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

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Minoans

Pre-Columbian America *

 Pre-Columbian  America continues to generate books and articles at an ever-increasing rate, fed by dramatic improvements and discoveries in many sciences. Nevertheless, the resulting theories still range from the serious to the silly.

This compilation has frequently touched on the subject pre-Columbian America as a number of Atlantis related theories have proposed what are only peripheral connections with America, although in the immediate aftermath of America’s rediscovery, some European commentators were content to designate America as Atlantis itself.

Since then a range of claims have been made as to the identity of  European visitors to America, often long before Columbus, sometimes with an underlying suggestion of nationalism. Richard Callaghan, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary, In the June 2015 issue of the journal Antiquity, “presented the results of computer simulations of 1,200 voyages of small boats drifting with the currents from northern Africa to the Americas. About 82 percent of Callaghan’s simulated boats made landfall in the Americas, many in 70 to 120 days. Since watercrafts have been around for at least 8,000 years, Callaghan says there could have been a “significant number” of successful pre-Columbian voyages to America.” Another archaeologist, Bradley T. Lepper, ironically writing in the Columbus Dispatch, rejected Callaghan’s data as evidence(l).

John L. Sorenson writing in the Journal of the Book of Mormon Studies(m) identifies evidence for transoceanic exchanges of 98 plant species, including tobacco and peanuts! I assume that he was driven by a very different agenda.

The weight of evidence so far favours the idea that most of the earliest pre-Columbians came from Asia either by sea or over what is now the Bering Strait. See the Arysio Dos Santos article(a) about Americas peopled by from an Asian Atlantis.

The online World History Encyclopaedia outlines the prehistory of North America from 40,000 BC when the Paleo-Indians arrived until 8,000 BC(i). Of course this statement begs the question – where did they come from?

The discovery of further early trans-Atlantic links was announced in February 2012(n) by two archaeologists, Professors Dennis Stanford & the lateBruce Bradley, in a newly published book – Across Atlantic Ice [1516]. Their claim is based on ‘Solutrean’ tools recently found in Delaware and five other east coast sites dated between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago. They offered “archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.”

In 2014, Stephen Oppenheimer endorsed the work of Stanford and Bradley(s).

However, a sceptical view of their work should also be read(o). However, by 2016 the Soultrean Hypothesis had been contradicted by genetic studies(p). Nevertheless, a recent documentary on the hypothesis has raised some controversy, as the program failed to refer to the use of the Soultrean Hypothesis by white supremacists(q). Jennifer Raff, who appeared in the documentary, has also rejected the Stanford & Bradley theory in a new article(r).

In 2014 Michael J. O’Brien et al published another critical review of  Stanford & Bradley’s theory on the Researchgate website and added a response from Stanford and Bradley(t).

Finally, I suggest that there may be more to Stanford & Bradley’s theory, when combined with the story of the Red Paint People.

Harry Bourne is the author of a series of lengthy papers(c) relating to African maritime history. Until I read some of his work I was unaware of the subject, with the only suggestion of Africans voyaging to the Americas was the existence of the mysterious Olmec stone heads. Bourne advised(d)   that Columbus noted “that blacks were also trading on the far side of the Atlantic in the Caribbean”, but does not cite the reference.

Similarly, “According to renowned American historan and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard University, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support the fact that Black people sailed to America before Christopher Columbus was a journal entry from Columbus himself. In Weiner’s book, Africa and the Discovery of America, he explains that Columbus noted in his journal that the Native Americans confirmed ‘black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears’.”(x)

This whole subject could fill a library of its own and in no way is this entry intended to be a substitute for a comprehensive study of pre-Columbian America.

With their understandable Eurocentric view of the world a variety of commentators  have advocated a range of pre-Columbian visitors to the Americas from this side of the Atlantic . There are a wide range of claims suggesting that such contacts included the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Sumerians, the Hyksos(v), the Sea Peoples(u), the Phoenicians, Egyptians(k), Ancient Greeks(y)(z), Minoans(j) and Romans(b)(e)(f). After that, there appears to have been an endless parade of transatlantic tourists proposed – Basques(g) , Scots [1769], Irish [2086] and Vikings [1824].

