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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 »
Michelangelo
Poseidon
Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympians of ancient Greek mythology. He was also the Greek god of the sea who was given the island of Atlantis as his realm. The Romans later knew Poseidon as Neptune. Herodotus (II.50.2) claimed that the Greek gods were imported from Egypt with a few exceptions including Poseidon. Some have suggested that the ancient Egyptian god Sobek was the equivalent of Poseidon, but the connection seems rather tenuous.
>Eire Rautenberg has proposed that Poseidon was not originally a Greek god but instead came from the Libyans of North Africa(b).<
Some writers have suggested that Noah was to be equated with Poseidon. His symbol was a trident.
Poseidon is also credited with having been the first to tame horses. Others, such as Nienhuis, have equated Poseidon with Sidon referred to in Genesis 10:15.
The Phoenician sea god Melqart is frequently seen as the son of Poseidon whereas others, such as Jonas Bergman, consider them to be identical. The Nordic sea god Aegir is also seen as a mirror of Poseidon. In Portugal, Saint Bartholomew is considered a Christianised Poseidon, where statues of him are similar to those of Poseidon including a trident.
The Celtic god of the sea was known as Manannán Mac Lir who is frequently associated with the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
When the Greek gods divided the world among themselves, Poseidon received Atlantis as his share. He fell in love with a mortal, Clieto, who bore him five sets of twin boys, of whom Atlas was the firstborn and primus inter pares. Atlantis was then shared between them.
In December 2017, Anton Mifsud, Malta’s leading Atlantologist, published an intriguing suggestion(a) , when he pointed out that on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Neo-Platonist Michelangelo, something odd can be perceived in the central panel, known as The Creation of Adam. There, we find ‘god’ surrounded by five pairs of flightless ‘cherubs’. This is reminiscent of Poseidon’s five pairs of twin sons. Atlantis. However, Christian iconography invariably shows cherubs with wings, so it begs the question; why this departure from the norm? Mifsud contends that together with other aspects of the fresco, this depiction is closer to Plato’s ‘god’, Poseidon, than that of the Mosaic creator in Genesis!
(a) https://www.academia.edu/35425812/THE_CREATION_OF_ADAM_-_Genesis_or_Plato?auto=download
(b) Poseidon is not a Greek god! – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Mifsud, Dr Anton
Dr Anton Mifsud is a Maltese consultant paediatrician who has devoted most of his limited spare time to the study of the prehistory of his native island. Dr. 
Mifsud has been the author and co-author of several works relating to ancient Malta in general and Atlantis(c) in particular [209]. He is co-author with Charles Savona-Ventura of books and articles on Maltese prehistory [210–214] as well as a lecture on Palaeolithic Man and his Environment in Malta, which is available on the Internet(a). Both Mifsud and Savona-Ventura have written [212][213] about the unusually shaped skulls found in some of the ancient Maltese temples. The similarity between these and similar skulls from pre-dynastic Egypt have been noted by Andrew Collins on his website(b), as well as in a paper by Adriano Forgione(g). The work of Collins and Forgione prompted American author, to also write a lengthy paper on the subject(j).
In May 2020, Mifsud returned to his study of the skulls with the publication of Longheads Malta [1722] on the academia.edu website(i).>This is part three of a four-part series with part four also available now(k), in which he, no doubt to the disappointment of some, concluded that “the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum skulls are alien, alien to the norm, but not alien as in extra-terrestrial.” Parts one and two are in preparation.<
Mifsud is still pursuing his study of the Atlantis-Malta connection and as expected continues to publish further material [1587][1666][1671] in this regard. It is not unreasonable to say that Mifsud is today’s leading authority on the Malta-Atlantis theory. His work has been featured on television in the USA, the UK and Japan as well as his native Malta.
2017 saw two Atlantis-related papers published by Mifsud on the Academia.edu website. The first(e) concerns Michelangelo’s famous fresco, in the Sistine Chapel, called The Creation of Adam, which is also the title of Mifsud’s paper. After outlining interesting background material on Michelangelo’s magnificent work, Mifsud focuses on the image of ‘god’ in the fresco, which he suggests more closely conforms to Plato’s ‘god’, Poseidon, rather than that of Moses. This contention seems to be supported by the depiction of the five pairs of flightless cherubs that surround ‘god’. This is reminiscent of Poseidon’s five pairs of twin sons that ruled Atlantis. Christian iconography invariably shows cherubs with wings, so it begs the question; why this departure from the norm? Mifsud makes a valid case, which should not be dismissed lightly.
In Mifsud’s second paper(f) he has identified the Maltese promontory of Ras ir-Raheb near Rabat, with its two enormous limestone columns as the Pillars of Herakles. This headland had originally been topped by a Temple of Herakles, confirmed by archaeologist, Professor Nicholas Vella. This a well-illustrated paper, worthy of a read.
Mifsud is also a member of The Egyptological Society of Malta and has been a contributor to Ancient Egypt magazine(d). In 2005, he took part in an expedition to the Sahara where, as he explains himself “I was looking for the precursors of the Naqada people between the Western Desert and Libya. My main agenda was to identify the evidence for a significant movement of individuals from the Libyan Desert into ancient Egypt before the start of the Pharaonic dynasties. I was searching specifically for ‘Libyan warriors’ inside Upper Egypt in pre-dynastic times.” The expedition is fully described in Sahara 2005 – Expedition 14 [1736].
