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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 »
Sirius
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
Deluge of Noah
The Deluge or Noah’s Flood are the commonly used terms when referring to the biblical flood of Genesis. It might perhaps be more accurate to use the plural, as there is evidence of several large-scale catastrophic inundations within the human memory. The Noachian deluge has been the subject of continuous debates: was it real or pure fantasy, was it local, regional or global and is the Ark to be found on Mt. Ararat?
Reginald Fessenden controversially noted in his The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus [1012] that “the traditions were collected, tabulated and compared. This developed the fact that there were only five traditions of an inundation of more than local character.”
1. The Greek tradition; of Deucalion; the Aegean, 100 to 250 miles southwest of the Black Sea.
2. The Egyptian-Phoenician; of Atlantis and the Greeks; the western and northeastern shores of the Black Sea.
3. The Cimmerian; of the Crimea; the north shore of the Black Sea.
4. The Hebrew-Babylonian; of Noah and Atra-Hasis; the southeast shore of the Black Sea.
5. The Phrygian; of Noe; the south shore of the Black Sea.
The Flood of Noah is an echo of the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, which in turn has a resonance with the deluge story of Manu in Indian mythology. If all three relate to the same event it would be of great interest to discover if there was an even earlier shared origin.
Noah is the hero of the Deluge story in Genesis. He was also an accomplished shipbuilder and viticulturist. According to some he was also an Atlantean! Cosmas Indicopleustes a 6th century AD theologian and geographer from Alexandria wrote of Atlantis as a large island in the western ocean. He also added a twist to the tale by recording an ancient tradition that Noah had resided on Atlantis! More recently, Frank Joseph [108.85] has endorsed this daft idea.
Interestingly, so many of the deluge stories include a scenario where the ’hero’ is warned of impending doom. To me, this would make sense that where a landbridge was threatened by gradually rising waters on one side, simple observation would have provided adequate time to warn those at risk on the other side.
Another identification, by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., is that Noah is Nereus in Greek mythology and widely depicted in Greek art(c). Confusingly, it has also been suggested(a) that Enoch, usually accepted as the grandfather of Noah, was the same person.
According to Plato, Atlantis was destroyed by the gods as a punishment for their wickedness, while the same reason is given in the Bible for the obliteration of Noah’s people. Coincidentally, both Atlantis and Noah’s homeland, which was probably located in Mesopotamia, were destroyed by water leading to the not unreasonable suggestion that the two stories are related.
While the biblical account of the Deluge does not stand up to detailed scrutiny(j), the global ubiquity of Flood stories is seldom adequately explained. Some possibilities that occur to me are related to the ending of the last Ice Age, which had watery consequences around the world. While the rising sea level took place in fits and starts, there were more dramatic events during this period such as the huge meltwater lake discharges and Heinrich Events that occurred across North America and Eurasia. The effect in the southern hemisphere was less spectacular. Survivors would have been forced to migrate in all directions, bringing their account of these floods with them. Another explanation, but in my view, a more likely cause of global floods would have been a close encounter with a large extraterrestrial body, an idea promoted by various researchers such as Emilio Spedicato.
Apart from the story of the actual flood, global or otherwise, the detailed biblical account of the building of the Ark along with the gathering of the animals and the voyage itself does not hold water (sorry)(y). Some decades ago, Roger A. Moore offered a forensic study of the account, which, is still impressive(x).
In March 2019, a paper by Roger M. Pearlman put forward another radical idea, namely, that Göbekli Tepe had been founded by Noah (Noach) and his sons(u).
A more light-hearted look at the story of Noah is also worth a read(n).
Every aspect of Noah’s Deluge story in the Bible has been a source of controversy for centuries. From the nature and cause of the Flood itself, as well as the building of the Ark and its final resting place and of course the date of the event.
Some years ago, Pastor Bertrand L. Comparet (1901-1983), a staunch racist(w), denied that the Flood of Noah had been a global event(v).
2018 began with matters hitting rock-bottom when an English-language newspaper offered the following headline(l) “Turkish academic claims Prophet Noah used a cell phone to call his son before the flood.” Unsurprisingly, Jason Colavito has covered this story with an interesting blog(m).
DATE
Plato’s Atlantis story contains a curious reference in Timaeus (23a-c) to a series of floods that occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean(ah) since the Atlantean war, namely, those of Ogyges, Deucalion and Dardanus. If based on historical fact, on its own, the Biblical Flood or the breach of a landbridge cannot explain this succession of inundations but suggests that there could be a much more complex story, still to be revealed, which was spread over millennia.
Anastasios Stamou presented a paper [750.183] to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in which he reviewed the evidence relating to three floods that befell ancient Greece and alluded to by Plato. Drawing on ancient Greek texts including the Parian Marble, he places these events in chronological order beginning with the flood of Ogyges, then Deucalion’s and finally that of Dardanos.
Three very ancient global floods are proposed by Marin, Minella & Schievenin in The Three Ages of Atlantis [972] and date them to 10,500, 9600 and 6700 BCE.
Stamou accepts that conventional wisdom has it that these flood events occurred in the 2nd millennium BC and based his paper on that assumption. However, he expressed serious doubts about this dating suggesting a much earlier date for some inundations and promising a future paper dealing with this revision.
Stephen Oppenheimer mentions [0004] three sudden ice melts, 14,000, 11,500 and 8,000 years ago that would have had a global effect. It should be considered that the second date is close to Plato’s apparent date for the destruction of Atlantis.
Since writing, as we know it, did not develop until long after de-glaciation, it is virtually impossible to precisely identify the date, location or extent of any of the early myths relating to these possible de-glaciation inundations.
In an August 2017 paper, on the Migration & Diffusion website(s), Stuart L. Harris put forward his reasons for dating the Flood of Noah to 3161 BC and the Exodus Flood to 1445 BC.
Similarly, Gérard Gertoux places the Deluge circa 3200 BC in a lengthy paper(z), in which he also controversially touches on subjects such as radiocarbon dating, the age of the patriarchs, the Ice Ages, evolution and more.
China has its own ‘Great Flood’ tradition, which in the August 2016 edition of Science journal had its reality given strong support in a paper(bi) by a mainly Chinese team of researchers, who date the event to 1920 BC.
Recent years have seen the above-mentioned flooding of the Black Sea or even more controversially, the flooding of the desiccated Mediterranean basins, following the breaching of a suggested landbridge at Gibraltar, proposed as possible sources of the story of Noah in the Bible. These inundations are dated to around 5600 BC and their memory should have survived in the traditions and mythologies of the region. In addition to that, the Persian Gulf is also accepted by many to have been dry during the last Ice Age but also began to flood around 5000 BC. In Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea and the Celtic Shelf both suffered post-glacial inundations, while around the same time in the South China Sea the enormous Sunda Shelf suffered extensive flooding.
The flooding of the Celtic Shelf along with parts of southwest Britain and southeast Ireland is the subject of a 2016, thought-provoking book [1166] by Philip Runggaldier
On a more controversial level, Donald Patten and Samuel Windsor presented evidence [0277] for a series of close encounters between Mars and the Earth during the 1st millennium BC. David Rohl, the Egyptologist, dates Noah’s Flood to 3114 BC [0229] and links it with the climatic consequences of a major catastrophe in the Aleutian Islands.
Alexander and Edith Tollman linked the Noachian Deluge with the consequences of a cometary impact in 7552 BC. On the other hand, G.F. Dodwell the Australian astronomer, after studying ancient gnomons, concluded that it was a worldwide catastrophe in 2345 BC that altered the Earth’s tilt, leading to the Deluge. This is comparable with the 1696 claim by William Whiston that the earth had an encounter with a comet in 2346 BC, which caused the Flood of Noah. Emilio Spedicato advocates 3161 BC as the date of the biblical Deluge(ac), which has also been endorsed by Stuart L. Harris(ad).
In a paper(r) revised in 2017, Barry Warmkessel noted that theologians and historians have attempted dating Noah’s Flood event, both recently and as far back as the time of Christ. The following are just a few of the results from these attempts:
- JOSEPHUS GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3148 BC)
- HALES GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3155 BC)
- SEPTUAGINT GREAT FLOOD DATE: (3246 BC)
- SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH GREAT FLOOD DATE: (2998 BC)
Therefore. theologically at least, it seems quite reasonable (to Warmkessel) that Noah’s Flood occurred between 3000 and 3250 BC and the Ark would have been built slightly before that time.
When Ryan & Pitman(ae) published their 1997 theory that around 5600 BC, the Black Sea had been flooded by water from the Aegean breaching the Bosporus, it did not take long before it was speculated that the event was reflected in the story of Noah’s Deluge. With little delay, strong objections to the idea were raised by many others(af)(bz)*.
T.R.Holme has an interesting article(ax) on the flooding of the Black Sea and the migration from the region that resulted. He also links that event with the work of the late Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994).
Nick Thom, an engineering lecturer at Nottingham University has written The Great Flood [776] which gives an overview of many Flood myths, but more importantly, he identifies the emptying of glacial Lake Agassiz around 6250 BC as the mechanism that caused a tilting of the Earth, which in turn generated a global deluge remembered by the survivors in myth and later recorded in scriptures. This is also fully outlined in a lengthy entitled, A Re-interpretation of the 8.2ky BP Event(ag). Also relevant to our subject is his claim that the flow of water was from the Black Sea into the Aegean rather than the other way around!
The most radical date for the Flood of Noah comes from Rich McQuillen who in a 2022 paper “links the flood of Noah to the flood of Ahmose and Atrahasis, and shows it to be a real flood caused by Santorini”!(bv)
THE CAUSE
Jeffrey Goodman, the controversial author of Psychic Archaeology [781], maintains that “Noah’s Flood was, in reality, a tsunami caused by a comet” and supports this contention with a retranslation of Genesis 7:11 (ar).
Kirk Kirchev in a recent (April 2018) two-part article(bb) “offers a unifying scientific hypothesis that connects diverse ancient flood myths with mainstream scientific fact.” and concluded that “If my calculations and assumptions are correct, an object of around 900 km in diameter passing the earth at an altitude of less than 1000 kilometres (621.37 miles) (of average, rocky density) would be large and heavy enough to create a strong localized tidal uplift in the oceans beneath its flight path (approximately 50 times the current tidal amplitude). That is large enough to destroy most of humankind, and a large portion of the fauna, but small enough to not cause a major extinction event or to disturb earth’s orbital path and rotation.”
