An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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    NEWS October 2024

    October 2024 Hi to everyone I’m taking a break during the first two weeks of October, so there will be minimal activity on the site apart from the ongoing project of replacing broken links. Back Soon, Tony     September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we […]Read More »
  • Joining The Dots

    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 »
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Stephen E Franklin

Franklin, Stephen E. *

Stephen E. Franklin offers a wide-ranging website(a) which includes a book [1387], as yet unpublished, that ambitiously aims to reconcile the chronologies of the ancient Hebrews, Assyrians and Egyptians(e). This has been an area of great contention particularly since the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky were published in the 1950s. David Rohl has published a series of books on the subject in recent years with further contributions from Peter James and Emmet J. Sweeney.

Franklin’s book has chapter 8(c) devoted to the Garden of Eden and  Atlantis where he maintains that the 9,000 ‘years’ of Plato refer to the three ‘seasons’ in the Egyptian year, an idea that seems to be gaining acceptance (see Radek Brychta, Rosario Vieni and Axel Hausmann).

This reassessment of Plato’s years enabled Franklin to claim that Athens was founded circa 3565 BC and Sais circa 3231 BC. Coincidentally the latter date is very close to the generally accepted time for the establishment of pharaonic Egypt.

Franklin has claimed that the Phaistos Disk is a king-list of Cretan rulers and also that it has a calendrical function(d).

Some years ago Franklin published a book on the origins of the Tarot deck. Its subtitle was A Study of the Astronomical Substructure of Game and Divining Boards [301]. This can be downloaded for free from his website(b).

He has also engaged in the Shakespearean authorship controversy.

(a) Forgotten Origins: Steve Franklin’s Web Site (lordbalto.com) *

(b) Appendix C (lordbalto.com) *

(c) Eight: Adam and Atlas–Eden and the Fall of Atlantis (lordbalto.com) *

(d) Fourteen: The Phaistos Disc and the Early Kings of Crete (lordbalto.com) *

(e) One: Solomon and Shoshenq (lordbalto.com)  * 

Asteroids *

Asteroids, Comets and Meteoroids are all relatively small objects that inhabit our Solar System. When any of them have orbits that intersect with that of the Earth they are known as Near Earth Objects or NEOs. Asteroids (a word coined by William Herschel [1738-1822]) used to be known as minor planets, while meteoroids is the name applied to asteroids that are less than 50 metres in diameter, although some use 10 metres as the classification threshold.

The largest known meteorite is the Hoba Meteorite near Groodfontein, Namibia, which weighs over 60 tons and is calculated to have landed less than 80,000 years ago(ax) and is composed of about 84% iron and 16% nickel, with traces of cobalt(ay).  Before man learned how to smelt iron the only source of the metal was from meteorites that were used to craft ornaments or weapons, such as the beautifully crafted knife buried with Tutankhamun. It is also reported that meteoric iron was used to fashion an arrowhead from a meteor that landed 3,500 years ago(az).

Meteorites have had a history of being considered divine in origin, leading to different levels of veneration in various cultures(v). In the 2nd century, Clement of Alexandria is said to have concluded that “the worship of such stones to have been the first, and earliest idolatry, in the world.”

What is probably the first recorded death from a meteorite strike took place in India in February 2016(z).

Comets, until recently, were generally thought to be composed of just dust and ice, ‘dirty snowballs’, which have orbits that periodically bring them close to the sun at which stage the interaction of the comet’s dust trail with the solar wind produces a highly visible coma or tail. The nucleus can have a diameter of a couple of kilometres.

The chemical composition of comets is now known to be varied and much more complex than previously believed. In 2015, Comet Lovejoy was ejecting the equivalent of “500 bottles of wine every second” when it was closest to the sun, in the form of ethyl alcohol(w). A close encounter with the Earth would have been interesting!

In 1883 a large comet is estimated to have come within a few hundred miles of Earth. It was photographed and some years later the image was hailed as the first image of a UFO!

In recent years comets have come to be seen as potentially more dangerous than asteroids in the event of a collision. This view was graphically demonstrated when the Levy-Shoemaker comet crashed spectacularly into Jupiter in 1994, after breaking up into as many as 21 large pieces before impacting. This comet was originally about 20 km in diameter. However, the distinction between comets and asteroids has been blurred by asteroids sometimes displaying the features of comets, such as asteroid P2013/P5, which in 2013 produced six cometary-like tails.

In 2022, a report offered evidence that major cometary or asteroidal impacts or airbursts have been more frequent than previously thought. University of Cincinnati’s Professor Kenneth Tankersley and his colleagues have listed many such events that are known to have occurred since one apparently wiped out the dinosaurs. The most disturbing fact is the number of encounters experienced within historical times, for example –  “Archaeologists have found meteorites, microspherules, iridium and platinum anomalies, and burned charcoal-rich habitation surfaces at 11 archaeological sites of the Hopewell culture in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley. While Hopewell people survived the catastrophic event, which occurred between 252 and 383 CE, it likely contributed to their cultural decline.” (as) Jason Colavito is critical of this claim because the Hopewell did not enter a terminal decline after their proposed impact date of c. 255-300 CE but flourished for another 200 years.”(at)

In 1752, the French astronomer, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, expressed the view that “However dangerous might be the shock of a comet, it might be so slight, that it would only do damage at the part of the Earth where it actually struck” and with coincidental foresight added Perhaps we should be very surprised to find that the debris of these masses that we despised were formed of gold and diamonds” considering how Richard Firestone and his associates more recently used the existence of nanodiamonds to confirm the cometary impact of 11,000 BC over North America.

Asteroids and comets have been blamed by a number of researchers for the demise of Atlantis since the end of the 18th century. It was the Italian polymath, Giovanni Rinaldo Carli, who in 1788 declared [087] that part of a passing comet hit the Earth and was responsible for the destruction of Atlantis. A century later in his second book [022] on Atlantis, Ignatius Donnelly similarly claimed that a comet’s collision with Earth was the cause of Atlantis’ destruction(af).  Comets rather than asteroids were initially blamed because of their high visibility. However, as our technology advanced and we gradually became aware of the number of large asteroids that intersect with the Earth’s orbit they replaced comets as the more likely cause of historical impacts.

For some decades, Bob Kobres has been studying the evidence for cometary encounters contained in ancient mythologies and their possible association with known events(ah) such as the creation of the Carolina Bays or the Bronze Age Collapse(ag).

The early part of the 20th century saw the eccentric William Comyns Beaumont[088][089][090]and the mysterious Hans Schindler Bellamy[091] both supporting the idea of Atlantis being destroyed by an encounter with an extraterrestrial object. The theory has been adopted by a growing number of popular modern writers such as Otto Muck[098], Egerton Sykes, Andrew Collins[072], Paul Dunbavin[099], Karl Jürgen Hepke(a), Frank Joseph explains [102.108] how a number of scholars encouraged by Muck, came forward to publicly state their belief that Atlantis had been destroyed by an extraterrestrial impact or impacts: “They included the world’s foremost authority on Halley’s Comet, Dr M.M. Kamienski, a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Professor N. Bonev, one of the 20th century’s leading astronomers at the University of Sofia, in Bulgaria; and Jack Hills, of the prestigious Los Alamos National Laboratory”.

