Manolis Koutlis

St. Lawrence River

Published September 26, 2019

The St. Lawrence River>was suggested as the site of an ancient Greek colony by Verplanck Colvin (1847-1920), an American lawyer, in a lecture^(a) to the Albany Institute of Boston in 1893. He based this idea primarily on his interpretation of Plutarch’s On the Apparent Face in the Moon’s Face.

It was over a century later when the St. Lawrence River<unexpectedly became an Atlantis candidate in 2018 when Manolis Koutlis published In the Shadow ^[1617], in which he claims the existence of Greek colonies in Canada as early as 1500 BC. However, at the 2005 Atlantis Conference, Emilio Spedicato presented a paper ^[629.411], in which he also claimed that the the St. Lawrence region had been visited by what he described as “the ancestors of the Greeks”. Both writers cite Plutarch in support of their contentions. While these conclusions may be the result of ambiguity and/or translation problems, in my opinion the strongest arguments against their claims are (1) There is no archaeological evidence to support the idea of a Greek colony in the region over hundreds of years, (2) A Greek colony in North America lasting that long would not have been ignored by the classical writers of the period – but it has. (3) The Greeks only knew three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa and (4) How does Koutlis explain how or why would a Greek Atlantis situated in the mouth of the St. Lawrence launch an attack on Athens or Egypt?

>^(a) Atlantis,Vol.23, No.3,May/June, 1970<

Tagged Albany Institute, Atlantis Conference 2005, Canada, Emilio Spedicato, Manolis Koutlis, Plutarch, St. Lawrence River, Verplanck Colvin

Greek Colonisation *

Published July 19, 2019

Greek Colonisation is something of misnomer on two counts. First of all is the fact that there was no unified Greek state until the time of Alexander the Great. Instead the territory was fragmented into a number of competing city- states (poleis) that formed shifting alliances to meet the exigencies of the day.

Secondly, the term ‘colonisation’ did not mean the same then as it does today. Individual city states had their own expansion ambitions, which were generally concerned with trade rather than territory. It seems that most of the colonies began as trading posts, known as emporia^(a), some developing into towns, others grew into urban centres and even established colonies of their own.

In the first millennium BC, some of the Greek city-states gradually expanded their influence^(c) eastward into Asia Minor and the Black Sea and westward along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, eventually founding Massalia (modern Marseilles), which established emporia in eastern Spain.

Some writers, such as Henriette Mertz, have proposed that the ancient Greeks travelled as far as America and that Homer’s story of Odysseus was a retelling of such a voyage^(k). More recently, Minas Tsikritsis has claimed that the Greeks had contact with North America, at least as far back as 86 AD!^(d) Some time later he expanded on the idea in a paper published on the Researchgate website^(e). Manolis Koutlis went further in his book, In the Shadow: The Greek Colonies of North America and the Atlantic 1500 BC -1500 AD ^[¹⁶¹⁷^].

Even more extreme is the odd claim by Lonko Kilapan that ancient Greeks colonists settled in Chile and whose descendants are known now as Mapuche and earlier as Araucans or Araucanians^(f) . Michael Issigonis has championed the idea of early Greeks in South America and elsewhere on the Academia.edu website^(g)^(h).

Tara MacIsaac published an article⁽ⁱ⁾ supporting this idea of ancient Greeks in South America, apparently influenced by Enrico Mattievich and earlier comments by José Imbelloni.

The greek-thesaurus.gr website offers three pages of images of artefacts found in the Americas that can be interpreted as evidence of ancient Greek influence in the region(j). The compiler claims that “If these pictures are not proofs for the existence of the ancient Greeks in America the word “proof” has lost it’s meaning.”

The Phoenicians had their own city-states such a Tyre, Sidon and Byblos. They established ‘colonies along north Africa, and Spain. They competed with the Greeks, particularly in the central Mediterranean, where at one point they shared Sicily. Settlers from Tyre founded Carthage, which in turn became more powerful than and independent of its parent city and became more belligerent, eventually engaging in a series of wars with Rome, which it lost.

