Tony Petrangelo

Younger Dryas, The (YD)

Published March 28, 2025

The Younger Dryas, also known as Dryas III, was a mini Ice Age that lasted from about 10,700 BC until around 9600 BC. It is named after a wildflower called Dryas octopetala that flourished during this relatively short timespan. In Ireland, the event is known as the Nahanagan Stadial and in Britain as the Loch Lomond Stadial. In 2015, a paper constraining the date of the event to within 100 years, using Bayesian statistical analyses, proposed a period between 12,835 and 12,735 years ago^(h).

For about thirteen hundred years the glaciers had been slowly retreating until within a short time-span temperature dropped and they began to advance again. The cause of this cooling is not entirely clear.

CAUSES

One view is that a sudden release into the North Atlantic of vast quantities of freshwater that had been contained by huge ice dams is assumed to have closed down the Gulf Stream, resulting in a twelve hundred year lowering of global temperatures. There is evidence that the change only took one or two decades. The same threat is said to exist today with the possibility of the melting of the Greenland ice cap. It also seems that this YD cooling ended with the same rapidity.

The most popular and controversial theory is that YD was caused by an extraterrestrial encounter. This is now known as the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) and can trace is origins back to 2006 (see below). This impact has been attributed to various bodies such as a large asteroid or comet, with Halley’s^(ay) or Encke’s Comets and even a second Moon have sometimes been specified as possible culprits! Others have suggested reduced solar activity^(ag) or volcanism on a global scale.

The November 2013 issue of the BBC Focus magazine [p.30] had a brief article on the impact theory, noting that the northern hemisphere saw a drop of as much as 15°C around 11,000BC. In the absence of a suitable impact crater of the right age, there is still much scientific scepticism^(b).

A recent application of archaeoastronomy by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis led them to conclude that the carved symbols at Göbekli Tepe recorded an encounter, involving the explosion or impact with part of Encke’s Comet around 13,000 years ago, which triggered the Younger Dryas Event, (sometimes referred to as the 13kya event) that provided the impetus for the Neolithic Revolution. Sweatman later expanded their work in his book Prehistory Decoded [1621] and an article on the Ancient Origins website^(k). In June 2021, Sweatman had a paper entitled ‘The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: review of the impact evidence’ published in the journal ‘Earth Science Review’ of the University of Edinburgh^(u).

Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey also maintain that a globally catastrophic event occurred 13,000 years ago^(j). The kernel of their theory is that originally the Earth had two moons that at some later point collided, producing our current Moon, while the remnant of the second one eventually exploded over North America kick-starting what we refer to as the cooler Younger Dryas period. They are adamant that it was not a comet or asteroid that caused the devastation, and so clash with the conclusions of Richard Firestone and his colleagues.

A somewhat technical paper, published in July 2020, challenges the comet impact theory because of geochemical anomalies, Instead, they argue that the YD event was a consequence of widespread volcanic activity^(s), rather than an impact! Martin Sweatman refutes this in a paper on Graham Hancock’s website⁽ⁱ⁾.

A completely different view is expressed in Rod (Carl) Martin ‘s latest book [1623], where he proposes that the Younger Dryas ended as a result of a catastrophic event. Is it possible that there were two cataclysmic episodes with opposite effects?

John Ackerman, a keen follower of Immanuel Velikovsky did claim that there were two such events related to “the capture of the Moon into its current orbit,” marking the beginning and the end of the Younger Dryas period^(q).

Coincidentally, Professor Emilio Spedicato independently concluded that it was a cometary impact in the North Atlantic that was responsible for the Younger Dryas. Subsequently, when temperatures rose again it resulted in the flooding of vast areas of low-lying landmasses that in Spedicato’s opinion included Atlantis, which he locates in Hispaniola.

In 2020, Tony Petrangelo argued that the Younger Dryas event did not destroy Atlantis, but that it was more compatible with the story of Phaeton^(ac).

A 2014 paper^(ak) entitled Nanodiamond-Rich Layer Across Three Continents Consistent with Major Cosmic Impact at 12,800 Cal BP by Charles R. Kinzie et al., has developed further the idea of this event being associated with the Younger Dryas. In a similar vein is an article^(ai) from Megan Gannon.