In 1971, Sykes’ Atlantis magazine devoted an entire issue to the matter of impact craters around the globe(ak), a subject that he also wrote about a few years earlier(av). More up-to-date is a paper by Andrew Glikson published in August 2023. In it he notes that Geophysical evidence suggests there is a massive, magnetized structure deep beneath Australia. Experts think it could be the remnants of the largest meteor crater on Earth.”  This feature in New South Wales known as the Deniliquin structure may date to half a billion years and is “yet to be further tested by drilling, spans up to 520 kilometres in diameter. This exceeds the size of the near-300km-wide Vredefort impact structure in South Africa, which to date has been considered the world’s largest(ba).”

Emilio Spedicato of the University of Bergamo has written(b) and lectured widely on his hypothesis that the last Ice Age was started by an extraterrestrial impact over a continent and ended with a similar event over an ocean. This second impact was the cause of Atlantis’ destruction and Spedicato specifies Hispaniola as containing the location of its capital.

Spedicato is not alone in believing that impacts by large objects have been responsible for the triggering of past Ice Ages. As we have seen a large number of writers have suggested an impact with the Earth as the primary or at least the secondary cause of the destruction of Atlantis(d). These cosmic collisions have occurred throughout the history of our planet, continuing to this day. Most of the impact material is small and burns up in the atmosphere. Some low-density objects have penetrated the atmosphere but disintegrated before actually impacting, generating powerful shock waves commensurate with their size. Such an event was the well-known Tunguska(i) explosion over that area of Siberia in 1908.

Commenting on the Tunguska event Stephen E. Franklin added that “Less than five hours after the Tunguska object exploded at 7:14 AM local time in Siberia, another fireball was seen over Kagarlyk near Kyiv in what is now Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) at around 7:00 AM local time followed by the impact of a 1.912 kg stony meteorite.”(ad)

In 2001, Dr Luigi Forschini one of the leaders of an Italian expedition to the Tunguska region studied some of the 60,000 fallen trees and for the first time, they also had access to previously untranslated eye-witness accounts. They concluded that the object had arrived from the southeast at about 11 km per second and that an investigation of its likely orbit concluded that it was more likely that the intruder had been an asteroid rather than a comet. They speculated that it was probably not much more than ‘a pile of rubble’ that broke up completely, leaving no crater(aq).

>In 2013, Gernot Spielvogel co-authored Sonnenbomben [1582] in which it is suggested that the Tunguska event was caused by a solar plasma ‘bomb’. Elsewhere, a YouTube video reviews the Tunguska event and concludes that many of the remaining mysteries associated with can be explained if it is treated as a major electrical discharge event(bb) between the Earth and an approaching asteroid or comet.<

The most recent (April 2020) Tunguska theory is that it could have been caused by an iron asteroid partially entering and then leaving the atmosphere!(aj) The most bizarre Tunguska suggestion is that it was the result of experiments carried out by Nikola Tesla(al). Another claim is that a massive explosion of escaping underground gas was the culprit(am). July 1st, 2021 another update on Tunguska theories revealed very little that was new(ao).

Two similar explosions occurred over South America in the 1930s(ar). However, some are large enough to survive the journey to the surface.  Depending on the size, density, speed and angle of approach, the consequences of a large impact are difficult for the average person to appreciate. As Austen Atkinson wrote[109] “A single impact by a rock the size of (London’s) Millennium Dome could devastate the surface of the globe with an explosive release of energy five times more powerful than the entire world’s nuclear arsenal. On 19 May 1996, just such an object came within 280,000 miles of Earth: six hours from a collision. Humankind could have been eradicated.”

The most famous impact is probably that which is known as the Chicxulub Event in the Yucatan took place 66 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs. A 2017 update on Chicxulub studies was presented(ap) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans.

A more recent (2019) paper(ae) reports that “excavations in North Dakota reveal fossils of fish and trees that were blasted with rocky, glassy fragments that fell from the sky. The deposits show evidence also of having been swamped with water – the consequence of the colossal sea surge that was generated by the impact.”

The Chicxulub event may have been more complicated than generally thought, as a 2022 report revealed that “researchers have now uncovered another crater off the coast of Guinea that might well be Chicxulub’s cousin. The newly discovered feature, albeit much smaller, is also about 66 million years old. That’s a curious coincidence, and scientists are now wondering whether the two impact structures might be linked. Perhaps Chicxulub and the newly discovered feature—dubbed Nadir crater—formed from the breakup of a parent asteroid or as part of an impact cluster, the team suggested.”(aw)

The Yucatan impact has a rival claimant in the Indian Ocean as the dinosaur killer, known as the Shiva crater. This is claimed as the largest multi-ringed impact crater in the world(an).

11 million years later another impact in the Atlantic is credited with the expansion of the mammals according to a new study by co-author, Dennis Kent from Rutgers University.

An online calculator of impact effects was developed by scientists at Purdue University and Imperial College, London was first published in 2004 and recently updated(g).

By 2009 175 large impact craters have been discovered all over our planet and many more are undiscovered having been destroyed over time by wind and water erosion or hidden by vegetation. In 2006, a crater with a diameter of 30 km was discovered in the Southern Egyptian desert. This discovery may solve a mystery in the same region that has baffled science for over seventy years, namely, the Libyan desert glass that covers an area of 60 x 100 km. However, the largest known impact crater is the Vredefort crater in South Africa with a diameter of 300 km (186 miles). But this may have to take second place to the 300-mile-wide crater identified in Hudson Bay in North America.

The spectacular collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter in July 1994 and how it disintegrated into a number of huge pieces before impacting over seven days, may offer one possible explanation for the mechanism that could produce the apparent clustering of 3rd millennium BC impacts on Earth.

The current estimate is that there are more than 2,000 asteroids exceeding a kilometre in size together with 10,000 over half a kilometre plus millions of smaller items in Earth-crossing orbits; collectively known as ‘Apollo objects‘. The meteor that exploded over central Russia in February 2013 belonged to this Apollo group. Add to this the risk from comets, normally larger than asteroids, and it is obvious that large-scale impacts are inevitable, however infrequent. The good news is that in 2011 it was reported that a NASA space telescope recorded a 40% reduction in their earlier calculation(j) which should be compared with the assessment referred to(f) at the end of the last paragraph of this entry. May 2012 saw further estimates being published(l).

Terminology, definitions and number estimates are constantly changing. Asteroids that are more than 100m across with orbits that come within 7.5 million km of Earth are now referred to as PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids). As of June 2014, the IAU has listed 1,466 PHAs, while NASA estimates put the actual total in excess of 4,700(q).

As recently as 1953 an asteroid impact with the Moon was photographed as a flash and only in 2002 was the resulting 2Km- wide crater identified. The estimated energy released by this 300-metre-wide object on impact would have been half a Megaton of TNT (35 times the Hiroshima bomb). A hit of this magnitude on Earth could have wiped out a large city.

It must be kept in mind that the immediate damage caused by the impact itself is only the beginning of the story; tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes together with worldwide long-term dust veils could trigger climate change leading to ongoing adverse effects on vegetation and animal life. For humans, this meant death, destruction, floods, repeated crop failures and probably a breakdown in any existing civil order.

It was as recent as the 1930s that geologists were being told that Meteor Crater in the Arizona desert was the only known evidence that an impact, with worldwide consequences, had ever taken place. The site is also known as Barringer Crater after the family who owns it. Until recently, it held the record for the largest impact crater less than 100,000 years old; it’s about 49,000 to 50,000 years old and measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) in diameter. That is, until 2019, when the Yilan crater was discovered in China, which measures about 1.15 miles (1.85 km) across and likely formed about 46,000 to 53,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal and organic lake sediments from the site, the NASA statement says(au).