There is also a suggestion that Marco Polo visited America before Columbus(h) .

No investigation of early visitors to America should ignore the work of the controversial epigrapher Barry Fell, particularly his two books, America BC [1769] and Saga America [1770].

However, the more critical reviews of Fell’s work should also be read(w).

 

(a) Atlantis in the New World. – Atlan.org

(b) Ancient Romans May Have Discovered Americas Before Columbus | Gaia

(c) Black History WEB – African Maritime History Archive (50webs.com)

(d) West Africa & The Sea In Later Antiquity: Short intro. & plan (modernghana.com)  (4/5ths down page)

(e) http://mexicolesstraveled.com/comalcalco.html

(f) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/mysteries/deccott.htm

(g) https://www.archyde.com/did-the-basques-arrive-in-america-before-columbus/

(h) https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/09/did-marco-polo-discover-america-in-the-13th-century/

(i) Pre-Colonial North America – World History Encyclopedia

(j) Minoans have been to America before Columbus (bristolgreeks.com)

(k) Egyptian statuette recovered from Mexico is authentic: Antiquities ministry – Ancient Egypt – Antiquities – Ahram Online

(l) Bradley T. Lepper The Columbus Dispatch  •  Sunday September 20, 2015

(m) https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=jbms

(n) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html?printService=print 

(o) http://www.academia.edu/5119515/On_thin_ice_Problems_with_Stanford_and_Bradley_s_Solutrean-Clovis_hypothesis 

(p) Genetic data does not support ancient trans-Atlantic migration, professor says | The University of Kansas (archive.org) 

(q) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/critics-blast-cbc-documentary-on-solutrean-hypothesis-for-ignoring-racism

(r) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/21/rejecting-the-solutrean-hypothesis-the-first-peoples-in-the-americas-were-not-from-europe

(s) Solutrean hypothesis: genetics, the mammoth in the room: World Archaeology: Vol 46 , No 5 – Get Access (tandfonline.com)

(t) (PDF) On thin ice: Problems with Stanford and Bradley’s proposed Solutrean colonisation of North America (researchgate.net)

(u) Earth is my witness… Sea peoples reached Mesoamerica – COGNIARCHAE

(v) (99+) PLUTARCH, THE OLMECS & THE HYKSOS SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA | The Mumble – Academia.edu

(w) Barry Fell and His Big Idea: Wherein a Harvard Zoology Professor Tells the Tale Of All the Folks Who Got Here Before Columbus | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)

(x) 10 Pieces of Evidence That Prove Black People Sailed to the Americas Long Before Columbus (atlantablackstar.com)

(y) https://www.academia.edu/9066795/Did_the_Mapuche_of_Chile_travel_from_Homeric_Age_Greece  *

(z) https://www.academia.edu/32921347/ANCIENT_GREEKS_TRAVELLED_WORLDWIDE *

Uluburun Shipwreck

The Uluburun Shipwreck is arguably one of the most important underwater discoveries of the 20th century. It was located in 1982 not very far from the town of Kas in southern Turkey. Eleven consecutive campaigns of three to four months duration took place from 1984 to 1994 totaling 22,413 dives, revealing one of the most spectacular Late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea(a). Because the wreck lay at a depth of 44-61 metres divers could only spend a very limited time working on it, hence the large number of dives involved.

Radiocarbon dating techniques and the presence of identifiable pottery types place the date of the wreck as sometime in the late 14th century BCE, probably between 1330 and 1300 BCE.

>Peter James wrote a highly critical paper regarding the dendrochronological dating of the Uluburun shipwreck explaining “why the Uluburun date is dubious in the extreme and how its status as a ‘scientific’ date has gradually unravelled”(e).<

The main cargo of the ship was raw materials. The largest items were copper ingots, 348 of them, totalling 10 tons in weight. These took the form of ‘oxhide’ and circular buns, which refers to the shape they had, forms common in the Bronze Age Mediterranean(b). Isotope analysis revealed the ingots were pure copper and from Cyprus(c). Additionally, the cargo included a ton of tin ingots. These metals were estimated to be enough to make 5,000 bronze swords.

