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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 »
R. Cedric Leonard
Ancient Flying Machines
Ancient Flying Machines are claimed to have been in existence in a number of ancient civilisations. Although many will have read of the claim that ancient India had flying machines known as vimanas, promoters of the ancient astronaut idea have relied heavily on the vimana reports in the likes of the Mahabharata spiced up with the additional suggestion of their involvement in atomic warfare. However, Joanna Gillan revealed that “Rather than being entirely fictitious, the passage is composed of a merging together of various unrelated passages scattered throughout the 200,000-verse epic, some of which are also questionable English translations of a questionable French translation of the original Sanskrit. When viewed in their original context, they are a little less convincing.”(a)
As I said, the claim of early flying machines is not unique to India. A paper by the late R. Cedric Leonard, makes a case for ancient aircraft in Mesopotamia(c) , citing the Babylonian books, such as the little-known Halkatha, and the Sifr’ala, allegedly translated by Yonah N. Ibn A’haron. Although Leonard was satisfied regarding the existence of Mr A’haron, Jack Churchward is less sure(b) . The flying machines described in the Book of Ezekiel were encountered in what was known as Chaldea.
In Egypt a small wooden object shaped like a small glider or bird was discovered at Saqqara in 1898. With the development of flight in the early 20th century, some of the more imaginative suggested that the Saqqara Bird may have been a model of an early flying machine. Despite various attempts to substantiate this claim it remains a matter of speculation(d) .
A number of other ancient cultures have also left atifacts and writings that are interpreted by some as evidence of flying machines in ancient times. One site has referenced China, Polynesia and a number of South American countries as offering hints of prehistoric flight and noted(e) that “To many the enormous bulk of this evidence is conclusive enough. Indeed the inescapable conclusion is that thousands of years ago a form of aviation did once exist. A form of transport that enabled people to travel to and from about the world much like we do today! But if so, where are the remains of these machines? We hear no mention of them being found at archaeological sites, and presumably if they had existed we should have found some trace of them?”
As I see it, many of the artefacts offered as evidence are open to subjective interpretation and therefore offering the possibility of unreliable conclusions and where documents are involved, lf they are genuine, they are usually in some exotic ancient language, leaving us totally dependent on the credibility of the interpreter.
Naturally, Atlantis has not escaped the claim of having mastered flight. This idea came from Edgar Cayce who advised us “that the Atlanteans discovered electricity and also had ships and aircraft powered by a mysterious form of energy crystal. He tells us that these flying machines were made of elephant skins! (Reading 364-6)(f) and that they could also travel through water! With all this technology at their disposal, it is incredible that they could have lost a war with anyone, particularly the relatively primitive Athenians.”
(a) Was the Mohenjo Daro ‘Massacre’ Real? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)
(b) Rediscovery of The Naacal Tablets – Accusations Addressed (bibliotecapleyades.net)
(c) https://atlantisquestscience.wordpress.com/myth/ancient-aeronautica/chaldean-aircraft/
(d) Model Airplane? (catchpenny.org)
Palermo Stone, The
The Palermo Stone is described by Wikipedia(a) as “one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty (c. 3150–2890 BCE) through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2392–2283 BCE) and noted significant events in each year of their reigns. It was probably made during the Fifth Dynasty. The Palermo Stone is held in the Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name.”
A 2010 paper(b) by Shih-We Hsu offers a useful overview of what we know about the stone and its significance. “In short, the Palermo Stone constitutes a historical source and document of great significance, shedding considerable light on the Ancient Egyptian world.”
>R. Cedric Leonard published a number of comments relating to the difficulties in translating the contents of the badly damaged diorite stele oldest extant written chronicle of Egyptian history(d).<
Massimiliano Nuzzolo is Assistant Professor of Egyptology at the Institute for Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He has studied and lectured on the Palermo Stone. A 2021 paper by him on the subject is now available(c).
>Rutgers University offers a line-by-line interpretation of the hieroglyphics on the stele(e).
