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

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    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 »
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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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Leo Frobenius

Gidon, Ferdinand

Ferdinand Gidon (1874-1944), was a French medical historian, who proposed over seventy years ago [0323] the existence of a Bronze Age Atlantis on the Celtic Shelf near Britain. He dated this inundation to between 3000 and 1200 BC. However, this date is too late as the area had already been submerged for some thousands of years during an event known as the Flandrian Transgression, which began around 7000 BC. A further problem with his theory is that since Atlantis, according to Plato, contained mountains, the submersion of the relatively shallow Celtic Shelf would at least have left their peaks still visible, a feature missing from the Celtic Shelf.

Gidon also translated from German and Spanish respectively some of the work of Leo Frobenius [0324] as well as that of Vivante & Imbelloni [0325].

Yoruba People

The Yoruba people of West Africa were first brought to the attention of Atlantis seekers in the early years of the 20th century by Leo Frobenius who placed Atlantis in the Yoruba region of Nigeria. Frobenius believed that the Etruscans had an Atlantean culture and were responsible for the

                             Yorubaland

establishment of Benin around 1300 BC and it was a city in this region that had been described by Plato. In 1910 he published, in German, Atop the Rubble of Classical Atlantis which filled three large volumes.

Apart from some initial media attention Frobenius’ claims received little attention until a century later when an exotic suggestion regarding the Etruscans came from Xavier Séguin, who claimed that they share a common ancestry with the Yoruba of West Africa, as both originated in Atlantis(c), a concept clearly ‘borrowed’ from Frobenius! This attempted revival received little attention.

Related, but unconnected with Atlantis studies are the claims of “Dierk Lange(d), Prof. Dr Emeritus, of Bayreuth University in Germany, who has performed extensive research concerning many West African groups and their origins in the Near East. In the abstract to one of his many essays, “Dierk Lange: Origin of the Yoruba and “The Lost Tribes of Israel”,” Dierk confirms the traditions of a Levantine (Israelite) origin of the Yoruba Nigerians.”(a)(b)

(a) The Bantu Branch of ‘Africans’ are Hebrew Israelites PART I of II – Aria Nasi Research

(b) The Bantu Branch of ‘Africans’ are Hebrew Israelites PART II of II – Aria Nasi Research

(c) http://eden-saga.com/en/survivors-from-atlantis-frobenius-sixteen-gods-oracle-of-fa.html

(d) http://www.dierklange.com

Séguin, Xavier

Xavier Séguin (1949-  ) is the French author of the Eden Saga website(a). We have encountered Séguin in Atlantipedia in relation to a number of subjects. Some of his ideas are, in my opinion, simply daft. For example, he suggests that megalithic dolmens and menhirs can generate vril energy, which can be used to expedite the maturing of wine(b)!

The most exotic suggestion regarding the Etruscans comes from Séguin, who has claimed that they share a common ancestry with the Yoruba of West Africa, as both originated in Atlantis(c), a concept ‘borrowed’ from Leo Frobenius. He also offered a most extreme theory regarding the Olmecs with the claim that they were astronauts. This idea was expressed(d) by Séguin, quoting US astronaut Gordon Cooper [1757]!

However, I considered Séguin to be totally unreliable when I found that he also quoted a fictional character, Professor Mortimer, from a work by the renowned writer, Edgar P. Jacobs, as supposedly uttered by a real scientist(e), in relation to the Pillars of Heracles.

He denies that Atlantis was situated on the floor of the Atlantic, instead he proposes that Atlantis, Punt, Mu and Hyperborea had all been satellites(f)! Similar ideas were put forward Dieter Bremer.

(a) Sources Archives – Eden Saga – english (eden-saga.com)

(b) http://eden-saga.com/en/atlantis-thunder-energy-plants-earth-acupuncture-electric-wires-christened-vril-menhirs.html

(c) http://eden-saga.com/en/survivors-from-atlantis-frobenius-sixteen-gods-oracle-of-fa.html

(d) http://eden-saga.com/en/gordon-cooper-finds-olmecs-deep-knowledge-in-astronautics.html

(e) http://eden-saga.com/en/mythology-deluge-cataclysm-plato-flood-atlantis-location-piri-reis-last-days-in-atlantis.html

(f) https://eden-saga.com/en/mythology-deluge-cataclysm-plato-flood-atlantis-location-piri-reis-last-days-in-atlantis.html

Frobenius, Leo

 

Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), was a German ethnologist and a leading ifrobeu001p1authority on prehistoric art. He travelled extensively in West Africa and published many books on the cultures of the region. He placed Atlantis in the Yoruba region of Nigeria. Frobenius believed that the Etruscans had an Atlantean culture and were responsible for the establishment of Benin around 1300 BC and that it was a city in this region that had been described by Plato.