There is much more relevant information to be found on the excellent Ancient History Encyclopedia website^(b) .

^(a) https://www.academia.edu/1505105/The_origins_of_Greek_colonisation_and_Greek_polis_some_observations

^(b) https://www.ancient.eu/edu/

^(c) https://www.ancient.eu/Greek_Colonization/

^(d) https://canada.greekreporter.com/2012/04/21/researcher-claims-ancient-greeks-made-it-to-america-before-columbus/

^(e) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321319687/download

^(f) THE UNKNOWN HELLENIC COLONIZATION.THE CASE OF THE ARAUCANS OF CHILE (archive.org) *

^(g) https://www.academia.edu/9066795/Did_the_Mapuche_of_Chile_travel_from_Homeric_Age_Greece

^(h) https://www.academia.edu/32921347/ANCIENT_GREEKS_TRAVELLED_WORLDWIDE

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://web.archive.org/web/20220608023046/https:/www.theepochtimes.com/ancient-greek-legend-seems-to-describe-a-place-in-peru-early-contact_1362438.html

^(j) https://www.greek-thesaurus.gr/Ancient-Greeks-existence-America.html

^(k)ANCIENT GREEKS IN AMERICA? (archive.org)

Tagged Alexander the Great, Araucans, Black Sea, Byblos, Carthage, Chile, city-state, emporia, Enrico Mattievich, Greek Colonisation, Henriette Mertz, Jose Imbelloni, Lonko Kilapan, Manolis Koutlis, Mapuche, Massalia, Michael Issigonis, Minas Tsikritsis, Odysseus, Phoenicians, Sicily, Sidon, Spain, Tara MacIsaac, Tyre

Canada

Published October 2, 2018

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/

^(c)ENSKIA (archive.org)

^(d) https://canada.greekreporter.com/2012/04/21/researcher-claims-ancient-greeks-made-it-to-america-before-columbus/

^(e) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/greek-scientists-claim-plutarch-recorded-ancient-greek-voyages-to-canadian-colony

^(f) Atlantis,Vol.23, No.3,May/June, 1970

^(g) https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/lectures/plutarch-moonface.pdf

^(h) Medieval Coin in Canada Challenges Story of North American Discovery | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net) *

Tagged 2005 Atlantis Conference, Baffin Island, Brian Johnston, Canada, Emilio Spedicato, Greenland, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Henriette Mertz, Hispaniola, Ian A. Fox, Ioannis Liritzis, Jason Colavito, Lucio Russo, Manolis Koutlis, Minas Tsikritsis, Ontario, Plutarch, Samuel Poe

Spedicato, Emilio *

Published June 11, 2010

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 10^th 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

^(e) https://www.emiliospedicato.it/geography-and-numerics-of-eden-kharsag-and-paradise-sumerian-and-enochian-sources-versus-the-genesis-tale/

^(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

^(k) https://rinabrundu.com/2015/10/25/dal-nuovo-sito-del-professor-emilio-spedicato-the-first-of-the-four-mayan-catastrophes-and-implications-on-biblical-statements/

^(l) https://www.scribd.com/document/12394803/54-theses-for-reconstructing-Earth-and-human-history-during-the-catastrophic-period-9500-to-700-BC

^(m) (99+) (PDF) Orion: The Eternal Rise of the Sky Hunter | Andrew Collins – Academia.edu

⁽ⁿ⁾ Spedicato (archive.org)

^(o) Wayback Machine (archive.org)

Tagged 2005 Atlantis Conference, Adrian Gilbert, Andrew Collins, catastrophism, Cygnus, Deucalion, Emilio Spedicato, Exodus, Garden of Eden, Giza, Hispaniola, Hörbiger, Ice Age, Immanuel Velikovsky, John Ackerman, Manolis Koutlis, Mars, Migration and Diffusion, Nibiru, OCT, Orion, Orion Correlation Theory, Phaeton, Planet X, Plutarch, Robert Bauval, Sargasso Sea, St. Lawrence River

Plutarchus, Mestrius

Published June 10, 2010

Mestrius Plutarchus (c. 46 – 119 AD), more generally known as Plutarch, was a Greek biographer and historian who produced an impressive 227 works. His most important being Parallel Lives⁽^a).