Immanuel Velikovsky’s controversial cosmological ideas suggest that our Earth had at one point been a satellite of Saturn! In his unpublished book, In the Beginning (bk), he proposed that “The conflict between the larger planets resulted in long-stretched filaments ejected by a disturbed Saturn to cross the Earth’s orbit. The hydrogen of the planet combined with the oxygen of the terrestrial atmosphere in electrical discharges and turned into water” and so generated the Deluge!
In 1993, Alexander Tollman and his wife Edith published, Und die Sintflut gab es doch. Vom Mythos zur historischen Wahrheit, “which claimed that Noah’s flood was the consequence of a bolide impact about 9500 years ago, and supported the claim through geology (impact craters, iridium, shatter cones, stress lamination of minerals, radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, a peak of acid in the Greenland ice) and legends and folk traditions.”(bj) Christian O’Brien has endorsed the Tollmans’ ideas(bl).
Aloys Eiling (1952- ) a German researcher has offered a variation on the close encounter theory, suggesting that the Deluge was one of the consequences of the capture of our Moon that took place when our planet was already populated – somewhere between 40,000 and 13,000 BC. He notes(bn) that “the capture of the Moon caused worse than a flood; it changed the geography of the world. Earth’s surface was devastated, millions died, and life in total was brought to the brink of extinction. In the collective memory of mankind, the event indelibly remained in the myths about a Deluge.”
Nevertheless, there is one rather disturbing element to be found alongside some of the flood myths, namely that the deluge event was concurrent with the sun seemingly standing still and in some cases, it is recorded that the Moon also appeared to stop(o)(av)! One explanation on offer is that it is a reference to an eclipse(aw). This might be acceptable if it was compatible with other myths from different parts of the world, which does not appear to be the case. Furthermore, it does not explain the association of the stopping of the sun with the global deluge. A very close encounter between the Earth and another large celestial body might.
As I see it, we are left with the two popular explanations for the global flood myths, either a close encounter with an extraterrestrial body that created a megatsunami that was on such a scale that it swept around the globe, perhaps many times before dissipating or the melting of the Ice Age glaciers produced the cyclical bursting of ice-dams and landbridges and the inundation of vast areas of low-lying land. I’m inclined to believe that the balance of probabilities favours the latter explanation, although I find it difficult to accept that gradual deglaciation would or could have generated floods that ‘covered mountains’ (Gen. vii.19)!
Other floods may have been caused by tsunamis resulting from underwater earthquakes and/or storegga. Quite recently it was discovered(bh) that around 6000 BC, a calamitous tsunami was generated in the Mediterranean when Mt. Etna in Sicily sent approximately 6 cubic miles of rock and rubble crashing into the sea. One could be forgiven for speculating that this event may have triggered the flooding of the Black Sea, which is dated to this same period.
GLOBAL or LOCAL
The scientific case against a global deluge is presented in a paper by Lorence G. Collins.(bt)
In 2013, Geologist David R. Montgomery, a professor at the University of Washington, authored The Rocks Don’t Lie [2029] which offers a fresh open-minded look at Noah’s Flood and how it is viewed today by both science and religion. He concluded – “Like most geologists, I had come to see Noah’s Flood as a fairy tale—an ancient attempt to explain the mystery of how marine fossils ended up in rocks high in the mountains. Now I’ve come to see the story of Noah’s Flood like so many other flood stories—as rooted in truth.”
“It appears that humanity’s rich legacy of flood stories reflects a variety of ancient disasters. The global pattern of tsunamis, glacial outburst floods and catastrophic flooding of lowlands like Mesopotamia or the Black Sea basin, fits rather well the global distribution and details of flood stories.”
So Montgomery considers the source of Noah’s Flood to have been a local event such as the flooding of the Black Sea region and refers to Angelos Galanopoulos who similarly associated the tsunamis generated by the mid-second millennium BC eruption of Thera (Santorini) with the Flood of Deucalion. Montgomery’s views were given further exposure on the LiveScience website(bx).
A decade later (May 2023), the Greek Reporter website re-examined the possible extent of Noah’s Flood(by).
THE ARK
An interesting overview of traditional as well as modern thinking regarding the possible historical reality behind the Deluge of Genesis is presented(ai) by Robert Squillace on the New York University website.
On January 1st 2010 it was revealed(b) that a 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet which, unlike the biblical record, describes an ark made of reeds, 70 metres in width and round in shape(aj)(ak). This would have been recorded a thousand years before the Genesis story was written down. Understandably, this has caused the knickers of some fundamentalist Christians to become seriously twisted! The discovery has now been expanded on by a cuneiform specialist at the British Museum, Irving Finkel, in The Ark before Noah [0995]. Jason Colavito offers an interesting review of the book(d).
Even more radical is the result of a high-tech study of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls which suggest that Noah’s Ark was pyramidal in shape(al)! Commenting on this report, Jason Colavito has pointed out that the concept of a pyramid-shaped ark is not new(am).
There is an unexpectedly large number of books written over the last century on the subject of Noah’s Ark that is listed on a specialist website(e). One such offering, resurrected by Jason Colavito(f), provides some comic relief with the claim in 1922 by C. E. Getsinger, who wrote that Noah’s Ark was the Great Pyramid!(g) Even earlier, John Taylor (1781-1864) claimed [1451] that Noah had built the Great Pyramid! Nevertheless, a recently deciphered fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls has suggested that the Ark was shaped like a pyramid!(h)(i)
Barry Warmkessel also entered the fray with the suggestion that aliens had been involved in the design and construction of the Ark(r)!>He believes “that it was NOT built by humans ~5200 years ago. It offers details of alien engineering principles involving the Golden Ratio. Its metallurgy shows ironwork not even possible until ~3200 years ago as well as the presence of other metals (e.g. titanium and aluminum) that would have been difficult to fabricate even in the early twentieth century. The Book of Noah explicitly specifies that “angels” (with extensive metallurgical skills) built the Ark. They were likely the Nommos, an amphibian species reportedly from the Sirius star system. They left mankind with cuneiform writing and the wheeled vehicle (alien technology of that day). They offered us astronomical knowledge of their own and our solar system (including Vulcan) and evidence of a past major comet/meteorite Earth impact. Finally, they appear to have left repositories of technologies far more advanced than our own.Their story tells of an alien species’ attempt to save a deceitful mankind from an approaching comet impact catastrophe that caused Noah’s Great Flood.” <
Nevertheless, Warmkessel’s idea certainly competes with the suggestion of Xavier Séguin that the ‘Ark’ of Noah had been an Earth satellite(aa)!
Even more radical is the claim by Hebrew scholar Richard Seary that the Ark never actually existed, but that conventionally accepted understanding of the Genesis text is the result of some incorrect translations(aq). One example is that there is no such material as gopher wood and that the word ‘gofer’ means lava!
A life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark was due to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Holland in the summer of 2016(an). It was built over four years by a carpenter, Johan Huibers, completing it in 2012. It is 410 feet long, 95 feet wide and 75 feet tall. It weighs 2,500 tons and is said to hold more than 5,000 people at any one time. However, there is no provision for live animals! The replica was sold to Aad Peters, a Dutch artist, who in 2019 brought it to Ipswich in Britain. Unfortunately, it has been impounded by the authorities there as it lacks the appropriate paperwork to permit it to leave. There are also serious concerns regarding its seaworthiness and it is also clocking up port fees of £500 a day(ao)(ap).
Michael Hearns, an Irish researcher, has just published (Aug.2023), an interesting article on the Ancient Origins website recounting the many anomalies in the biblical story of the Ark(bw).
UBIQUITY OF FLOOD MYTHS
Flood myths are found throughout the world and for centuries were seen as confirmation of the reality and universality of the Biblical Flood of Noah. However, when it was discovered that the Earth had endured a series of Ice Ages and that following each of these, the melting ice caps led to worldwide inundations with consequent immortalisation of these events through locally developed myths, it led to speculation that Noah’s Flood may have been just a regional but a catastrophic event. It is also probable that separate regional inundations would have occurred as deglaciation continued at the end of the last ice age, so when recounted through mythology many centuries later they may appear to refer to a single global event.
The competing concepts of global deluge versus local inundations are discussed in a brief paper(bc) by L. James Gibson, who concluded that “these local floods do not explain important features of the biblical flood.”
Nevertheless, megafloods are not necessarily only caused by tsunamis and melting glaciers. “A 43-day storm that began in December 1861 put central and southern California underwater for up to six months” a catastrophic event that is now generally forgotten. An extensive 2013 article(bd) in Scientific American has full details.
These ancient flood stories are to be found to contain content with a remarkable similarity of detail. It is worth pointing out that none of these legends ever recount the ‘hero’ of their particular tale returning to his former home. One simple explanation for this might be that the original homelands no longer existed. This would not normally be the case if the floods in question were tidal, storm-driven or even giant tsunamis. However, if the inundations were the result of rising sea levels, resulting from the melting of Ice Age glaciers, we could expect two principal effects. The first would have been the gradual submergence of all low-lying flood plains that are now identified as continental shelves. Two of the best known of these would be the Sunda Shelf (Sundaland) and the area stretching from the west coast of mainland Europe across the North Sea encompassing the British Isles and into the Atlantic beyond Ireland. The second effect would have been the dramatic inundation of valleys and basins protected by low landbridges or dams. Again, we have examples, some debatable, such as the Baltic, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and perhaps the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Sea of Japan.
An extensive and more general collection of Flood myths can be found on the internet(be). A USGS list of the world’s greatest floods, ancient and recent, is available as a pdf file(bf). Similarly, a website by Mark Isaak offers an extensive overview of flood myths around the world, although the site does not appear to have been updated for some years(bg).
Despite the existence of these huge collections of worldwide flood myths(ay) there appears to be one glaring omission, from all such databases, namely a contribution from Egypt where, inexplicably, there is no such deluge tradition apart from the predictable annual flooding of the Nile. However, there is the Egyptian story of Hathor/Sekhmet(az)(ba) who flooded the land with blood, which some may interpret as a mythological code for water!
The flooding of all these worldwide locations would have occurred quite slowly over an extended period following the last Ice Age, possibly providing the basis for the widespread existence of these flood myths. However, it could not explain the biblical claim that the flood covered mountains.
