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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 »
Thor Heyerdahl
Davidovits, Joseph *
Joseph Davidovits (1935- ) is a French scientist who has worked on geopolymers since the 1970s. which can be used to create cement that is economically and ecologically superior to Portland cement.
In the late 1970s, Professor Davidovits shook the world of Egyptology with his claim that some of the blocks used to build the Great Pyramid had been cast rather than carved(a)(e)! This generated a debate that has rumbled on over the past four decades(c). Professor Michel Barsoum supports Davidovits(g), Professor Linn Hobbs of MIT is ambivalent(h), while geologist Dipayan Jana is strongly opposed(i).
Ioannis Liritzis is an archaeologist at the University of the Aegean, who, along with his team, challenged Joseph Davidovits’ theory in 2008. Liritzis pointed out that the material used to build Egypt’s most famous monuments “contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils” that are distributed throughout the blocks in a manner compatible with natural rock(l).
In 2020, Davidovits published a rebuttal of arguments put forward by Jena and others, ensuring the continuance of the controversy for some time to come(k).
Not content with upsetting Egyptologists Davidovits has now annoyed archaeologists at other sites with his more recent claims that casting and not carving had also been used at Tiwanaku and Puma Punku in Bolivia(b) as well as on Easter Island(d)! This proposed connection between the Easter Island moai and South America is explained in an interesting video from Davidovits(j).
I have always been cautiously sympathetic towards Davidovits’ geopolymer theories, However, when I read of his claim that the Easter Island statues were also made with artificial stone, my doubts grew. I consulted my well-thumbed paperback copy of Thor Heyerdahl‘s Aku-Aku [1938] and found images between pages 112 and 113 showing unfinished giant moai in a quarry still with the back part of the statues to be cut free from the rock. The stone tools used for the sculpting of the giants still lay nearby. I am now waiting for Davidovits to comment on Stonehenge!
Furthermore, the claim of casting rather than carving implies the use of moulds, something that I have never seen represented on the walls of any of the tombs or temples of Egypt nor have the physical remains of any such moulds been found. Compounding this is the fact that sites identified by Davidovits as having used artificial stone, particularly Egypt and Easter Island, suffered from a dearth of suitable timber for making moulds!
Davidovits has also published a short series of ebooks concerning the Bible and Egypt(f). Additionally, there are many other papers by Davidovits on the Researchgate website(m). relating to various aspects of his work.
(a) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/are-pyramids-made-out-of-concrete-1/
(b) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/tiahuanaco-monuments-tiwanaku-pumapunku-bolivia/
(c) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/deep-misleading-publications-by-geologists/
(d) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/
(e) https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/product/why-the-pharaohs-built-the-pyramids-with-fake-stones/
(f) https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/cat/archaeology/
(g) https://www.livescience.com/1554-surprising-truth-great-pyramids-built.html
(h) https://news.mit.edu/2008/gathering-concrete-evidence
(j) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/
(k) Archive 7474 | (atlantipedia.ie) *
(l) Pyramids packed with fossil shells › News in Science (ABC Science) (archive.org)
Genovés, Santiago
Santiago Genovés Tarazaga (1923-2013) was a Spanish anthropologist with a great interest in pre-Columbian Mexico. 
He was part of the Ra I and Ra II expeditions led by Thor Heyerdahl that crossed the Atlantic in a reed boat at the second attempt. He has written many books and essays on scientific subjects as well as a number of papers of literary criticism. But is probably best known for a joint paper with Romeo Hristov(b)(c) published in 2000 in Ancient Mesoamerica(a) in which they identified a terracotta figurine discovered in 1933 in Mexico as clearly Roman adding to the ever growing body of evidence for probable pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic contacts. The existence of such early oceanic travel is fundamental to a number of Atlantis related theories, particularly those that promote Egypt as a colony of a MesoAmerican Atlantis or where a mid-Atlantic Atlantis is claimed to have provided a stepping-stone between the Old and New Worlds.