There are also some who have endeavoured to use the ‘Stone’ as evidence of extraterrestrial visitors in our ancient past(f)!<
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palermo_Stone
(d) A New Look at the Palermo Stone (archive.org) *
(e) http://egypt-grammar.rutgers.edu/Artifacts/Palermo%20Stone.pdf *
(f) https://www.reddit.com/r/MysteriousFacts/comments/133kcmf/the_mystery_of_the_palermo_stone_evidence_of/ *
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 *
Mammoths
Mammoths existed as a number of species in many parts of Eurasia and the Americas and were the ancestors of today’s elephants, part of the fauna of Plato’s Atlantis. Mammoths existed for around 5 million years until their extinction over 10,000 years ago, apart, apparently, from a small population on Wrangel Island in Siberia(d), which appears to have lasted until possibly as late as 1700 BC. An intensive study of mammoth remains on Alaska’s St. Paul Island, which was once part of the Beringia landbridge has revealed that they finally died out there 5,600 years ago(e). “The St. Paul mammoth demise is now one of the best-dated prehistoric extinctions,” the researchers report today (August 1, 2016) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The remains of mammoths were probably not studied scientifically until early in the 19th century, with individual specimens such as the ‘Adams’ and the ‘Berezovka’ receiving great attention(c).
In 2022, the BBC reported(i) that “A whole baby woolly mammoth has been found frozen in the permafrost of north-western Canada – the first such discovery in North America.”
However, it was not until the 20th century that mammoths began to slowly enter the pages of the Atlantis story. Both John Cogan and Wolter Smit, among others, have used the mammoth evidence to support their belief that Atlantis was destroyed by an asteroid strike which caused a sudden Pole Shift and consequent freezing of the mammoths.
>>Jason Colavito has traced the story of the frozen mammoths back to the early catastrophist, George Cuvier in 1822(k), who was among the first to suggest that fossil elephant bones had been mistaken in ancient times for the bones of Giants!<<
Ludwik Zajdler believed that there was evidence of a collision between the Earth and Halley’s Comet in 9570 BC and that this caused a 30° alteration to the axis of the earth resulting in the sudden freezing of the Siberian mammoths.
In 2002, Michael Brass has published a paper(h) titled Tracing the Graham Hancock’s Shifting Cataclysm which is “An examination of a specific portion of Graham Hancock’s book Fingerprints of the Gods, relating to Earth Crustal Displacement, the climates and fauna of Siberia and Alaska, and the deaths of the mammoths, finds it to be critically flawed.” Readers should find the section dealing with the alleged instant freezing’ of the frozen mammoths of Alaska and Siberia particularly interesting.
Then Antarctica was also nominated by the Flem-Aths as the home of Atlantis, before its destruction, caused by a Pole Shift. However, in their scenario, this was caused by the movement of the Earth’s entire crust as a result of an excessive build-up of ice at the poles!
Theosophists have seized on the sudden demise of the very many mammoth remains discovered in Siberia and Alaska as vindication of Blavatsky’s Atlantis claims.(a)
R. Cedric Leonard has also reviewed the matter of the apparently instant death of many mammoths bodies discovered and the date of their end and posed the rhetorical question “Can it be merely coincidence that this is the very date (circa 10.000 BC) indicated by Plato for the floods and seismic disturbances which led to the sinking of Atlantis and the destruction of its empire?” (b)
Beverly Jaegers (1935- ) has written on a variety of subjects for Atlantis Rising and Hera magazines among others. In AR #22 she wrote of the various theories put forward to explain the mystery of the frozen mammoths but concluded that “Finally, it must be restated that little evidence exists for any of these events as a direct cause of giant mammoths expiring on their feet as suddenly as they must have done to freeze so quickly and so perfectly as to be still fresh millennia later. Although many prehistoric animal populations may have been affected by mass kills, these are fossils, and only the largest, frozen in such an apparently lightning-like moment of time, remain to tantalize the theorist. No single piece of this fascinating scientific puzzle yet covers all the gaps. None answers all the questions.”(f)
Jaegers also wrote a paper on the possibility of cloning mammoths(g).