Although he wrote of Atlantis as if a historical fact, he does imply that Plato embellished the basic story and in the same passage, laments the fact that Plato died before finishing Critias. Plutarch also recorded that Solon learned the story of Atlantis from Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais (Solon 26.1). These additional details have clearly added to the credibility of Plato’s narrative.

>“Plato, ambitious to elaborate and adorn the subject of the lost Atlantis, as if it were the soil of a fair estate unoccupied, but appropriately his by virtue of some kinship with Solon, began the work by laying out great porches, enclosures, and courtyards, such as no story, tale, or poesy ever had before. But he was late in beginning and ended his life before his work. Therefore the greater our delight in what he actually wrote, the greater our distress in view of what he left undone. For as the Olympieium in the city of Athens, so the tale of the lost Atlantis in the wisdom of Plato is the only one among many beautiful works to remain unfinished.” (Solon 32.1-2)<

He also mentions Saturnia as being around five days sailing west of Britain and added that westwards from that island, there were the three islands to where proud and warlike men used to come from the continent beyond the islands, in order to offer sacrifice to the gods of the ocean. Commentators have seen this as a possible reference to Atlantis or even America.

In recent years, particularly since Felice Vinci proposed a Baltic setting for Homer’s epics narratives The Illiad & The Odyssey there has been increased interest in Plutarch’s texts. Remarkably, the great majority of these commentators are Greek and all claim that early Greeks crossed the Atlantic, with some minor differences in details. All (Liritzis, Kontaratos, Koutlis, Mariolakos and Tsikritsis) cite Plutarch. One could be forgiven for thinking that there was a concerted attempt to wrest the claim of discovering America away from Columbus as well as the Vikings, Irish, Basques as well as the Welsh. However, Emilio Spedicato, an Italian, also supports the idea of Greek ancestors travelling to America and quotes Plutarch in support of the idea.

^(a)https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0045-0125,_Plutarch,_Parallel_Lives_Of_Noble_Grecians_And_Romans,_EN.pdf

^(b) When Does Plato’s Atlantis Stop Being Plato’s Atlantis? | Atlantis FYI *

Tagged America, Antonis Kontaratos, Atlantis, Baltic, Britain, Emilio Spedicato, Felice Vinci, Ilias Mariolakos, Ioannis Liritzis, Manolis Koutlis, Minas Tsikritsis, Plato, Plutarch, Psenophis, Saturnia, Solon, Sonchis

America *

Published May 31, 2010

America as the home of Atlantis took off as an idea shortly after its discovery (or perhaps more correctly, rediscovery) by Columbus. Initially, reports sent back to Europe designated America as ‘Paradise’

until its identification as Atlantis quickly took hold. John Dee in the time of Elizabeth I was convinced that the newly discovered Americas were in fact, Atlantis, an idea endorsed by Francis Bacon. The first time that America was so named on a map was on the 1507^(c) Waldseemüller map, sometimes referred to as “America’s birth certificate.” A rare copy of this map was recently found in Germany^(e).

Nevertheless, from the early 1600’s dissenting voices were raised, such as those of José de Acosta, and Michel de Montaigne.

As late as 1700, a map of the world by Edward Wells was published in Oxford that highlights the paucity of information regarding the Americas at that time. However, in this instance the accompanying text notes that “this continent with the adjoining islands is generally supposed to have been anciently unknown though there are not wanting some, who will have even the continent itself to be no other than the Insula Atlantis of the ancients.”

For over five centuries a variety of commentators have associated Atlantis with America and many of its ancient cultures together with a range of location theories that stretch from Maine through the Caribbean and Central America to Argentina.