It did not take long before this discovery generated some wild speculation J.S. Wakefield & Reinoud DeJonge proposed that the Uluburun copper had come from the Michigan mines in their book Rocks & Rows, Sailing Routes across the Atlantic and the Copper Trade [760]. The late Gavin Menzies went further and proposed that not only was the Uluburun copper from Michigan but that it had been brought from America by the Minoans identified by him as Atlantean.

Now that exploration of the wreck has finished, scientists are engaged in a study of the amazing array of artefacts salvaged. Articles in 2022 and(d) 2023(f) revealed some of the unexpected discoveries made, including the source of the tin ingots.

 

(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluburun_shipwreck 

(b) https://www.worldhistory.org/Uluburun_Shipwreck/ 

(c) Isotope analysis reveals origins of Uluburun shipwreck cargo | The Past (the-past.com) 

(d) https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2022/12/01/findings-from-uluburun-shipwreck-reveal-complex-trade-network/ 

(e) https://www.centuries.co.uk/uluburun.pdf *

(f) https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/2023/02/18/a9360-lost-in-time-uluburun-shipwreck/ *

Ancient Seafaring

Ancient Seafaring is a controversial subject owing principally to a dearth of physical evidence. The earliest known boat is the Pesse

Pesse Canoe

Canoe (see right) which was discovered in The Netherlands and thought to be around 10,000 years old. The second oldest boat was also a canoe, found in Malawi and dated to about 8,000 years ago(g). Wikipedia lists all the surviving boats, which shows that until the third millennium BC all that have been found are canoes.

Seafaring and Atlantis are inextricably linked. In Critias 117d Plato anachronistically refers to the shipyards of Atlantis being full of triremes, which were not developed until the 7th century BC, long after the demise of Atlantis. However, the term ‘trireme’ was probably employed by Plato to make his narrative more relevant to his audience. He credits the Atlantean navy with 1200 ships, which for me seems like borrowing and rounding the numbers of either the Achaean fleet of 1186 vessels in Homer’s Iliad or that of the 1207 ships of the later Persian invaders. That ships were used in the war with Athens can be inferred from the fact that Atlantis, or at least its capital, was situated on an island.

Professor Seán McGrail (1928-2021) wrote in his monumental work, Boats of the World “There is no direct evidence for water transport until the Mesolithic even in the most favoured regions, and it is not until the Bronze Age that vessels other than logboats are known” [1949.10]. For those that adhere to a 10th millennium BC date for the Atlantean War with Athens, this lack of naval evidence to support such an early date undermines the idea. An invasion fleet of canoes travelling from beyond the Pillars of Herakles to attack Athens seems rather unlikely!

Khufu Boat

Apart from the Solar Boats of the Egyptians, such as the Khufu Boat (see left),

discovered at Giza in 1954 and dated to 2500 BC. Fifty years later Kathryn A. Bard, Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Boston University and Rodolfo Fattovich, an archaeologist at the Orientale University of Naples, discovered an ancient port at Mersa Gawasis on the Red Sea. Evidence at the site indicated that it had been used around 1800 BC as an embarcation point for expeditions to the legendary land of Punt. Andrew Curry has written a review(l) of the work carried on at the site. Curry’s article is headed with the claim that the discovery of the harbour “proves ancient Egyptians mastered oceangoing technology”. In my opinion, this is possibly overstating it as the remains of the vessels found there may have suited the relatively calm Red Sea, a voyage in the Atlantic would probably have been too much.

Nevertheless, Heather Pringle published an article in 2008 in which she reviewed the suggestion by Jon Erlandson(k), an archaeologist at the University of Oregon, that early humans may have travelled the oceans 70,000 years ago(j).

