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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
South America
Ancient Flying Machines
Ancient Flying Machines are claimed to have been in existence in a number of ancient civilisations. Although many will have read of the claim that ancient India had flying machines known as vimanas, promoters of the ancient astronaut idea have relied heavily on the vimana reports in the likes of the Mahabharata spiced up with the additional suggestion of their involvement in atomic warfare. However, Joanna Gillan revealed that “Rather than being entirely fictitious, the passage is composed of a merging together of various unrelated passages scattered throughout the 200,000-verse epic, some of which are also questionable English translations of a questionable French translation of the original Sanskrit. When viewed in their original context, they are a little less convincing.”(a)
As I said, the claim of early flying machines is not unique to India. A paper by the late R. Cedric Leonard, makes a case for ancient aircraft in Mesopotamia(c) , citing the Babylonian books, such as the little-known Halkatha, and the Sifr’ala, allegedly translated by Yonah N. Ibn A’haron. Although Leonard was satisfied regarding the existence of Mr A’haron, Jack Churchward is less sure(b) . The flying machines described in the Book of Ezekiel were encountered in what was known as Chaldea.
In Egypt a small wooden object shaped like a small glider or bird was discovered at Saqqara in 1898. With the development of flight in the early 20th century, some of the more imaginative suggested that the Saqqara Bird may have been a model of an early flying machine. Despite various attempts to substantiate this claim it remains a matter of speculation(d) .
A number of other ancient cultures have also left atifacts and writings that are interpreted by some as evidence of flying machines in ancient times. One site has referenced China, Polynesia and a number of South American countries as offering hints of prehistoric flight and noted(e) that “To many the enormous bulk of this evidence is conclusive enough. Indeed the inescapable conclusion is that thousands of years ago a form of aviation did once exist. A form of transport that enabled people to travel to and from about the world much like we do today! But if so, where are the remains of these machines? We hear no mention of them being found at archaeological sites, and presumably if they had existed we should have found some trace of them?”
As I see it, many of the artefacts offered as evidence are open to subjective interpretation and therefore offering the possibility of unreliable conclusions and where documents are involved, lf they are genuine, they are usually in some exotic ancient language, leaving us totally dependent on the credibility of the interpreter.
Naturally, Atlantis has not escaped the claim of having mastered flight. This idea came from Edgar Cayce who advised us “that the Atlanteans discovered electricity and also had ships and aircraft powered by a mysterious form of energy crystal. He tells us that these flying machines were made of elephant skins! (Reading 364-6)(f) and that they could also travel through water! With all this technology at their disposal, it is incredible that they could have lost a war with anyone, particularly the relatively primitive Athenians.”
(a) Was the Mohenjo Daro ‘Massacre’ Real? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)
(b) Rediscovery of The Naacal Tablets – Accusations Addressed (bibliotecapleyades.net)
(c) https://atlantisquestscience.wordpress.com/myth/ancient-aeronautica/chaldean-aircraft/
(d) Model Airplane? (catchpenny.org)
Nygren, Johan
Johan Nygren is the author of a number of papers touching on a number of subjects such as expansion tectonics(b), Cro-Magnons and Atlantis. He brings them all together in an Atlantis theory which places Atlantis in the region of Iceland(a). He believes that Cro-Magnon man lived in Atlantis(c). However, in another paper, he claims that Greenland looks like the map of Atlantis created by Athanasius Kircher(e), a suggestion put forward some years ago by Dale Huffman.
When Nygren first wrote about Atlantis, in an article now removed from the internet(d). he was sure that it could be identified as South America,
He also proposes that Atlantis produced the beginnings of civilisation.
(a) https://steemit.com/atlantis/@johan-nygren/iceland-as-atlantis-2-0
(d) Having discovered the myth of Atlantis in the past days, I’ve now conformed to that it described South America (“Isla Atlantica”) — SteemKR (archive.org) (link broken)
Cocaine, Nicotine and Atlantis
Cocaine and Atlantis is an idea that developed after the discovery of traces of nicotine in an Egyptian mummy in 1976 by Dr. Michelle Lescott from the Museum of Natural History in Paris and later confirmed by Dr. Svetlana Balabanova, a forensic toxicologist at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Ulm in Germany, who also found traces of cannabis, tobacco and cocaine. She discovered traces of nicotine and cocaine in a number of other mummies(a).