Although most proponents of an American Atlantis, particularly following the continent’s discovery, did not specify a location but were happy to consider the Americas in their entirety as Plato’s lost land. In 2019, Reinoud de Jonge published a paper declaring that from 2500-1200 BC America had been an Egyptian colony. He expanded on this in 2912^(l), when he claimed that the American colonies, North and South had supplied the copper and tin for the Bronze Age of the Mediterranean. For good measure, he threw in a wildly speculative translation of the Phaistos Disk to support these contentions.

Over time attention was more focused on Mesoamerica and the northern region of South America, where the impressive remains of the Maya and Incas led many to consider them to be Atlantean.

North America received minimal attention until the 19th century when an 1873 newspaper report⁽ⁱ⁾ claimed that there was support from unnamed scientists for locating remnants of Atlantis in the Adirondacks and some of the mountains of Maine! More recently Dennis Brooks has advocated Tampa Bay, Florida, while John Saxer supports Tarpon Springs, also in Florida as Atlantean. To confuse matters further, Mary Sutherland locates Atlantis in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and for good measure suggests that King Solomon’s mines are to be found in the same region!

For example, the discovery of the remains of the remarkable cultures of Mesoamerica generated speculation on the possibility of an Atlantean connection there. This view gained further support with the publication of Ignatius Donnelly’s groundbreaking work on Atlantis.

Some have seen an Atlantic location for Atlantis as a conduit between the culture of ancient Egypt and that of Meso-America^(d).

Half a century ago Nicolai Zhirov claimed that Plato had knowledge of America ^[458.22] indicated by his statement that Atlantis was in a sea with a continent encompassing it. He thought that this was the earliest record of a continent beyond the Atlantic.

However, Plato also said that Atlantis was surrounded ‘on all sides’ by this continent, which is not compatible with the Azores, advocated by Zhirov as the location of Plato’s sunken island. In an effort to strengthen this claim Zhirov also claims that there is evidence that King Sargon of Akkad travelled to America in the middle of the third millennium BC, an idea that has gained little traction.

The idea of Sumerians in America was promoted by A.H. Verrill and his wife Ruth, who claimed ^[838]that King Sargon travelled to Peru, where he was known as Viracocha. The Verrills support their contention with a range of cultural, linguistic and architectural similarities between the Sumerians and the Peruvians.

More recently, Andrew Collins has promoted the idea of Atlantis in the Caribbean, specifically Cuba. Followers of Edgar Cayce are still expecting the Bahamas to yield evidence of Plato’s island. Gene Matlock supports the idea of a Mexican location with an Indian connection, while Duane McCullough opts for Guatemala. Ivar Zapp and George Erikson have also chosen Central America for investigation. Further south Jim Allen has argued strongly for Atlantis having been located on the Altiplano of Bolivia. A website entitled American Atlantis Research from Edward Alexander , now offline, was rather weak on content and irritatingly referred to the ‘Andies’.

Although much of what has been written about an American location for Atlantis is the result of serious research, it all falls far short of convincing me that the Atlantis of which Plato wrote is to be found there. No evidence has been produced to even hint that any American culture had control of the Mediterranean as far Tyrrhenia in the north and Libya in the south. No remains or carvings of triremes or chariots have been found in the Americas. How could an ancient civilisation from America launch an attack across the Atlantic and at the furthest end of the Mediterranean 9,000 or even 900 years before Solon? An even more important question is, why would they bother? There is no evidence of either motive, means or opportunity for an attack from that direction.

A number of Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis would seem to rule out America as its location.

(a) As mentioned above, the ‘opposite continent’ referred to by Plato (Timaeus 25a) is described as encompassing the sea in which Atlantis lay. America cannot be described as enclosing the Atlantic. Around 550 AD, Procopius noted that when viewed from the southern side of the Strait of Gibraltar “the whole continent opposite this was named Europe”(m) (not America)!

