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NEWS September 2023
September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
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 »
Nefertiti
Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba is one of the few ancient historical figures that has not been linked with Atlantis. Wikipedia refers to her as “a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for the Israelite King Solomon………..modern historians identify Sheba with the South Arabian kingdom of Saba in present-day Yemen and Ethiopia. The queen’s existence is disputed among historians.”(a)
>In Arabia she was known as Bilqis, to the Christians of Ethiopia she was Makeda, while Josephus referred to her as Nicaule.<
Nevertheless, she is mentioned from time to time on these pages, particularly regarding her identity> and the time of her reign. In the 1950s Immanuel Velikovsky, proposed, in Ages in Chaos [039] that either six centuries were missing from Israel’s history or had six hundred ghost years crept into Egyptian history. One of the keys to his revised chronology was the identification of the Queen of Sheba as the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut.
This caused quite a stir at the time and generated a degree of support for Velikovsky. However, in 1986 John Bimson published a paper, ‘Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba’, debunking Velikovsky’s contention, which had the effect of eroding that support. Then in 1997, Damien Mackey re-ignited the controversy with a paper challenging Bimson’s conclusion(f) and so the debate continues(h).<
>There are a number of 21st-century commentators who still accept Velikovsky’s identification of Hatshepsut as the Queen of Sheba including Emmet Sweeney [1867.25] and Emmet Scott(d), Damien Mackey(f), as well as Ken Griffith & Darrell K. White(e) and, I might add, no lack of opponents either.<
Eulalio Eguia offered a different Egyptian identification suggesting Nefertiti instead of Hatshepsut(b). Riaan Booysen went further, not only agreeing with Eguia but proposing that Nefertiti was also Helen of Troy(c)!
>Among the Ethiopians, there is a tradition that the Queen of Sheba and Solomon had a child, Menelik, who visited Jerusalem and returned to Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant. There is no evidence to support this tale which is thought to have been “originally created to legitimize Yukuno Amlak’s rule of the late 13th century AD who had killed the Zagwa king to obtain power.”<
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Sheba
(b) Calaméo – Nefertiti – The Queen of Sheba ` (calameo.com)
(c) Thera and the Exodus – Graham Hancock Official Website
(d) Hatshepsut: Queen of Sheba: Scott, Emmet: 9780875869452: Amazon.com: Books (I suspect that Emmet Sweeney, a Scot, and Emmet Scott are the same person and share the same publisher)
Borchardt, Ludwig
Ludwig Borchardt (1863-1938) was a German Egyptologist who was the
discoverer of the famous bust of Nefertiti in 1912 at Amarna. He lived and worked in Egypt for a number of years until he retired from the German Institute for Ancient Egyptian Archaeology in Cairo.
>In recent years there have been claims that the bust was a fake(c).<
In the mid-1920s he became interested in the search for Atlantis. At a conference in Paris in 1926 he suggested Chott el-Jerid as the most likely location for Plato’s lost city, which was inundated around 1250 BC.
The source for the above reference to Atlantis(a) seems to be incorrect and may be the result of confusion with Paul Borchardt. However, the same details are quoted on another site(b), although both may have used a common source
(a) https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/borchardtl.htm (offline Jan. 2017) See Archive 2888
(b) https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/borchardt-ludwig
(c) Is the Bust of Nefertiti Fake? | DailyArtMagazine | Art History Stories *
Booysen, Riaan
Riaan Booysen is a South African researcher (and avid tennis fan) who has written articles on a number of ancient mysteries, which can be found on his website(e). Among his controversial ideas are that the Queen of Sheba, Nefertiti and Helen of Troy were a single person(d).
He offers a major paper on Atlantis(a), in which he bravely identifies its location as an extensive landmass which included present day Australia. Unlike other writers who have offered similar suggestions based on guesswork, Booysen offers a coherent thesis based on the geology of the South Pacific and early cartography.
His theory requires a radical redating of the Antarctic ice cap, which has led to continued debate on the internet(c).
Booysen has published another contentious offering in 2013, entitled Thera and the Exodus[1025] in which he argues that there were at least two Theran eruptions which led to two separate ‘Exodus’ events by the biblical Israelites, whom he identifies as the Hyksos!
He dates these events to ca. 1613 & 1450 BC.
Booysen has now commented on negative feedback from his book(b).
A year later he ventured into even more contentious territory with the publication of BARBELO – The Story of Jesus Christ, now available as a free ebook(f).
*(a) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus*
(b) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/thera
(c) https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=265894&st=0
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BooysenR1.php
(e) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/theories
(f) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/barbelo