“The deeply, disturbingly strange part of all this, is that neither the coca plant (from which cocaine is derived), nor the tobacco plant (which produces nicotine) are native to Egypt. Nor are they native to Africa in general. Or Europe. Or Asia, even. Those two plants are indigenous only to South America.”
Tobacco first came to Europe from South America during the time of Columbus, 2700 years later, apparently ruling out the possibility of tobacco being present during the reign of Ramses circa 1213 BC – or does it?
The nicotine discovery may have its significance weakened by the conclusions of an article published in the April/May 1949 edition of Egerton Sykes’ Atlantis Research magazine entitled Did Tobacco Originate In Africa?, by M. Brenda Francklyn. In it the author quotes from an earlier book, The Ivory Coast, which recounts a myth from West Africa that suggests that the tobacco plant originated there and was in fact exported from there to the Americas!
It did not take long for supporters of Balbanova’s conclusions to propose that specific drugs found in the mummies were evidence of ancient transatlantic travel, while others linked this with the theory of a South American Atlantis.>A 2023 article by Richard Milner is typical of the thinking behind this idea(d).<
Another site offers an interesting overview of the cocaine mummies debate(c).
However, the story does not end there because Carl Feagans has offered a rational argument in support of a more sceptical view of the transatlantic claim concluding that “in order accept that ancient Egyptians between 1000 BCE and 1100 CE traveled back and forth to South America, bringing back tobacco and coca leaves we must assume:
1) The Egyptians had sea-worthy boats
2) They didn’t find the journey significant enough to write about
3) There were no sources of THC, nicotine, or cocaine available from Africa, the Near East, or Asia.
There are some other assumptions as well, but these would seem to be the most significant.” (b)
>The Hall of Maat website offers an extensive article on this whole subject that included two comments in its conclusions that may be considered relevant(e).
(1) “The discovery of cocaine in Egyptian mummies is however not so easy to account for as no direct evidence unequivocally supports any particular contention.”
(2) “Cocaine containing plants, such as E. monogynum, which is present in India, could have been acquired by the ancient Egyptians or in neighbouring areas which the Egyptians traded with.”<
(a) https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/egyptian-mummies-0011354
(b) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2018/05/new-world-drugs-and-old-world-mummies/
(c) http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/ethnic/mummy.htm
(d) https://www.grunge.com/1156183/why-ancient-egypts-cocaine-mummies-hint-at-the-existence-of-atlantis/ *
Iceland *
Iceland has occasionally entered the Atlantis debates. Jean Silvain Bailly and more recently Gilbert Pillot 
have identified Iceland with Ogygia. Some have linked the island with Thule or Hyperborea, while others see it as a remnant of a transatlantic landbridge. Harry Dale Huffman has similar ideas but believes that the landbridge also held Atlantis.
A recent commentator, Johan Nygren, also considered Iceland, when occupied by Cro-Magnon Man, to have been home of Atlantis(a)(b). This he followed with another paper drawing attention to the similarities between a map of Greenland and the famous 17th-century map of Atlantis published by Athanasius Kircher. More confusion was caused by an earlier document(c) in which he decided that South America was Atlantis and has since had it removed from the internet!
Another recent advocate for an Icelandic location is June Austin in a lengthy blog, which wanders all over the place, including the claim that a disproportionately large number of Icelandic people have psychic abilities(d). Sadly, she offers nothing but speculation to support her theory.
(a) https://steemit.com/atlantis/@johan-nygren/iceland-as-atlantis-2-0
(c) Having discovered the myth of Atlantis in the past days, I’ve now conformed to that it described South America (“Isla Atlantica”) — SteemKR (archive.org) (link now broken!)