(a) http://econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/calix.htm
(b) Romeo Hristov (unm.edu) *
(c) https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/romeos-head-6407887 *
Lixus
Lixus is an ancient site on a hilltop overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, north of the port of Larache on the Loukkos River between Rabat and Tangier in Morocco. Its topography has led some to favour it as a possible location for Atlantis. Jonas Bergman was a 
leading exponent of this idea but has recently(a) opted for a site further south between Rabat and Casablanca. Unsurprisingly, Frank Joseph has also claimed [108.111] an Atlantean connection for Lixus as well as Mogador, another ancient Moroccan port city situated further south.
It is generally accepted that it was a prehistoric seaport that the Carthaginian occupied around 800 BC, when they built on top of more ancient structures, so that its ruins today show three distinct cultural styles. On top are the most recent Roman remains, underneath which are Carthaginian and below that again a type reminiscent of the pre-Incan masonry in Peru. This lower style incorporates huge massive stones and the peculiar polygonal design found at Sacsahuaman and Andalusia in Spain. The explorer Thor Heyerdahl and the writer R. Cedric Leonard(b) have both remarked upon this feature. The question of how such unusual but similar types of masonry can be found on both sides of the Atlantic instantly leaps to mind.
Understandably, some have interpreted this as evidence of a transatlantic civilisation – Atlantis. If not, what are these strangely similar masonry styles doing on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
According to Dr. Gerald S. Hawkins(1928-2003), formerly of the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory, these lower megalithic walls are carefully aligned with the sun, noting that the earlier name for the city was Maqom Shemesh, or “City of the Sun” (Hawkins, 1973).
*(b) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170102134158/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Archeology.html*
Heyerdahl, Thor
Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002)was not an advocate for any particular theory regarding Atlantis, except to state[387] that in his view Plato’s text was more supportive of an Atlantic location rather than a Mediterranean one. However, in the same book, Early Man and the Ocean, he lists 53 cultural similarities between civilisations in Mesoamerica and those in the eastern Mediterranean. He did so in order to advance his belief in a diffusionist approach to the study of cultural development. His observations were not the first as parallels between cultures of both sides of the Atlantic were noted as soon as the Spanish invasion of America took place. Years earlier, Ignatius Donnelly, in the first attempt[021] at a more scientific approach to the Atlantis question, drew up similar lists.
>Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition gave credence to his theory of indigenous Americans and Polynesians being in contact with each other prior to European colonisation and is still relevant today, as his Kon-Tiki expedition completes 75 years, the Kon-Tiki Museum based in Oslo has said.
The strongest validation the theory received was in 2020 when an American research group made a comprehensive study of Polynesian DNA, the museum said in a statement on April 28, 2022.(b)<
The existence of similarities between societies on the two landmasses is unquestionable; that there were ancient contacts between the two is more than probable, but it is not logical to view it as conclusive evidence of a mid-Atlantic location for Atlantis.
>Heyerdahl has also identified the region around Djibouti as the land of Punt. [1921]<
Many of Heyerdahl’s ideas came under attack, as outlined in a 2002 Smithsonian article(a).
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are situated in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco. They were (re)discovered in 1402 by Jean de Béthencourt (1362-1425). He found the fair-skinned Guanches living on some of the islands. He described them as cave dwellers. After overthrowing the local chiefs, de Béthancourt became King of the Canaries under King Henry III of Castile.
However, there has been widespread acceptance of the idea that the Berbers of North Africa established the first populations on the islands. Recently (2019) published DNA studies have reinforced this concept, putting the arrival of the Berbers at around 1000 AD(h).
Pliny the Elder is frequently quoted to provide the etymology of the name, where he claims that it is derived from a species of large dog – canis in Latin – found there in ancient times. This derivation is disputed by the historian and Arabist, Paul Lunde, who prefers the idea that the islands were named after an ancient people who lived on the opposite mainland and who now inhabit north-eastern Nigeria and are known today as the Kanuri. Pliny also records that the islands were uninhabited but had ancient ruined buildings when visited by the Carthaginians. Centuries later they were inhabited by a Berber people known as the Guanches who were finally conquered by the Spanish in the 15th century. When sea levels were lower during the last Ice Age, the land area of the islands would have been more extensive and a possible claimant as the location of some or part of Plato’s empire of Atlantis.
