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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 »
Qur’an
Islam *
Islam itself does not offer any evidence in support of Atlantis’ existence. However, the Qur’an was not intended as a history book(a). Nevertheless, several renowned medieval Arabic writers such as Al-Biruni, Al-Idrisi and Al-Mas’udi have been referred to as offering indirect but relevant evidence for the submergence of Atlantis in the Mediterranean following the breaching of a dam at Gibraltar. A more contemporary Iraqi scholar, Salah Salim Ali, in a twenty-page essay entitled Arabic References to Plato’s Lost Atlantis[077], discusses a possible link between Atlantis and “the City of Brass” referred to by medieval Arabic writers.
In 2014 an Indonesian website offered a more recent view of the Qur’an and Atlantis(b).
Adlantis was imagined by Ignatius Donnelly to be another form of Atlantis. He noted that the first inhabitants of Arabia were known as Adites. They were named after Ad who was fourth in line from Noah. Without any convincing reason, Donnelly states [0021.276] that “these Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Adlantis.” The Qur’an (89:6-9) does refer to Ad(c) – Do you not see what your Lord did with ‘Ad-Iram of the Columns whose like was not created in any land? Iram has been identified as the city of Ubar discovered some decades ago(e), but, while Ad, Iram and Ubar may refer to the same place there is no way that either can be linked to Plato’s Atlantis.
It is claimed that the Qur’an contains scientific knowledge that was not known fourteen hundred years ago(d).
(a) The Qur’an on the Lost City of Atlantis – Understanding Islam -under construction (archive.org) *
(c) Archive 3021 | (atlantipedia.ie)
Topper, Uwe
Uwe Topper (1940-) was born in Wroclaw, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany) and currently living in Berlin where he earns a living as an artist. However, he is better known as a researcher and author in the fields of history, ethnography and anthropology. 
Towards the end of the last century, he turned his attention to chronology and developed his own version of New Chronology which incorporates some of the views of Anatoly Fomenko [1823] and Heribert Illig.
‘New Chronology’ is also a term applied to the realignment of the chronologies of the Middle East as expounded by David Rohl and others. An interesting review of the New Chronology and its revisionist antecedents is available online(h).
A paper(b) by Topper on the subject is worth a read as is a critical review(g) of Topper’s work by Jason Colavito.
An English translation of some of Topper’s work relating to his revisionist view of ancient chronology is available(i). In it he explores what he describes as “jolts and gaps in historical chronology”, noting that “dates that were detem1ined centuries ago and documented in classical and prehistoric monuments collide with those re-calculated by modem techniques for those same objects. They diverge quite noticeably, and the more the dates go back in time the bigger the difference between the two, i.e. between real observation of that time and re-calculation based on present observations.” Topper is convinced that chronological misalignments are the consequences of cataclysms(b).
Topper seems to thrive on controversy, because not content to deconstruct our chronology, he has denounced, Beowulf, the cave paintings of Chauvet, and the Lady of Elche as all fakes(a). He has also written an extensive paper(f) on the cart ruts, usually associated with just Malta, but which are found around the Mediterranean and further afield.
Topper has also written about Atlantis, placing its capital on the site of modern Cadiz surrounded by nine other cities between Lisbon and Tarragona (see Richard Cassaro) and has identified possible references to Atlantis in the Qur’an and also speculated that by 11,000 BC Atlantean culture had spread as far as the Americas and Asia! He dealt with these matters in his 1977 book[916], Das Erbe der Giganten. Untergang und Rückkehr der Atlanter (The legacy of the giants, fall and return of the Atlantean)
He has also attempted to revive interest in Hanns Hörbiger’s ‘world-ice theory’(d).
My instincts tell me that Topper’s views should be treated with great caution.
Topper’s son, Ilya, is following in his father’s footsteps with articles on New Chronology as well as papers with provocative titles such as; The Christian Koran and The Sumerians did not exist(c).
(a) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/topperen.htm
(b) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/kataursacheen.htm
(c) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/ilyaen.htm
(d) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/glacialen.htm
(f) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/gleisedt.htm (german)
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200227140310/http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id13.html
Adlantis *
Adlantis was imagined by Ignatius Donnelly to be another form of Atlantis. He notes that the first inhabitants of Arabia were known as Adites (Pt. IV Chap1). They were apparently named after Ad who was fourth in line from Noah. Without any convincing reason, Donnelly states[121] that “these Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Adlantis”. He also quotes an Arabic tradition that they are descended from Ad, son of Ham although this is not confirmed by the Qur’an. However, the Qur’an does claim that Noah was allowed by God to warn the people of Ad of the impending Deluge.
A short discussion paper in Atlantisforschung mentions that the Ad people are referred to 14 times in the Qur’an and attributes the first identification of the Ad people as Atlanteans to Uwe Topper in 1977, nearly a century after Donnelly(a)!
The lost city of Ubar, also known as ‘Iram of the Pillars’, was discovered using satellite imagery in 1992 in southern Oman. The city had been sought after by Lawrence of Arabia and referred to by him as the ‘Atlantis of the Sands’, a name that has stuck. Its discovery prompted speculation that this was the city of the people of Ad mentioned in the Qur’an. An article by Harun Yahya discusses this idea from an Islamic viewpoint(b).
The location of Ubar has centred on the ancient Bedouin site of Shisr in the Dhofar province of Oman, but, as usual, there is controversy about this identification(c).
(b) The People of ‘Ad and Ubar, the Atlantis of the Sands (archive.org) *
(c) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis_of_the_Sands#Shisr