Baker, Alan
Alan Baker (1964- ) is an English author with a mixed output of both non-fiction as well as some fiction. His chief interest would appear to be historical mysteries, which led to the publication of The Enigmas of History[1306]. This book touches on a number of subjects covered on this site; Noah’s Deluge,* Stonhenge, Amazons and, of course, Atlantis. He briefly discusses a few of the more popular theories; Bimini, Thera, and the Atlantic, but arrives at no firm conclusion, although he appears sympathetic to its existence. In his Destination Earth[1030] he delves into the disappearance of Percy Fawcett and the mysteries relating to South America.
Fitzgerald Lee, J.
J. Fitzgerald Lee was the controversial author of The Great Migration[1169], who proposed that the Israelite migration recorded in Exodus was not from Egypt to Palestine, but from Central America westward, via the frozen Bering Strait, through Asia and on to Europe and Egypt! He also speculated that Atlantis had existed in the Atlantic and that its submergence cut off Africa from Central and South America(a).
(a) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/59387233?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=
Hyperdiffusion
Hyperdiffusion is defined by Wikipedia(n) as “a pseudoarchaeological hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share similar cultural practices, such as construction of pyramids, derived them from a single common progenitor. According to its proponents, examples of hyperdiffusion can be found in religious practices, cultural technologies, megalithic monuments, and lost ancient civilizations.”
Hyperdiffusion with Atlantis at its centre was argued at great length by Ignatius Donnelly when he proposed Atlantis as the mother culture, located in the Atlantic. Through colonisation and migration, their civilisation was brought to the Americas and the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt. The idea received widespread support at the time>>from people such as the Rev. Joseph Cook<<and has persisted until today(a), with Graham Hancock being currently the best-known proponent of hyperdiffusion. In 2022, Marco Vigato also advocated Atlantis as a hyperdiffusionist hub.
A similar hyperdiffusionist proposal was made by James Churchward regarding his Pacific island of Mu.
Angelo Mazzoldi expressed support for a form of regional hyperdiffusion that had his Italian Atlantis as the mother culture which seeded all the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean region.
However, even earlier, in the seventeenth century, Olof Rudbeck “purported to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.”(i)
Since Atlantis in the Atlantic is considered by many to be highly improbable and Mu only existed in Churchward’s imagination, a more likely explanation is that diverse ideas emerged independently in different locations, possibly around the same time. These developments then diffused through trade and migration in various directions, sometimes returning in an improved format. The result is that today we are finding that most ancient civilisations show evidence of cultural influences from more than one source.
Lawrence Freeman is the American author of Beyond The Pillars: a search for Antediluvian civilizations(l) in which he reviews almost every civilisation and prehistoric mystery that you ever heard of. He refers to Atlantis throughout the book, but in rather sceptical tones, with the nearest to a conclusion being that – “Atlantis may well have never existed, but if it did exist, then it was likely only as part of a worldwide antediluvian civilization that is now coming to light.”
Richard Cassaro and Jim Allen have both published online large collections of images(b)(c)(d) that clearly demonstrate widespread diffusion. This is particularly so in the case of South America where influences from both east and west are clearly evident. While it is regularly claimed that Egypt influenced South American civilisations it is obvious that Asian inspiration was equally, if not solely, at work. The existence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mesoamerica is put forward as evidence of contact between them. However, the problem is that the American pyramids were constructed hundreds if not thousands of years later than the Egyptian ones. However, in spite of this separation by time and distance, the Egyptians and the Aztecs also shared feathered-serpent deities(g)! What appears to be overlooked is the fact that the Chinese pyramids are more like Mesoamerican examples and are dated to the second half of the first millennium BC, again closer to the development of pyramids in Mesoamerica.
Christian O’Brien contended that global cultural hyperdiffusion was centred in Southern Lebanon (the Garden of Eden) and was spread from there by ‘The Shining Ones’ leading to the establishment of some of the great civilisations of our ancient past!(m)
An even more unusual hyperdiffusionist opinion was expressed by the Argentine palaeontologist, Florintino Ameghino (1854-1911), who thought that mankind originated in South America(h) and spread globally from there!