Dhani Irwanto, author of Atlantis: The Lost City in Java Sea [1093], offers a number of interesting articles on his website including an extensive overview of the ubiquity of Deluge stories, concluding with the following comment “Thus, Noah and the waters of the great Flood are not only recalled in the ancient traditions of all nations, but their names have also become incorporated in many and varied ways into the very languages of his descendants. The trails are tenuous and often almost obliterated so that some of the inferred connections are speculative and possibly mistaken, but the correlations are too numerous to be only coincidental, thus adding yet one more evidence for the historicity of the Great Flood.(bs)“
Many Atlantologists have sought to link the Deluge with the inundation of Atlantis. As early as 1915, Garrett 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(ca).
Egerton Sykes was a keen supporter of the idea of a connection between the destruction and Noah’s Deluge. Joseph S. Ellul has interpreted the biblical story to support the idea of a landbridge at Gibraltar, which eventually collapsed when the waters of the Atlantic rose after the last Ice Age. Ellul maintains that Genesis 7:11 ‘All the springs of the Great Deep broke through’ is a reference to the percolation of the Atlantic waters, through the Gibraltar dam, which eventually led to its collapse as the sea level rose or was shattered by seismic or tectonic movements. I find it hard to accept this, because the pressure that is exerted by the Atlantic, would have rapidly changed any such seepage into a major breach and the subsequent collapse of the dam. Gerhard F. Hasel, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology offers a more conventional interpretation of “the fountains of the great deep” in a paper with the same name(ab).
MT. ARARAT
Nevertheless, 2017 finished with renewed interest in Noah’s Ark being generated by media reports(k) of statements emanating from The Geoscience Research Institute, which is sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which claims that a 2010 expedition to Mount Ararat in Turkey, carbon-dated timbers found there to 4,800 years ago.
A sceptical 2019 article has looked critically at many aspects of the story of the Ark, including the most commonly offered Turkish site as the resting place of the Ark – “One of the most famous supposedly-Noah’s-ark sites is the admittedly very boat-looking Durupinar site in the Mount Tendurek area in Turkey. According to Atlas Obscura, the site was exposed in the late 1940s after a series of earthquakes and storms.”(an)
The late David Allen Deal was another investigator to propose the Ararat region as the landing place of the Ark, with Mt. Judi (Judi Dagh) as the specific location(o). A more recent article supports his ideas(p). David Rohl has also been drawn to Mt. Judi as a probable contender(bu). The precise location of the biblical Ararat is a matter of continuing and intense debate(q).
The UK’s Daily Mail added that talking after the initial claims in 2010, Mike Pitt, a British archaeologist, said the evangelical explorers had yet to produce compelling evidence. He said: ‘If there had been a flood capable of lifting a huge ship 2.5 miles [4km] up the side of a mountain 4,800 years ago, I think there would be substantial geological evidence for this flood around the world. And there isn’t.’
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 on Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula! Welsh does not explain where Shinar was in relation to his Ararat. Conventional wisdom locates it in southern Mesopotamia, placing them around 2,500 km apart.
>Eberhard Zangger has drawn attention to the fact that originally ararat would have been written without vowels – RRT. While the vowel ‘a’ was usually inserted to fill the gaps, Zangger as shown that RRT is read in Assyrian texts as Urartu,the name of an ancient state in what is now Armenia near Lake Van [484.215].<
Angelo Palegro was an Italian researcher who spent 35 years seeking Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat (Mount Agiri) on the Turkish-Iranian border(bq). Unfortunately, in 2021 he fell ill while in Turkey and died on August 15th, aged 86, and in accordance with his wishes was buried on the slopes of Mt. Ararat(bp).
However, a more valuable offering was a paper(ab) delivered in 2008 to the Sixth International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, PA by Anne Habermehl. She finished her contribution, Review of the Search for Noah’s Ark, with the following conclusions;
“(1) It would appear that the Ark cannot have landed on Mount Ararat, because scientists have shown that this mountain did not exist until some time after the Flood had ended. (Also, the area that Mount Ararat occupies was probably not yet included in Urartu at that time.)
(2) In light of historical and geographical considerations, Mount Cudi near Cizre, Turkey, is the most likely place where the Ark landed.
(3) It seems doubtful that anyone has actually seen the Ark anywhere in modern times. The alleged sightings all seem to evaporate on careful examination.
(4) It is unlikely that very much of the Ark exists today; it is probable that over the millennia it has decayed, and various scavengers have taken most of it away.
(5) Because of 14C dating problems, it may not be possible to prove that any given samples are or are not the right age to have come from the Ark.
(6) More archaeological work needs to be done if we are ever to reasonably prove the Ark’s landing spot anywhere.
(7) It is probable that no matter what is found in any location, there are those who will remain unconvinced.
(8) Interest in finding the Ark is unabated, and the Ark search will go on.
At the end of the day, we have to face the reality that it may be difficult, or even impossible, ever to prove where the Ark landed. This author would have liked to end on an optimistic note for the soon recovery of a largely intact, proven Ark, but this seems unlikely; and this paper therefore ends, in the words of T. S. Eliot (1925): “Not with a bang but a whimper.”
In 2021, author S.H. Scholar in a short book entitled Heavenly Flood [1891] modestly claimed to have “uncovered history’s greatest secret – the influence of ancient astrology on the development of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood Tale.” John McHugh has also offered a comparable zodiacal link with the biblical Deluge story in The Celestial Code of Scripture [1892] which has been critiqued by Gary D. Thompson(bm).
Eugenio Ralbadisole who advocates India as the home of Atlantis also locates the landing place of Noah’s Ark in the same region. Based on texts in the Vedas where “we read that a man after a catastrophic flood arrived with his ship full of animals in a village called Naubandhana. A location with similar names can be found near “Barda Hills” in Gujarat.” (bo)
(a) The First Eden (archive.org) *
(b) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular
(c) http://njbiblescience.org/presentations/Greek%20Mythology%20and%20Genesis.pdf
(d) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2014/05/on-irving-finkels-the-ark-before-noah.html
(e) http://www.throneofgod.com/SBG/sbg.htm
(g) The Thomson Review, Thomson, Illinois, July 19th, 1922 – p.3,
(k) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5020131/Experts-claim-Noah-s-Ark-Mount-Ararat.html
(o) https://noahsfloodnoahsark.wordpress.com/category/chapter-13-discovery-of-lost-ancient-city/
(q) https://web.archive.org/web/20190128072213/http://compmyth.org/journal/index.php/cm/article/view/15
(r) Archive 3514
(s) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=540
(t) The First Eden – Part One (archive.org)
(u) https://www.academia.edu/38664571/Gobekli_Tepe_founded_by_Noah_and_sons
(v) https://israelect.com/ChurchOfTrueIsrael/comparet/comp19.html
(x) https://ncse.ngo/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark
(y) https://www.grunge.com/145325/the-untold-truth-of-noahs-ark/
(aa) https://eden-saga.com/en/looking-noahs-ark.html
(ab) https://www.academia.edu/39177466/A_Review_of_the_Search_for_Noahs_Ark
(ac) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=498
(ad) http://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=540
(ae) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222471228_An_Abrupt_Drowning_of_the_Black_Sea_Shelf
(af) https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/why-black-sea-is-not-site-of-noahs-flood.html
(ag) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304674803_A_Re-interpretation_of_the_82ky_BP_Event
(ah) https://web.archive.org/web/20200216200648/http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/mythologyhome.htm
(ai) Untitled Document (archive.org) (link broken)
(ak) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/noahs-ark-round/283335/
(al) http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/07/digital-analysis-of-dead-sea-scrolls-says-ark-was-a-pyramid/
(an) https://www.grunge.com/145325/the-untold-truth-of-noahs-ark/
(an) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/life-sized-noahs-ark-to-sail_us_571f99cbe4b0b49df6a91ffc
(ao) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan%27s_Ark
(aq) Fortean Times, April 2014, p.55
(bl) Giant Comet Launched Noah’s Ark (goldenageproject.org.uk)
(ar) http://www.newscientificevidenceforgod.com/2011/03/noahs-flood-was-really-tsunami-caused.html
(as) https://grahamhancock.com/eilinga2/
(av) https://biblehub.com/joshua/10-13.htm
(ax) http://www.geocities.ws/gardenofdanu/the_great_deluge.htm
(ay) https://web.archive.org/web/20200922201924/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(az) A Drunk, Bloodthirsty Goddess: The Flood Myth Of Egypt – Parallel Myths (wordpress.com)
(ba) https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=honors-theses
(bc) https://www.grisda.org/origins-52053
(be) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(bf) http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1254/pdf/circ1254.pdf
(bg) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(bh) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061128083754.htm
(bi) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579
(bj) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tollmann
(bk) http://varchive.org/itb/hydrox.htm
(bl) Giant Comet Launched Noah’s Ark (goldenageproject.org.uk)
(bm) Critique of John McHugh’s Astronomical Interpretation of Noah’s Flood (westnet.com.au) (Link Broken)
(bn) https://grahamhancock.com/eilinga2/
(bo) City of Atlantis – Atlantide (archive.org)
(bp) Italian researcher buried in Turkey after decades… | Rudaw.net
(bq) Studies by Palego (noahsark.it)
(bs) Great Flood and the Repopulation of Man | Atlantis in the Java Sea (atlantisjavasea.com)
(bt) https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth
(bu) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/03/
(bv) (99+) A Simple Chronology for Biblical Archaeology | Rich McQuillen – Academia.edu
(bw) Stairway To Heaven In Noah’s Ark | Ancient Origins Members Site (ancient-origins.net)
(bx) Did Noah’s flood really happen? | Live Science
(by) https://greekreporter.com/2023/05/15/noah-flood/
(bz) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-19-adfg-noah-story.html
(ca) https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045389/1915-01-03/ed-1/seq-46/
* See Atlantis Vol.6, Nos.1,2&3, May, July & September 1953
Sirius *
Sirius is a binary star in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star in the night sky and is expected to remain so for the next 210,000 years. In relative terms, it is a near neighbour of ours.
One wild theory speculates that Sirius and our Sun had once been binary partners(i).