Additionally, in early 2017, further possible evidence of an impact at the start of the Younger Dryas was offered by a team led by Christopher Moore of the University of South Carolina, when they identified a distinct layer of platinum in the soil that coincided with the start of YD. Commenting on this anomaly Moore noted that “Platinum is very rare in the Earth’s crust, but it is common in asteroids and comets.”^(e) In 2019, Moore published further data^(m) supporting the extraterrestrial impact theory, based on studies carried out on sediments, which date back 20,000 years, from White Pond Lake, situated in southern Kershaw County, South Carolina. “Other examples of excessive platinum grains have been found across Europe, western Asia, Chile, South Africa(r) and North America.” ⁽ⁿ⁾

The previous year saw two papers published online⁽ⁱ⁾, reinforcing the YD impact theory as a global event and adding evidence that the event resulted in a conflagration that “may have consumed ?10 million km2, or ?9% of Earth’s terrestrial biomass.”

Related to this is a paper by Andrew Collins that draws attention to the ‘Usselo horizon’, a charcoal-rich layer of between 1 and 8 inches, found on all continents, indicating widespread fires, now dated to 12,900 years ago^(l). An additional paper by Hans Kloosterman offers additional background information on the charcoal-rich layer^(ab).

Ice cores from Greenland indicate a further cooling period circa 6200 BC that may be related to the abandonment of many Neolithic settlements during this period. Other periods of abrupt climate change have been identified from 3800 BC to 3500 BC and 2800 BC to 2000 BC.

The fact that Plato’s apparent date for the demise of Atlantis, circa 9600 BC, roughly corresponds with the current, best estimate for the date of the Younger Dryas is interesting but unfortunately not conclusive proof of any direct connection. On the contrary, the fact that Athens did not exist until millennia later would have made it rather difficult to have been attacked by Atlanteans at that early date. In the absence of any supportive archaeological evidence, a linkage between Atlantis and the Younger Dryas will have to remain a matter of faith rather than fact. Interesting but inconclusive.

In December 2014 Graham Hancock raised the issue of a cometary encounter as the cause of the Younger Dryas and its possible association with ancient Egypt^(ah). In 2017, he reviewed the Younger Dryas debate over the previous decade in a lengthy essay^(v). This was prior to the publication of America Before. He finished with the the following comment. “Perhaps the lost civilization that I have spent the last quarter of a century trying to track down had its most significant outpost, possibly even its heartland, in North America in the period BEFORE the Younger Dryas cataclysms of 12,800 to 11,600 years ago?” Hancock is inferring here that there was a single global civilisation, a hyperdiffusionist stance that I consider indefensible.

A short paper by John Patrick Hill offers a theory that requires more than faith to accept it; he wrote “Just over 12 thousand years ago, the world was struck by an immense meteor group. It destroyed all of North America and much of Europe and went weIl beyond……… I found proof to support that the creators of the Giza Three and Stonehenge used the Barringer Crater in Arizona as part of the geometry for their for their massive structures.” Later he reveals that at “Giza, when one takes the distance between the outside corners of the three large pyramids there, that distance is equal to 0.72 miles, the exact distance (diameter) at Barringer.” An extended version of Hills’s paper is available online^(t).

In another paper, Hill^(aa) says that “the Younger Dryas Meteor Event struck 12.8 thousand years ago and it was so large, it is wrote down not only in geologic records but also in holy books, as Noah’s Flood.”

Recent discoveries in northern Sudan of dozens of skeletons, the majority of whom were killed by flint-tipped arrows, have led to the suggestion^(c) they were the result of food shortages resulting from the Younger Dryas that in turn led to warfare over diminished food availability.

In 2020, James Lawrence Powell (1936- ), a noted geologist, author, former college president and museum director entered the Younger Dryas debate with the publication of Deadly Voyager[1911]. In it, Powell offers wholehearted support to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), understandably generating a favourable review from Graham Hancock^(w). Even more important, is that Powell’s book induced a number of heavy-duty critics of YDIH, including Michael Shermer to change their opinion^(x). In 2022 Powell concluded a paper reviewing the YDIH debates with the following; “Finally, we can now assess Sweatman’s suggestion that the YDIH may be ready for promotion from hypothesis to the status of theory. If we combine the definitions of “theory” from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it would read something like this:

‘A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence. One of the most useful properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed.’

Those who have read this article and Sweatman’s have the information to decide whether the YDIH meets this definition. In this author’s opinion, there is a strong case that it does. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that no other single theory can explain the YD and its associated effects.”^(y)

The YDIH is based on the claim that around 12,800 years ago the Earth had an encounter with a very large asteroid or comet that broke up in an airburst over North America and of which some fragments possibly hit the ground directly^(ad).