It was also in the 1930s that the first of the Apollo objects were identified. Since then, the number of large identifiable impact craters grew to hundreds and the number of Apollo objects, whose impact would have global implications, became thousands. It then became obvious that the Earth as we know it is at serious risk. World authorities are slowly realising that the probability of similar impacts in the future is simply inevitable.

Until recently, statistical analysis indicates a major impact every 10,000 years; with the last such event occurring 12,000 years ago possibly destroying Atlantis, directly or indirectly. However, in 2006, this estimate was revised downward to a major collision every 1,000 years with the last impact having taken place around 2800 BC, in the Indian Ocean, where an 18-mile diameter crater has been discovered at a depth of 12,500 feet.

However, a paper(x) published in October 2015 has suggested that a study of mass extinctions over the past 260 million years appears to have taken place every 26 million years coinciding with major asteroid/comet impacts.

So far 175 large impact craters(e) have been discovered all over our planet and many more are undiscovered having been destroyed over time by wind and water erosion or hidden by vegetation. In 2006, a crater with a diameter of 30km was discovered in the southern Egyptian desert. This discovery may solve a mystery in the same region that has baffled science for over seventy years, namely, the Libyan desert glass that covers an area of 60 x 100 km. However, the largest known impact crater is the Vredefort crater n South Africa with a diameter of 300km (186 miles). But this may have to take second place to the 300-mile-wide crater identified in Hudson Bay in North America. A 2015 report tells of two impact zones that total more than 400 kilometres across, which were identified in the Warburton Basin in Central Australia(t).

Although it appears that similar suggestions have been made since the 1950s, the debate has now reached a new level. The Hudson Bay feature has generated even greater interest since Richard Firestone, a nuclear physicist together with Allen West and Simon Warwick-Smith published[110] their claim that it was created around 11,000 BC and had human witnesses who preserved their memory of it in their local folklore and that may have been responsible for the extermination of the Clovis people(ai). Firestone’s tentative 11,000 BC date for this event is earlier than Plato’s even more questionable 9600 BC date for the destruction of Atlantis might be connected since the event described by Firestone & Co. would have had global consequences and could have affected any suggested Atlantis location. In 2007, at a news conference during the Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union, in Acapulco, Mexico, two archaeologists from the University of Oregon, Douglas J. Kennett and Jon M. Erlandson added geological evidence to support Firestone’s thesis. In 2008 evidence of an exploding comet/asteroid over Canada during the same period was presented(c) by other academics from the University of Cincinnati. However, it must be noted that the Firestone hypothesis has encountered some criticism since the start of 2009 and must therefore be treated with due caution. This criticism appears to be gaining support according to a May 2011 report(h). In June 2012, James Kennett, son of Douglas Kennet mentioned above, was part of a team that announced further evidence of a major impact event 13,000 years ago extending from Pennsylvania and South Carolina as far as Syria(m).

Dr Reinoud de Jonge has written several articles(d) that drew on petroglyphs in Brittany to support his contention that the Earth had an encounter with a cometary body in 2345 BC. This would appear to complement the work of Mike Baillie and George Dodwell, who echoed William Whistons proposed date of 2346 BC, for an encounter with a comet that caused the biblical Deluge.

Since only 30% of our globe’s surface is exposed land, it is reasonable to conclude that 70% of impacts will have landed in water, leaving little lasting evidence. However, at least ten of these identified impact craters occurred after the last Ice Age and at least seven of them date from around the third millennium BC, a period when there were widespread cultural collapses.

In a recent book[111] the renowned dendrochronologist, Mike Baillie, has outlined compelling evidence from his discipline combined with ancient mythologies to support the idea of extraterrestrial impacts in early historical times. May I suggest that the mythologies that possibly relate to multiple impacts are in fact recollections of a comet that had been visible for some time before breaking up under the gravitational influence of our planet before impact? This idea was developed by Baillie in a subsequent book[112] written with Patrick McCafferty that focused on Celtic mythological figures. Comets rather than asteroids are more likely to have contributed to the development of myths since an asteroid would not have been visible long enough for it to develop an identity that would be remembered in legend. Graham Phillips has gone further and proposed[036] that a close encounter with a comet in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC triggered the development of monotheism at that time. Furthermore, he contends that as the Earth passed through this comet’s tail, it introduced large quantities of the amino acid, vasopressin that heightened aggression in humans leading to large-scale conflicts worldwide. This comet, 12P/Pons-Brooks is due for another close encounter with Earth in 2024.

A 2012 paper(o) by Fernando Coimbra investigates the influence of unusual astronomical events, in particular comets, on the subject matter of rock art. An earlier paper(p) by Coimbra looks at the swastika as a specific example of a reflection of such an event.

Mythologies, worldwide, offer evidence of these impacts and have been subsequently reinforced by classical writers who describe in non-scientific terms the effects of these extraterrestrial assaults. Pliny wrote in his Natural History (Book II, sec 91) of ‘A terrible comet was seen by the people of Ethiopia and Egypt, to which Typhon, the king of that period, gave his name; it had a fiery appearance and was twisted like a coil, and it was very grim to behold: it was not really a star so much as what might be called a ball of fire.’

Similarly, the Greek myth of Phaëton has been interpreted as a record of an encounter with a comet. Edith and Alexander Tollmann also identified an 11,000 BC impact with the Köfels region of the Austrian Tyrol as one of the impact zones. The interpretation of ancient legends and myths is a matter of subjective response, but the volume of such evidence is so great that the probability of a number of major impacts being within the memory of man, who relayed the experience down to us through the medium of tradition, is quite high.

The fact that our Earth is continually at risk of a cosmic collision, the physical evidence of recent and past collisions, the recording of impacts on the Moon and Jupiter compounded with stories in ancient mythologies offer strong grounds for accepting the possibility of Atlantis being destroyed as a result of a collision with an extraterrestrial object as a credible working hypothesis.

While an asteroid impact destroying Atlantis is relatively easy to accept, some authors have proposed even more dramatic scenarios where the impact was so great that it caused the Poles to change position and/or the Earth’s outer mantle to move relative to the inner core. There is little doubt that cosmic collisions of all the possible natural catastrophes pose the greatest possible threat to life on Earth. There is an interesting website(c) that discusses both catastrophes and Atlantis. Another site(e) has a small collection of images of impact craters as seen from space. 2010 produced a frightening upward reassessment of the asteroid threat(f).

In 2001, NASA(k) identified 1,000 asteroids and comets orbiting close to Earth that are capable of causing catastrophic damage to our planet in the event of a collision. An interesting map was published(n) in February 2013 showing the locations of 34,513 impacts dating back to 2300 BC.

Recent deliberate encounters with comets and asteroids have produced images and data that have raised questions about the traditional description of comets being composed of ice and rock. The lines between asteroids and comets are becoming increasingly blurred and new definitions are required(r). The trend now is to see asteroids and comets as part of a continuum. Evidence is emerging that the H20 previously associated with comets may have been OH radicals(s).

The 2014 landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko would appear to have destroyed the ‘dirty snowball’ description of comets, coined in 1950 by the noted astronomer, Fred Whipple, and should now be abandoned.