Many people of my vintage were first made aware of Sirius when Robert Temple published his bestselling The Sirius Mystery [735]. In which he supported the idea of extraterrestrial influence on human cultural development, citing as evidence, the ‘knowledge’ of the Dogon people regarding the Sirius star system before verification by modern astronomy. This idea has now come under serious attack with the claim that Sirius C does not even exist(a). The controversy is still raging as the Bad Archaeology website demonstrates(b) as well as an article from the Armagh Planetarium website(c). Jason Colavito has also added a few critical comments regarding the knowledge of the Dogon(j). Colavito also reveals(k) that Arthur M. Young (1905-1995), the helicopter pioneer and Robert Temple’s mentor also “believed he had been in contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius who served as the creator gods of Egypt.”
Two decades ago, Laird Scranton wrote in Atlantis Rising magazine(q) that, “the answers to Temple’s mysteries can no longer be reasonably found in the Sirius question itself because the debate has succeeded in casting doubt on so many of Temple’s assertions. However, there are many other fascinating aspects of the Dogon religion and cosmology not entangled in this debate which, due to the continuing glare of the star Sirius, seem to have been overlooked for study. Some of the most promising of these are the Dogon symbols relating to the structure of matter.” and the blub for his book Hidden Meanings [1916] added that “The mythology of the Dogon tribe of Mali describes how their one true god Amma created all of the matter of the universe. But the system defined by these tribal myths bears a striking resemblance to the actual scientific structure of matter, starting with the atom and continuing all the way down to the vibrating threads of string theory. Moreover, many of the Dogon words, symbols and rituals used to describe this structure are a close match for those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism.“
For the ancient Egyptians Sirius, known to them as Sothis, had great importance, as the heliacal rising of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice which heralded the next flooding of the Nile. They also associated Sirius with the goddess Isis. John deSalvo claims in his list of old pyramid theories(s) that “Several Arabian writers have seen a mystic correlation between the design of the pyramid and the revolutions of Sirius, the judge-god of the dead.”
A 2008 report from the University of Hamburg said “scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-B.C. palace at Axum-Dungur (Ethiopia) under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius.”(l)
Additionally, it is also suggested that the earlier structure was the palace of the legendary Queen Of Sheba. Today, Axum is claimed by the Ethiopian Church to be the current home of the Ark of the Covenant, a claim given widespread attention by Graham Hancock some decades ago in The Sign and the Seal.
In the 19th century, Theosophists claimed Sirius as having particular esoteric significance. “Blavatsky stated that the star Sirius exerts a mystic and direct influence over the entire living heaven and is linked with every great religion of antiquity.
Alice Bailey sees the Dog Star as the true ‘Great White Lodge’ and believes it to be the home of the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’. For this reason, she considers Sirius as the ‘star of initiation’.”(m)
Even today, Sirius plays a part in the symbology of Freemasonry, where it is referred to as the ‘Blazing Star’.
Amanda Laoupi has written a five-part paper in which she expands on the significance of Sirius for the Pelasgians, among others(h).
Giulio Magli (1964- ) is an Italian archaeoastronomer with a website in English(d) dedicated to the application of the discipline in Egypt. In 2013, Magli proposed that aspects of the Göbleki Tepe site are related to the recent appearance of Sirius in the night sky around 9300 BC(e). Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale argue against this interpretation(f), which is perhaps understandable as they support a linkage with the Cygnus constellation.
A 2004 paper by Magli, on precessional effects in ancient astronomy(g), has recently been applied by Lenie Reedijk to her contention that the Maltese temples were oriented to Sirius[1631].
In 2012, E. A. James Swagger published The Newgrange Sirius Mystery [1683] in which he endeavoured to link Ireland’s most important megalithic site with both an early understanding of precession and the symbology of the Dogon.
Further to the east, in Armenia, Sirius was closely studied by the people of Metsamor at what is claimed as one of the oldest observatories in the world. In a series of six articles(o) by Rick Ney, Metsamor and the ancient site of Karahundj, sometimes dubbed ‘Armenia’s Stonehenge’, whose 204 stones stand near the town of Sissian are fully discussed. The Trip Advisor website(n) offers several enticing images.
Going from the serious to the silly, I note that the late Flying Eagle (1920-2007) and his partner Whispering Wind specified the planet Xylanthia(f) 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 Wessex Research Group offer more nonsense in a paper by Murray Bruce in which the author endeavours to convince us that there were ancient astronauts, who originally came to Earth from Sirius and are remembered in our mythologies as the Gods, the Old Ones etc. Bruce suggests that these visitors probably inspired the description of the Sumerian god Oannes!(r)
The Sirius Research institute is concerned with the study of binary stars, precession and, of course, Sirius(p).
(b) Did the Dogon of Mali know about Sirius B? (archive.org)
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20180903021842/https://archaeoastronomy-egypt.com/?page=introduction
(f) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407108.pdf
(i) https://humanoriginproject.com/sirius-mythology-two-sun-solar-system/
(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s14e04-the-stat-gods-of-Sirius
(k) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/robert-temple.html
(l) https://www.wnd.com/2008/05/63998/
(m) https://vigilantcitizen.com/hidden-knowledge/connection-between-sirius-and-human-history/
(o) Astrology on the Web: Armenia’s Stonehenge (archive.org) (to view all six papers, just change the number in the URL) *
(q) Atlantis Rising magazine #29 https://archive.org/details/Atlantis_Rising_29/page/n3/mode/2up
(r) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/download/pdf_are_our_roots_in_sirius.pdf
(s) THEORIES ON WHY THE GREAT PYRAMID WAS BUILT (gizapyramid.com)
Archaeoastronomy *
Archaeoastronomy is a relatively new scientific discipline, which as the name implies combines archaeology and astronomy, particularly in the study of ancient megalithic monuments and their possible alignment with various celestial bodies.
Arguably the most famous example is Stonehenge, but our globe is littered with ancient monuments incorporating solar, lunar or astral alignments. Not all are as impressive or accessible as Stonehenge, Callanish or Newgrange but in remote places such as Nabta Playa or Fajada Butte (see Hadingham[1308.152]).
The subject was initially considered by some to be a ‘fringe’ topic, but in 1999 Clive Ruggles was appointed Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester(a) and is the author of the encyclopedic Ancient Astronomy [1310]+.
The University of Maryland has had a Center for Archaeoastronomy since 1978(c).
The subject has never been central to Atlantis studies but has hovered in the background, with writers such as Egerton Sykes(b) and Graham Hancock[855][1119] who employed aspects of the discipline in their publications.
Giulio Magli (1964- ) is an Italian archaeaostronomer with a website in English(e) dedicated to the application of the discipline in Egypt. In 2013, Magli proposed that aspects of the Göbleki Tepe site are related to the recent appearance of Sirius in the night sky around 9300 BC(f). Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale argue against this interpretation(g), which is perhaps understandable as they support a linkage with the Cygnus constellation. A 2004 paper by Magli, on precessional effects in ancient astronomy(h), has recently been applied by Lenie Reedijk to her contention that the Maltese temples were oriented to Sirius[1631].
A further application of the discipline was employed by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis who used it to interpret the carved symbols at Göbekli Tepe. In a 2017 paper(d) they concluded that the pillars there were used to record meteor showers and cometary encounters. They believe that one such encounter involved the explosion or impact of part of Encke’s Comet around 13,000 years ago, which triggered the Younger Dryas Event that kick-started the Neolithic Revolution. Scientists who have worked on the site responded critically(i), which in turn evoked further comments from Sweatman and Tsikritsis(j).
Sweatman later expanded their theory in his book Prehistory Decoded [1621].
The Sixth Oxford International Conference on Archaeoastronomy and the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Société Européenne pour I’Astronom~e dans la Culture (SEAC, European Society for Astronomy in Culture) was held jointly on the days around the summer solstice of 1999 at the Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos, in the historical city of La Laguna, in the island of Tenerife. One hundred participants from more than 20 countries of the five continents and almost 60 talks indicate undoubtedly the relevance of this meeting. The Proceedings of that Conference are available online(l) offering a global view of the subject.
Noah Brosch of Tel Aviv University offers a wide-ranging paper on ancient sites and artefacts around the world that clearly had astronomical functions(k).
Archaeoastronomy is one of only a few dozen words with four consecutive vowels.
[1310]+ Available online: https://archive.org/details/an-encyclopedia-of-cosmologies-and-myth-in-ancient-astronomy-clive-ruggles/mode/2up *
(a) Professor Clive Ruggles — University of Leicester (archive.org)
(b) Seachild: Fields of Study: Archaeological Evidence 2 – Archaeoastronomy
(c) https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/
(d) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(e) Archaeoastronomy egypt (archive.org)
(g) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(h) https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407108.pdf
(j) https://www.academia.edu/33931844/MORE_THAN_A_VULTURE_A_RESPONSE_TO_SWEATMAN_AND_TSIKRITSIS (See the end of the paper)
(k) (99+) (PDF) Thinking about Archeoastronomy | Noah Brosch – Academia.edu
Egyptian Calendar, The
The Egyptian Calendar is central to the debate regarding the date of the Alantean war. At first sight it appears that Plato dated that event to 9,000 years prior to Solon’s visit to Egypt. However, since such a date conflicts with both archaeology and common sense, commentators have striven to reconcile the differences. Either the number is exaggerated, the unit of measurement is wrong, or both require revision. I’m inclined towards the latter.
The ancient Egyptians had three types of ‘years’, solar, lunar or seasonal(a). The first was based on the heliacal rising(b) of the star Sirius, the second was a count of the annual lunar cycles and the last was the number of seasons of which there were three in the Egyptian year. The lunar cycles or months were the means by which the Egyptian priesthood calculated the passage of time and since Solon received the story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests it is assumed by many that the 9,000 ‘years’ were in fact months. Apart from modern authorities, the use of lunar cycles by the Egyptians for calculating time was noted by Eudoxus of Cnidos (410- 355 BC) and also by Plutarch, Manetho, Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.
Zhirov noted[458.375] that the lunar calendar was re-introduced into Egypt by the Arabs in 641 AD.
Some others, such as Radek Brychta and Rosario Vieni, have proposed that the number of seasons were used in a similar manner. Even more extreme was the contention of André de Paniagua who claimed that the date of Atlantis was recorded in Sothic cycles of 1,460 solar years each, which would push its time back 13 million years!
Nevertheless, there are many who still maintain that Plato’s 9,000 should be taken literally, even though neither Egypt nor Athens existed as structured societies at such an early date!