(b) The Greeks only knew of three continents, Europe, Asia and Libya. Armin Wolf, the German historian, when writing about Scheria relates^(f) that “Even today, when people from Sicily go to Calabria (southern Italy) they say they are going to the “continente.” I suggest that Plato used the term in a similar fashion and was quite possibly referring to that same part of Italy which later became known as ‘Magna Graecia’. Robert Fox in The Inner Sea^[¹¹⁶⁸^.141]confirms that this long-standing usage of ‘continent’ refers to Italy.

(c) Herodotus described Sardinia as “the biggest island in the world” (Hist.6.2). In fact Sicily is marginally larger but as islands were measured in those days (Felice Vinci) ^[⁰¹⁹^] by the length of their coastal perimeter Herodotus was correct. Consequently, it can be argued that since Cuba and Hispaniola are much more extensive than Sardinia, the Greeks had no knowledge of the Caribbean.

(d) Plato makes frequent references to horses in Atlantis. The city itself had a track for horseracing (Critias 117c). The Atlanteans had thousands of chariots (Critias 119a). The Atlanteans even had horse baths (Critias 117b). All these references make no sense if Plato was describing an American Atlantis as there were no horses there for over 12,000 years, when they died out, until brought back by the Spaniards millennia later. Furthermore, it makes even less sense if you subscribe to the early date (9600 BC) for Atlantis as it is thousands of years before we have any evidence for the domestication of the horse, anywhere.

A recent study of worldwide DNA patterns suggests that “no more than 70 people inhabited North America 14,000 years ago.”^(b)But a more important claim has been offered by Professors Jennifer Raff and Deborah Bolnick who have co-authored a paper offering evidence^(j) that the genetic data only supports a migration from Siberia to America. This certainly runs counter to any suggestion of transatlantic migration from Europe.In 1900,

Peter de Roo put forward the idea that the ancient Greeks had knowledge of America, despite the fact that Herodotus clearly said that only three continents were known to them [Histories 4.42]. A 2013 book, L’America dimenticata ^[¹⁰⁶⁰^], by Italian physicist and philologist Lucio Russo, also claims that the ancient Greeks had knowledge of America and it was gradually forgotten because of mistakes made by Ptolemy including a 15-degree error for the latitude of the Canaries^(g).

However, the idea that the Greeks had an awareness of America persists, with some claiming that they had colonies in Canada. Among these are Lucio Russo, Ioannis Liritzis⁽ⁿ⁾ and Minas Tsikritsis^(p). Manolis Koutlis has gone one further and claims that not only were there Greek Colonies in Canada but that Atlantis had been situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence^(o).

The late Professor Antonis Kontaratos placed the capital of Atlantis at Poverty Point in Louisiana or it at least inspired some of Plato’s description since “there is also solid evidence that the Greeks were travelling to America in prehistoric times too and could have witnessed firsthand the impressive earthworks at Poverty Point, information which could have reached Plato independently as a fading legend ^[0750].” Kontaratos cited Plutarch to support his contention of Greek transatlantic travel in prehistory.

I note that there is a suspiciously disproportionate number of Greeks supporting the idea of pre-Columbian Hellenic visitors to America!

While there is extensive debate regarding the Americas being visited by ancient Greeks (Minoans), Phoenicians and even Sumerians, there seems little doubt that America had been visited by various other peoples prior to Columbus such as Welsh, Vikings or Irish. The case for the latter is strengthened by a 500-year-old report^(h) of a long-established Irish colony in North America called Duhare.

America as Atlantis and the source of freemasonry knowledge was recently repackaged in a brief article on the Odyssey website^(k) quoting Manly P. Hall who in turn cited Plato and Sir Francis Bacon. It then proceeds to speculate on what lessons the story of this original American Atlantis offers the America of today!