In 2021, it was reported that this idea may not be as far-fetched as some think, when the project received encouragement “in the form of $15m (£11m) raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing.” (j)
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20170603012148/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Paleontology.html
(c) https://mammothtales.blogspot.com/2010/04/zombies-of-mammoth-steppes.html
(d) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-mammoths-idUSKBN20200I or Chapter summary – WhisperingTales (archive.org) *
(f) Atlantis Rising magazine #22 At – PDF Archive
(g) Cloning Of Frozen Mammoths Remains Elusive (rense.com)
(h) p45.pdf (centerforinquiry.org)
(i) Frozen baby mammoth discovered in Yukon excites Canada (bbc.com)
(j) Firm raises $15m to bring back woolly mammoth from extinction | Extinct wildlife | The Guardian
(k) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-claim-of-flash-frozen-mammoths-is-older-than-i-thought *
Ancient Astronauts and Atlantis *
Ancient Astronauts and their technology is often promoted as the inspiration behind aspects of many ancient religions such as the vimanas of the Hindus, the flying chariots of Ezekiel as well as the gods of Mesopotamia. The most widely known proponents of these ideas are Erich von Däniken and the late Zecharia Sitchin.
However, I must also include Josef Blumrich who proposed that the biblical Ezekiel had encountered an alien spaceship in his 1973 book [0692]. It is worth noting that a decade earlier Arthur W. Orton wrote The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel which was recently republished [1735] and offers similar ideas as Blumrich. Ulrich Magin has written a critical review of Bloomrich’s interpretation of Ezekiel’s visions(m).
Extraterrestrial visitors have been suggested by a few of the more imaginative and sometimes unscrupulous authors and their publishers, as the source of an advanced civilisation in the past, remembered today as Atlantis. Martin Brady makes such a claim in a brief paper available online(s).
Another example of this genre of b.s. is offered by Tricia McCannon, who delights us with an account of Atlantis as “the seat of a Great Galactic Empire, with many extraterrestrial races coming and going from its shores”, with lots more of the same(t).
Decades before von Däniken, Harold T. Wilkins was already suggesting prehistoric extraterrestrial visitors in the 1950s. He also wrote a couple of books about Atlantis[363][364]. Not long after that, Egerton Sykes wrote some short articles for his Atlantis magazine(i) that were sympathetic to the idea of ancient astronauts.
R. Cedric Leonard is another Atlantis researcher who has written about Atlantis and ancient alien technology. A more recent attempt to link Atlantis with ancient astronauts came from Kevin Falzon, who closely follows Sitchin while locating Atlantis in his native Malta[869]. Richard Mooney speculated on a connection between Atlantis and ancient aliens four decades ago[842].
However, Professor Emilio Spedicato may have added some degree of respectability to the concept when he wrote(u) “There are significant indications in worldwide traditions that intelligent people from planets within a few hundred light-years from Earth visited our planet and intelligently interacted with our biosphere”. He went on to claim that around 5500 BC some of these visitors landed in the Hunza valley of Pakistan where they engaged in a little genetic engineering which led to the ‘creation’ of Adam and Eve!
It should be noted that Plato’s account does not relate any technology beyond that of a Late Bronze Age society, whereas any civilisation founded by alien astronauts should offer some evidence of technologies at least equal to if not more advanced than that of our present-day capabilities.
Nevertheless, the idea of visitors from other worlds is often traced back to the 18th century and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)(e), who not only argued that extraterrestrial beings had visited our planet, but that he had met them[1583]! Greg Little has also recently(g) credited Swedenborg as the originator of the alien visitors’ idea, but Jason Colavito has rubbished Little’s article(f) and traced the concept of extraterrestrial encounters back to Lucian (125-180 AD) together with a few others before Swedenborg. Colavito and Little are not ‘best friends’, so I can only conclude that Colavito simply wished to undermine Little’s credibility as a researcher.
