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NEWS October 2024
October 2024 Hi to everyone I’m taking a break during the first two weeks of October, so there will be minimal activity on the site apart from the ongoing project of replacing broken links. Back Soon, Tony September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we […]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 »
Morbihan
Carnac
Carnac is arguably Europe’s most visually remarkable megalithic site. It is situated near the town of the same name in Brittany. Many will have seen images of the rows of standing stones there, often unaware that there are four main sets of them close to Carnac as well as cromlechs and solitary menhirs, including the largest, Le Grand Menhir Brisé, now broken, but originally 70 ft long and weighing around 300 tons. In their 1978 book [1771.180], Alexander Thom and his son, Archie, in the conclusion to their book, in spite of their extensive studies of the stone rows, agreed that “we do not know what these were for” and although various theories have been proposed since; we still don’t.
I always thought that the stone rows at Carnac were unique, until I saw an image of a similar arrangement of stones at Vibhuthihalli at Karnataka in India. It may be pure coincidence, but the similar sounds of Carnac and Karnataka is remarkable(f)(g).
Jean Markale presumed that there was a connection between Atlantis and the megalithic standing stones of Carnac in Brittany. Rather than solve these two mysteries, his book, Carnac et L’enigme de L’atlantide (Carnac and the Enigma of Atlantis) [0470] would seem to deepen them.>Paul Johnson offered a review of Markale’s book in 1987(j).<
Helmut Tributsch suggested that the island of Gavrinis near Carnac in Brittany had been the capital of this Atlantean civilisation(h). He dated the destruction of Atlantis to 2200 BC, a date also favoured by Anton Mifsud.
Hans-Pény Hirmenech expressed the wild idea that the rows of standing stones at Carnac marked the tombs of Atlantean soldiers who fought in the Trojan War! Wikipedia notes that “A Christian myth associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone.”(a)
Hank Harrison supports the idea of a megalithic Atlantis with its centre of power, probably located in the Morbihan area of Brittany.
Based on the picture and the data present, Schulz Paulsson believes that the megaliths were first constructed by dwellers of northwest France during the second half of the fifth millennium BC.”(b) Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading authority, has endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building(c).
Neil L. Thomas in a 2021 paper(d) has studied three sites near Carnac that hold long rows of standing stones whose purpose was uncertain. Thomas concluded that they had a calendrical function relating to the sun and moon. I cannot help wondering why such extensive and labour-intensive structures were needed to achieve this relatively simple objective.
R. Cedric Leonard has published an interesting overview of the Carnac mystery, suggesting that the erection of the three rows of standing stones may have been originally connected. He further proposes that the builders of the monuments were possibly a Cro-Magnon people, namely, the Azilians.
In 2017, Arthur Faram published a short paper with the interesting title of The Carnac Stones Decoded. Frankly, I could not understand his theory at all(i).
(e) https://atlantisquestscience.wordpress.com/science/the-stones-of-carnac/
(g) Stone Alignment of Vibhutihalli | PDF | Sunset | Neolithic (scribd.com)
(i) Carnac Stones (thefaramfoundation.com)
(j) https://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/anceur/eu-john.htm *
Bretons *
The Bretons are a cultural grouping located in Brittany in northwest France, where the most outstanding megalithic monuments of Europe are situated. Today, the Bretons consider themselves a separate Celtic 
people, with a strong nationalist movement(c).
It was in 1839 that the Rev. Algernon Herbert (1792-1855), Dean of Merton College, Oxford, was the first to use the term ‘megalithic’ in a paper describing the monuments of England and Brittany.
Since the middle of the 19th century a number of commentators right up to the present have labelled the Bretons as Atlantean. These include R. Cedric Leonard(a), who In support of this idea cites both Stephen Oppenheimer and Herodotus, although he does so some reservations. Hank Harrison wrote Finding Atlantis in which, he supported the idea of a megalithic Atlantis with its centre of power probably located in the Morbihan area of Brittany.
In the 19th century, Ignatius Donnelly quoted Eugene Bodichon as expressing a similar view[021.389]. Bodichon’s opinion is simply based on the temperament and physical similarities between the Bretons and the Berbers of North Africa. Similarly, Gerry Forster refers to Bodichon’s opinion in his The Lost Continent Rediscovered(b). I do not think that the case is proven, even if the legendary kingdom of Ys, reputedly off the Brittany coast, is brought into the debate.