Many effects have been linked with this event with varying levels of enthusiasm including a suggested association with the demise of Atlantis. Elsewhere, megafaunal extinctions, cataclysmic floods, the disappearance of the Clovis people and the creation of the Carolina Bays^(aj), have all been proposed as consequences of this episode.

In 2006, Richard Firestone, Allen West & Simon Warwick-Smith published the foundations of the YDIH in The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes [110]. A year later the hypothesis had a more public airing at the American Geophysical Union Press Conference, Acapulco, Mexico, May 23^(ag). This was followed the same year by the publication of a formal paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America^(ai).

Since then volumes have been written on the subject, both pro and con^(af).

Martin Sweatman brought further evidence to bear on this debate in an article^(al)on the Graham Hancock website. This focuses on the investigations at Hall’s Cave in Texas described in a paper by N.Sun et al, where the team concluded that the trace elements found there could indicate a volcanic rather than an impact as the cause of the Younger Dryas cooling! Sweatman disagrees with their conclusions claiming that there seems to be an element of selectivity in choosing data, leading to a wrong conclusion.

2019 also gave us a paper that included an extensive bibliography and overview of the YDIH debate^(an). A Thai site also offers a wide-ranging look at the YDIH^(ae). Conflicting evidence regarding the possibility of the Younger Dryas being caused by such an impact is impartially outlined on many internet sites^(a).

I note that Robert Schoch claims that there is no evidence to support the Younger Dryas impact theory, instead, he believes that “it was most likely due to reduced solar activity at that time, a solar shut-down.”^(aq) Schoch’s wide-ranging critique has been refuted by the Comet Research Group.^(ar)

In 2012, Jennifer Marlon et al published a paper, now made available by her on the Academia website, in which they presents “arguments and evidence against the hypothesis that a large impact or airburst caused a significant abrupt climate change, extinction event, and termination of the Clovis culture at 12.9 ka. It should be noted that there is not one single Younger Dryas (YD) impact hypothesis but several that conflict with one another regarding many significant details.”^(ap)

In 2011, an article by Nicholas Pinter et al offered a critical review of the evidence available at that time, which, from its perspective, did not fully support the YDIH^(ax).

Scienceopen.com is a website offering “A peer-reviewed open-access journal collection covering all aspects of airbursts and impacts on Earth by comets and asteroids”. October 2023 brought the publication of five papers on the subject^(as).

In March 2024, The New York Times Magazine published an updated overview of the history and current status of the YDIH^(at). The sceptical tone of the article includes an interesting look at the psychological drivers behind the popularity of the hypothesis with the general public. It concludes noting that “In a sense, what West and his collaborators think now hardly matters. The hypothesis has already penetrated deeply, and perhaps indelibly, into the public imagination, seemingly on its way to becoming less a matter of truth than a matter of personal and group identity. Nobody I spoke with seemed to think it would go away soon, if ever. West, though, took a measured view. “All we can say is this is a hypothesis,” he said. “It’s still a debate. We may be wrong; we may be right. But only time will tell.”

In April 2024, geoarchaeologist Marc Young published a lengthy article^(au) on Graham Hancock’s website, rebutting arguments put forward by YDIH sceptics.

Sweatman’s support for the YDIH has been challenged twice by archaeologist and geologist Vance T. Holliday and his associates(aw), the latest in December 2024, which was reviewed by Jason Colavito^(av).

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20130310032309/http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/climatedebate/

(b) http://www.livescience.com/39362-younger-dryas-meteor-quebec.html

(c) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/saharan-remains-may-be-evidence-of-first-race-war-13000-years-ago-9603632.html

(d)

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/268390328_Nanodiamond-Rich_Layer_Across_Three_Continents_Consistent_with_Major_Cosmic_Impact_at_12800_Cal_BP((5082))

(f) http://www.space.com/17676-comet-crash-ice-age.html

(h) New Paper: Younger Dryas Boundary impact date constrained within 100 years – The Cosmic Tusk (archive.org)

(i) https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/02/a-comet-impact-13000-years-ago-set-fire-to-10-of-the-planet/

(j) https://www.academia.edu/38380799/13k_Theory_Atlantis_Revisited.pdf

(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/younger-dryas-0012216

(l) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Lommel.htm

(m) https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-that-an-extraterrestrial-collision-12-800-years-ago-triggered-an-abrupt-climate-change-for-earth-118244

(n) https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/29/world/ice-age-extraterrestrial-impact-scn/index.html