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
Hancock, Graham
![Graham Hancock_thumb[1]](https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Graham-Hancock_thumb1.jpg)
Graham Hancock the well-known investigator of prehistoric mysteries has never discussed the Atlantis enigma in depth. In fact, he once remarked on BBC Television that he avoids using the word ‘Atlantis’ in his books “because most people when they hear the word Atlantis immediately think that they’re dealing with the lunatic fringe”.
Furthermore, he emphasises the potential value of myths as transmitters of historical facts, albeit distorted.
In his 1995 tome on civilisations submerged at the end of the last Ice Age, Fingerprints of the Gods [275.462] he briefly discusses the subject of Atlantis. He accepted that the Atlantic was not harbouring any lost continent, although he was seeking a continental-sized home for his vanished civilisation. Paul Heinrich has posted a review(v) of ‘Fingerprints’.
Similarly, in his earlier work, The Sign and the Seal [678.319], Hancock had clearly discounted the Atlantic as the home of Atlantis. At this point, he appeared to be considering the Antarctic location proposed by the Flem-Aths.
His book, Underworld [274] was published in 2002 and was followed by a TV programme, Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, which was based on it. The latter evoked a highly critical review(s) from N.C. Flemming, who has written widely on maritime matters including sea-level changes and sunken cities [1682]. Hancock wrote an equally strong response(r) to this.
Hancock maintains an interesting website(a) that is regularly updated with contributions from a wide range of contributors. His bestselling Fingerprints of the Gods is now available online(b).
The other side of the coin is that Hancock’s evidence supporting his theories has been heavily criticised as flawed(g) and misleadingly presented(h).
Hancock “ regularly draws attention to what he considers mystical relationships between the Great Pyramid of Giza and the radius, circumference, and axial precession of the earth…….. Proponents of these “mystical” relationships contend, in addition to existing in the first place, that the relationships must be purposeful and therefore provide direct evidence of advanced capabilities in technology, mathematics, and precise astronomical observing techniques that scholars have long asserted were not available to humans when the pyramids were constructed.” These are among the opening remarks by Thomas W. Schroeder, who published two papers in 2019 criticising Hancock’s scholarship.(y-z)
E.J. de Meester who proposed an English location for Atlantis, before his website went offline, was critical of Graham Hancock’s hyperdiffusionist concept of Atlantis commenting that “In 1999 Discovery Channel broadcast a three-part series called ‘Quest for the lost Civilisation’.In it, Graham Hancock stated that the pyramids, Angkor Vat, Stonehenge, the stones of Carnac, the Nazca lines, temples in Mexico and the statues of Easter Island were all part of an ancient global civilisation of seafarers who were apparently obsessed by astrology. The temples of Angkor Vat (in Cambodia) were said to be built in the shape of the zodiac sign Draco, the pyramids of Gizeh in the shape of Sirius; the Sphinx is supposed to be looking at the sign of Leo. It’s all rather vague. Hard to say whether it’s nonsense or not. More information can be found in Hancock’s books, like ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’[0275] and ‘Heaven’s Mirror’ [0855] .” De Meester’s comments are still (2023) available on the archive.org website(ar).
For my part, I consider this hodgepodge of locations presented by Hancock as parts of his global civilisation to be utter nonsense. The sites listed above have little in common; Carnac and Stonehenge are probably the only two that might be considered to be related. Perhaps the most obvious weakness in his claim is the fact that some of the sites are separated by millennia. Easter Island, Angor Wat and Nazca were developed long after Atlantis was submerged.
Further criticism of Hancock’s scholarship has come from Garrett Fagan, particularly in relation to his comments regarding Antarctica.(aa)
Jason Colavito has written(c) a critical review of Hancock’s work and his recent advocacy “for ayahuasca, a South American hallucinogen. Since taking the drug for his 2005 book Supernatural, Hancock has supported the concept that mind-altering substances give their users access to a spirit world where one can commune directly with the ‘gods’.”
In April 2015, Hancock was due to engage in a debate with Zahi Hawass on the subject of their conflicting views of ancient history. However, when Hawass saw that Hancock included an image of Robert Bauval in his presentation, he refused to continue with the arranged format(d)(t).
In September 2015, Hancock published his, Magicians of the Gods [1119], which worryingly sounds like a von Däniken book title! Already, he is trailing this publication with teasers, such as a claim that he has finally identified the ‘smoking gun’ that demonstrates that a cometary impact destroyed an advanced civilisation in the Antarctic 12,800 years ago(e) Shortly after the initial report was published, Hancock had to correct errors in it(f), the principal one being that the impact site was the North American ice cap NOT Antarctica. An interview with Hancock shortly before the publication of ‘Magicians’(n) is online as is also a review of the book itself(o). A full-length video lecture based on the book is available online(x).
Hancock also climbed aboard the Gobekli Tepe bandwagon, incorporating it along with Noah’s Ark and Atlantis into one narrative(p).
Hancock’s book also engages in scaremongering, with a sales-boosting prediction that an asteroid impact is possible in 2030 when the Earth once again enters the orbit of the remains of Encke’s Comet!
Jason Colavito’s critical review of ‘Magicians‘ is now online(j). A more favourable evaluation of his book is now available from Dr Jon Epstein of Greensboro College, who expresses some interesting views on the closed-mindedness of many academics(k). Epstein’s review prompted further comments from Colavito(l). Following correspondence between Epstein and Colavito, additional claims of academic conspiracy to block Hancock have emerged.
Michael Shermer, a professional sceptic, attacked Hancock’s ‘Magicians’ in a Scientific American article arguing first of all that, “no matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that after centuries of flourishing, every last tool, potsherd, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash—was erased? Inconceivable.” (ab)
Hancock recently received the endorsement of the South African Professor of Philosophy, Bert Olivier, which swiftly produced a response from Colavito(q).
Hancock’s next book, America Before, published in April 2019, proposes that North America was inhabited 130,000 years ago and was home to an advanced civilisation that was destroyed by a cometary impact at the end of the Younger Dryas period, around 10,000 BC. The fact that this is contradicted by Plato does not seem to bother him. Hancock proposed cometary impact damage as the cause of Atlantis’ demise, Plato says flooding. I would prefer Plato’s account as he was nearly two and a half millennia nearer the event. Hancock claims that Atlantean survivors spread their alleged high-tech civilisation around the world. Plato does not describe Atlantis as any more advanced than any other culture. Hancock offers no tangible evidence for his claim.
When asked what he meant by ‘advanced’ Hancock revealed(u) that “I think we’re talking about a civilization – more than 12,000 years ago – which was as advanced as our civilization was, say in the late 18th century or early 19th century. In other words, they could navigate the world, they could explore the world, they could measure the world accurately, they had precise astronomy, they could create beautiful maps that were accurate in terms of latitude and longitude. That kind of level of civilization.”
In late 2022, Hancock had a TV series entitled Ancient Apocalypse transmitted on Netflix. It was, of course, joyously greeted by his fans, but received more muted reviews in other quarters(ad). Not unexpectedly Jason Colavito(af) and Thorwald C. Franke (Newsletter 206)(ae). Murdoch’s The Sun tabloids offered a voice(ac) for the cries of protest from academics. It appears that the series has been used as a multi-episode aggressive rant against conventional archaeology. Perhaps it was just the ayahuasca speaking.
In response, this week (Dec.2, 2022), the Society for American Archaeology published an open letter(ah) to Netflix and the television production house ITN requesting that they re-classify its new series Ancient Apocalypse as a work of fiction rather than a docuseries(ag). Eventually, Hancock responded with a lengthy article(al) described by Jason Colavito as ‘hysterical’(am), but in my view, it contains many interesting points.
The uproar over the Hancock-Netflix series continues unabated with Colavito offering the following addition to his website(ai) and a longer piece on The New Republic website(aj); “It has also sparked unparalleled outrage from archaeologists and journalists, resulting in dozens of think pieces decrying the show’s many false claims and illogical arguments, analyzing its racist implications, and declaring the series everything from “fishy” to the “most dangerous” show on Netflix. “Why has this been allowed?” asked Britain’s The Guardian. The answer to that seemed pretty obvious: Hancock’s son, Sean Hancock, is Netflix’s senior manager for unscripted originals.”
The Guardian newspaper (UK) took another perceived aspect of the series to accuse “Hancock – who describes himself as a journalist presumably to avoid being called a pseudo-scientist” – of taking “the story to a new controversial level in suggesting that survivors of such a deluge were the instigators of the great works of other civilisations, from Egypt to Mexico and Turkey to Indonesia. As (Flint) Dibble states, such claims reinforce white supremacist ideas. ‘They strip indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead give credit to aliens or white people.’ In short, the series promotes ideas of ‘race science’ that are outdated and long since debunked.”(ak).
On April 2023, Jason Colavito reported(an) “In a surprise move, Graham Hancock pulled out of June’s Cosmic Summit, a meeting of catastrophists in support of the theory that a comet hit the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age and destroyed a high-tech lost civilization. Atlantis speculator Jimmy Corsetti, who was also scheduled to speak, also said he would not be attending. Corsetti claimed he had been ‘removed’ against his will from the list of speakers, leaving the conference in chaos.” There is some suggestion that problems arose over a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Hancock offered the following explanation on his website(ao) “Serious concerns have been brought to my attention that has caused me to lose confidence in the fundamental philosophy and direction of this conference.”
In June 2023, Michael Shermer published an article in Skeptic magazine that attacked Hancock’s theories generally and the 2022 Netflix series in particular(ap).