Ever since Kenneth Arnold saw ‘flying saucers’ near Mt. Rainier in 1947, his report paved the way for the ancient astronaut idea to evolve into the prolific writings of W. Raymond Drake and later Erich von Däniken, among others. In turn, this seemed to lead naturally to speculation of a possible linkage with Atlantis.
Jason Colavito has also drawn attention(a) to an exhibition held in Beijing in July 2012, which purported to offer evidence of these ancient visitors, and has published(b) the official U.S. Government view on ancient astronauts. He also offers an overview of alien theories and scathingly criticises their proponents(c). In 2011 Colavito published a free ebook with the self-explanatory title of The Origins of the Space Gods(j).
Colavito has also an interesting blog for 29/08/14 which quotes from a 1977 magazine that has an article suggesting that Jesus was an American astronaut who came back from the future, no doubt inspired by the film Planet of the Apes!(d)
Bill Hanson and Bert Thurlings are some of the more recent promoters of this idea of an alien origin for Atlantis. Hanson has been joined by the German researcher, Dieter Bremer, who claims(v) that the winged disks found in Sumerian art represent a space station, which crashed! Bremer also provides a spirited defence of The Manna Machine[755] by George Sassoon (1936-2006) and Rodney Dale, combined with some bizarre theories regarding Christ. Incredibly, Bremer was invited to deliver a paper to the 2011 Atlantis Conference on the concentric circles of Plato’s Atlantean capital. He has published two books on his view of Atlantis[1022/3]. A more rational review of The Manna Machine is offered by Frank Dörnenburg(w).
The late Flying Eagle and his partner Whispering Wind specified the planet Xylanthia((aa) in the Sirius star system as the original home of a visitor who fell in love with an earthling and later became known as Poseidon!
The History Channel’s series entitled Ancient Aliens(y) has been heavily criticised on the Bad Archaeology website(x) and elsewhere. October 2011 saw another claim that the Maya had contact with extraterrestrials and that a documentary providing evidence is planned(z).
A sceptical review of extraterrestrial visitations was published in the 26th January 2014 edition of Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch(ab).
I feel compelled to include a quote from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson who wrote “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that they have never tried to contact us.”
Perhaps even more disconcerting is the results of a survey(h) carried out by Chapman University that show 20% of Americans believe in ancient astronauts!
In 2020, we had a bizarre tweet from the billionaire, Elon Musk, claiming that “aliens built the pyramids”(l), I hope that this was a tongue-in-cheek comment!
Nevertheless, there are still (2021) attempts to promote the ancient astronaut idea using the same material that has failed to convince in the past(k).
An example of this is the 2023 book, Prehistory Explained [2007] by Shane Leach, who recycled some of the ideas of von Däniken and Sitchin and then for good measure threw in the old suggestion that our Moon and the Martian moon Phobos are artificial. Of course, Atlantis was not ignored, which he placed in Antarctica and deemed that Stonehenge had been laid out like the Pleiades constellation!
More depressing is the study by Graham E.L.Holton, which surveyed the ancient astronaut literature and found nothing but superior white blond ‘gods’, usually male, such as Quetzalcoatl(n). This theme was continued in later UFO reports. Erich von Däniken is arguably the best-known of the ancient astronaut proponents, but he was not the first and certainly not the last(n). Jason Colavito has reviewed the racism expressed by von Däniken(o). Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews was equally critical of Däniken’s racist views(p).
2023 also saw the publication of Gods of the Bible [2059] by Mauro Biglino, who also wrote a paper as ‘Author of the Month’ for Graham Hancock’s website(q). In both, he explores the Bible for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial visitors who interacted with humans, just as Zechariah Sitchin had done nearly half a century ago using Mesopotamian texts.
There are also some who have endeavoured to use the Palermo Stone as evidence of extraterrestrial visitors in our ancient past(r)!
Avi Loeb who is probably better known as a contributor to the Ancient Aliens TV series has recently (Nov. 2023) endeavoured to develop his ‘fame’, by offering by offering an alternative to the conventional theories offered to explain UFOs, now redesignated UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). Jason Colavito(ad) has drawn attention to an attempt by Loeb to suggest that UFOs, sorry, UAPs, might be remnants from a very early highly technologically advanced civilisation.