Although large asteroids or comets have caused and will again cause global catastrophes on a scale that we can only imagine, they are not the greatest potential threat to our existence. It is estimated that our galaxy, like others, is also home to free-floating giant gas planets untethered to any star, which, if they wandered our way, could not only obliterate our planet but de-stabilise our solar system.(u)

Terry Westerman offers a fascinating overview of possible global impact sites on his fully illustrated website(y).

Fortunately, the death and destruction caused by comets are balanced by the probability that they are also the source of life on our planet. This idea is gaining greater acceptance with a further paper(aa) offering additional supportive evidence published in April 2016.

Nevertheless, improved vigilance is required if we are to believe Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario, whose research in 2014 concluded(ab) that hazardous asteroids are 10 times more likely to hit Earth than previously thought!

Further Reading: Hoyle[602] , Maguire[604], Verschuur[579], Clube & Napier[290], Allan & Delair[014].

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20200225130714/http://www.tolos.de/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20190805194450/http://atlis.de/

(b) Wayback Machine (archive.org) 

(c) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/uoo-ori052107.php

(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20200128100421/http://barry.warmkessel.com/dejonge.html

(f)  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1306555/Our-terrifyingly-crowded-solar-How-asteroids-closing-in.html
(g) https://www.purdue.edu/impactearth

(h) https://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/comet-claim-comes-crashing-to-earth-31180

(i) https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska/ (link broken) 
(j) https://www.space.com/13130-dangerous-asteroids-earth-nasa-telescope-results.html

(k) The Probability of Collisions with Earth (archive.org)  *

(l) https://www.seeker.com/4700-potentially-hazardous-asteroids-lurking-1765777967.html#news.discovery.com

(m)  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120611193657.htm

(n) Every meteorite fall on earth mapped | News | theguardian.com

(o)  https://www.academia.edu/5354586/Rock_art_and_the_memory_of_unusual_astronomical_events

(p)  https://www.academia.edu/2951519/The_astronomical_origins_of_the_swastika_motif

(q)  BBC Focus Magazine, July 2014, page 67.

(r) Are comets asteroids or asteroids comets? – Thunderbolts Forum (v2.0) (archive.org) 

(s) Are they saying water when they mean OH radical? Please help – Thunderbolts Forum (v2.0) (archive.org) 

(t) https://web.archive.org/web/20190528024004/http://www.sci-news.com/geology/science-warburton-giant-asteroid-impact-basin-australia-02627.html

(u) https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-make-our-home-on-a-rogue-planet-without-a-sun

(v) https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/falling-stars-and-black-stone-humanity-s-worship-meteorites-001901

(w) https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/26/9615392/comet-lovejoy-ethyl-alcohol-organic-molecules-life

(x) https://phys.org/news/2015-10-scientists-link-comet-asteroid-showers.html

(y) Seismic Circles (archive.org) 

(z) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Meteorite-explosion-killed-Vellore-college-bus-driver-Tamil-Nadu-government-says/articleshow/50889270.cms

(aa) Archive 2998 | (atlantipedia.ie)

(ab) https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a10236/the-asteroid-threat-visualized-16490560/

(ac) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37647049

(ad) https://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterNine.htm

(ae) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47755275

(af) Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel | MalagaBay (archive.org)

(ag) https://web.archive.org/web/20200916132547/http://defendgaia.org/bobk/bronze.html

(ah) https://web.archive.org/web/20200203201811/http://defendgaia.org/bobk/bobk.html

(ai) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/656015?journalCode=ca

(aj) https://www.q-mag.org/the-new-final-tunguska-theory.html

(ak) Atlantis, Volume 24, Nos 3/4, April-July, 1971.

(al)  https://theunredacted.com/the-tunguska-blast-teslas-death-ray/

(am) The Tunguska Event: the most powerful explosion in documented history that still remains a mystery | protothemanews.com

(an) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091015102246.htm

(ao) Remembering Tunguska: A Mystery Explosion that Baffles The CIA Over a Century Later – The Debrief

(ap) <chicxulub killer meteorite> (q-mag.org)

(aq) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1628806.stm 

(ar) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_tunguska23.htm

(as) Near-Earth Comet Exploded over North America about 1,500 Years Ago | Sci-News.com 

(at) Researchers Behind Ice Age Comet Claim Say a Comet Destroyed the Hopewell, Too – JASON COLAVITO

(au) Scientists uncover the largest crater on Earth under 100,000 years old | Live Science

(av) Atlantis – Die Theorie vom Meteoriten-Impakt – Atlantisforschung.de 

(aw) https://eos.org/articles/impact-crater-off-the-african-coast-may-be-linked-to-chicxulub

(ax) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoba_meteorite 

(ay) National Geographic, June 2023 p.102

(az) Meteorite that crashed to Earth 3,500 years ago carved into arrowhead by Bronze Age hunters | Live Science 

(ba) https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/the-largest-asteroid-impact-crater-on-earth-is-lurking-beneath-australia-new-evidence-suggests#:~:text=Geophysical%20evidence%20suggests%20there%20is,largest%20meteor%20crater%20on%20Earth. 

(bb) (1) Matt Finn: Tunguska Mystery of 1908 | Thunderbolts – YouTube 

 

Phaistos Disk

The Phaistos Disk is the most famous ancient artefact ever found on Crete and as Axel Hausmann says, can be considered the world’s oldest ‘printed’ document, dated to around 1700 BC. This is because the characters were created using incised punches, similar in effect to movable type.

Noting that this ‘document’ was produced using some sort of character ‘punches’, brings to my mind three questions

(1) were these the only set of punches created? And

(2) have any other objects been discovered that show a similar use of punches? And

(3) if not, why not? These questions prompted some to claim that the Disk was a hoax! (See below)

Another artefact with characteristics remarkably similar to the Phaistos Disk is the inscribed Magliano Disk, made of lead, which was discovered in Magliano, Tuscany in the 188os(ac). However, the two discs were very far apart in time and location and so similarities are just superficial. Like the Phaistos Disk, the one from Magliano has also presented translation problems as the Etruscan script in which it is written is still only partly decipherable.

In 2017 the academia.edu website published an illustrated paper by Lance Carlyle Carter comparing the Magliano Disc with the Phaistos

Magliano Disc

Disc. In it, he claims “to show how the Magliano Disc inscriptions appear to be based ancient asterisms, signs, or constellations and are compared to the Phaistos inscriptions. The Magliano Disc inscriptions appear to depict a way of drawing celestial signs that portray the northern sky. This paper shows that the Phaistos Disc may not be an isolated document.(am)

The Phaistos Disk was discovered around a hundred years ago by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier (1874-1937) and despite an amazing number of efforts(a), it has defied a definitive decipherment ever since. The interpretations so far have ranged from it being a prayer to a description of the eruption of Thera, while one writer in a light-headed moment went as far as to suggest that it might hold a message from extraterrestrials!

phaistosdiscs Frank Joseph contends[636.42] that it was ‘a sophisticated astrological chart’ and ‘is an example of Atlantean Bronze Age technology’.

One of the most fascinating suggestions is that the disk was a board game based on an ancient Egyptian game called Senet(b)(o), which was proposed by Peter Aleff, an explanation later supported by Philip Coppens(af). However, it seems that this idea was first proposed by Fernand Crombette at least half a century earlier(r).