Nearly all of Mifsud’s output of books and papers on a range of prehistorical subjects are now available on the Academia.edu website.(g) The latest to be published on that website is his beautifully illustrated Island of God [1671]. This is an important sequel to Malta – Echoes of Plato’s Island [0209]. Taken together, they offer the strongest case possible for considering Malta being at the heart of Plato’s Atlantis and is a ‘must have’ for any serious student of the subject.
Not only is Mifsud Malta’s leading atlantologist, but as his bibliography reveals, he has written extensively on the archipelago’s early history and prehistory, which saw a parade of early visitors and invaders, such as Neanderthals, Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20131024193314/https://vivamalta.net/VMforum/index.php?topic=70.0
(b) https://andrewcollins.com/page/articles/maltaskulls.htm
(c) https://www.academia.edu/5519734/MALTA_AND_PLATOS_ATLANTIS
(d) https://www.ancientegyptmagazine.co.uk/index.shtml
(e) https://www.academia.edu/35425812/THE_CREATION_OF_ADAM_-_Genesis_or_Plato?auto=download
(g) https://malta.academia.edu/AntonMifsud
(h) http://www.gizapyramid.com/adriano_forgione.htm
(i) https://www.academia.edu/43233960/LONGHEADS_MALTA
(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20041205183248/https://www.biped.info/articles/missingrace.html
(k) https://www.academia.edu/43811237/THE_MISSING_HYPOGEUM_SKULLS_OF_HAL_SAFLIENI *
Divine Twins *
Divine Twins (Dioscurism) occur frequently in many cultures worldwide(c), Greek mythology being no exception, although Plato’s report that five sets of twins were the original rulers of Atlantis, provides one of the more unusual elements in the account. Could there be any connection between the male twins of Atlantis and the male twins, Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome, or Amphion and Zethos who established Thebes?
Jürgen Spanuth expressed the odd idea that the five trilithons at Stonehenge “most probably represented five pairs of twins.” [0015.85] an idea echoed later by Dieter Braasch(h).
The Arcus-Atlantis website offers other instances where twins are encountered in Greek mythology(j).
Greek and Roman mythologies also shared the twins, Castor and Pollux. Furthermore, a Christian reference to them can be found in the Acts of the Apostles (28.11), where St.Paul is said to have left Malta for Rome on a ship displaying the sign of Castor and Pollux.
The idea of Divine twins is also found in the old Slavic pantheon according to Michael Shapiro in a 1982 paper(g) and found across European mythologies(i).
According to Jim Allen, the leading proponent of the idea of Atlantis having existed in the Andes, the Aymara kingdoms which existed on the Andean Altiplano also governed in pairs, so he does not doubt that the story of Atlantis had its origins in a Bolivian legend(a). It is accepted that ‘The Hero Twins’ are part of Mayan mythology in the form of Xbalanque and Hunaphu. The anthropologist Robert L. Hall has detected twins in the native symbolism as far north as the Mississippi. The existence of twin rulers also existed in Bronze Age Scandinavia – one being the chief of war, the other the chief of rituals.
Also interesting is the paper presented by Thérèse Ghembaza to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in which she referred to the Oromos of Ethiopia, who also were governed by five pairs of rulers[0750.519].
A recent paper by Alastair Coombs entitled The Atlantis Twins offered further thoughts on possible prehistoric references, including a suggested link with Göbekli Tepe. This article was expanded and retitled Göbekli Tepe & the Atlantis Twins and was later published on Graham Hancock’s website(d).
In December 2017, Anton Mifsud, the doyen of Maltese Atlantologists, published an intriguing suggestion(f), when he pointed out that on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Neo-Platonist Michelangelo, something odd can be perceived in the central panel, known as The Creation of Adam. There, we find ‘god’ surrounded by five pairs of flightless ‘cherubs’. This is reminiscent of Poseidon’s five pairs of twin sons that ruled Atlantis. However, Christian iconography invariably shows cherubs with wings, so it begs the question; why this departure from the norm? Mifsud contends that together with other aspects of the fresco, this depiction is closer to Plato’s ‘god’, Poseidon, than that of the Mosaic creator in Genesis!
My view is that the story of the five sets of male twins is just one of the mythological threads in Plato’s Atlantis narrative. P.P. Flambas who has taken a generally literal view of Plato’s account, admits the improbability of happening to one couple through natural means. However, in correspondence, he defensively quotes the somewhat dubious(e) case of “the greatest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707–c.1782), a peasant from Shuya, Russia.”
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190213205922/http:/www.atlantisbolivia.org/twinsofatlantis.htm
(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twins_in_mythology
(d) https://grahamhancock.com/coombsa1/ or see Archive 3642
(e) https://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151020-did-one-woman-really-give-birth-to-69-children
(f) https://www.academia.edu/35425812/THE_CREATION_OF_ADAM_-_Genesis_or_Plato?auto=download
(g) Michael Shapiro, Neglected Evidence of Dioscurism (Divine Twinning) in the Old Slavic Pantheon, JIES 10 (1982), 137-166.
(i) https://herminiusmons.wordpress.com/2019/09/17/arentio-and-arentia-lusitanian-divine-twins/
(j) Twins in ancient Greek myth (archive.org) (new link) *