“Any technological infrastructure left on the surface of Earth from that early civilization could have been demolished by geological activity including subduction, covered by water or tarnished by meteor impacts and weathering.
However, functional relics could have been preserved in space. Within the past century of modern technology, our civilization has launched many thousands of functional devices in orbit around Earth. A more advanced or longer-lived technological civilization could have used more sophisticated devices. Are there unfamiliar technological relics in our sky?” (ac).
For those interested in having a look at other entries touching on the subject of Atlantis and ancient astronauts see: Jack Countryman, Christos A. Djonis, Andrew Greig, Kurt Jurgen Hepke, Marius Lleget, Louis Millette, Semir Osmanagic, Hubert Zeitlmair.
(a) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/07/chinese-government-endorses-ancient-astronauts.html
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-von-daniken-letter.html
(c) http://www.swans.com/library/art18/jcolav01.html
(d) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-bizarre-1977-article-on-jesus-the-ancient-astronaut
(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20200731011955/https://www.swedenborgproject.org/2007/09/08/the-life-on-other-planets-question/ or See: Archive 2262
(g) https://apmagazine.info/index.php/component/content/article?id=570
(h) https://blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2015/10/13/this-haunted-world/
(i) Atlantis, Volume 20, No.3, May/June 1967.
(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/origin-of-the-space-gods.html
(k) Evidence of Aliens and Ancient Astronauts – Strange Unexplained Mysteries (archive.org)
(m) Spaceship or God’s apparition? The Visions of Ezekiel – Mysteria3000 (link broken)
(n) https://www.academia.edu/30755438/Ancient_White_Astronauts_Race_and_Religion
(o) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2014/01/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken.html
(p) https://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/is-pseudoarchaeology-racist/
(q) https://grahamhancock.com/biglinom1/
(r) Reddit – Dive into anything (archive.org)
(s) Earth, Aliens and The Universe | PDF | Atlantis | Calendar (archive.org)
(t) https://www.triciamccannon.com/dvd-time-travel-ufos-atlantis-and-world-changes/ (Link Broken) *
(u) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2090/
(v) https://www.atlantisbremer.de/
(w) https://web.archive.org/web/20201021072640/http://fdoernenburg.de/alien/alternativ/manna/man01_e.php
(y) https://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/episodes/season-3#slide-9
(z) Mayan Filmmaker Offers Photo as Proof of Aliens, Says Hawking Agrees (Exclusive) (archive.org)
(aa) https://atlantis-today.com/Great_Atlantis_Flood.htm
(ab) See: Archive 2098
(ac) https://avi-loeb.medium.com/are-uaps-relics-from-an-earlier-civilization-on-earth-86d1190c6539
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/
Tripura
Tripura is the name of a triple city in Hindu mythology that was famed for its architecture and rich adornments. Its inhabitants are reputed to have become greedy over time and were destroyed by Shiva (Mahabharata, Bk7, Drona Parva, Sec.XI). The story is almost the same as that of Atlantis and its demise. Since 1997 until his death in 2005 the late Arysio Nunes dos Santos has championed the idea that Plato’s Atlantis narrative regarding a submerged civilisation had been borrowed from the east. He also linked Atlantis with Tripura(a).
2005 not only saw the death of dos Santos shortly after the publication of his theory in book form[320], while in Moscow, Sergey Teleguin had his book, Anatomy of a Myth, published in Russian, in which he also identified Tripura with Atlantis. An English translation of part of his book has now been provided by Teleguin(c).
R. Cedric Leonard has also linked Atlantis with Tripura, the capital of the island of Atala(b). However, Leonard has chosen the Azores as the most likely location for Atlantis and dos Santos opted for Sundaland, a large landmass, now partly submerged encompassing, among others, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia!
