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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 »
pyramids
Crimea
Crimea is a large peninsula on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. At the time of writing (April 2023) Crimea was still occupied by the Russian military. From an atlantological point of view, it is interesting that one of the principal icons of Ukraine is a stylised trident, the symbol of Poseidon.
Crimea itself has had a number of attempts made to associate it with the location of Atlantis. The most eye-catching promoters of this idea were the late Leon Flying Eagle and Mary Whispering Wind, who published their theory in The Atlantis Motherland [0138] nearly twenty years ago. They claimed(a) that in the Crimean port city of Kerch the nearby Mithridat Hill was the original site of the capital city of Atlantis confirmed by the surrounding topography that matched closely Plato’s description. They have also suggested that the shallow Strait of Kerch between Crimea and Russia as the location of Plato’s ‘shoals‘(c).
An interesting detail is that the Strait of Kerch was one of several locations that the ancient Greeks referred to as the Pillars of Heracles listed by Robert Schoch in Voices of the Rocks [454.87], but, unfortunately, without citing his source.
They further claim(b) that there is evidence that the Kopet-Dagh fault line, which runs just above the strait, experienced a devastating (8.9) earthquake around 9600 BC destroying Atlantis in the Strait. At this time what we now call the Sea of Azov was the well-irrigated plain adjacent to the city of Atlantis described by Plato. They claim that the earthquake caused a massive influx of water from the Caspian Sea, which had been rising due to the melting ice caps in the north. This combination caused the creation of the Sea of Azov and the flooding of Atlantis.
All this would have been fine except that at the start of their homepage, they announced that “Thirty-nine thousand years ago a primitive tribe of wild robust Neanderthals celebrated the beginning of a new species. Visitors from a distant planet united with their tribe. Together they created the great Empire of Atlantis, the Motherland of all Modern Humans.” For me, this just undermines the credibility, if not the rationality of the authors.
Anatoliy Ivanovich Zolotukhin is a Ukrainian researcher from the city of Nykolaiv (also known as Mykolaiv) who authored Homer: The Immanent Biography [1015], in which he claims that Homer was born in Alibant (Mykolaiv) on September 14, 657 BC)(f). He follows the views of Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) who believed that most of Odysseus’s travels took place in the Black Sea rather than the Mediterranean. Additionally, Zolotukhin locates Atlantis in the western Crimean area of Evpatoria(d) on his multilingual website with the inviting title of Homer and Atlantis(e).
Werner E. Friedrich is a German researcher who published a bilingual booklet in 2006 [0695] in which he firmly located Atlantis in the Black Sea region circa 10,000 BC on a plain west and east around today’s Crimean peninsula.
Christian & Siegfried Schoppe are a father and son team of German researchers, who firmly assert that Atlantis was located in the Black Sea. More specifically they suggest that Snake Island(h) situated 35km east of the Danube Delta, was the location of the Atlantean capital. Snake Island has also been referred to on a Russian website(i) that discusses a Black Sea Atlantis. It includes some video clips with Russian dialogue. Snake Island has also been adopted by George K. Weller as the location of Atlantis(j). Snake Island also featured in the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In his 2020 book, Apocalypse [1874], Dr Sean Welsh agreed that Noah’s Ark finally rested on Mt. Ararat, but took everyone by surprise by claiming that it was not Ararat in Turkey but Ararat mountain/hill on Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula!
Very ancient pyramids have also been claimed for Crimea(g).
(a) http://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html
(b) Great Atlantis Flood (archive.org)
(c) Index (atlantis-today.com)
(d) https://homerandatlantis.com/?lang=en
(e) https://homerandatlantis.com/??-??????/?lang=en
(f) Nikolaev Pushkin club (archive.org)
(g) Archive 3619 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(h) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Island_(Ukraine)
(i) http://survincity.com/2010/04/conspiracy-theory-black-sea-atlantis-the-case-of/ (link broken Dec.2020)
Newgrange *
Newgrange is a Neolithic monument in Ireland’s Boyne Valley, County Meath. It was constructed around 3,200 BC, which makes it older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza. Newgrange is a large circular mound 85m (279ft) in diameter and 13m (43ft) high with a 19m (63ft) stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound is ringed by 97 large kerbstones, some of which are engraved with megalithic art.
Newgrange was built by a farming community that prospered on the rich lands of the Boyne Valley. Nearby are Knowth and Dowth which are similar mounds that together with Newgrange have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO(a).
The site was fully investigated and reconstructed between 1962 and 1975. However, the reconstruction was not accepted without criticism(h).