(o) https://www.robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html

(p) Comet Research Group responds to Robert Schoch – The Cosmic Tusk (archive.org)

(q) Firmament and Chaos (archive.org)

(r) https://www.q-mag.org/the-impact-that-set-the-earth-on-fire-12800y-ago-geological-evidence-now-found-also-in-the-southern-hemisphere.html

(s) https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/31/eaax8587

(t) Archive 6555 | (atlantipedia.ie)

(u) The_Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis_MBS.pdf (ed.ac.uk)

(v) The Younger Dryas Impact research since 2007 – The Cosmic Tusk

(w) https://grahamhancock.com/deadly-voyager/

(x) In praise of intellectual honesty – The Cosmic Tusk

(y) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00368504211064272

(aa) Migration & Diffusion (migration-diffusion.info)

(ab) http://www.catastrophist.org/home/usselo-2002/#:~:text=The%20Usselo%20horizon%20was%20found,white%20sand%20with%20black%20speckles”.

(ac) https://atlantis.fyi/blog/atlantis-and-the-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis

(ad) https://humanoriginproject.com/evidence-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis/

(ae) YDIH: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis | Thongchai Thailand (archive.org)

(af) https://cometresearchgroup.org/publications/

(ag) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GCgOI3B1o

(ah) http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG13.php

(ai) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994902/

(aj) Carolina bays….in the Midwest? – The Cosmic Tusk (archive.org)

(ak) (PDF) Nanodiamond-Rich Layer Across Three Continents Consistent with Major Cosmic Impact at 12,800 Cal BP (archive.org)

(al) Volcanic or cosmic impact origin of the YD mini ice-age? New evidence from Hall’s Cave, Texas – Graham Hancock Official Website

(an) YDIH: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis | Thongchai Thailand (tambonthongchai.com)

(ao) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00368504211064272

(ap) (99+) Arguments and Evidence Against a Younger Dryas Impact Event | Jennifer Marlon – Academia.edu

(aq) https://www.robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html

(ar) Comet Research Group responds to Robert Schoch – The Cosmic Tusk (archive.org)

(as) https://blog.scienceopen.com/2023/10/introducing-comet-research-group-on-scienceopen/

(at) The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Die – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

(au) The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis: A Guide For The Perplexed – Graham Hancock Official Website

(av) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/in-brief-a-new-paper-again-rebuts-the-younger-dryas-comet-impact-hypothesis

(aw) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825224002897?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3KYcgzoNE2adpmkjlciH0gtffuygoNhAzCeFyYqtIqNSDa7VJMj4uqJBw_aem_XdfyynVgLDDye-8yQFRGaw

(ax) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825211000262

(ay) (PDF) The First Burning of the Earth (and Halley’s Comet): The Convergence of an Ancient Anishinabe Cosmic Impact Oral Tradition, the Aftermath and Interpretation of the Fairy Point Rock Art Panel with Modern Science (academia.edu)

Tagged 13kya event, Allen West, Andrew Collins, archaeoastronomy, Asteroids, Caroina Bays, Charles R. Kinzie, Christopher Moore, Clovis People, Comet Research Group, Dryas III, Emilio Spedicato, Encke's Comet, Graham Hancock, Greenland, Gulf Stream, Halley's Comet, Hans Kloosterman, Hisaniola, hyperdiffusionism, Ice Age, Ice Das, Immanuel Velikovsky, James Lawrence Powell, Jason Colavito, Jennifer Marlon, John Ackerman, John Patrick Hill, Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey, Loch Lomond Stadial, Martin Sweatman, Megan Gannon, moon, Nahanagan Stadial, nano Diamonds, Nicholas Pinter, platinum, Richard Firestone, Richard Furestone, Robert Schoch, Rod (Carl) Martin, Simon Warwick-Smith, Tony Petrangelo, Vance T. Holliday, Younger Dryas

Tony Petrangelo

Published June 30, 2022

Tony Petrangelo See Atlantis FYI

Tagged Atlantis FYI, Tony Petrangelo

Atlantis FYI *

Published February 25, 2022

Atlantis FYI is a relatively new website dedicated to the search for the solution to the multi-faceted mystery of Atlantis. It is the brainchild of Tony Petrangelo, who offers an expanding range of articles, links and original documents to assist with the investigation of Plato’s Atlantis^(a). His website^(c) is a welcome addition to the limited amount of well researched material relating to Atlantis that is available on the internet.