A popular belief is that the Canaries were the location of the Garden of Hesperides referred to in Greek mythology. However, this identification is difficult to substantiate firmly.
Frank Joseph noted[216] how the islands conform in many ways to Plato’s description of Atlantis. Natural hot and cold springs are to be found there, as are red, white and black rock, a combination also observed on the Azores and elsewhere. In the past, the Canaries have been densely forested and also contain rivers and fertile plains that produce a variety of fruit.
In the 2nd century AD, the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy suggested that the prime meridian should be located through the Canaries, then known as the Fortunate Islands.
The earliest suggestion of a connection between the Canaries and Atlantis was proposed by Athanasius Kircher in 1664, referring to the Guanches as the last Atlanteans and the islands as the remains of Plato’s lost land.
Ignatius Donnelly, who did so much to kick-start modern interest in Atlantis, considered that the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde Islands were its remnants. However, a newspaper report from 1899(g) refers back to a local cleric and historian, José Viera y Claviejo, who proposed around the beginning of the 19th century that the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira were remnants of Atlantis, nearly a century before Donnelly.
Gilbert De Jong is a Dutch landscape designer with an interest in investigating the mysteries of our ancient past. His contention is that Atlantis was located at El Fuerte – in the Canary Islands.
In 1984, Manuel Gómez Márquez also ‘revealed’ the Canaries as the location of Atlantis in a book[0599] using the Piri Reis Map as a source.
One of the more recent proponents of a Canarian location for Atlantis is Charles D. Pfund in his extensive 2011 book, Antediluvian World: The End of the Myth[1079].
A website dealing with a variety of British and World mysteries(d) has a series of papers on Atlantis and reluctantly considers the Canaries as the most likely location of Plato’s lost land.
In 1939 the Ahnenerbe, led by theologian turned archaeologist Otto Huth, planned to visit the Canaries to study Guanche mummies as part of their efforts to find the Aryan homeland and locate Atlantis. However, the outbreak of war postponed the trip, but the Spanish dictator, General Franco, at the behest of his Nazi mentors appointed his archaeologist friend Julio Martinez Santa Olalla to carry out investigations on their behalf.
In 2008, Francisco Gracia Alonso, professor of history at the University of Barcelona published a book revealing the level of cooperation between Franco’s archaeologists and the Nazi Ahnenerbe(c)(k). An article(j) in The Telegraph in the UK, claimed that Spanish fascists “wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis.”
A 2010 book, Nazi Archaeology in the Canary Islands [762] by author and journalist Jaime Rubio Rosales also explores the whole subject of the Spanish links with the Ahnenerbe.
Thor Heyerdahl inspected the pyramids at Guimar and was convinced of their ceremonial use in ancient times(b). Atlantisforschung has a lengthy article about the stepped pyramids of the Canaries, which also refers to stepped pyramids in Sicily and Sardinia(i). The late Philip Coppens also wrote an article(e) on these structures. A 2015 article(f) can now be added to this list.
>>August 14, 2024, brought a number of ‘Atlantis Found?’ headlines following the discovery of several large sunken islands near the Canaries(l). What I found strange, is that the these islands disappeared beneath the waves millions of years ago and could have no connection with Plato’s Atlantis, which at the earliest, he claimed to have been submerged around 9600 BC. Thorwald C. Franke dug deeper and revealed that the Atlantis association may, at best, have been a journalistic embellishment or at worst, a hoax(m).<<
(b) https://www.travelexplorations.com/guimar-tenerife-the-lost-pyramids-in-europe.4497328-25678.html
(c) www.archaeologybulletin.org/article/download/bha.18102/104 (Link broken)
(d) Lost City Atlantis – Aquiziam (archive.org) OR See Archive 3028
(e) Archive 2142)
(f) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/mystery-guanches-and-pyramids-tenerife-003232
(g) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/111076350?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=
(i) Die Schwarzen Pyramiden von Teneriffa – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) (Eng)
(l) https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1935828/canary-islands-africa-islands-atlantis *
(m) https://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl_archive.htm (#226) *