Seldom referred to, but perhaps even more interesting is to be found earlier in Critias 113e which describes the mythological beginnings of Atlantis and which reads for at that time neither ships nor sailing were as yet in existence”. However, we are given little information to bridge the time up to its development as a major trading entity. It is reasonable to assume a gap of several thousand years.

Recent studies(a) have suggested that primitive seafaring took place in the Mediterranean thousands of years earlier than originally thought and may even have been engaged in by Homo Erectus and Neanderthals in the form of island hopping and coastal-hugging, the latter continuing into historical times.

Plato describes an advanced maritime trading nation with a powerful naval capacity. How much was part of the original story brought from Egypt by Solon or whether it was in any way embellished by Plato is unclear. The earliest known trading empire is that of the Minoans which began in the 3rd millennium BC and has led to many identifying them with the Atlanteans. However, there are very many other details in Plato’s narrative that seriously conflict with this hypothesis.

The limitations of ancient seafaring raise many questions regarding the navigation supports available to these early sailors(b). Initially, sailing, probably for fishing, would have been confined to daytime travel and keeping within the sight of land. With the development of maritime trade, the demand for improved navigation methods also grew.

It has been generally accepted that sailing in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages was not undertaken between October and March because of the dangerous weather usually encountered at that time of the year. Some cities, such as Pisa, Venice and Genoa had ordinances forbidding commercial voyages in winter! Understandably, many considered that this was also the case in Greek and Roman times when shipbuilding skills and navigational technology were probably more primitive. A 2015 paper by T.M.P. Duggan demonstrates that commercial maritime activity in winter was commonplace in medieval times(m).

In time sailors acquired a familiarity with the night sky that enabled them to use the stars as navigational aids, given clear skies. Gradually, as nighttime travel became more common, the use of beacons and later lighthouses also expanded. The lighthouse at Pharos near Alexandria came to be counted as one of the wonders of the Old World. Similarly, it is thought that the Colossus at Rhodes performed a similar function.

Different navigation skills have been identified in different parts of the world. In the Pacific, the navigational capabilities of the Polynesians are legendary(c). A November article on the BBC website expanded on this ‘ancient art of wayfindlng’ (i). The ancient Chinese employed magnetism(e) and in the cloudy North Atlantic, the Vikings used their ‘sunstones’(d).

In their book, Atlantis in America [244] Ivar Zapp & George Erikson claimed that the stone spheres of Costa Rica had a navigational function [p34] as Zapp discovered that the sightlines of all the stones remaining in their original positions, did point to important ancient sites such as Giza, Stonehenge and Easter Island!

A most imaginative proposal has come from Crichton E.M. Miller who proposed [1918] that the ubiquitous Celtic Cross is an image of an ancient navigational device. He further claims that “This instrument can tell the time, find latitude and longitude, measure the angles of the stars, predict the solstices and equinoxes and measure the precession of the equinoxes. It can also find the ecliptic pole as well as the north and south poles; it can make maps and charts, design pyramids and henges and—used in combination with these sites—can record and predict the cycles of nature and time(f) “. Then for good measure, he proceeded to patent the device.

(a) http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-mariners-did-neanderthals-sail-mediterranean-192112855.html

(b) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/navigation.htm

(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation

(d) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20052-vikings-crystal-clear-method-of-navigation/

(e) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/magnetism.htm

(f) Atlantis Rising magazine #35   http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At

(g) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/pesse-canoe-0017298

(h) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_surviving_ships#:~:text=The%20Pesse%20canoe%20is%20the,between%208040%20and%207510%20BC.

(i) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231128-what-we-can-learn-from-the-ancient-art-of-wayfinding 

(j) https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/did-humans-colonize-the-world-by-boat 

(k) Jon ERLANDSON | Senior Archaeologist | PhD | University of Oregon, Oregon | UO | Museum of Natural and Cultural History | Research profile (researchgate.net)

(l) Discover-article.pdf (bu.edu)

(m) (99+) FROM MID-OCTOBER TO THE END OF MARCH – VOYAGING IN THE MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN | Terrance M P Duggan – Academia.edu  *

David, Gary, A.