In 2020, Anthony Woods [1775] attempted to prove that Atlantis was Ireland and also the source of the mother culture for the entire world. As an Irishman, when reading this, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, found in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further, noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much of this might be the result of coincidence or hyperdiffusion is a matter of opinion.(k)
Carl Feagans offers a paper that is highly critical of hyperdiffusion and its promoters, denouncing them as “willfully ignorant and grossly racist. Though they don’t say it directly, the message is still the same: “white people did it, not savages.”(j)
A 1986 paper(f) by Ben Urish entitled Cultural Diffusion[0969] should be read in this connection.
(a) https://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=5106.0
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pyramids
(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(g) See: Archive 2827
(h) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180329154212/https://webs.advance.com.ar/lae_tor/teorias.htm
(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaus_Rudbeck
(j) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2016/12/hyper-diffusion-archaeology/
(l) https://lfreeman.blogspot.com/2006/11/beyond-pillars-search-for-antediluvian.html
Daughtrey, Peter
Peter Daughtrey is a British researcher and the author of Atlantis and the 
Silver City in which he identifies a location in Portugal, where he lived until recently, for Atlantis. The publicity blurb looks promising as it reads as follows: “Over 2000 books have previously attempted to find the answer but invariably stumbled by matching only a handful of Plato´s clues for this fabled lost civilisation. This book matches almost 60 and includes the discovery of the ancient capital with its harbour that Plato described in great detail and the great sunken plain with at least one group of submerged ruins. Everything fits – the precise location, climate, topography, crops and animals, even the incredible wealth. It sits uneasily by one of the world’s most lethal seismic fault lines which in the past has wreaked havoc up to ten times more powerful than the recent quake off Japan with tsunamis 100 feet high. The great Atlantis empire is traced together with their leader’s odysseys to civilize South America and Egypt. The unique Atlantean physical characteristics are pinpointed and an ancient alphabet traced from which Phoenicians and Greek developed.” However, a pre-publication critique(a) has been rather less than encouraging.
Now that I have read the book I must declare that Daughtrey has produced a work that offers a spirited argument for considering Portugal’s Algarve as the location of Plato’s Atlantis. In fact, he designates not just the Algarve and the submerged area in front of it as Atlantis, but the whole of that southwest Iberian region, starting immediately outside the straits of Gibraltar. The first half of it is the Costa da Luz in Spain. I note that Greg Little has written a positive review of Daughtrey’s book.(f)
Daughtrey recently elaborated that his “position for the great plain that Plato referred to is now the seabed front of southern Portugal and southern Andalucia as far Gibraltar. I think it would also have extended onto the submerged area of northern Morroco and onto the existing mainland. There would only have been much extended narrow straits from Gibraltar dividing it for a good length.”
More specifically he identifies the town of Silves, just west of Faro, as the Silver City in the title.
In order to compile Atlantipedia, I have had to read many books supporting a wide range of theories. I can say that Daughtrey’s offering would be in my top dozen Atlantis titles, along with those of Jim Allen, Andrew Collins, Anton Mifsud, Otto Muck and Jürgen Spanuth. They have all made valuable contributions to Atlantology even though I do not accept all of their conclusions.
Nevertheless, without going into a string of nitpicking comments, I would prefer to clearly state where I believe Daughtrey is fundamentally wrong. Which is in accepting Plato’s (or should that be Solon’s) 9,000 years literally. He is not the first to take this approach as the consequence is that either Atlantis attacked Athens (and Egypt) which did not even exist as organised societies at the time or the science of archaeology as we know it must be abandoned. It is interesting that when it suits him, Daughtrey is prepared to revise Plato’s dimensions for the Plain of Atlantis. I prefer to reinterpret all of Plato’s numbers, which I believe are seriously flawed.
In spite of the above, this book is a valuable addition to any Atlantis library.
September 2014 saw the History Channel preparing to broadcast a documentary on Atlantis in the Algarve that includes extensive interviews with Daughtery(b). However, following the airing of the program he seemed rather disappointed(c) that many of what he considered his most important arguments had been omitted from the final cut and that the producers were more interested in extraterrestrials.