Over sixty years ago Marcel Homet discussed the Phaistos Disk in the last chapter of his Sons of the Sun [813] noting that “The totality of the ideograms or symbols on the disc – they are all as familiar in the prehistoric Mediterranean countries as in Ancient America (although of older date there) – leads us inevitably to search for a common origin, which can only be found in the northern part of the space which lies between the two continents (Eurasia and America), in other words: Atlantis!” [p193]

Alan Butler, who has written a book on the subject[504], provides a more conventional offering in which he sees the disk as being primarily an astronomical aid. Rosario Vieni has promoted the idea that the disk had a calendrical use and has published his reasons, in French, on the Internet(c). Paul Dunbavin has also suggested(aj) that the disk may have been a spiral calendar[099.181].

Naturally, Atlantis has not been excluded from this wide-ranging Phaistos speculation, although the linking of the disk with Atlantis is tenuous at best. Jean Louis Pagé has produced a bilingual offering[501] that combines the Phaistos, Mayan and Aztec disks to locate Atlantis. Axel Hausmann, writing in German[372], has also done little to provide a clear connection between Atlantis and the disk.

Christian O’Brien and his wife Barbara Joy, in an appendix to their book The Genius of the Few, have identified the writing on the disk as an early form of Sumerian cuneiform writing. Based on this, O’Brien produced a complete translation of the Disk(ag)!

>The late Andis Kaulins published at least two papers on the decipherment of the Disk(aq).<

The disk is housed in the Iraklion Archaeological Museum which is home to the Akralochori Axe also found on Crete in 1934 by Spyridon Marinatos, that was inscribed with 15 characters that have been identified with the Linear A script as well as some of the Phaistos characters(e). The Museum also holds (#2646) a lesser-known disk called ‘The Disk of Chronos’ by Richard Heath, who has identified it as a Bronze Age calendar(ah), which, according to him, among its other functions shows an early use of the seven-day-week. Heath has also written a paper on the Phaistos Disk, which he has interpreted as an eclipse predictor(ai).

Dutch linguists Jan Best and the late Fred Woudhuizen co-authored a paper(ao)  on the Phaistos Disc and concluded that Not only the script but the language, too, is very similar to Luwian.” If their reading is correct,” the text on the disc intends to settle an ownership dispute in a place called Rhytion near Pyrgos in the southwest of the plain of Messara: The Greek king Nestor has a principality in Crete that includes Knossos and parts of the plain of Lasithi and of the Messara.”

Two American academic twins, Keith and Kevin Massey have made available a 72-page pdf file(k) outlining their interpretation of the disk. They concluded that the disk was probably a receipt for goods deposited in a temple!

2008 was a busy year for Phaistos Disk studies. Panagiotes D. Gregoriades delivered three papers to the Atlantis Conference in Athens in which he identified the disk as a calendrical device used on land and sea. He subsequently published his ideas in book form in 2010 entitled The Creation of Prototypes[1416].  In 2008 a major international Phaistos Disk Conference was held in London(h) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its discovery.

Unfortunately, in 1999 a professional ‘wet blanket’ in the form of Dr Jerome Eisenberg declared the disk to be a fake when he wrote to The Economist declaring that the disk was “a joke perpetrated by a clever archaeologist from the Italian mission to Crete upon his fellow excavators.” He expanded on this in a detailed, fully illustrated paper(z) in 2008. Brian E. Colless responded by pointing out(d) that such a hoax would first have required the “making 45 little stamps to imprint on clay, on both sides of the object, and printing 30 clusters of signs (words or phrases ?) on one side and 31 on the other.”

The Greek authorities have refused to allow the disk, which is just 16cm across, to be removed for testing, on the grounds of its extreme fragility. The idea of fraud has been suggested because of the lack of other documents ‘printed’ in the same manner and because none of the punches was ever found. Fortunately, that argument has now been refuted(u). My response would be to point out that singularity is not necessarily a sign of a hoax. Otherwise, we would have to reject other artefacts such as the Antikythera Mechanism or Nebra Sky Disk, which are also unique items with no objects of any intermediate sophistication discovered so far.

Dr Marco Guido Corsini, who has also written about Atlantis, has widely promoted his interpretation of the Phaistos Disk(o).

Ukrainian professor Iurii Mosenkis, a linguistics expert, has proposed in his Hellenic Origin of Europe(ak) that the Phaistos Disk was an astronomical instrument for sailors!

Mark Newbrook, who has studied linguistics, gave a good overview of the various attempts to decipher the disk at the 2008 Phaistos Conference. An even more extensive site (currently suspended) was offered by the Georgian mathematician Gia Kvashilavathat includes a very comprehensive bibliography. Kvashilava offers his interpretation based on the Colchian (Proto-Kartvelian) language printed in the unique Colchian syllabo-logogramic Goldscript. His paper is quite technical and more suited to advanced students of the subject.

Reinoud de Jong has now entered this particular fray with a decipherment that he claims offers a description of the religion of Crete(i). However, this is rather strange as in a 2012 paper(ae), de Jonge claimed that the Disk contains details of the Bronze Age importation of copper and tin from the Americas. In the same paper, he also claimed that the Egyptians discovered America around 2500 BC and for good measure he slips in that the Empire of Atlantis existed from 2500 to 1200 BC, without any reference or explanation whatsoever! It is implied that there is a connection between Egypt, Atlantis and the exploitation of the Michigan copper. The level of detailed speculation on offer here is truly spectacular.

 Steven Roger Fischer, who claims to have deciphered the rongorongo script of Easter Island has also offered a translation of the Phaistos Disk in his book, Glyphbreaker[1520].

By way of complete contrast, Gary Vey claims that the disk is merely some sort of inventory and also gives an overview of the difficulties attached to deciphering the disk as well as some interesting features overlooked by some researchers(j).

The Czech WM magazine has an extensive 2011 article on the decipherment of the Phaistos Disk(p), giving prominence to the work of Petr Kovar, who claims that the language is Proto-Slavic!(y)

Stephen E. Franklin has claimed that the Disk is a king-list of Cretan rulers and also that it had a calendrical function(ab).

Barbara Gagliano raised a few eyebrows with her claim that the Disk contained DNA information(q)!

Late 2014 saw another translation attempt published(s) by Dr Gareth Owens of the Technological Educational Institute of Crete,  in which he claimed that the disk “contains a prayer to the mother goddess of the Minoan era.” Owens’ contribution provoked further controversy including further suggestions that the Disk might be a fake(t).In a 2021 recycling of his claim, Owens said he believes, moreover, that one side of the Phaistos Disc is dedicated to a pregnant mother goddess and the other to the Minoan goddess Astarte.” (al)

Linear B was the basis of Owens’ study, which was the result of a collaboration with John Coleman at Oxford University. They claim to have translated 80% of the text with certainty, along with another possible 15%, leaving just 5% undeciphered(w). >In 2018, Owens claimed that(ar) the percentage of the text that was now deciphered had risen to 99%!<

Robert Bradford Lewis (RBL), an American commentator, has offered a detailed illustrated forensic study of the Disk, based on his view that the language used was Ugaritic, a long-extinct Semitic tongue. However, while the language may be Ugaritic, the script is not! Uniquely RBL has proposed a connection between the content of the Disk and the Genesis Flood story.(an)

The number of theories relating to the Disk seems to rival the range of speculation relating to Atlantis. My selection here can be fruitfully augmented by the Wikipedia entry(x) on the subject.