(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170113172907/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Bretons.html
(b) Gerry Forster (archive.org) *
(c) https://ansionnachfionn.com/2011/08/18/at-home-amongst-the-bretons/
Armorica
Armorica was the Latin name given by the Romans to what we know today as the Brittany peninsula. The region contains some of the most remarkable monuments created by the megalith builders, such as those found at Carnac and Morbihan,
Plato described the influence of Atlantis reaching as far as Italy and Libya (Tim. 25b). In Europe megalithic structures have been found extending all along the Atlantic seaboard and into the Mediterranean as far east as Italy(a) and all across North Africa including modern Libya and Egypt, it was understandable when some commentators concluded that these megalithic monuments were a cultural expression of the Atlanteans. The evidence available indicates that the spread of megalithic building was effected by a maritime based society. How much of this spread was brought about through military or trade expansion or just migration is not known.
A number of French and German researchers have identified Brittany as the power centre of the Atlantean ‘confederation’, while the American writer Hank Harrison is working on a book in which he will nominate Morbihan as a possible capital of Atlantis. R. Cedric Leonard has also written an interesting article(b) on the megalithic monuments of Brittany.
While megaliths are also found in the Middle East and across Asia as far as Japan, their greatest concentration is in Western Europe with a suggested focal point in Armorica. The legendary sunken city of Ys, often associated with Atlantis, is reputedly located off the coast of Armorica.
(a) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Megaliths_in_Italy
*(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20170113112315/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Carnac.html*
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Brittany *
Brittany in northwestern France is sometimes referred to as Little or Lesser Britain. It is one of the most exciting regions of Megalithic Europe. The stone rows of Carnac are unequalled, Le Grand Menhir Brisé was once the largest standing stone in Europe, while 
Morbihan contains a huge number of dolmens and standing stones.2019 saw a report that “Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, reexamined some 2,410 radiocarbon dating results that have been assigned to Europe’s megaliths and put them through a Bayesian statistical analysis. Based on the picture the data presents, Schulz Paulsson believes that the megaliths were first constructed by dwellers of northwest France during the second half of the fifth millennium BC.” (b) Both Robert Hensey, who has studied and written about Newgrange [1766.6] and Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading, authority, have endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building(c).
The earliest suggestion that Atlantis may have been connected with the Armorican peninsula came from François Gidon in the 1930s when he proposed that Atlantis had been situated on an exposed Celtic Shelf stretching from Brittany to Ireland. Unfortunately, he dates the submergence of this land to between 3000 and 1200 BC, which was millennia after that part of the Celtic Shelf had been inundated by the Flandrian Transgression.
Jean Markle was convinced that the Carnac stones were connected with Atlantis. Recently, Sylvain Tristan followed the work of Jean Deruelle in supporting a megalithic Atlantis. Further support has come from Alfred deGrazia and Helmut Tributsch who saw Megalithic Europe as Atlantis with the island of Gavrinis in Brittany as its capital.
The American researcher, Hank Harrison, considers the Morbihan départment as a significant Atlantean location if not the home of its capital.
Reinoud deJonge proposes even greater significance for the Brittany megaliths with his claim that they record the Flood of Noah in 2344 BC(a).
A fairly lengthy illustrated paper regarding ancient catastrophes in Brittany is available online(d).
(a) See: Archive 2501
Harrison, Hank *
Hank Harrison (1941- ) is an American writer and publisher and sometimes 
better known as the father of the singer, Courtney Love and father-in-law of the late Kurt Cobain(c). Among a range of subjects he has expressed great interest in Megalithic Europe in two of his books, The Stones of Ancient Ireland(a) and Finding Atlantis. In the latter, he supports the idea of a megalithic Atlantis with its centre of power probably located in the Morbihan area of Brittany.
In The Cauldron and the Grail [1789] Harrison focuses on the cultural background of the megalith builders. His instincts told him that many of the important sites had both a functional purpose an astronomical predictors and as early religious centres.
Another recent book by Harrison is Arthur the God(b).
(a) https://www.arkives.com/soai/soai.pdf (offline Mar.* 20*16) see Archive 2930)
(b) Arthur the God – Arthurian Myth and Legends (archive.org) *
(c) http://wikibin.org/articles/hank-harrison.html *