Gary A. David is an independent American researcher and author dealing with archaeological ruins and rock art of the American Southwest.  His focus is on the Hopi tribe of northern Arizona and its archaeo-astronomy. Although he has not written directly about Atlantis, he has contributed a number of interesting papers relating to subjects peripheral to our study here. Most of these are available on the Academia.edu  website(a).

David has also written about the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) of Bauval & Gilbert, which claims that the alignment of the three stars in Orion’s ‘belt’ is reflected in the layout of the three principal pyramids at Giza.

David has expanded on the OCT of Bauval & Gilbert identifying important sites throughout Egypt that he believes constituted a more extensive reference with other heavenly bodies in what he calls the Egyptian Stellar Template(e).

He goes further and claims that he “stumbled across an Orion Correlation that the ancestral Hopi Indians constructed in Arizona from about 1050–1300 AD. In this case, every major star in the constellation corresponds to a specific masonry village site. The terrestrial replication of the celestial pattern is simply uncanny.” (b)

David has published an informative paper(c) on the Maltese Cross and its variants as found around the world. He pointed out its use in the Americas by the ancient Olmecs and has laid great emphasis on its place in the inherited culture of the Hopi people.

>David has also proposed that Votan was a diffusionist deity with counterparts known by other names such as Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl or Viracocha in different pre-Columbian American civilisations. However, he goes further placing Votan’s origins in the Old World suggesting that he may have been Phoenician or Hebrew, citing Adrian Gilbert and Andrew Collins in support of this(f).<

Additionally, he has also highlighted the use of the swastika in a more benign way by the Hopi of northern Arizona along with its innocent use in other cultures including the Minoans, as well as in 20th century USA(d).

(a) https://colorado.academia.edu/GaryADavid

(b) (99+) (PDF) Orion’s Global Legacy—A Celestial Plan | Gary David – Academia.edu

(c) https://www.academia.edu/8661701/The_Maltese_Cross_Hopi_Indian_Version_of_a_Knights_Templar_Symbol

(d) https://www.academia.edu/8661508/The_Four_Arms_of_Destiny_Swastikas_in_the_Hopi_World_and_Beyond

(e) https://www.academia.edu/8635347/The_Blazing_Star_of_the_Nile_Egyptian_Stellar_Template

(f) http://www.viewzone.com/votanx.html *

Pauwels, Jacques R.

Jacques R. Pauwels, is a Belgian historian and a prolific writer, who touched on the subject of Atlantis in his book, Beneath the Dust of Time [1656]. In it he argued that Plato’s narrative was more than likely to have been inspired by the 2nd millennium BC eruption of Thera.

>He justified this opinion by supporting the more controversial claim that the Greek word ‘meizon‘ meaning ‘greater’, as used by Plato (Tim.24d-e), was a mistranscription of ‘meson’ meaning ‘between’. Therefore, according to Pauwels, the text should have described Atlantis as being between Libya and Asia rather than greater than Libya and Asia combined, arguably pointing to Minoan Thera as the location of Atlantis.

I must point out that, apart from the fact that the idea of a transcription error is purely speculative, the description is too vague as hundreds of Aegean islands could have been described at that time as lying between Libya and Asia.<

Tsikritsis, Minas

Minas Tsikritsis, a native of Crete, is a Professor of Computer Science and noted Researcher of Aegean Scripts. Included in his work is his claim to have deciphered Linear A and the Phaistos Disk, one side of which appears to be a form of sea shanty. Gavin Menzies quotes[780.319] Tsikritsis’ belief that the Minoans had mathematical knowledge equal, if not superior, to that of the Babylonians and Egyptians.

However, this claim has been seriously challenged by a recent study of a 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet known as Plimpton 322. The tablet was discovered around a century ago in what is now southern Iraq. Australian scientists from the University of New South Wales, Sydney have now demonstrated that the tablet is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, predating the Greek astronomer Hipparchus by over a millennium(b). These claims have generated some considerable debate (c).