^(b) https://www.sott.net/articles/show/228315-North-America-Was-Populated-by-no-More-Than-70-People-14-000-Years-Ago-Claims-Stunning-New-DNA-Research

^(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldseem%C3%BCller_map

^(d) https://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=5106.0

^(e) Librarians find lost copy of Waldseemuller map, ‘America’s birth certificate’ | GlobalPost (archive.org) *

^(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org)

^(g) Reconsidering History: Ancient Greeks Discovered America Thousands of Years Ago (archive.org) *

^(h)https://web.archive.org/web/20161203182356/https://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.ie/2014/03/490-year-old-spanish-documents-describe.html

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=PRP18730215.2.8.2&srpos=11&e=——-en–20–1-byDA-txt-txIN-Plato+Atlantis——-1

^(j) https://phys.org/news/2016-01-genetic-ancient-trans-atlantic-migration-professor.html

^(k) https://www.theodysseyonline.com/america-as-atlantis

^(l) https://www.academia.edu/3894415/COPPER_AND_TIN_FROM_AMERICA_c.2500-1200_BC_

^(m)Vandal Wars 1.1.7

⁽ⁿ⁾ https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/did-ancient-greeks-sail-to-canada/

^(o) ENSKIA (archive.org)

^(p) http://canada.greekreporter.com/2012/04/21/researcher-claims-ancient-greeks-made-it-to-america-before-columbus/

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Ogygia *

Published May 30, 2010

Ogygia is the home of Calypso, referred to by Homer in Book V of his Odyssey. It is accepted by some as an island in the Mediterranean that was destroyed by an earthquake before the Bronze Age. The Greek writers Euhemerus in the 4^th century BC and Callimachus who flourished in the 3^rd century BC, identified the Maltese archipelago as Ogygia. Others have more specifically named the Maltese island of Gozo as Ogygia. Anton Mifsud has pointed out^[209] that Herodotus, Hesiod and Diodorus Siculus have all identified the Maltese Islands with Ogygia.

John Vella has added his support to the idea of a Maltese Ogygia in a paper published in the Athens Journal of History (Vol.3 Issue 1) in which he noted that “The conclusions that have emerged from this study are that Homer’s Ogygia is not an imaginary but a reference to and a record of ancient Gozo-Malta.”

Adding to the confusion, Aeschylus, the tragedian (523-456 BC) calls the Nile, Ogygian, and Eustathius, a Byzantine grammarian (1115-1195), claimed that Ogygia was the earliest name for Egypt^(j).

Isaac Newton wrote a number of important works including The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended ^[1101], in which he discussed a range of mythological links to Atlantis, including a possible connection with Homer’s Ogygia. There is now evidence that he concurred^(c) with the idea of a Maltese Ogygia in The Original of Monarchies^(d).

Strabo referred to “Eleusis and Athens on the Triton River [in Boiotia]. These cities, it is said, were founded by Kekrops (Cecrops), when he ruled over Boiotia (Boeotia), then called Ogygia, but were later wiped out by inundations.”⁽ⁱ⁾ However, Strabo also declared that Ogygia was to be found in the ‘World Ocean’ or Atlantic ^(j). To say the least, these two conflicting statements require explanation.

Richard Hennig opted for Madeira following the opinion of von Humboldt. Spanuth argued strongly against either Madeira or the Canaries^[0017.149] and gave his support to the Azores as the most likely location of Calypso’s Island.. Not unexpectedly the Azores, in the mid-Atlantic, have also been nominated as Ogygia by other 20th century researchers such as Sykes^(e) and Mertz^[397]. In a 2019 paper^(f), Gerard Janssen also placed Ogygia in the Azores, specifically naming the island of Saõ Miguel, which both Iman Wilkens ^[610.239] and Spanuth ^[015.226] also claimed. Spanuth added that until the 18th-century Saõ Miguel was known as umbilicus maris, which is equivalent to the Greek term, omphalos thallasses, used by Homer to describe Ogygia in chapter eight of the Odyssey!