Jason Colavito has drawn attention to the racism displayed by Frobenius, an example of which is when he declared that the Atlantean civilisation of Yorubaland had been white(d). A report of his 1912 expedition was published and is now available online[1279].

He reported on his discoveries to the German Kaiser, who showed great interest in his work.

Five expeditions gave him enough information to publish a twelve-volume work entitled Atlantis. During his work there Frobenius wrote to friends complaining that local English officials had confiscated many of his finds(c).

In 1910 he published, in German, Atop the Rubble of Classical Atlantis that filled three large volumes. Much of his work is currently being translated into English and French.

Another site(a) reviewing Frobenius’ work also claims that he linked the ancient Yoruba kingdom with that of the Etruscans and suggests a common Atlantean ancestry. The same site backs a central Atlantic location for Atlantis, citing as ‘evidence’ the 18th century Bauche map(b).

Three papers taken from Frobenius’ work have been published on the Atlantisforschung website, with an English translation here(e)(f)(g).

(a) https://eden-saga.com/en/atlantis-american-empire-back-to-europe-etrusque-africa-yoruba-country.html

(b) https://eden-saga.com/en/greek-philosophy-mythology-timeos-critias-plato-s-atlantis.html

(c) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/207225672?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=

(d) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-1911-controversy-over-whether-a-white-atlantis-civilized-black-Africans

(e) Über die Bedeutung: “Atlantis” (Teil I) – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

(f) Atlantis in Nigeria – Leo Frobenius und das Yorubaland – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

(g) About the meaning: “Atlantis” (Part III) – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *

Flora and Fauna of Atlantis

The Flora and Fauna of Atlantis is mentioned in great detail by Plato in Critias;

“Besides all this, the earth bore freely all the aromatic substances it bears today, roots, herbs, bushes and gums exuded by flowers or fruit. There were cultivated crops, cereals which provide our staple diet. And pulse (to use its generic name) which we need in addition to feed us; there were the fruits of trees, hard to store but providing the drink and food and oil which gives us pleasure and relaxation and which we serve after supper as a welcome refreshment to the weary when appetite is satisfied – all these were produced by that sacred island, then still beneath the sun, in wonderful quality and profusion.” (115a-b)

James Bramwell noted how Leo Frobenius was convinced that his chosen Atlantis location of Yorubaland in Nigeria was reinforced by Plato’s description of the flora of his disappeared island [0195.119].

The lack of sufficient detail in the extract from Critias has led to a variety of interpretations. Jürgen Spanuth in support of his North Sea location for Atlantis has claimed [015.68] that during the Bronze Age the snow line in that region was higher than at any other time since the last Ice Age at 1,900 metres. He claims that as a result, grapes and wheat were cultivated there during that period.

The existence of the same species of plants and animals on both sides of the Atlantic has been noted for some time, so when the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR) was discovered in the 19th century and subsequently combined with the realisation that sea levels had dropped during the last Ice Age, it was thought that a stepping-stone/s, if not an actual landbridge, between the continents had been identified. This idea was popular with many geologists and botanists at the beginning of the 20th century, such R.F. Scharff and H.E. Forrest, both of whom also saw the MAR as the location of Atlantis, an idea that still persists today. Emmet Sweeney is a modern writer who also sees the earlier exposed MAR as an explanation for the shared transatlantic biota and is happy to identify the Azores as the last remnants of Atlantis[0700].

Andrew Collins has attempted to squeeze a reference to coconuts out of this text to support his Caribbean location for Atlantis. However, coconuts were not introduced into that region until colonial times(c)Ivar Zapp & George Erikson, driven by similar motivations had made the same claim earlier.

>Dhani Irwanto has noted that DNA analysis of more than 1,300 coconuts from around the world reveals that the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin. (Baudouin et al, 2008; Gunn et al, 2011).(d)<

My reading of the text is that Plato is describing food with which he is personally familiar and is unlikely to have been referring to coconuts.