The Netflix episode dealing with the Maltese megaliths has drawn criticism from archaeologists in Malta, one of whom appeared briefly in the episode and later implied that her appearance was “manipulated to suit the narrative that the series is trying to push.” (aq)
>Archaeologist Flint Dibble agreed to go head-to-head with Graham Hancock on the popular Joe Rogan Experience in April 2024(as). This lengthy encounter is available on YouTube(at). Because the discussion lasted over four hours, Jason Colavito could only see and review parts of the show(au). I get the impression that the debate did not produce the fireworks anticipated by some. I also wonder why Dibble had to wear a now clichéd Indiana Jones fedora hat.<
(a) https://www.grahamhancock.com
(b) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/egipto/fingerprintgods/fingerprintgods.htm#contents
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG15.php
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200225173834/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/atlantis.html
(h) https://www.luckymojo.com/hancocklecture.html
(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/magicians-of-the-gods-review.html#.VfaDWMtRFwF
(n) https://andrewgough.co.uk/interviews_hancock_2015/
(o) Archive 2904
(p) Gobekli Tepe, Noah’s Ark & Lost Atlantis – Collective Evolution (archive.org)
(r) https://grahamhancock.com/archive-underworld2/
(s) https://www.scribd.com/document/335992579/Nick-Flemming-Review-of-Flooded-Kingdoms-of-the-Ice-Age
(u) https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/04/watch-graham-hancock-discuss-his-new-book-america-before/
(v) The Cuicuilco Pyramid and Fingerprints of the Gods (archive.org)
(w) An Analysis of the Quality of Graham Hancock’s Science (hallofmaat.com)
(x) Magicians of the Gods Lecture by Graham Hancock at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey – YouTube
(aa) https://www.hallofmaat.com/meh/antarctic-farce/
(ab) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/
(ac) https://www.thesun.ie/news/9782110/wild-atlantis-theory-netlfix-documentary/
(ad) Lost city of Atlantis rises again to fuel a dangerous myth | Archaeology | The Guardian
(ae) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm
(af) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-netflixs-ancient-apocalypse
(ah) saa-letter-ancient-apocalypse.pdf
(ai) Read My New Piece on “Ancient Apocalypse” in “The New Republic” (substack.com)
(aj) The Strange and Dangerous Right-Wing Freakout Over Ancient Apocalypse | The New Republic
(am) Graham Hancock Issues Response to Archaeology Association’s Open Letter – JASON COLAVITO
(an) Graham Hancock Pulls Out of Cosmic Summit, Replaced by Scott Wolter – JASON COLAVITO
(ao) https://grahamhancock.com/events/
(ar) https://web.archive.org/web/20090614050055/http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engatlantis.html
(as) Why I Went on Rogan With Pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock (sapiens.org) *
(at) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble – YouTube *
Malta *
Malta is a small densely populated archipelago, strategically situated in the Central Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. There is a claim that early Maltese were Phoenicians who came from Lebanon around 3000 BC(i). It was reported in 2007 that nearly 30% of “modern-day Maltese share a genetic link with the ancient Phoenicians.” (ay)
However, the Phoenicians do not appear to have been the first, as temple building on the islands began centuries earlier and before that, there is evidence to show a Neanderthal presence there (See below).
At a 2003 Conference in Malta Anton Mifsud concluded his paper(at) entitled Ancient Maltese Skulls – Disease, Genetics and Population Migrations with the following,
“In conclusion, it would seem that this earliest evidence of the genetically determined and transmitted disease known as Thalassaemia in Malta five thousand years ago contradicts the present view that the earliest immigration into Malta derived from Sicily in 5200 BC. The study of genetic distances and ancient population migrations rather points to much earlier immigration of humans from North Africa into Malta and onto Europe around 43,000 BC. Archaeologically documented human remains and artefacts dated to this period of time lend further support to this view.”
It was not until the 1st millennium BC that there was a formal occupation of Malta by the more militant successors of the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians and many centuries later the Knights Templar.
Nowadays, Malta has a highly recognisable national flag adorned with an eight-pointed cross, now universally accepted as Maltese. However, this symbol has a long history and greater geographical spread than generally realised. Gary A. David has written an informative paper(af) on the Maltese Cross and its variants as found around the world. He pointed out its use in the Americas by the ancient Olmecs and laid great emphasis on its place in the inherited culture of the Hopi Indians.
An unexpected reference to this national symbol can be found in the writings [1848.71] of Maurice Chatelain, an ancient astronaut theorist, who claimed that within a 450-mile radius of the Aegean island of Delos there were 13 mystical sites, which when connected by straight lines formed a perfect Maltese Cross(ah)!
It is claimed by some that the name ‘Malta’ is derived from the Phoenician word ‘Maleth’, meaning refuge. However, the name is more generally accepted to be taken from the Greek word for honey meli and was later known to the Romans as Melita, the Latin equivalent. Malta was renowned in ancient times for the quality of its honey, which may explain why the light-fingered, 1st century BC Roman governor, Verres, stole 400 amphorae of it (about 2800 gallons) over three years.
Eire Rautenberg offers a more speculative Malta/Bee association claiming “The first humans came 11,000 – 6,000 BC. BC, historically very early. ‘Malet’, the Punic name for Malta , means refuge and the Greek interpretation ‘Melita’ of -melas means a honeyed dark goddess. The bee structure of the Megalithic Temples of Malta everyone can study at the temple stones; they sometimes look like huge honeycombs that have been proven to be artificially created. The owl as a symbol of the dark, all-seeing eye goddess can also be found on a stele of the megalithic temple Hagar Qim on the southwest coast(av).
Malta, for most Christians, is where St. Paul was shipwrecked on his way to Rome, but even this is disputed by the inhabitants of Mljet in the Adriatic, who make an identical claim. This is not the only serious controversy concerning St. Paul that has arisen. His actual existence has been called into question or at the very least, the age in which he lived, in an article by a chronology revisionist, Gunnar Heinsohn, entitled Saint Paul: Did he Live Once, Thrice or Not at All(ar)?
Today, Malta is a stepping-stone between North Africa and Europe. At the time of the last Ice Age it was probably joined to Sicily but whether it was also joined to North Africa is a matter for debate. This possibility depends on the extent to which the level of the Mediterranean was lowered by the 
growth of the Ice Age glaciers and whether that lowering was exacerbated by the existence of a land bridge between Southern Spain and Morocco. Vittorio Castellani offers[224] a possible map of the enlarged Sicily extending to include the Maltese Islands, leaving a narrow strait between an expanded Malta and the coast of Tunisia. Dr Anton Mifsud has researched ancient maps of the Central Mediterranean region and demonstrated that the early cartographers knew the Maltese archipelago as having a much larger area than at present. G.N. Godwin expressed similar views regarding an earlier enlarged Maltese landmass in his Guide to the Maltese Islands [1592].
The Greek text describes Atlantis as being ‘pro’ in front of or before the Pillars of Heracles rather than ‘meta’ beyond them, which would fit a description of Malta being in front of (east of) Pillars if as suggested, they were located at the Strait of Sicily.
Commenting on this preposition, J. Warren Wells points out that “Plato uses ‘pro’ seven times in Timaeus and twice in Critias. In eight of these cases, it is used in relation to ‘time before’ rather than ‘place before.’It is used only one time in relation to place or position. That single occurrence is where he refers to the island of Atlantis being before (pro) the straits at the Pillars of Heracles.” He concluded that at the very least, close proximity is implied[783].
W.K.C. Guthrie in A History of Greek Philosophy (Vol.5, p245)[946] comments similarly – “’ before the entrance’ I take to mean that it was at no great distance, but the volcanic Azores have a better geographical claim to be the remains of Atlantis than any spot within the Mediterranean.”
Dr Anton Mifsud
Guthrie recognised that Plato was describing the island of Atlantis as being near the Pillars of Heracles, but based on the assumption that the Pillars were situated at Gibraltar, he was forced to opt for the Azores as the location of Atlantis, even though at a distance of 1,100 miles they cannot in any way be described as being “at no great distance” from the ‘Pillars’. Consideration of other known locations, particularly in the Central Mediterranean, that was also, at different times, designated as the Pillars of Heracles, show several islands, including Malta, close to each nominated site.
Malta is home to some of the earliest and most spectacular megalithic monuments in Europe, with some finely carved art, particularly spirals as can be seen in Michael Ridley’s book[1711]. Unfortunately, many more have been lost, Lenie Reedijk in her recent book, Sirius – the Star of the Maltese Temples [1631], lists 100 megalithic sites on Malta & Gozo, of which two-thirds have been lost [p.14/15]. She also contends that the temple building in Malta was spread over a much longer period than generally accepted, beginning as early as 9150 BC and lasting until 4250 BC.
A 2022 paper(ax) by Huw S. Groucutt et al. explores the apparent abrupt ending of the Temple Building Period in Malta and its coincidence with what is known as the 4.2 ka Event, when many societies collapsed in the Mediterranean region. The paper discusses the possible causes, including climate change, which seems to be the most advocated explanation. However, conflicting opinions combined with a shortage of data have prevented the authors from arriving at a firm conclusion. Nevertheless, this paper is a useful addition to the literature on the subject.
2200 BC is also the date for the destruction of Atlantis ln Malta proposed by Anton Mifsud.
Many attempts have been made to link the orientation of the temples with various astronomical bodies. A limited study by John Cox proposed a connection with moonrise (t). Mario Vassallo favours an association with the winter solstice sunrise(u). Klaus Albrecht also identifies [1632] the winter solstice sunrise as his preferred orientation(v). Reedijk offers a far more radical explanation for the alignment of all the temples, namely that they were directed at Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky at that time. However, precession slowly broke that alignment. Reedijk noted that “a star whose rising and setting point was aligned with a temple axis of a given monument at a given time will have moved out of its line of sight in the course of several centuries. When this happened the need would have been felt to build another monument with a slightly different orientation of its main axis, in order to be in line with the star again.”
What I do not understand is why, according to Reedjik, the Maltese temple builders continued to build their re-aligned monuments for over five millennia without simply modifying existing temples rather than engaging in the immense work involved in starting from scratch after every failure of orientation.
Tore Lomsdalen has an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He is now studying for his PhD in archaeology at the University of Malta. He has published several papers on the orientation of the Maltese temples some with a particular focus on Mnajdra(am)(an). He has now added a paper on the Academia.edu website on the possible use of archaeoastronomy to assist with the development of a building chronology for the temples at Mnajdra(aq).
In September 2021 a Canadian researcher, Irene Friesen Wolfstone published a paper(ao) in which she “hypothesizes an Afrocentric origin for the astronomical knowledge that informed the megalithic temple builders of Malta.” and explains that “using a cosmological epistemology, I hypothesize the cosmological principles that were expressed in the astronomical and matricentric design of Mnajdra.”
Carmelo Raymond Sant is a retired engineer and the author of two books [1701/2] concerning the Maltese temples and their function as calendars, which are supported by a fully illustrated website(y). His intense study of the temples and the evidence that over time their orientation changed, led him to conclude that within human experience some form of tectonic rotation south of Sicily has taken place. To quote Sant “two main anomalies became evident in the megalithic calendar. The first obvious one was related to alignment. Unknown geological events had taken place, which contradict the established view on plate tectonics (see micro-plate rotations). The second concerns Earth dynamics. The evidence in the design hints strongly to abrupt changes in the Earth’s axial tilt, in contradiction to established thinking.“(z)
Another Maltese writer who is sympathetic to the idea of Atlantis in the region of Malta is Joseph Serracino as revealed in a brief article(as).