Daughtrey’s book has been updated and a second edition [1957] was published in 2021 and contains what he calls “dramatic new evidence”. His book is supported by a website(e), where you will find additional articles, interviews and reviews.>An extensive press release to promote the new edition can be read here.<
In 2015, Daughtrey published a paper entitled ‘Mark Adams’ Atlantis in Morocco Theory Debunked’(g). This is rather misleading as Adams did not endorse any theory [1070]. The author of the Moroccan theory referred to by Daughtrey was the late Michael Hübner, who is not mentioned once. In fact, Daughtrey’s article offers no debunking but was just a promotional piece for his own book. I have a personal interest in this as I had been impressed by Hübner’s carefully constructed theory and had suggested that Adams should meet Hübner. I subsequently identified a serious flaw in Hübner’s theory.
(a) https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60598-415-5
(b) https://www.portugalresident.com/2014/09/03/history-channel-features-algarves-connection-to-atlantis/ See: Archive 2227
(e) https://www.atlantisandthesilvercity.com/
(g) http://atlantisandthesilvercity.com/atlantis-blog/?p=123
Bajocco, Alf *
Alf Bajocco, an Italian expert on North Africa, published a paper in 1965 entitled The Early Inhabitants of the Canary Islands(a), in which he discussed the possibility that the earliest inhabitants of the archipelago had a Berber origin, who in turn had been descendants of the Atlanteans. Nearly half a century later the Berber connection was confirmed by genetic analysis(b). Bajocco claimed that the following dramatic climate changes in North Africa some of the Berbers migrated westward as far as the Canaries, while others went eastward settling in the Nile Valley.
In the 1960’s Bajocco speculated(d) on the ‘probability’ of Etruscan voyages to South America, citing the opinions of the Italian, Dr. Mario Gattoni Cellini, who claimed to have identified linguistic and other cultural similarities between the Etruscans and ‘Carib Shamanism’. Cellini’s speculations went so far as to suggest that the Aymara came from Crete and the Maya are akin to Sardinians!
In 1987, Bajocco published an article(c) in the Belgian journal Kadath comparing the ‘Bimini Wall’ with underwater features discovered off Lanzarote in the Canaries by Pippo Cappellano.
(a) The Early Inhabitants of the Canary Islands | Agraw.com *
(b) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091021115147.htm
(c) https://www.science-frontiers.com/sf058/sf058a02.htm
(d) Egerton Sykes’ Atlantis Vol 19.1 Feb/Mar 1966 p.3
Survivors
Survivors of the Atlantean destruction are a reasonable expectation given the extent of its influence as described by Plato. The fact that its rulers only met every few years suggests a geographical spread that must have left some, if not most, of the confederation intact, irrespective of the location of the earthquake’s epicentre. Some have proposed that survivors migrated to an extensive range of locations such as Egypt, the Middle East and the Americas, but offer little to substantiate their claims apart from the widely dispersed flood myths that are most likely to have arisen following the melting of glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age.
Sanchuniathon refers to the original kings of Egypt calling them ‘Aleteans’. Albert Slosman claims[551] that survivors from Atlantis had migrated to Egypt. The archaeologist, Marcelle Weissen-Szumianska, in a 1965 book, Origines Atlantiques des Anciens Egyptiens [837], maintained that the pre-pharaonic Egyptians originated in Atlantis, which had been situated in Morocco! Others suggest that Egypt was an Atlantean colony.
Egerton Sykes proposed that the Tuatha deDanaan were refugees from Atlantis in his 1949 edition of Donnelly’s Atlantis. Sean Welsh is one of several who have labelled the Sea Peoples as Atlantean refugees.
All the suggestions put forward are either pure speculation, invention or allegedly derived from some psychic source. W. Scott-Eliot claimed [543] that refugees from an Atlantic Atlantis fled westward to Mexico and became the Toltecs and eastward and built Stonehenge ln Britain! While other European cultures have also had Atlantean roots attributed to them, the most frequently named are the great civilisations of Central and South America – Aztec, Mayan and Incan. Posnansky went as far as to suggest that Tiwanaku in the Andes was built by Nordic refugees from Atlantis! Proof, however, is lacking in all cases.