>Michael Hübner in support of his Moroccan location for Atlantis has drawn attention to the argan tree, native to Southern Morocco, from which a valuable oil is produced. He goes further and claims that the appearance of the fruit of the argan tree may also have been the source of the story of the ‘golden apples’ stolen by Hercules from the Hesperides. Critias 114e tells us how Atlantis “brought forth also in abundance all the timbers that a forest provides for the labours of carpenters”. Even today, across the northern regions of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, woodlands and forests still cover an area of nearly 360,000 square kilometers(e).<

Mary Settegast points out that around 7300 BC there is evidence of crop rotation including cereals at the Tell Aswad site in Syria.

The olive tree thrives best in regions with a Mediterranean climate. Olive trees are mainly found between 25° and 45° N. latitude, while in France, they are only found in its southern Mediterranean region.

Ignatius Donnelly devoted Chapter VI(a) of his Atlantis tome to a review of the Atlantean flora and fauna. The print media at the start of the 20th century kept the general public aware of these theories(b).

Those that believe that Plato’s Atlantis narrative was just an invention to promote Plato’s political philosophy cannot explain the level of detail that is provided relating to the flora and fauna of Atlantis. In Plato’s dialogue Laws, Magnesia, another ideal city-state, which was an invention, had no such embellishment included. For me, the minutiae of the plants and animals noted by Plato in Critias is not what you would expect in a philosophical or political dissertation, but is more in keeping with a factual report.

(a) https://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/ataw106.htm

(b) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/189397134?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=

(c) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtomics/httpblogsscientificamericancomthoughtomics20110801coconuts-not-indigenous-but-quite-at-home-nevertheless/

(d) Coconuts | Atlantis in the Java Sea (atlantisjavasea.com) *

(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_woodlands_and_forests *

Etruscans

The Etruscans were an ancient people of Etruria (now Tuscany) in Italy. They occupied an area somewhere between Rome and Florence Etruscan mapfrom the 8th century BC until incorporated in the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. They do not appear to have been particularly expansionist as the only Etruscan settlement on Sardinia, which was not discovered until our 21st century, on the Tavolara isle off the coast near Olbia(o).

It is thought that they originally came from Asia Minor before 800 BC, a suggestion that originated with Herodotus. This view has been given recent (2007) support by the results of DNA studies carried out at Pavia University. Another study of Etruscan mtDNA estimated “that the genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan culture developed locally, and not as an immediate consequence of immigration from the Eastern Mediterranean shores.” (e).

Stefan Anitei who supports an Anatolian, or more specifically a Lydian, origin for the Etruscans, cited A recent (2007) DNA analysis showed that (the Bos Taurus) cattle in central Italy seem indeed to have originated in modern Turkey and the Middle East. As there is no link between these cattle and others from other European regions, they must have entered the peninsula by sea.” (n).

However, a study published in 2022 has challenged the idea of an Anatolian origin for the Etruscans, instead, it claims that they were “actually descended from pastoralists (sheep herders) who moved into the region from the steppes during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age from approximately 6,000 BC to 3,500 BC.”(v) 

Some decades ago Professor Licinio Glori also supported an eastern Mediterranean origin for the Etruscans(i). However, he has also claimed a common origin for the peoples of the Americas and Europe, including Etruscans, without identifying this shared ancestry(j).

It has also been suggested that the Etruscan culture has shown distinctive Indian influences.(l)

Until their written language can be translated there will remain an air of mystery about them. Even then because of the paucity of material available in their language, it is probable that little will be gleaned from it. Mark Cartwright’s excellent site has further information on the Etruscan script(k) and many articles on different aspects of Etruscan culture. A 2016 report(h) revealed the discovery of a stele that has at least 70 legible Etruscan letters and punctuation marks on it. Hopefully, this find will help to advance the translation of this language.

The site of the ancient city of Chiusi has been assumed by some to be the location of Clusium, the capital of the Etruscan king, Lars Porsena. This suggestion is based on the fact that the two names mean the same, namely ‘closed’. However, Giuseppe Centauro believes that he found the real Clusium near Florence where he identified two concentric walls about 10 miles in circumference. The extensive walls have resonance with Plato’s description of Atlantis. If he is correct, Clusium may at one time have been the biggest city in Italy(f). Centauro is currently seeking permission to excavate there.

At Orvieto, nearly 100km north of Rome, Professor Simonetta Stopponi is investigating the possible location of the Fanum Voltumnae, where the leaders of the Etruscan city-states met every year to discuss policy. This meeting has also got echoes of the regular meeting of the kings of the Atlantean federation.