Both Robert Hensey(f), who has studied and written about Newgrange [1766.6] and Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading authority, have endorsed the idea of a French origin for megalith building(g).
Bob Quinn visited the enormous stone circle at Mzora in Morocco and was struck by its similarity to Newgrange(e)!
Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange, there is an opening called a roof-box. This baffling orifice held a great surprise for those who unearthed it. Its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the chamber on the shortest days of the year, around December 21st, the winter solstice.
Like all ancient monuments, the Boyne Valley cluster has generated its collection of wild speculation, such as Freddy Silva’s claim that there is a connection between Knowth and Sacsayhuaman near Cuzco in Peru and who also hints at a possible link with Egypt’s Osirion(b)!
The unaccredited Keystone University in Ireland published a video in 2020 in which it claimed that “the neolithic tomb at Newgrange in the Boyne Valley is, in fact, the famed temple of Atlantis and one of the oldest temples on earth as a result(i).” This daft claim is a development of Ulf Erlingsson‘s theories published in 2004.
The winter solstice event is not the only astronomical link proposed for Newgrange. Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore have written(c) about the Cygnus Constellation and a possible link with Newgrange [1441]. Paul Dunbavin also touched on the possible connection between swans in Irish mythology and astronomical events(d).
Even more unlikely is the suggestion from E. A. James Swagger in The Newgrange Sirius Mystery [1683] in which the author endeavoured to link Ireland’s most important megalithic site with both an early understanding of precession and the symbology of the Dogon.
Furthermore, the imaginative Frank Joseph has speculated that “the early date for Newgrange, its circular construction, sophisticated solar orientation and mythic tradition all point to Atlantean origins.” [0636.70]
A common feature of most of the great megalithic monuments, such as Stonehenge, The Maltese Temples or Newgrange is the incorporation of astronomical alignments into their design. Recent years have seen the development of archaeoacoustics and the study of the sound characteristics of various ancient structures. Arguably the most famous site is the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum in Malta, about which Linda Eneix has written an interesting paper(j). She notes that there is a suggestion that sounds there, and possibly elsewhere, might lead to a release of the ‘feel-good’ hormone dopamine. Any inference that this was a deliberate design feature will require evidence. Eneix just touches on Newgrange acoustics that are discussed elsewhere(k).
(a) https://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm
(c) https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/irishgodkings
(d) Mythical Ireland | Astronomy | The Cygnus Enigma (archive.org)
(e) http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/the-mysterious-moroccan-megalithic-menhirs-of-mzora/ (see last comment)
(h) https://www.knowth.com/excavation.htm
(i) The Lost City of Atlantis is Ireland (irishcentral.com)
(j) https://www.academia.edu/63669239/Megaliths_Music_and_the_Mind_The_Latest_in_Archaeoacoustics
Croatia
Croatia has been mentioned several times within these pages. Apart from being the birthplace of Rudolf Steiner and Flavio Barbiero, it also offers a serious rival to Malta as the place where St. Paul was shipwrecked, namely on the island of Mljet! Coincidentally, Mljet is also claimed by some as the home of Calypso’s Ogygia(a).
Vedran Sinožic in his book Naša Troja (Our Troy) [1543]. “Sinožic provides numerous arguments that prove that the legendary Homer Troy is not located in Hisarlik in Turkey, but is located in the Republic of Croatia – today’s town of Motovun in Istria.”
Pero Metkovic recently announced that he had identified a number of pyramids in the vicinity of Dubrovnik. Not content with that revelation, he also claims to have located Atlantis nearby(b). For good measure, he supports the idea of Croatians in America in ancient times!
When the sunken ruins of a city, dated to around 1500 BC were discovered in 2015, near Croatia’s oldest city, Zadar, it generated the usual flurry of Atlantis speculation. There was a media report(c-e) in early 2017 in which treasure hunter Mark Kempf claimed to have discovered the remains of Atlantis 30 miles off the coast of Croatia.
So, with links to St. Paul, along with Ogygia, Troy, Atlantis and a collection of Egyptian-style pyramids within its territory, it has got to be the holiday destination of all time.
Nevertheless, although it cannot be directly linked to Atlantis, I feel obliged to add a May 2023 report that a “prehistoric road was discovered under layers of sea mud at the sunken Neolithic site of Soline, and helped connect the Hvar settlement to the now-isolated island of Korcula in Croatia(g). The ‘road’ has been dated to around 5000 BC.