>Silvia Ferrara, a Professor of Aegean Philology, is the author of a 2019 book, The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts [2083]. This well-received work, not unexpectedly, includes an overview of the Phaistos Disk- an excerpt from which is available online(as).<

A list of decipherment claims as well as a useful bibliography up to 2008 is available(y) and Charles River Editors has recently (2018) published two Kindle books [1585][1586] offering more information about the many attempts to solve the mystery of the disk.

Brent Davis is one of the world’s leading experts on Bronze Age Aegean scripts and languages. In 2018, he published an article “in which, based on a close statistical analysis, shows that while both the Phaistos Disc and Linear A are undeciphered writing systems, he can demonstrate that both are, with a high degree of certainty, encode the same language!”(ad)

Robin Ashdown in a 2021 article offered a new interpretation that suggested that the Disk had a calendrical function, possibly overseen by priests. This complicated theory, apart from being difficult to understand comes with a very candid warning: the ideas presented are based on nothing more than guesswork and speculation. I have no evidence to either support or refute these explanatory ideas. Nevertheless, by logically piecing together harmonious ideas, we can build a compelling picture of what might lie behind the pictograms in the Phaistos Disc.”(ap)

(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc_decipherment_claims

(b) https://www.recoveredscience.com/Phaistos1summary.htm  (link broken) See link (o)

(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20150423071528/https://www.world-mysteries.com/LeDisquedePhaestos.pdf

(d) https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/phaistosdisc

(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arkalochori_Axe&printable=yes

(h) https://web.archive.org/web/20120419010351/https://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/bes/phaistos.pdf

(i) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2012&id=320

(j) https://www.viewzone.com/phaistosx.html

(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20160331171116/https://www.keithmassey.com/files/ThePhaistosDisk-Massey.pdf

(l) https://web.archive.org/web/20141201114928/https://www.we-love-crete.com/phaistos.html

(n) https://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/969.php

(o) Index (archive.org) (3 papers) 

(p) https://web.archive.org/web/20161224065031/https://www.wmmagazin.cz/rservice.php?akce=tisk&cisloclanku=2011010004

(q) https://brazilweirdnews.blogspot.ie/2013/07/the-phaistos-disc-code.html

(r) https://www.ciphermysteries.com/2011/12/16/phaistos-disk-update

(s) https://www.seeker.com/mysterious-4000-year-old-cd-rom-code-cracked-1769209418.html

(t) https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/phaistos-disk-deciphered/

(u) https://mysteriouswritings.com/the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-phaistos-disk/

(v) https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/curious-phaistos-disc-ancient-mystery-or-clever-hoax-002089

(w) https://cretazine.com/en/heraklion/city-life/city-people/item/1025-gareth-owens-secrets-of-phaistos-disk

(x) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc#Attempted_decipherments

(y) https://creteinfo.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/translation-of-the-phaistos-disc/

(z) https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/files/2016/07/eisenberg_2008.pdf

(aa) https://web.archive.org/web/20160529205341/http://www.stomverbaasd.com/ooparts-phaistos-disc/

(ab) https://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterFourteen.htm

(ac) https://www.academia.edu/31038379/Celestial_Magliano_Disc_Deciphered

(ad) https://gath.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/brent-davis-on-the-languages-of-the-phaistos-disc-and-linear-a/

(ae) https://www.academia.edu/3894415/COPPER_AND_TIN_FROM_AMERICA_c.2500-1200_BC_

(af) https://web.archive.org/web/20180621193953/https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/phaistos/

(ag) The enigma of the Phaistos Disc – a question of language (goldenageproject.org.uk)

(ah) (99+) (PDF) A Minoan Calendar of Bronze Age Time | Richard Heath – Academia.edu

(ai) (99+) (PDF) Counting lunar eclipses using the Phaistos Disk | Richard Heath – Academia.edu

(aj) The Phaistos Disc: Minoans, Trojans and Etruscans | Paul Dunbavin (third-millennium.co.uk) 

(ak) (99+) (PDF) HELkENIC ORIGIN OF EUROPE: Formation of the Greeks 4600–2600 BC and the first Greek states 2600–1450 BC in Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A Script | iurii mosenkis – Academia.edu

(al) https://greekreporter.com/2021/07/05/phaistos-disk-mystery-solved/ 

(am) (99+) Celestial Magliano Disc Deciphered | Lance Carlyle Carter – Academia.edu

(an) https://www.phaistosdisk.com

(ao) https://luwianstudies.org/the-phaistos-disc/ 

(ap) The Phaistos Disc: Spiral Secrets Suggest It’s a Festival Calendar | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

(aq) (PDF) The Phaistos Disc: An Ancient Enigma Solved : Two Corroborative Old Elamite Scripts are Ancient Greek (researchgate.net) *

(ar) “Phaistos Disc” mystery finally unravelled – (greekcitytimes.com) *

(as) Exploring the Enduring Mystery of Crete’s Phaistos Disc – Atlas Obscura *

 

Garden of Eden *

 The Garden of Eden, like Atlantis, has excited the imagination of many over the centuries. Its location has been the subject of what was sometimes wild speculation that offered a range of locations compared with the variety of sites proposed for Atlantis.

The traditional belief was that the ‘Garden’ had been situated in Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris as noted in the Bible. Athanasius Kircher, who is better known to many for his speculative map of Atlantis located in the Atlantic Ocean also produced a plan of the Garden of Eden in what is now southern Iraq. David J. Gibson (1904-1966) arrived at a similar conclusion placing ‘Eden’ just south of Baghdad in his book, The Land of Eden Located, now available online(t).

The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism offers a clue to the sort of difficulties that ‘Garden seekers’ must deal with, in the Garden of Eden entry. “as an earthly garden, its specific location within both the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature. Thus, some texts place it in the east (Gen 2:8; 1En.32; Jub 8:16; 2 En. [rec.32] 42:3, 65:10; Philo QG 1:7; Leg 1:56; Josephus, Ant. 1.3), while others place it in the west (Gen 3:24; Josephus, JW 2.155), north (Ezek 28:13; 1En. 61.1), or northwest (1 En.24-25, 70:3).”(ap)

More recently, Robert McRoberts in an article about the rivers of Eden included a map by Arianna Ravenswood, who placed Eden northwest of Babylon in what is now the Iraqi Province of Diyala(u).

Within the same region is a submerged location at the head of the Persian Gulf promoted by journalist, Dora Jane Hamblin (1920-1993),(av) who highlighted(av) the work of archaeologist, Juris Zarins (1945-2023)(w). In his theory, the Bible’s Gihon River would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would match the Wadi Batin river system that had drained the now dry, but once quite fertile central part of the Arabian Peninsula. His suggestion about the Pishon River is supported by James A. Sauer (1945–1999) formerly of the American Center of Oriental Research although strongly criticized by the archaeological community(x).

A number of commentators have suggested that the site of Eden is now under water, where lower sea levels during the Ice Age would have revealed land now submerged, such as in the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea has also been proposed.

garden-eden-kircher1

Kircher’s Garden of Eden

The conventional idea has been enhanced in the opinion of some by the discoveries of the German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, who believed that his excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have unearthed artefacts dating to 8000 BC when the people there changed from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This region also contains Ur and Harran, mentioned in the Old Testament and since Göblekli Tepe is located between the Tigris and Euphrates and is within view of the Taurus Mountains, it conforms remarkably to the topographical description of Eden in the Bible. Tom Knox speculated on this in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail Online(aa).