It is worth highlighting that Tyrrhenia, the Greek name for Etruria, is one of the few places whose location is not disputed and is mentioned by Plato as bordering (Critias 114c & Timaeus 25b) Atlantean territory. It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that south of Etruria on mainland Italy some remnants of Atlantis may yet be identified.

In his recent book[630] Richard W. Welch is quite happy to designate the Etruscans as “the last Atlanteans of which we have much knowledge”. Frank Joseph echoed the same idea, writing that “the Etruscans were themselves nothing more than the late Atlanteans who colonised western Italy, so their surviving material culture offers us a glimpse of Atlantis at its cultural height.”[636.21]

In 1962, the French linguist, Maurice Guignard, claimed[1109] to have deciphered the Etruscan language and also suggested that the Etruscans might have come from Atlantis. Such comments conflict with Plato’s account, which locates the territory of the Atlanteans separate from and further south than that of the Etruscans. 

Confusing matters is a 2006 report from researchers at Stanford University, using “novel statistical computer modelling to simulate demographic processes affecting the population of Tuscany over a 2,500-year time span. Rigorous tests used by the researchers have ruled out a genetic link between ancient Etruscans, the early inhabitants of central Italy, and the region’s modern-day residents.(s)

Recently, a study(t) by a team of scholars from Germany, Italy, the USA, Denmark and the UK, published in 2021 shows that the Etruscans, “were closely related to their italic neighbors, and reveal major genetic transformations associated with historical events.”   However, they also note that “the persistence of a non-Indo-European Etruscan language is an intriguing and still unexplained phenomenon that will require further archaeological, historical, linguistic and genetic investigation.”

The late Steven Sora suggested [0395] that the Etruscans were refugees from their original homeland in Iberia, where he also located Troy/Atlantis. He specified Lisbon, Setubal and Troia, all in modern Portugal, as Trojan/Atlantean territory, conflating the Trojan and Atlantean wars!

The internet offers a valuable site(a) giving a good overview of the Etruscans including a valuable bibliography and collection of related web links.

Another mystery relating to the Etruscans concerns an Egyptian mummy, which was bought in Alexandria and brought to Europe in the mid-19th century. When it was eventually unwrapped Etruscan writing was discovered on the linen!(q)(r)

Professor Natalia Rosi de Tariffi (1907-?), Italian by birth, but lived in Venezuela, has highlighted the many similarities between the Etruscan language and that of Quechua and Aymara spoken in the Andes of South America. In her well-regarded 1969 book, America cuarta dimension [1927] she proposed the migration of the Etruscans FROM America TO Europe.

The controversial Italian researcher, Dr Mario Gattoni Celli, writing in the 1960s proposed that the Etruscans had voyaged to South America, basing his opinion on linguistic and other cultural similarities. This view is apparently supported by Diodorus Siculus (History, Book V, 19+) who refers to the ‘Tyrrhenians’ setting up a colony on an island, with navigable rivers, at a great distance from the inhabited world(c). Adding some confusion to this is the claim that Old World languages had migrated FROM the Americas!!(d) Alf Bajocco wrote a piece in Sykes’ Atlantis magazine on Celli’s ideas(c).

The most exotic suggestion regarding the Etruscans comes from Xavier Séguin who has claimed that they share a common ancestry with the Yoruba of West Africa, as both originated in Atlantis(m)! Séguin quotes the work of Leo Frobenius in support of this contention, highlighting the significance of the number sixteen in both cultures.

>Caleb Howells has written an interesting paper on the gradual fall of the Etruscan civilisation that ended with attacks from the Romans in the south and the Celts in the north(w).<

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190831235749/https://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/

(c) Atlantis, Vol 19. No.1, Feb/Mar 1966

(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20181218003239/http://www.ancient-mysteries-explained.com/language-mysteries.htmlOr See Archive 2607

(e) Origins and Evolution of the Etruscans’ mtDNA (archive.org)

(f) http://archives.dailynews.lk/2004/11/23/fea05.html

(g) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11174-on-the-origin-of-the-etruscan-civilisation/

(h) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160329112847.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ffossils_ruins%2Fancient_civilizations+%28Ancient+Civilizations+News+–+ScienceDaily%29

(i) St. Petersburg Times. Nov. 25 1957

(j) https://www.inmysteriam.fr/anciennes-civilisations-du-nord/similitudes-entre-les-peuples-precolombiens-et-le-peuple-etrusque.html  (French)

(k) https://www.ancient.eu/Etruscan_Language/

(l) https://vediccafe.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-ramayana-in-roots-of-pre-christian.html