(b) https://perometkovic.medium.com/mistery-of-dubrovnik-pyramids-3dea77cedc57
(c) http://empirenews.net/lost-city-of-atlantis-uncovered-in-mediterranean-sea/
(d) https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3u7rce/archeologists_in_croatia_announced_their/
(g) 7,000-Year-Old Ancient Road Found Buried Underneath the Mediterranean Sea! | Weather.com
Kos, Charles R. *
Charles R. Kos is an Australian ancient mysteries researcher whose website(a) deals with a range of 
subjects – Pyramids[1591], Stonehenge, Anunnaki, Sphinx, etc., etc.
He has also produced a number of videos in support of his theories.
Inevitably, he included Atlantis in his output(b), which he claims was part of what we now know as Britain, but was specifically a sunken part of Britain, more generally called Doggerland today.
>In a 2019 paper, Kos put forward the claim that the ancient city of Old Sarum was the capital of Atlantis. It is near the cathedral city of Salisbury and not far from the megalithic monument of Stonehenge(a). I was not convinced.<
However, a reading of his homepage also offers some comedic entries, such as his belief “that Macchu(sic) Picchu in Peru which is held to be ‘Inca’ is in fact, I am fairly certain, an Irish Monastery from the Dark Ages.”
Much of what he has produced is highly speculative, which I am prepared to attribute to over-enthusiasm.
(a) Articles (archive.org) *
(b) https://www.charleskos.com/index.php?l1=Articles&l2=%2BAtlantis%2BLocation (link broken)
Caral
Caral is an important site in the Supe Valley of central Peru near the coast and was part of the Norte Chico civilisation. It was occupied during the third millennium BC, although some push that back as far as the fourth millennium. Caral is claimed to be the oldest urban settlement in the Americas(a), although other sites in the region may challenge that. Arthur D. Faram has written a petroglyphic study of Caral(c).
A 2021 article from the History Channel suggests a date of around 2600 BC for the Caral complex and that it was abandoned about a thousand years later(d).
The 600-hectare site includes a pyramid complex that may have preceded those of the Egyptians. An early quipu was also found at the site suggesting some form of continuity with the later Inca civilisation.
In the 1950s, further south, in the Manchay Valley near the capital Lima, Karola Siebert was convinced that she had found Atlantean remains, while further south again, over the border in Bolivia we have Jim Allen’s chosen location for Atlantis near Lake Poopó.
A French website(b) has on offer the strange idea that the longitude of Caral in Peru and that of Xian in China and their respective relationships with the Prime Meridian at Greenwich and the longitude of Giza have some bearing on the location of Atlantis, which the author, Fabien Pardo, places in the Antarctic!
I reject all South American locations as possibly Atlantean and do so principally because the idea of an attack on Athens being launched from the west coast of South America, thousands of years ago, is, to put it kindly, just silly. However, it is quite clear that this region has had a fascinating prehistory and should keep archaeologists busy for generations to come.
(a) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/caral.htm
(b) ATLANTIS AND THE GREENWICH’S MERIDIAN – Site du livre – Pour Eux v1.618 – (archive.org) *
(c) https://migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=344
(d) This Little-Known Peruvian Civilization Built Pyramids as Old as Ancient Egypt’s – HISTORY
Anziano, Gennaro *
Gennaro Anziano is the Italian author of Atlantide – Scoperta la Terra degli dèi [1072], in which he claims to solve the mysteries of Atlantis, the Tower of Babel, Pole Shift and the Pyramids(a). He believes that an impact with an extraterrestrial body destroyed Atlantis, which had been situated in Greenland!
Pleiades, The
The Pleiades in Greek mythology is the collective name for the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, while in astronomy, it is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth and the most obvious to the naked eye in the Taurus constellation. They were identified by American researcher Frank Edge among the famous prehistoric paintings on the walls of the Lascaux Cave (16,500 BC)(h).
Pushing back much further, we now have a claim from Australia by astrophysicist Richard Norris who purports to have evidence that the Pleiades were known as ‘the seven sisters’ as far back as 100,000 years ago before Aboriginal Australians reached Australia according to their traditions!(i) Jason Colavito does not agree with this idea(g).
The Danish independent researcher, Ove Von Spaeth, has a wide-ranging article on cultural references to the Pleiades including the Nebra Sky Disc(a). He also touches on the subject of Atlantis.
David Zink in his search for Atlantis in the Bahamas recounts in The Stones of Atlantis [0178,130] that he used the services of psychic, Carol Huffstickler, who was happy to inform him that around 28,000 BC, the Gods came to Earth from the Pleiades(d)!