It was no great surprise when I found at that least one commentator has proposed Göbekli Tepe and the surrounding area was the site of the Garden of Eden(au).

Garold Spire jr, an American researcher, offers a strong case for placing Eden in southern Turkey at the Karaca Dag shield-volcano. He studied the sacred books of the Abrahamic religions and drew up a short list of characteristics that the Garden must have;

1) It must have been warm enough to be comfortable without protective clothing. Gen 2:25.

2) It must be uphill geographically, due to the fact that four rivers exited

from it, these are the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pishon, and the Gihon. Gen 2:10-14

3) The Pishon must compass or border Havila where there is gold and onyx. Gen 2:11, 12.

4)The Gihon must compass or border the whole land of Cush. Gen 2:13

5) It must account for a flaming sword on its east side. Gen 3:24

6) It must be well watered, Gen 13:10 by a mist (in Hebrew) not rain, Gen 2:5-6, which came up from the earth.

Spire maintains that his Turkish location has all these features(an).

Christopher Columbus believed that the source of the Orinoco River, in what is now known as Venezuela had been the location of Eden. Antonio de León Pinelo (1590-1660) was a Spanish chronicler who spent some years in South America and was also convinced that the Garden of Eden had been situated between the great rivers of South America(k)!

The imaginative Augustus Le Plongeon claimed the Yucatan as the location of the ‘Garden’(s) an idea endorsed by his wife, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon.

In more recent times, Ramiro Gonzales Yaksic (1966- ), the author of Earthly Paradise: The Garden of the Andes [1055] in which he claims to have identified the biblical Garden of Eden in his native Bolivia(ar). Dieter Groban has written in support of Yaksic(as).

James Bailey published Sailing to Paradise [0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.

[0150] in 1994, some years before Yaksic’s book, in which he added further support for his Atlantis in America contention. Additionally, he placed the Garden of Eden somewhere on the Bolivian Altiplano.

General Gordon of Khartoum fame was so impressed by the island of Preslin in the Seychelles that he declared it to be the Garden of Eden and its famed Coco de Mer and breadfruit plants to be the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil. Science writer, Karl Shuker, has written an extensive article, Forbidden Fruit, for the January 2016 edition of Fortean Times, in which he gives the background to Gordon’s obsession and his inability to garner any serious support for it.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was reported(r) that G. F. Becker (1847-1919) a geologist with the USGS nominated Luzon in the Philippines as the site of the biblical ‘Garden’, while Sven Hedin (1865-1952) a much-decorated Swedish geographer chose Janaidar a mythical city in Central Asia.

George H. Cooper, the American writer, identified Salisbury Plain [0236.111] as the Garden of Eden along with its Wiltshire river system matching the Euphrates and Tigris in the Genesis story. W. Comyns Beaumont chose Britain’s Glastonbury as the site of the original Garden.

In the middle of the last century, a Baptist preacher, Elvy E. Callaway, announced that the Garden had been located in the vicinity of Bristol, Florida(j).

David Rohl has studied the matter in great detail [230] and located the ‘Garden’ in the northern Iranian province of East Azerbaijan near the city of Tabriz(ad)(aj). Rohl’s reasoning is worthy of study and perhaps a comparison with the views of Emilio Spedicato, who offers his explanation for placing Eden in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley in two papers on the Internet(b)(y). Rohl was partly inspired by the work of Reginald A. Walker [1388/9].

The inventive David Hatcher Childress published an article in issue 31 of the Atlantis Rising magazine with the title of Central Asia’s Ancient Heart and a subtitle that asks the question ‘Could Afghanistan Once Have Been the Garden of Eden?’ He then proceeds to offer a couple of pages about ancient Mongolia, with little reference to either Afghanistan or the Garden of Eden!

Andrew Collins claims [073] that the original Mesopotamian name for Eden was Kharsag, a view echoed by the late Christian O’Brien(q).  O’Brien’s nephew, Edmund Marriage, identifies the Bekka Valley in Lebanon as the location of Eden of Genesis. A new Lebanese location site is the subject of a website and forum(h)(i).    An excerpt from O’Brien’s book, relating to Eden,  can be read online(v).

Ari Zuker bravely suggests that the land of Israel was the Garden of Eden(ao). John Appelt, an American pastor also supports this idea (at).

The Sabbah brothers, Roger and Messod, controversially place Eden in Egypt [310] and offer a range of evidence to support this contention. Ralph Ellis has also opted for Egypt in his book, Eden in Egypt[0951] and claims that Adam and Eve were in reality, Akhenaton and Nefertiti! Ellis also supports his theory with two online papers providing excerpts from his books(o)(p).

A Christian website, logoschristian.org, used to also claim that Eden had been located in the eastern Nile Delta, specifically named Al Mansura. In 1933, John G. Jackson wrote a paper advocating an African origin for the legend of the Garden of Eden. Jackson’s extreme Afrocentric views may have coloured his view of this subject!

Further to the west is the Tunisian town of Oudna, which has been nominated as Eden by one Patrick Archer on his somewhat sparse website(d).

Gerald Wells also identified some of his Algerian Atlantis territories as having included the biblical Garden of Eden(aq).

Another African location was put forward by Georg Hinzpeter over half a century ago when he suggested that the Ethiopian plateau had been the home of Adam & Eve before their eviction(z).

Stephen E. Franklin has also opted for an African location for the Garden of Eden, placing it south of the Ahaggar Mountains near the Wadi Tafanasset in southern Algeria.(ah) He also claims that Mt. Tahat, the highest peak in the Ahaggars, was, according to Franklin, the original Atlas mountain referred to by Herodotus as the home of the Atlantes (sometimes Atarantes(ai)). Sprague De Camp noted [194.191] that Paul Borchardt also identified the ancient Mt. Atlas with the Ahaggar Mountains rather than the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb! I should add that this identification of Mt. Atlas remains moot.

In 2014, Stan Deyo chose Tanzania as the location of the Garden of Eden(h). Paulo Riven has also supported the region as the site of the ‘Garden’(ak). This idea has been echoed elsewhere and more recently on a website dealing with the history of Israel(f) and on a Christian website where the Ngorongoro Crater is specified(g).

Carl Seaver has also offered an African location for the Garden. In a 2022 article, he reports that according to recent research, Botswana is the most likely location of the Garden and where humans originated. Eden sat in the Kalahari Desert, which used to be a wetland where the early humans lived. During this time, Lake Makgadikgadi stretched from Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe(am).

In 2023 an African location for the Garden was again proposed by journalist, Tom Hale, who wrote(al)  “The so-called Cradle of Humankind can be found in South Africa around 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. This site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. Among the thousands of fossils found here, researchers have unearthed the remains of Australopithecus, an early ape-like human species dated to around 3.4 to 3.7 million years old.

It wasn’t until 200,000 to 300,000 years ago that modern Homo sapiens evolved. Once again, Africa was the location of this development, with modern humans most likely first emerging somewhere around modern-day Ethiopia. 

So, if we’re looking for a scientific Garden of Eden, it looks like South Africa and Ethiopia are our best bet. Whether these sites were once home to a paradise where four rivers once met remains to be seen, however.” 

What may appear just as implausible to many is the claim by Felice Vinci[019], that the Eden story was imported from northern Europe, specifically from Finnish Lapland(af). At the end of the 19th century, William Fairfield Warren placed the Garden in the Arctic [0078].