Additionally, based on an analysis of Plutarch’s “On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon,” Tsikritsis believes that the Greeks had contact with North America, at least as far back as 86 AD!(a) *Some time later he expanded on the idea in a paper published on the Researchgate website(d).*

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

(b) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/science/trigonometry-babylonian-tablet.html

(c) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/dont-fall-for-babylonian-trigonometry-hype/

*(d) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321319687/download*

Booth & Fitch (N)

Basil Booth & Frank Fitch are two earth scientists who co-authored Earthshock[1295]. They reviewed the catastrophic past of our planet and its lessons for the future. They briefly touched on the subject of Atlantis suggesting that “it is possible that the legends of Atlantis and Noah’s Flood may arise from folk memories of ancient tsunamis”[p.102] and that the tsunami associated with the eruption of Thera that devasted the Minoan civilisation may have given rise to the legend of Atlantis[p.150].

 

Dodson, Frederick

Frederick Dodson is the author of Atlantis and the Garden of Eden[0989] and has published a number of

Unfinished Aswan Obelisk

Unfinished Aswan Obelisk

excerpts from it on his website(a).  These deal with, the Basques, Berbers, Etruscans, Minoans and Guanches among other subjects. He also includes a commentary on ancient maps(c).

He has devoted much space in his book and his website to the mystery of very large megaliths, such as at Baalbek and the unfinished obelisk at Aswan(d).

What I read seemed fairly standard fare, but then in a second book[1657], he advanced into ‘ancient astronaut’ territory, at which point I parted company with him.

Even more hilarious is his The Pleiades and Our Secret Destiny[1658] in which he tells the story of his encounters with blue-skinned beings from the Pleiades!

Dodson is also self-promoted as a ‘reality creation’ coach(b). Hmm.

(a) https://www.ancient-atlantis.com/ (offline October 2017)

(b) https://www.realitycreation.org/

*(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20160716093553/https://www.ancient-atlantis.com:80/anomalous-ancient-maps/

(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20161104202527/https://www.ancient-atlantis.com:80/largest-mysterious-ancient-megaliths*

(e) https://www.realitycreation.org/ancient-aliens-of-atlantis/

Late Bronze Age Collapse

Late Bronze Age Collapse of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC has been variously attributed to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and severe climate change. It is extremely unlikely that all these occurred around the same time through coincidence. Unfortunately, it is not clear to what extent these events were interrelated. As I see it, political upheavals do not lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or drought and so can be safely viewed as an effect rather than a cause. Similarly, climate change is just as unlikely to have caused eruptions or seismic activity and so can also be classified as an effect. Consequently, we are left with earthquakes and volcanoes as the prime suspects for the catastrophic turmoil that took place in the Middle East between the 15th and 12th centuries BC. Nevertheless, August 2013 saw further evidence published that also blamed climate change for the demise of Bronze Age civilisations in the region.

In 2022, a fourth possible cause emerged from a genetic research project -disease. The two disease carriers in question were the bacteria  Salmonella enterica, which causes typhoid fever, and the infamous Yersinia pestis, the bacteria responsible for the Black Death plague that decimated the population of medieval Europe. These are two of the deadliest microbes human beings have ever encountered, and their presence could have easily triggered significant heavy population loss and rampant social upheaval in ancient societies(d).

Robert Drews[865] dismisses any suggestion that Greece suffered a critical drought around 1200 BC, citing the absence of any supporting reference by Homer or Hesiod as evidence. He proposes that “the transition from chariot to infantry warfare as the primary cause of the Great Kingdoms’ downfall.”

Diodorus Siculus describes a great seismic upheaval in 1250 BC which caused radical topographical changes from the Gulf of Gabes to the Atlantic. (181.16)

This extended period of chaos began around 1450 BC when the eruptions on Thera took place. These caused the well-documented devastation in the region including the ending of the Minoan civilisation and probably the Exodus of the Bible and the Plagues of Egypt as well. According to the Parian Marble, the Flood of Deucalion probably took place around the same time.