Malta is home to some of the earliest and most spectacular megalithic monuments in Europe. Dr Mifsud has pointed out that the size and number of these ancient monuments are greater than an island of Malta’s present extent could be expected to produce. This view when combined with the mysterious ‘cart-ruts’ that run straight off cliffs, and then reappear on the opposite side of a bay or across open sea, all point to Malta having been a much larger landmass within the experience of man, namely, not earlier than 5000 BC. The cartruts.com website shows(d) the possible shoreline of Malta at 5000 BC and 8000 BC. The same site has a page on ‘torba’ an alleged prehistoric Maltese cement. The tiny island of Filfla three miles off the south coast of Malta had cart ruts visible on it before it was used for target practice by the British military(g). The clear implication was that it had been connected to the main island while it was inhabited. Furthermore, three miles offshore from Sliema on the north side of Malta submerged ruins of what is thought to be a temple (now named ‘Gebel Gol-Bahar’)(h) were discovered in 1999.
I expect that further discoveries will be made, but as it is, there is sufficient evidence to prove that when it was initially settled and certainly as late as some of the Temple Period, the archipelago had been considerably greater in extent than today. A short history of Filfla is worth a read(o).
An underwater study (2013) of the seafloor between Malta and Sicily revealed that the archipelago had been connected to Sicily by a 40 km wide land bridge, now submerged by rising sea levels following the last Ice Age(w).
In 2010, a former co-author of Mifsud’s, Charles Savona-Ventura, rather strangely, independently published a fourteen-page booklet, In Search of Atlantis[1332], in which he reiterated his support for Malta as Atlantis!
In 2014, it was reported(k) in the Times of Malta that a huge underwater canyon, previously unknown, with an extent eight times the size of the Maltese Islands, had been discovered in an area known as the Malta Escarpment. It was also found that the canyon had been active recently, highlighting the geological instability in the region. (The link below includes a short video clip).
In 1923, R. M. Gattefossé commented [314] that many of Malta’s ancient monuments were “Atlantean” in character, although he believed that Atlantis had been located in the Atlantic. Dr Mifsud attributes the earliest linking of Malta with Atlantis to the 16th-century writer, Bibischok. His manuscript is held in the National Library of Malta in Valletta.
However, it was over three hundred years before the suggestion was made again, when an anonymous German writer using the nom-de-plume of ‘Anacharsis’ published (in German only) a Handbook for Educated Travelers through Southern France, Switzerland, Italy and Greece to Corfu, Volume 2 ” published in 1839 (p. 109-112). The author, who is still unidentified, suggested that the Maltese archipelago was the tip of a great sunken land, probably Atlantis(au).
Shortly afterwards, in 1854, Giorgio Grongnet de Vasse, the renowned Maltese architect, proposed that the Maltese Islands were remnants of Atlantis. In 1910 the celebrated Maltese botanist, John Borg offered the opinion that Atlantis had been situated on the submerged land between Malta and North Africa [1132].
D. H. Childress reports that in 1922, the archaeologist, Joseph Bosco also supported this idea. Three-quarters of a century passed before the idea of a Maltese connection with Atlantis was again revived, in particular by the publication of two books, one by Anton Mifsud[209] and the other by Francis Galea[308], in English and Maltese respectively. Both of these books are the result of extensive investigation and have inspired others to continue their study. Graham Hancock was prompted to visit the island and gained material there for his popular book[274] on ancient flooded cities.
Mifsud is widely accepted as Malta’s leading atlantologist and was the principal author of Malta, Echoes of Plato’s Island, in which a very strong case was made for considering Malta as Atlantis. In 2017, he published Island of the Gods[1671] (available on the academia.edu website), which strengthened his Atlantis theories with complementary material. As can be seen from the bibliography here, Mifsud has written several books and papers concerning the history and prehistory of this strategically situated island and the endless procession of traders and occupiers – Neanderthals, Megalith Builders, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans.
Another contributor to the study and literature of the island’s prehistoric origins that should be mentioned is the late Joseph S. Ellul. He was a Maltese teacher and the author of a paper, Malta’s Prediluvian Culture…,[289] that links the submergence of some of Malta’s monuments with Noah’s Flood, which he identified with the controversial idea of the breaching of a land bridge between Spain and Morocco.
While most researchers have focused on the extraordinary number of ancient monuments on the small archipelago, it might be worth considering what is not found on the islands, namely, anything to do with military action. There are no obvious defensive structures and no depiction of warriors or their weaponry. Everything seems to indicate a peaceful society, perhaps, as I and others have already speculated, it was originally a place of pilgrimage(m)(n) or some form of sanctuary!
Hubert Zeitlmair, a retired German real estate investor, is fascinated by the Megalithic remains on Malta, but unfortunately, he ascribes their existence to the intervention of alien visitors a la Zechariah Sitchin. He has outlined his views in a book[465], written in German with an English version promised in the future. Zeitlmair expands on a number of his outlandish claims on his website(f), UFOs, Nibiru as well as “the Atlantean ‘Cold Fire Fusion’ Power house in Malta that still generates Non-lethal High-Frequency Active Auroral Energy.” Similar waffle has been published in the first two books[783][947] of a trilogy by the late Francis Xavier Aloisio, who claims that the Maltese temples “are a Reservoir of Consciousness, so we need to start to look at the structures in a very different way. They were ‘charge compressors’, ‘energy generators’ and ‘power houses.’ In a word, they were ‘energy centres’ for planet Earth.”
Quite recently, Aloisio’s wife, Christine, also joined the ‘lunatic fringe’ and published The Crystal City of Atlantis [1846], which she claims is under Malta. The promotional blurb tells us how “The reader is taken through a remarkable chronicle of how they found Ashua.ra.ta.ra, the Crystal City of Atlantis and met the High Priest who shares with the author his wisdom and describes their Inner Earth Kingdom. The High Priest also reveals how he and his fellow Atlanteans fled there, after the last devastating flood of Atlantis.” For good measure, the author reveals that Lemuria had been situated in California in ancient times!
Anton Mifsud has noted that “Without the use of metal, the ancient Maltese were erecting the first domed structures of the world; these sanctuaries were also being built in accordance with an anti-seismic blueprint, and, amongst other designs, most if not all of these temples incorporated highly advanced acoustics that is still retained in the ‘closed’ surviving framework at the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum”(ab) Glenn Kreisberg, is an American researcher, who has investigated archaeoacoustics and has visited the Hypogeum and carried out experiments there(ac).
Linda Eneix has some interesting additional comments about the acoustics of the 5000-year-old Hypogeum and for good measure touches on the archaeoacoustics of Newgrange and Göbekli Tepe. Considering acoustics in general and music in particular she adds “Harvard Medical School neurologist and psychiatrist David Silbersweig says that music activates many different parts of the brain. The revelations are stunning but none so exciting as one from Johns Hopkins University, where researchers have identified a relationship between music and dopamine release.” (aw).
In 2020, it was announced that acoustic engineers from the University of Salford had demonstrated that Stonehenge had acoustic qualities that allowed “any sounds produced inside the temple would have been much less audible to anybody outside the circle, despite the monument almost certainly not having a roof.
The findings, therefore, suggest that any sounds generated by activities carried out inside the circle were not intended to be shared with the wider community. This reinforces theories suggesting that the potential religious activities conducted inside Stonehenge were reserved for an elite of practitioners, rather than for a wider communal congregation.”(ad)(ae)
Casey Terry notes [1542.36] that Pavel Smutny, a Czech researcher, who is an ardent promoter of the idea of ancient advanced technology, has gone further and proposed that the Maltese temple complexes “were used probably as generators of high-frequency acoustic waves. The purpose was (maybe) to arrange a communication channel between various islands”!(ag) A similar claim regarding the Maltese temples as acoustic communication centres is to be found in a paper written by Glenn Kreisberg (ab).
Another site(aj) noted that “There is no denying that a sophisticated school of architectural knowledge was already in place a thousand years before the Egyptians started building pyramids. (The same people who created Hal Saflieni also engineered a complete solar calendar in one of their above-ground megalithic structures, with solstice and equinox sunrise alignments that still function today.)”
The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, mentioned above, has produced a mystery, a controversy and an accusation of conspiracy. When it was excavated several longheaded skulls were found. However, since the middle of the 20th century, most of these skulls have quietly vanished. Fortunately, Dr Anton Mifsud has not let the matter rest and tracked down some of these and in a detailed publication(ak) has explained: “that they have been intentionally hidden from the general public for various reasons, political, national and cultural for over a century.” Mifsud has now published the fourth(ap) in a series of books on these long-headed skulls and, no doubt to the disappointment of some, he concluded that “the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum skulls are alien, alien to the norm, but not alien as in extra-terrestrial.” Part three has already been published(ak) and parts one and two are in preparation.
The most recent and more rational support for a Maltese location has come from Albert Nikas, a computer engineer, who submitted a paper(b) to the 2008 Atlantis Conference. Sunday, November 19th, 2017 saw the publication of an article(l) by Nikas in Malta’s Sunday Independent, in which he describes his recent visit to many temples in the archipelago. He goes on to claim that he has located the ruins of an ancient city, just offshore, which he believes to have been the capital of Atlantis, not far from Valletta, the modern capital.
>Nikas reported his findings to Heritage Malta, providing them with images and coordinates, but, so far, has had no positive response. Nika is anxious that the site be confirmed by the authorities and then secured, but the apparent lack of interest from that quarter prompted him to conclude his article with the promise that “if I don’t hear anything from the authorities within a short time I will be obligated to reveal the location of the find to the Maltese people, after all, it is part of their history and they have the right to know about it.” Nothing has been heard of any revelation since them.<
Massimo Rapisarda submitted another paper to the same conference suggesting that Atlantis had been located in Sicily in the vicinity of the seaport of Marsala. That conference also heard Axel Hausmann identify a region that included part of North Africa and the area between Libya and Sicily as the home of Atlantis.
Alberto Arecchi, who also advocates a Central Mediterranean Atlantis noted that “We can identify in this system the “Heracles’ columns” of the ancient mythology (one of the two “columns” appears identifiable with the island of Malta).” (s)
I do not know what future investigations will reveal, but I am certain that they will demonstrate that Malta had a 
more important part to play in the Atlantis story than is generally accepted today. The megalithic heritage of Malta predates that of Egypt by a millennium, considerably enhancing its candidacy as the location of Atlantis or at least part of that confederation. A wonderful panoramic view of some of the temples can be seen on the Internet(c).