Even more incredible is the assertion by the likes of William C. Chappell that the Garden of Eden was situated in the United States. His Mormon-inspired views are available as a free eBook(c) on the Internet. Interestingly, Jackson County, Missouri was the location of Eden revealed by Joseph Smith(ac). the founder of Mormonism and well-known collector of wives.

A more ‘commercial’ suggestion has come from Dennis Brooks who suggested that Tarpon Springs, Florida, was originally the location of the Garden of Eden and that Tampa Bay contained the port of Atlantis.

The Urantia Book promotes the idea of two Edens, one near Cyprus and a second further east! In 2003, Robert Sarmast compiled a list of similarities between Plato’s account of Atlantis and the description of the Garden of Eden in the Urantia Book(l).

In his 2004 book Finding Atlantis he claimed one of the Edens, noted in The Urantia Book, along with Atlantis had been situated near Cyprus, now in waters a mile deep! Two expeditions were organised to verify his claims, but nothing conclusive was found. Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years, in 2018, Robert S. Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s ideas that the Mediterranean region around Cyprus had been home to both Atlantis and the Garden of Eden(ae).

Stephen Oppenheimer has pointed out[004] that Genesis 2:8 reads that “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden”. He argues (p.409) that this supports the idea of a ‘paradise’ in the Sundaland region. However, Oppenheimer does not equate Eden with Atlantis.

As Monty Python used to say “now for something completely different” – The North Pole. This suggestion has come from Gene Matlock who advocated that ‘Eden was the North Pole’ in a paper of the same name(ab).

The Garden of Eden has been suggested by some as another name for Atlantis, representing as it does a mythical time of peace and abundance. However, Eden is never spoken of in terms of military might and commercial success attributed to Atlantis.  One of the better-known proponents of this idea of an Atlantean Eden was the late Professor Arysio dos Santos(a) who was convinced that it was located in the South China Sea before the ending of the last Ice Age submerged large areas of Sundaland. Confusingly, he referred to Eden as ‘Lemurian Atlantis’, but added that “This Lemurian Atlantis of ours should not be confused with the purely fanciful counterparts of the Theosophists and other such followers of Mme. Blavatsky. Their ‘Lemuria’ is a hypothetical sunken continent of the mid-Pacific region, one which never existed at all.

Shortly before his death in 2005, Santos published [320] his theories, expanding on material that he had made available on the Internet for some years. Frank Joseph also claims [106][107] that the Garden of Eden was located on the lost island of ‘Lemuria’ located in the Pacific.

Bill Hanson, who has authored a number of books on ancient ‘mysteries’, has recently written a work [352] that links the Garden of Eden with Atlantis. He identifies five similarities between the two accounts:

  • Both prehistoric locations are regarded as ‘lost paradises’
  • The four rivers of Eden are reflected in the four waterways of Poseidon the island capital of Atlantis.
  • Atlantis started with ten kings and the Bible speaks of ten patriarchs.
  • Zeus destroyed Atlantis because mortals and gods mated, whereas the Bible records the mating of the ‘sons of God’ and human females.
  • Atlantis was flooded just as the Age of the Patriarchs ended with the flood of Noah.

The late Joseph Robert Jochmans identified(g) Atlantis with Eden in a comprehensive article on his website. John Nichols also wrote a long article(e) identifying Atlantis with the Garden of Eden and placing it on the Celtic Shelf about a hundred miles off the coast of France due west of Brest.

Frederick Dodson in a hefty 523-page book [989] claims an Atlantis-Garden of Eden connection(n). In 2018, the Catalan researcher, José Luis Espejo also equated Atlantis with the Garden of Eden[1607].

In 2022, a writer, hiding behind the nom de plume of ‘gserpent’, produced a lengthy article blending Atlantis, Eden and Lemuria into one heap of literary manure(ag).

Currently. the sadly benighted Iraq is trying to lure tourists to spend their holidays in ‘the Garden of Eden’(m)!

 

(a) http://www.lost-civilizations.net/atlantis-corroborating-evidence-page-12.html

(b) kharsag (grazian-archive.com) 

(c) http://losttruthfound.com/gardenofedenfound.pdf

(d) https://patrickofatlantis.com/

(e) https://jjswn35.wordpress.com/article/atlantis-eden-how-to-find-2vfxjftuay98o-9/

(f The Garden of Eden – Tribes of Atlantis (archive.org) *

(g) See: Archive 3602

(h) The Garden of Eden – Found in Rashaya El-Wadi – the-lebanon.com (archive.org)  or  Archive 3182

(i) https://www.christianforums.com/threads/the-garden-of-eden-origin-of-agriculture-found-near-rashaya-el-wadi-lebanon.7535161/*

(j) Weird Florida (archive.org)

(k) See: Archive 2999

(l See: Archive 3603

(m https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqs-new-venture-holidays-in-the-garden-of-eden-882635.html

(n) https://web.archive.org/web/20160409211234/http://www.ancient-atlantis.com:80/eve-on-the-island-of-apples/

(o) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/eden-egypt-part-1-001827

(p) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/eden-egypt-part-2-001831

(q)  https://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/obrienvsitchin.php

(r) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/83084172?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc

(s) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/126128214?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc

(t) https://nabataea.net/djgibson.html

(u) https://web.archive.org/web/20190916073848/https://theancientneareast.com/the-four-rivers-of-eden/

(v) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/what-happened-eden-alternative-translation-tells-very-different-story-021833.

(w) https://www.ldolphin.org/eden/

(x) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Zarins

(y) https://www.emiliospedicato.it/geography-and-numerics-of-eden-kharsag-and-paradise-sumerian-and-enochian-sources-versus-the-genesis-tale/

(z) Atlantis, Vol.17, No. 2/3, April 1964, p.27

(aa) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

(ab) http://www.viewzone.com/edenpole.html

(ac) https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Prophet/Garden_of_Eden_in_Missouri

(ad) http://www.british-israel.ca/Eden.htm  

(ae) EAP-Essay-FINAL.pdf (evolving-souls.org)

(af) The climatic optimum, the Indo-European paradise and the Garden of Eden – The Tapestry of Time (larazzodeltempo.it) 

(ag) Atlantis: The Garden of Eden – secretsoftheserpent (archive.org) 

(ah) https://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterEight.htm

(ai) W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, BOOK IV, chapter 184 (tufts.edu)

(aj) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/02/ 

(ak) https://sites.google.com/site/tribesofatlantis/Home/the-garden-of-eden 

(al) https://www.iflscience.com/where-is-the-garden-of-eden-and-where-would-it-be-located-today-66925 

(am) https://www.historydefined.net/where-would-the-garden-of-eden-be-today/ 

(an) (99+) The Garden of Eden-allegory or archaeology | Gari Spire – Academia.edu 

(ao) (99+) THE GARDEN OF EDEN IN GALILEE | Ari Zuker – Academia.edu 

(ap) (99+) Garden of Eden – Paradise | Eshbal Ratson – Academia.edu 

(aq) https://medium.com/@geraldjohnwells/atlantis-and-the-garden-of-eden-a-contemporary-view-of-revelation-4a11067994d7

(ar) Archive 2331 

(as) https://www.facebook.com/Groben.Turismo/posts/926029544094509  

(at) https://ebible.com/questions/790-what-is-the-location-of-the-garden-of-eden  (third item)

(au) The Garden of Eden Discovered?Spiritual Core Theory

(av) https://www.ldolphin.org/eden/index.html