However, Jack Countryman has devoted his book, Atlantis and the Seven Stars[1312], to the idea that extraterrestrials from the Pleiades “had initiated human civilisation through Atlantis and the Mediterranean.” A comparable idea has been proposed by Semir Osmanagic, promoter of the Bosnian pyramids, who has suggested[0519] that the Maya were descendants of the Atlanteans who in turn arrived on Earth from the Pleiades(b)!
Frank Joseph claims that the Pleiades, ”like the kings (of Atlantis) listed by Plato, correspond, through their individual myths, to actual places within the Atlantean sphere of influence, and thereby help to illustrate the story of that vanished empire.” Joseph, concludes by associating each with particular realms within that empire, including the Azores, Morocco. Troy, Yucatan, Italy and the Canaries.[104.227]
The Cherokee Indians also have an oral tradition that tells of ‘star people’ coming to Earth from the Pleiades and settling on five islands in the Atlantic known as Elohi Mona. Following the destruction of these islands, the survivors migrated to the Americas. A Cherokee contributor to a, now offline, forum related how he always understood Elohi Mona to be a reference to Atlantis. Another site offering further ‘insights’ into the Atlantean and Cherokee linkage to the Pleiades is available(c).
Edward Alexander, in a slight twist to the tale, also claims to have been reincarnated many times on Earth, over the past 9,000 years since his arrival from his distant origins in the Pleiades.
In 2018, Frederick Dodson revealed that he had encountered blue-skinned beings from the Pleiades in his book, The Pleiades and our Secret Destiny [1658]! It would be interesting to hear Dodson and Alexander exchange notes.
>The internet is replete with nonsensical claims of Pleiadian ancestry. Just this morning, I found the following piece of b.s. that is representative of what you may encounter. This site also claims an Atlantean link(j).
“The Tarot is ancient Pleiadian communication. It is why many of those who feel a kinship with the Tarot now often also feel a kinship with the Pleiadian energy.
The Pleiadians brought these ancient technologies; these forms, these symbols to us. And at the human level, to communicate, simplified this into the cards of the Tarot. So our Pleiadian embodied allies and ancient social memory complexes continue to communicate through the Tarot, which is why humans continue to use this methodology even to this day.”<
William Henry, in a 2006, NatGeo documentary about Atlantis delighted us with the revelation that ancient aliens from the Pleiades have helped the Egyptians to build the pyramids! The incredible amount of utter b.s. that people continue to generate, ostensibly linking extraterrestrials to Atlantis or the Pyramids is, for me, quite remarkable(e). A recent episode (S15E07) of the American TV series Ancient Aliens returned to the subject of the Pleiades and visitors from there. Jason Colavito has reviewed it ‘appropriately’(f).
>Shane Leach has claimed in his 2023 book Prehistory Explained [2007] that the structures at Stonehenge correspond to the stars that form the Pleiades constellation.<
The Pleiades are known as Subaru in Japanese, giving its name to the car brand and inspiring its logo design.
(a) See: Archive 3363
(b) https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/
(c) https://www.tokenrock.com/explain-pleiadians-138.html
(d) https://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/legend-of-atlantis-lives-in-bimini/article_d5552245-820b-510a-bb96-c295f7947300.html (June 2018-Not available in Europe because of the GDPR)
(e) Archive 3908 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s15e07-they-came-from-the-pleiades
(g) Australian Astrophysicist Claims Pleiades Myth Is 100,000 Years Old – JASON COLAVITO
(h) Atlantis Rising magazine #25 p.13 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
Hyperdiffusion
Hyperdiffusion is defined by Wikipedia(n) as “a pseudoarchaeological hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share similar cultural practices, such as construction of pyramids, derived them from a single common progenitor. According to its proponents, examples of hyperdiffusion can be found in religious practices, cultural technologies, megalithic monuments, and lost ancient civilizations.”
Hyperdiffusion with Atlantis at its centre was argued at great length by Ignatius Donnelly when he proposed Atlantis as the mother culture, located in the Atlantic. Through colonisation and migration, their civilisation was brought to the Americas and the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt. The idea received widespread support at the time>>from people such as the Rev. Joseph Cook<<and has persisted until today(a), with Graham Hancock being currently the best-known proponent of hyperdiffusion. In 2022, Marco Vigato also advocated Atlantis as a hyperdiffusionist hub.
A similar hyperdiffusionist proposal was made by James Churchward regarding his Pacific island of Mu.
Angelo Mazzoldi expressed support for a form of regional hyperdiffusion that had his Italian Atlantis as the mother culture which seeded all the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean region.