The second largest of the Maltese archipelago, Gozo, is claimed by some to have been Ogygia the home of the mythical Calypso. Today, there is a cave overlooking Gozo’s Ramla Bay which, by tradition, is thought to be “the one where the beautiful nymph Calypso keeps Odysseus as a “prisoner of love” for seven years.” (x)
Gozo also claims to have the oldest free-standing temples in the world known as Ggantija. In the early 19th century a Danish-German artist painted a number of watercolours of the Ggantija area that “show stones and reliefs that have since been destroyed” (ai).
Many websites discuss the prehistory of Malta(a). One well-illustrated site(e) concentrates on the evidence of catastrophic events affecting the landscape of the archipelago in the distant past. A newspaper report of June 2016(j) pushes back the prehistory of Malta by 30,000 years with the claim that Neanderthals may have lived on the island, assuming that it was an island then! In 2016, Mifsud published Dossier Malta – Neanderthal [1587] in which he outlines the evidence for the existence of Neanderthal Man on Malta.
Malta also produces a Cabernet Sauvignon wine in the town of Marsaxlokk appropriately, but not uniquely, called Atlantis.
On Sunday, January 13th, 2019. the UK’s Sunday Express delighted its readers with TWO Atlantis stories(q)(r). The online edition of the paper offered a video clip of the Maltese island of Filfla, while the commentator told us that Plato had said that a devastating earthquake had destroyed Atlantis it was finished off by an eruption. This is factually incorrect as Plato never mentioned an eruption. Then, as if that was not enough, the same edition of the same newspaper has another story by the same ‘reporter’, with an ‘Atlantis Discovered’ headline claiming that the remains of an ancient 8,000-year-old city, home to ‘tens of thousands’ of people, had been discovered in the North Sea, in a huge region sometimes referred to as Doggerland. The reporter cites Dr Richard Bates in support of this account. Unfortunately, the 2012 comments by Dr Bates never mentioned ‘a city’, only a vast area occupied by ‘tens of thousands’ of people, presumably early farmers(p). These two accounts are a sad reflection of the quality of media reporting today.
I cannot leave this subject without mentioning Julian Cope’s The Megalithic European [1780], described as “the most extensive study of European megalithic sites to date.” This beautifully illustrated book offers information on 300 sites, including Malta, visited by the author, some of which were new to me.
For an overview of Malta’s history See [1714], [1713], [1715] and [1716].
See Also: Mediterranean Sea Level, Axel Hausmann, Kevin Falzon.
(a) Prehistory about malta, from stone age to bronze age (archive.org)
(b) https://atlantisinmalta.blogspot.ie/
(c) https://www.maltain360.com/#110012638 (link broken)
(d) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20190102032648/https://cartruts.com/
(e) Was Malta the island of Atlantis, the island of Temples that had a Catastrophe? (archive.org)
(f) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160401190453/https://www.maltadiscovery.org/en/
(g) http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/cartruts.htm
(h) ?ebel ?ol-Ba?ar – Wikipedia *
(i) https://web.archive.org/web/20180810185353/https://kadmous.org/wp/malta-and-lebanon/
(m) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160823204054/https://www.templesofmalta.com/ggantija.htm
(o) https://www.guidememalta.com/en/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-mysterious-islet-of-filfla
(p) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-18687504
(t) https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/49/1/1.7/307209
(u) ‘The Location of the Maltese Neolithic Temple Sites’, Sunday Times, 26 August 2007, pp. 44–46.
(v) https://www.geestkunde.net/tabula-smaragdina/malta-tempels-aardgodin.shtml
(w) Largest part of the Maltese islands is today under water – study – MaltaToday.com.mt (archive.org)
(y) Melitamegalithic (archive.org) (slow to load)
(z) About – Melitamegalithic (archive.org)
(aa) https://migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=530
(ab) https://www.academia.edu/39950048/THE_ELITE_LONGHEADS_OF_MALTA?sm=a
(ac) https://grahamhancock.com/kreisbergg6/
(ae) https://phys.org/news/2020-09-uncovering-acoustical-properties-stonehenge.html
(af) https://www.academia.edu/8661701/The_Maltese_Cross_Hopi_Indian_Version_of_a_Knights_Templar_Symbol
(ag) https://www.academia.edu/36532579/malta29042018_odt
(ah) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg28306.html
(ai) Goddess History by Marija Gimbutas (archive.org)
(aj) Search for Archaeoacoustics Malta Select Archaeoacoustics – The OTS Foundation for Neolithic Studies
(ak) https://www.academia.edu/43811237/THE_MISSING_HYPOGEUM_SKULLS_OF_HAL_SAFLIENI
(al) EGYPT BEFORE THE PHARAOHS (gigalresearch.com)
(am) (99+) (PDF) Astronomy and Intentionality in the Temples of Mnajdra.
(ao) (99+) Mnajdra: Cosmology of the Sky | Irene Friesen Wolfstone – Academia.edu
(ap) (99+) (PDF) HAL SAFLIENI HYPOGEUM – THE ALIEN SKULLS | Anton Mifsud – Academia.edu
(ar) https://q-mag.org/st-paul-did-he-live-once-thrice-or-not-at-all.html
(as) https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/is-malta-really-part-of-atlantis.35351
(at) https://www.academia.edu/3270896/Ancient_Maltese_Skulls_Disease_Genetics_and_Population_Migrations
(au) Malta was Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
(av) Poseidon is not a Greek god! – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
(aw) https://www.academia.edu/63669239/Megaliths_Music_and_the_Mind_The_Latest_in_Archaeoacoustics
(ax) (PDF) The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period” (researchgate.net)
(ay) One-third Of Maltese found to have ancient Phoenician DNA – The Malta Independent
Malhotra, Dr. Ashok *
Dr. Ashok Malhotra (1950- ) is a professor of engineering who has authored a number of books on engineering and education. In addition, he has subscribed to a number of Internet forums outlining his views(a) on Atlantis. He contends that the Atlantis tale originated in the Indus Valley region with the submergence of the city of Dwarka(g). Subsequently, survivors brought the story to Sumeria from where it was eventually carried to Egypt(h) and then transmitted to Solon with understandable modifications given its age, distance travelled, and several translations. Incidentally, a wooden block was recovered from the sunken remains of Dwarka in 2007 and so a definitive date for its inundation should soon be available.
Malhotra has given a further exposition of his Atlantis theory in a September 2013 posting on his website(c). He offers further theories elsewhere(d) including a suggestion that the builders of Stonehenge came from Armenia(e), which ties in with a very ancient megalithic site of Karahunj (See: Sirius) also known as Zorats Karer in Armenia(f){i).
(a) In Search of Atlantis — Getting Closer (archive.org) *
(c) https://ashokmalhotra.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/atlantis-myth-or-reality/
(d) https://alienaccount.blogspot.ie/
(e) https://alienaccount.blogspot.ie/2014/09/the-builders-of-stonehenge-were.html
(g) https://alienaccount.blogspot.ie/2013/09/indus-valley-and-atlantis.html
(h) https://alienaccount.blogspot.ie/2006/09/origin-of-egyptian-civilization.html
Ellul, Joseph S.
Joseph S. Ellul (1920-2011) was a retired Maltese schoolteacher, who lived in Zurrieq near the ancient temple of Hagar Qim. As an amateur archaeologist he 
was of the opinion that Malta was part of Atlantis and that it was Noah’s Flood that inundated many of Malta’s prehistoric monuments, some of which are still submerged. Ellul’s family had been caretakers of the nearby ruins of Hagar Qim for many years, so he rightly claimed to have an intimate knowledge of the monument. He, together with Paulino Zamarro shared the idea that the collapse of a land bridge between Gibraltar and Morocco caused extensive flooding in the Mediterranean.
Ellul related how the megalithic ruins of Hagar Qim were once dated to around 10000 BC by a British archaeologist, whom he surmised to be the renowned V. Gordon Childe. In his book[289] Ellul put forward his argument for a catastrophic flood originating in the western Mediterranean and being of such speed and size that it caused severe damage to Hagar Qim. Since the temple is over 400 feet above sea level he concludes that this must have been the result of the breaching of an isthmus in the region of Gibraltar.
Ellul has also argued in a letter to The Malta Independent (7/10/2002) that the Hagar Qim temple incorporated a number of astronomical alignments(c). A number of attempts have been made to link the orientation of the temples with various astronomical bodies. A limited study by John Cox proposed a connection with moonrise(d). Mario Vassallo favours an association with the winter solstice sunrise(e). Klaus Albrecht also identifies [1632] the winter solstice sunrise as his preferred orientation(f). Lenie Reedijk offers [1631] a far more radical explanation for the alignment of all the temples, namely that they were directed at Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky at that time.
The only other possible cause might be a giant tsunami, which I have never heard suggested by anyone, although Charles Savona Ventura has written of a tsunami that was observed on Gozo in 1692 following a destructive earthquake, which are rare in the area. The sea receded about one mile before rushing back to add to the seismic damage. Unfortunately the height of the tsunami is not recorded but would have far less than the 130 meters of Hagar Qim.
Even if there had been no such land bridge, the lowering of sea levels with the onset of the last Ice Age would undoubtedly have resulted in Malta having a more extensive landmass that would have been flooded by the subsequent melting of the glaciers but not in the catastrophic manner indicated by the physical evidence.
Excerpts from Ellul’s book are available in English on the Internet(a). His opinions regarding Malta’s cart-ruts are of interest, if somewhat controversial, and can also be read online (b).
Sadly, Joseph died in the early hours of March 28th 2011.
(a) MEDITERRANEAN BASIN CATASTROPHE/ MALTA’S PREHISTORIC GENIUS … Page 16 (archive.org) or See: Archive 2814
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20050301092052/https://www.truegood.fsnet.co.uk/hagarq5.htm
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20190112182925/https://www.ancient-wisdom.com/maltahagarqim.htm
(d) https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/49/1/1.7/307209
(e) ‘The Location of the Maltese Neolithic Temple Sites’, Sunday Times, 26 August 2007, pp. 44–46.
(f) https://www.geestkunde.net/tabula-smaragdina/malta-tempels-aardgodin.shtml