(a) Corroborating evidence on the reality of Atlantis | Atlantis (archive.org)
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20170624235600/http:/www.atlantisquest.com:80/Asura.html*
Alphabet of Atlantis, The
The Alphabet of Atlantis according to Ignatius Donnelly was the inspiration for the Phoenician alphabet. In fact, one of the objectives of Donnelly’s 1882 book was to prove “that the Phœnician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets, was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.” (Pt.III chap.7)
Orly Goldwasser is an Israeli professor of Egyptology, who controversially claims that “the alphabet was invented around 1840 BCE by illiterate Canaanite mining experts working in the Sinai site of Serabit el-Khadem.” She expands on this in Appendix B of Pharaoh in Canaan: The Untold Story [1790], which is available online(f).>The significance of Serabit el-Khadem in the development of our alphabet is discussed in a late December paper on the Ancient Origins website(h).<
R. Cedric Leonard has explored this possibility in a series of articles(a) and concluded that the hypothesis has merit. However, the Phoenician ‘alphabet’ lacked vowel signs and so should perhaps be called a betadelt? It took the Greeks to introduce vowel symbols and give us a writing method superior to that of the Phoenicians and which, by extension, if we accept the views of Donnelly and Leonard, is more flexible than the Atlantean system. The earliest Indian symbol has been dated to the 9th century AD in Gwalior, however, the mathematician, Amir Aczel has now traced an earlier zero from the 7th century AD in Cambodia(c). Suggestions of even earlier dates are strongly disputed(e).
The imaginative William Scott-Elliot had a slightly different view which he expressed as follows; “It is probable that the earliest form of alphabet was hieroglyphic, “the writing of the Gods,” as the Egyptians called it, and that it developed later in Atlantis into the phonetic. It would be natural to assume that the Egyptians were an early colony from Atlantis (as they actually were) and that they carried away with them the primitive type of writing which has thus left its traces on both hemispheres, while the Phoenicians, who were a sea-going people, obtained and assimilated the later form of alphabet during their trading voyages with the people of the west.”(b)
Others have suggested that Ogham was a writing system that could be traced back to Atlantis, but, understandably, without offering any supporting evidence, the entire subject is fertile ground for speculation. There are around 400 examples of Ogham writing worldwide of which 360 are in Ireland(d)!
Anthony Woods in his highly speculative Atlantis Ireland [1775] claims that Ogham is the world’s oldest alphabet. It was certainly one of the most inefficient, only suitable for short inscriptions. Woods offers the Shigar Idol found over 5,000 km away in Russia as evidence(g). This artefact, which is thought to be 11,500 years old, has ogham-like marks on it. If Woods is right, we are expected to believe that Ogham lasted for 10,000 years without badly needed improvement, until it emerged in Ireland around 500 AD. This is speculation gone mad.
The Disney film, Atlantis:The Lost Empire, included a language and script created by Marc Okrand who also invented ‘Klingon’ for the Star Trek TV shows and films. Some New Age writers, who are even less convincing than Disney, have also tried to connect the Runic script of Northern Europe with Atlantis.
Lucile Taylor Hansen devotes chapter 59 of The Ancient Atlantic [572] to a general review of similarities between aspects of the ‘alphabets’ of the Maya, Phoenicians and Greeks among others.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20170113151415/https://www.atlantisquest.com/alphabet.html
(b) https://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/soa/soa04.htm
(c) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/origin-number-zero-180953392/
(d) https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/preserving-irelands-ancient-mysterious-treebased-alphabet
(e) https://www.archaeology.org/news/6054-171027-bakhshali-manuscript-zero
(f) https://www.academia.edu/38014205/Goldwasser_O_2016_The_Birth_of_the_Alphabet_from_Egyptian_Hieroglyphs_in_the_Sinai_Desert_in_Daphna_Ben_Tor_ed_Pharaoh_in_Canaan_the_untold_story_Exhibition_catalogue_Jerusalem_Israel_Museum
(g) How the World’s Oldest Wooden Sculpture Is Reshaping Prehistory – The New York Times (nytimes.com) *
(h) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/latin-alphabet-0016671 *
ROIPA
ROIPA is an acronym for the original Russian title of the Russian Society for the Study of Problems of Atlantis which is the leading association in the Russian Federation for the study of Atlantology.