Professor Stavros Papamarinopoulos has written of the ‘seismic storm’ that beset the Eastern Mediterranean between 1225 and 1175 BC(a). Similar ideas have been expressed by Amos Nur & Eric H.Cline(b)(c). The invasion of the Sea Peoples recorded by the Egyptians, and parts of Plato’s Atlantis story all appear to have taken place around this same period. Plato refers to a spring on the Athenian acropolis (Crit.112d) that was destroyed during an earthquake. Rainer Kühne notes that this spring only existed for about 25 years but was rediscovered by the Swedish archaeologist, Oscar Broneer, who excavated there from 1959 to 1967. The destruction of the spring and barracks, by an earthquake, was confirmed as having occurring at the end of the 12th century BC. Tony Petrangelo published two interesting, if overlapping, articles in 2020 in which he discussed Broneer’s work on the Acropolis(e)(f).

>A recent review of two books on subject in the journal Antiquity begins with the following preamble;

“The collapse c.1200 BC’ in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean—which saw the end of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite state and its empire and the kingdom of Ugarit—has intrigued archaeologists for decades. As Jesse Millek points out in (his book) Destruction and its impact, the idea of a swathe of near-synchronous destructions across the eastern Mediterranean is central to the narrative of the Late Bronze Age collapse: “destruction stands as the physical manifestation of the end of the Bronze Age” (p.6). Yet whether there was a single collapse marked by a widespread destruction horizon is up for debate.” (g)<

(a) https://www.2009-q-conf-kandersteg.grazian-archive.com/platoandtheseism/papamarinopoulos-newversionof2009.pdf

(b) https://academia.edu/355163/2001_Nur_and_Cline_Archaeology_Odyssey_Earthquake_Storms_article  (this is a shorter version of (c) below)

(c) https://www.academia.edu/19524810/Poseidons_Horses_Plate_Tectonics_and_Earthquake_Storms_in_the_Late_Bronze_Age_Aegean_and_Eastern_Mediterranean?auto=view&campaign=weekly_digest

(d) Mediterranean Bronze Age Collapse Linked to Deadly Typhoid and Plague | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(e) https://atlantis.fyi/blog/platos-fountain-on-the-athens-acropolis

(f) A General Program of Defense | Atlantis FYI

(g) Getting closer to the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, c. 1200 BC | Antiquity | Cambridge Core*

Aldamiz, Luis

Luis Aldamiz (aka Maju) is an independent Basque researcher who has 666concluded that the Atlantean Empire was at the centre of the VNSP (Vila Nova de São Pedro) culture in ancient Portugal(a)(b).  Its capital Zambujal was situated near the modern city of Torres Vedras, just north of Lisbon. He bases his idea on a number of topographical and historical parallels between the VNSP region and Plato’s description of Atlantis(c).

In order to have Plato’s account of the Atlantean War conform to his location theory, he suggests that the Mycenaean Greeks fought alongside the El Argar people in southeast Spain against VNSP Atlanteans! The evidence for such a military alliance is at best tenuous or more likely, purely speculative.

VNSPHowever, the idea is not as farfetched as it might seem when combined with the views of W.Sheppard Baird who claims that Minoans had been the colonisers of Los Millares  in Andalusia as early as 4000 BC. In due course, the culture of Los Millares was superseded by that of El Argar. This begs the question as whether the Mycenaeans who had succeeded the Minoans on Crete also replaced them in their Andalusian colonies!

Nevertheless, no matter how interesting the theories of Aldamiz and Baird may be, they have still to explain Plato’s claim that the Atlanteans ‘controlled’ Europe as far as Tyrhennia, along with part of North Africa, before their eastward invasion! Furthermore, the part that Egypt played in their alliance with Athens in the war with Atlantis is totally ignored by them.

*(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160611101052/https://allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8257&PN=1*

(b) https://www.geocities.ws/luis_aldamiz/Atlantis/Atlantis.html

(c) https://atlantisforschung.de/index.php?title=Atlantis_in_der_portugiesischen_Estremadura_%28Basics%29