrative area of Greece.
Marin, Minella & Schievenin in The Three Ages of Atlantis claim that the Egyptians and the Hittites referred to the Achaeans as the Sea Peoples [972.267]! In common with many, Iman Wilkens maintains[0610] that ‘Achaean’ means ‘watermen’ or ‘Sea People’(a), which has other obvious implications. The most popular specific identification is with those that the Egyptians referred to as the Ekwesh.(c)
Some writers such as Jürgen Spanuth[015] and more recently Felice Vinci[019] have argued strongly in favour of the controversial theory that the Achaeans were a Baltic tribe that migrated south.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20191121230959/https://www.troy-in-england.co.uk