(m) https://eden-saga.com/en/survivors-from-atlantis-frobenius-sixteen-gods-oracle-of-fa.html

(n) https://news.softpedia.com/news/Where-Did-the-Etruscans-Originated-54317.shtml

(o) Etruscan settlement found in Sardinia for first time – Culture – ANSAMed.it (archive.org) *

(p) Atlantis, Vol.19, No.3, May/June 1966

(q) https://web.archive.org/web/20160329142153/http://www.dacia.org/history/gara_e.html

(r) http://www.maravot.com/Translation_Zagreb_Mummy.html

(s) https://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/may17/mountain-051706.html

(t) The origin and legacy of the Etruscans: A new study reports genome-wide data of ancient Italian individuals to trace the origins of the Etruscans and their contribution to later populations — ScienceDaily 

(u) Atlantis Rising magazine  #48  At – PDF Archive  

(v) https://greekreporter.com/2022/08/13/dna-study-finds-etruscans-originated-steppes/ 

(w) https://www.thecollector.com/fall-of-the-etruscans/ *

 

Saïs

Saïs was a city on the Nile delta that, according to archaeology, existed at least from 3000 BC. Diodorus Siculus claimed that Saïs had been built by the Athenians before the flood of Deucalion (Histories 5.57). The present settlement is called Sa el Hagar.>According to Frank Joseph(e), Leo Frobenius made this identification a century ago. However, L. Taylor Hansen mistakenly identified Saïs with Port Said! [572.24]<

The Septuagint version of the Bible identifies Saïs with Pelusium, mentioned in Ezekiel 30:12-15. During the 7th century BC it became the capital of the pharaohs of the 26th Dynasty.>Egerton Sykes suggested different dates(f).<

>R. Reese wrote “The ancient city dates back to 3,000 B.C, however, habitation at the site extends back to the pre-dynastic and Neolithic period, from at least 4,200 B.C. It was the provincial capital of the fifth nome of Lower Egypt, known as Sap-Meh. During the twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt, spanning from 732–720 BC, Sais was the seat of power. At that time, it was known as Zau(d).”<

Saïs is the Egyptian city where Solon originally learned of the story of Atlantis. It housed the principal shrine of the Egyptian goddess Neith who has been identified with Athene. The Greek writer Charax of Pergamon (c. 200 AD) reflected this connection when he wrote that the citizens of Saïs referred to themselves as Athenai and Diodorus Siculus states that the Athenians claim to have originally come from Saïs. There is an ancient if disputed, tale that Cecrops, the first king of Athens established the city with colonists from Saïs.

This of course conflicts with Plato, who, in Timaeus (23e) informs us that the city of Saïs (not Egypt, as some assume) was founded one thousand years after the city of Athens or 8,000 years before Solon’s visit. This, however, creates a problem, as it suggests that Athens was founded at the same time that it fought and defeated a powerful long-established invader!

No remains of the temples, with their celebrated inscribed pillars, have as yet been discovered. However, excavations are proceeding under the sponsorship of the Egypt Exploration Society and the University of Durham led by Dr Penelope Wilson(b).

>A 2021 article(c) reviewing the history of Saïs noted that The city enjoyed a high period under the 26th Dynasty Kings (664-525), who made Sais their Capital until the Persian invasion of Cambyses. It continued to exist down into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods BC. In the last two thousand years, however, Sais declined and was largely forgotten, its temples and walls demolished, its remains pilfered. Today nothing much remains except a tiny village called Sa el-Hagar, some garbage heaps and a few scattered ruins.”<

The whole matter of the relevance of Saïs to the Atlantis story has been challenged by a theory on the Internet(a) that Saïs and Tanis were in fact the same location. A starting point is the fact that the current village of Sa el Hagar adjacent to the ruins of Saïs has a counterpart at Tanis where there is a village called San el Hagar. Drawing on the writings of Strabo, Herodotus and the Bible some have concluded that the two cities were one. Immanuel Velikovsky proposed this idea in his Ramses II and His Time [832.209].

(a) https://h2g2.com/forums/A148907/conversation/view/F19585/T7572591/page/1/

(b) https://www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/sais.html

(c) https://www.ancientscribbles.com/2021/01/ruins-of-sais-and-temple-where-to-be-found.html (link broken) *

(d) The Pharaonic Royal City of Sais Leaves Few Clues for Researchers | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)  *

(e) Atlantis Rising  Magazine #20  *

(f) Sykes’ Atlantis AT142 p.47  *