Homer in his Odyssey identifies Ogygia as the home of Calypso. The Roman poet Catullus writing in the 1^st century BC linked Ogygia with Calypso in Malta^(g). However, Gozo’s claim is challenged by those supporting Gavdos in Crete^(k). This opinion has been expounded more fully by Katerina Kopaka in a paper published in the journal Cretica Chronica^(l), where her starting point is the claim that Gavdos had been previously known as Gozo! Another Greek claimant is Lipsi^(o) in the Dodecanese. We must also add Mljet in Croatia to the list of contenders claiming^(p) to have been the home of Calypso. Mljet is also competing with Malta as the place where St. Paul was shipwrecked!

Further south is the beautiful Greek island of Othoni near Corfu where local tradition claims an association with Calypso. An article on the Greek Reporter website^(r) suggests that “Evidence confirming this legend appears in the writings of Homer, who described a strong scent of cypress on Ogygia. Many cypress trees are grown on Othonoi.

Shortly after departing the island on a raft, Odysseus is shipwrecked on Scheria, which we know of today as Corfu. This implies that the two islands Homer described were relatively close. Likewise, the islands of Othonoi and Corfu are separated by a relatively short distance. Due to this mythological connection, during the 16th century, many naval maps described Othonoi as ‘Calypso island.‘”

Mifsud quotes another Roman of the same period, Albius Tibullus, who also identified Atlantis with Calypso. Other Maltese writers have seen all this as strong evidence for the existence of Atlantis in their region. Delisle de Sales considered Ogygia to be between Italy and Carthage, but opted for Sardinia as the remains of Calypso’s island.

Other researchers such as Geoffrey Ashe and Andrew Collins have opted for the Caribbean as the home of Ogygia. Another site supports Mesoamerica as the location of Ogygia, which the author believes can be equated with Atlantis⁽^h). An even more extreme suggestion by Ed Ziomek places Ogygia in the Pacific^(b)!

In the Calabria region of southern Italy lies Capo Collone (Cape of Columns). 18th-century maps^(m) show two or more islands off the cape with one named Ogygia offering echoes of Homer’s tale. Respected atlases as late as 1860 continued to show a non-existent island there. It seems that these were added originally by Ortelius, inspired by Pseudo-Skylax and Pliny⁽ⁿ⁾. Additionally, there is a temple to Hera Lacinia at Capo Colonne, which is reputed to have been founded by Hercules!

By way of complete contrast, both Felice Vinci and John Esse Larsen have proposed that the Faeroe Islands included Ogygia. In the same region, Iceland was nominated by Gilbert Pillot as the location of Ogygia and Calypso’s home^[⁷⁴²^]. Ilias D. Mariolakos, a Greek professor of Geology also makes a strong case^(a) for identifying Iceland with Ogygia based primarily on the writings of Plutarch. He also supports the idea of Minoans in North America.

A more recent suggestion has come from Manolis Koutlis^[1617], who, after a forensic examination of various versions of Plutarch’s work, in both Latin and Greek, also placed Ogygia in North America, specifically on what is now the tiny island of St. Paul at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada, a gulf that has also been proposed as the location of Atlantis.

Jean-Silvain Bailly also used the writings of Plutarch to sustain his theory of Ogygia, which he equated with Atlantis having an Arctic location^[0926.2.299], specifically identifying Iceland as Ogygia/Atlantis with the islands of Greenland, Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen (Svalbard) as the three islands equally distant from it and each other.

The novelist Samuel Butler (1835-1902) identified Pantelleria as Calypso’s Island, but the idea received little support^(q).

Writing over a century ago, George H. Cooper proposed Calypso’s Cave was now known as Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish Isle of Staffa ^[236.150].

However, Ireland has been linked with Ogygia by mainly Irish writers. In the 17th century historian, Roderick O’Flaherty(1629-1718), wrote a history of Ireland entitled Ogygia^[0495], while in the 19th century, Margaret Anne Cusack (1832-1899) also wrote a history in which she claimed^[1342] a more explicit connection. This was followed in 1911 by a book^[1343] by Marion McMurrough Mulhall in which she also quotes Plutarch to support the linking of Ireland and Ogygia. More recently, in The Origin of Culture^[0217]Thomas Dietrich promotes the same view, but offers little hard evidence to support it.