Latest News
NEWS September 2023
September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]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 »
Kazakhstan
Aryans
Aryan is a term used to denote “peoples speaking Indo-European (or specifically Indo-Iranian) languages, or ancient peoples thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical language from which Indo-European languages are believed to derive.”
An Aryan Atlantis was proposed by Ignatius Donnelly in his famous 1882 book(a), selectively employing biblical texts and a variety of mythologies to support his view.>However, he did not use the term in the racist manner it came to be employed just four decades later.<
Donnelly also promoted the popular 19th-century idea that India was subjected to an invasion by Aryans from the northwest. This idea is still debated today with opponents of the idea, such as the American-born Vedic scholar, David Frawley, who see the Aryans, not as invaders but indigenous Indians[0817]. Graham Hancock quotes Frawley extensively in support of his ancient civilisation views.
The term ‘Aryan’ was also used to describe one of Blavatsky’s imaginary ‘root races’, however, some argue that it was used in a ‘spiritual’ sense, but this is debated.
>The World History Encyclopedia offers an excellent overview of the origins of the Aryans(b) as well as the etymology of the name itself. It explains how “it was first applied as a self-identifying term by a migratory group of people from Central Asia (Kazakhstan) later known as Indo-Iranians (who settled on the Iranian Plateau) and, later, applied to Indo-Aryans (who traveled south to settle northern India).” It seems that this group integrated with the people of the Indus Valley. When, in the 2nd millennium BC, the Indus Valley civilisation declined, supposedly due to climate change, its people moved south. This may also have been exacerbated by a decline in trade, due to internal strife in two of their principal trading partners, Mesopotamia and Egypt.<
Today the term is primarily used to describe the family of languages known as Indo-European. Unfortunately, the word has also a dark side to its history, with its arrogation by the Nazis to describe their ‘master race’.
Horse Racing
Horse Racing in Atlantis is an unexpected reference by Plato (Critias, 117c). It should be pointed out that his reference is, it would appear to be to horse racing as opposed to chariot racing, both of which were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 638 BC, and later were avidly followed in the Roman Empire. It is worth mentioning here that Paul Cartledge, professor of Greek History at Cambridge University informs us that at Olympia and other Greek locations, both the running and horse racing tracks were straight where laps were up and back. This would seem to suggest a foreign source for the Atlantis story rather than it being a concoction of Plato’s.
Originally horses were hunted for food and their hides. Our knowledge at present is that the horse was first domesticated in central Asia around 4500 BC. A 2011 report suggested that Saudi Arabia saw the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago(g). A major study published in May 2018(e) has reinforced this ‘steppe theory’ and importantly has shown how the spread of horse domestication went hand-in-hand with the proliferation of Indo-European languages.
Marsha A. Levine, a leading expert in this field, has pointed out that the earliest existing evidence for the use of the horse, as a means of transport is around 2000 BC, with the Sintashta chariot burials. Sintashta was in the steppes east of the Urals. However, there is evidence that horses were used for riding as early as 4000 BC. This is based on the type of bit wear found on the molars of excavated remains. On the other hand, these early horses were much smaller than their modern successors and in the view of some were too small for riding and so must have been driven. Our knowledge of the prehistoric horse is still developing and subject to considerable debate. A number of researchers have argued for a very early date for the domestication of the horse including the archaeologist, Evan Hadingham, who points to evidence that indicates the existence of this domestication as early as the Upper Palaeolithic[404].
The latest evidence for the domestication of the horse as early as 3500 BC has come from studies carried out in Kazakhstan(a)(c). However, this is put in the shade by the discovery of the 9,000-year-old al-Maqar civilisation in Arabia where evidence for domestication is pushed back to late Neolithic period(b).
A recent paper now offers evidence that equine dentistry was practiced as early as 1150 BC in northern Mongolia(f).
Actual horsemanship has now been dated to as early as 1600 BC in the steppes of Eurasia according to a 2020 report from the South Ural State University(h).>This has now been pushed back to between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago, according to a report from the University of Helsinki. This followed the excavation of burial mounds of the Yamnaya people who had migrated from the Pontic-Caspian steppes to what we now call Romania and Bulgaria. A study of the skeletons found there revealed injuries consistent with horse riding(i).<
There is a record that in 1,340 BC a remarkable Mitanni called Kikkuli was enticed by the Hittite king Suppililuma to become his horse manager. After training the Hittite horses to a high degree, they were instrumental in wiping out the Mitanni.
In the case of Plato’s Atlantis tale, we have not only the horse racing to consider but also the considerable number of chariots referred to. It should be borne in mind that war chariots were only of use in open and reasonably flat terrain. Effective chariots were dependent on spoked wheels, which were not invented until around 2000 BC. This could be a clue to the origin of the Atlantis story.
There is also a reference to a statue in the Temple of Poseidon, the god of horses, of a chariot drawn by six winged horses. (Why would such chariots require wheels?)
Even more bizarre, is Plato’s description of horse baths (Critias 117b), a facility that was highly unlikely around 9600 BC. Furthermore, if we take Plato’s text at face value, all these references to horses clearly rule out America as the location of Atlantis, as horses were not found there until imported by the Spaniards.
Jürgen Spanuth claimed that “Among the racecourses of the Bronze Age still in existence today must be counted the stone circle of Stonehenge which must have been erected by men of the Atlantean culture many centuries before the Atlantis report was written. The racecourse at Stonehenge, in its original, immense dimensions, cannot be an imitation of a Greek stadium.” [017.126]
An interesting website dealing with the relationship between humans and the horse is available(d).
(a) https://www.livescience.com/animals/090305-horse-domestication.html
(b) https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-archaeology-idUSLNE77O01R20110825
(c) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507154107.htm
(d) Archive 2370
(e) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509185446.htm
(g) https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-archaeology-idUSLNE77O01R20110825
(h) https://phys.org/news/2020-07-ancient-evidence-horsemanship-bronze-age.html
(i) https://phys.org/news/2023-03-world-horse-riders-black-sea.html *