However, even earlier, in the seventeenth century, Olof Rudbeck “purported to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.”(i)
Since Atlantis in the Atlantic is considered by many to be highly improbable and Mu only existed in Churchward’s imagination, a more likely explanation is that diverse ideas emerged independently in different locations, possibly around the same time. These developments then diffused through trade and migration in various directions, sometimes returning in an improved format. The result is that today we are finding that most ancient civilisations show evidence of cultural influences from more than one source.
Lawrence Freeman is the American author of Beyond The Pillars: a search for Antediluvian civilizations(l) in which he reviews almost every civilisation and prehistoric mystery that you ever heard of. He refers to Atlantis throughout the book, but in rather sceptical tones, with the nearest to a conclusion being that – “Atlantis may well have never existed, but if it did exist, then it was likely only as part of a worldwide antediluvian civilization that is now coming to light.”
Richard Cassaro and Jim Allen have both published online large collections of images(b)(c)(d) that clearly demonstrate widespread diffusion. This is particularly so in the case of South America where influences from both east and west are clearly evident. While it is regularly claimed that Egypt influenced South American civilisations it is obvious that Asian inspiration was equally, if not solely, at work. The existence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mesoamerica is put forward as evidence of contact between them. However, the problem is that the American pyramids were constructed hundreds if not thousands of years later than the Egyptian ones. However, in spite of this separation by time and distance, the Egyptians and the Aztecs also shared feathered-serpent deities(g)! What appears to be overlooked is the fact that the Chinese pyramids are more like Mesoamerican examples and are dated to the second half of the first millennium BC, again closer to the development of pyramids in Mesoamerica.
Christian O’Brien contended that global cultural hyperdiffusion was centred in Southern Lebanon (the Garden of Eden) and was spread from there by ‘The Shining Ones’ leading to the establishment of some of the great civilisations of our ancient past!(m)
An even more unusual hyperdiffusionist opinion was expressed by the Argentine palaeontologist, Florintino Ameghino (1854-1911), who thought that mankind originated in South America(h) and spread globally from there!
In 2020, Anthony Woods [1775] attempted to prove that Atlantis was Ireland and also the source of the mother culture for the entire world. As an Irishman, when reading this, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, found in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further, noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much of this might be the result of coincidence or hyperdiffusion is a matter of opinion.(k)
Carl Feagans offers a paper that is highly critical of hyperdiffusion and its promoters, denouncing them as “willfully ignorant and grossly racist. Though they don’t say it directly, the message is still the same: “white people did it, not savages.”(j)
A 1986 paper(f) by Ben Urish entitled Cultural Diffusion[0969] should be read in this connection.
(a) https://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=5106.0
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pyramids
(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(g) See: Archive 2827
(h) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180329154212/https://webs.advance.com.ar/lae_tor/teorias.htm
(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaus_Rudbeck
(j) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2016/12/hyper-diffusion-archaeology/
(l) https://lfreeman.blogspot.com/2006/11/beyond-pillars-search-for-antediluvian.html
Serviss, Garrett P.
Garrett P. Serviss (1851-1929) was an American astronomer and populariser of science and the author
of a number of science fiction novels. In one of them(b), he was possibly the first to propose that the pyramids had been built by aliens, specifically, Martians.
Although he had a law degree, he never practised as an attorney, instead turning to journalism.
Serviss was clearly sympathetic to the idea of Atlantis, located in the Atlantic but never committed fully to the idea, although he was content to echo the views of those scientists of his day who did(a).
*However, in 1915, Serviss put forward the possibility that a lost continent in the Arctic Ocean, containing Atlantis, was destroyed and that this cataclysm also generated Noah’s Flood.(c)*
(a) https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19131105.2.160
(b) https://archive.org/details/edisons_conquest_of_mars_0806_librivox (print + audio)
*(c) https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045389/1915-01-03/ed-1/seq-46/*
Gemelli Careri, Giovanni Francesco (L)
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (1651-1725) was a famous Italian ‘adventurer’ who travelled the 
world using public transport. After his first trip across Europe, he later decided to undertake an around-the-world journey, which took him five years and was recorded in a six-volume work entitled Giro Del Mondo. Volume VI is concerned with Mexico where Careri studied its pyramids that led to his conclusion that the early inhabitants of America and the ancient Egyptians were both descended from inhabitants of Atlantis. A 1700 edition of Volume VI is available online(a).
Gilbert & Cotterell in The Mayan Prophecies[0327] contended that Careri’s views on Atlantis originated from his friendship with Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.
(a) https://books.google.ie/books?id=7e0UAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (Italian)