It was formally established in 2003 although it has its roots in the early 1990’s. Since then it has organised three congresses of Atlantologists, published papers and books including its recent Cronos almanac. There is also an ongoing programme of lectures.
Alexander Voronin was the president of ROIPA and I had the pleasure of meeting him in Malta in 2011. Sadly, Alexander died November 6th 2012.
Membership of ROIPA is normally confined to Russian citizens, so I was greatly flattered when I was given honorary membership of the organisation in 2011.
In March 2014, I was contacted by the new president of ROIPA, George Nefediev, who informed me that the work of the society was back on track and has already held a conference in December, 2013. They are currently developing a new website(a).
Later in 2014, ROIPA published the second edition of their Cronos ‘almanac’. It has a number of contributions by researchers frequently encountered in the pages of Atlantipedia, such as Emilio Spedicato and R. Cedric Leonard. Although it will be published in Russian, you can view the contents in English(b). As you will see the subjects are wide-ranging and it is regrettable that the volume will not be available in English.
ROIPA is organising its fourth Congress on the 13-14 April 2015. All are welcome and contributions invited
(a) The theme of the Congress is Atlantology in the XXI century – Development Prospects and is seeking to have Atlantology recognised as a legitimate scientific discipline.
See: Russian Atlantology
*(b) See: Archive 3920*
Fauna of Atlantis
The Fauna of Atlantis as described by Plato has done little to pinpoint its location and is clearly a subject for further investigation. However, pinpointing is the wrong word since Atlantis stretched from North Africa as far north as central Italy, so there is probably a wide geographical spread to the fauna noted by Plato.
In Critias he refers to ‘flocks’ (111c) implying sheep and/or goats; bees (111c), elephants (114e); horses (117b); bulls (119d). He also mentions sable clothing (120b) but these were possibly imported.
The most problematic of these is the reference to elephants, a term that could be loosely applied to a number of related species including mastodons, mammoths, the Indian, the African and dwarf elephants. The habitat of the latter diminutive creatures stretched from Siberia as far south as the equator. The remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the islands of the Mediterranean from Sardinia to Cyprus.
Pygmy elephant is the term applied to some species found today in parts of Asia and Africa. However ‘pygmy’ or ‘dwarf’ elephants could hardly be described as “largest and most voracious” of animals (Critias 115a).
However, there is general acceptance that the North African Elephant inhabited the Atlas Mountains until they became extinct in Roman times(b)(e). Atlantis sceptic, Ronald H. Fritze, an Atlantis sceptic, acknowledges[709.25] the existence of elephants in North Africa until the Romans.
The species of elephant used by Hannibal has been a source of debate for years(c). The Numidians of North Africa (202 BC–46 BC) also used local elephants in warfare (d). It would seem to me that the North African Elephant, rather than the Asian or African species, would have been more suited to the trek across the Alps. Needless to say the Atlas Mountains were part of the Atlantean sphere of influence (Timaeus 25a-b).
Eckart Kahlhofer believes that the elephants referred to by Plato were in fact deer, claiming that a scribal error resulted in the Greek word elaphos (deer) being transcribed as elephas (elephant).
>Hyde Clarke proposed that Plato’s ‘elephants were in fact tapirs in an effort to bolster his Hispaniola location for Atlantis. Gene Matlock ‘borrowed’ this idea to suit his Mexican Atlantis. Tapirs are only found in S.E. Asia as well as Central and South America. Apart from that, Plato described his elephants as ‘the largest and most voracious’ (Crit. 114e & 115a), which would clearly exclude tapirs or deer.<
R. Cedric Leonard has written an interesting paper(a) on the early domestication of animals and its possible connection with Atlantis.
*(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20161210225952/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Taming.html*
(b) https://interesting-africa-facts.com/Africa-Landforms/Atlas-Mountains-Facts.html
(c) https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/18/science/the-mystery-of-hannibal-s-elephants.html