Petrangelo is a cautious researcher and summed up his attitude to Plato’s Atlantis account being “That there is some truth to the story of Atlantis, but that Plato was working from many sources to compile the story and on top of that he added a philosophical overlay.”^(b)

^(a) The Three Fundamental Questions About Plato’s Atlantis | Atlantis FYI

^(b)When Does Plato’s Atlantis Stop Being Plato’s Atlantis? | Atlantis FYI

^(c)Atlantis FYI *

Tagged Atlantis FYI, Tony Petrangelo

Late Bronze Age Collapse

Published October 10, 2013

Late Bronze Age Collapse of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the 2^nd millennium BC has been variously attributed to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and severe climate change. It is extremely unlikely that all these occurred around the same time through coincidence. Unfortunately, it is not clear to what extent these events were interrelated. As I see it, political upheavals do not lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or drought and so can be safely viewed as an effect rather than a cause. Similarly, climate change is just as unlikely to have caused eruptions or seismic activity and so can also be classified as an effect. Consequently, we are left with earthquakes and volcanoes as the prime suspects for the catastrophic turmoil that took place in the Middle East between the 15^th and 12^th centuries BC. Nevertheless, August 2013 saw further evidence published that also blamed climate change for the demise of Bronze Age civilisations in the region.

In 2022, a fourth possible cause emerged from a genetic research project -disease. The two disease carriers in question were the bacteria Salmonella enterica, which causes typhoid fever, and the infamous Yersinia pestis, the bacteria responsible for the Black Death plague that decimated the population of medieval Europe. These are two of the deadliest microbes human beings have ever encountered, and their presence could have easily triggered significant heavy population loss and rampant social upheaval in ancient societies^(d).

Robert Drews^[865]dismisses any suggestion that Greece suffered a critical drought around 1200 BC, citing the absence of any supporting reference by Homer or Hesiod as evidence. He proposes that “the transition from chariot to infantry warfare as the primary cause of the Great Kingdoms’ downfall.”

Diodorus Siculus describes a great seismic upheaval in 1250 BC which caused radical topographical changes from the Gulf of Gabes to the Atlantic. (181.16)

This extended period of chaos began around 1450 BC when the eruptions on Thera took place. These caused the well-documented devastation in the region including the ending of the Minoan civilisation and probably the Exodus of the Bible and the Plagues of Egypt as well. According to the Parian Marble, the Flood of Deucalion probably took place around the same time.

Professor Stavros Papamarinopoulos has written of the ‘seismic storm’ that beset the Eastern Mediterranean between 1225 and 1175 BC^(a). Similar ideas have been expressed by Amos Nur & Eric H.Cline^(b)(c). The invasion of the Sea Peoples recorded by the Egyptians, and parts of Plato’s Atlantis story all appear to have taken place around this same period. Plato refers to a spring on the Athenian acropolis (Crit.112d) that was destroyed during an earthquake. Rainer Kühne notes that this spring only existed for about 25 years but was rediscovered by the Swedish archaeologist, Oscar Broneer, who excavated there from 1959 to 1967. The destruction of the spring and barracks, by an earthquake, was confirmed as having occurring at the end of the 12^th century BC. Tony Petrangelo published two interesting, if overlapping, articles in 2020 in which he discussed Broneer’s work on the Acropolis^(e)(f).

>A recent review of two books on subject in the journal Antiquity begins with the following preamble;

“The collapse c.1200 BC’ in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean—which saw the end of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite state and its empire and the kingdom of Ugarit—has intrigued archaeologists for decades. As Jesse Millek points out in (his book) Destruction and its impact, the idea of a swathe of near-synchronous destructions across the eastern Mediterranean is central to the narrative of the Late Bronze Age collapse: “destruction stands as the physical manifestation of the end of the Bronze Age” (p.6). Yet whether there was a single collapse marked by a widespread destruction horizon is up for debate.” ^(g)<

^(a) https://www.2009-q-conf-kandersteg.grazian-archive.com/platoandtheseism/papamarinopoulos-newversionof2009.pdf

^(b)https://academia.edu/355163/2001_Nur_and_Cline_Archaeology_Odyssey_Earthquake_Storms_article (this is a shorter version of (c) below)

^(c) https://www.academia.edu/19524810/Poseidons_Horses_Plate_Tectonics_and_Earthquake_Storms_in_the_Late_Bronze_Age_Aegean_and_Eastern_Mediterranean?auto=view&campaign=weekly_digest

^(d) Mediterranean Bronze Age Collapse Linked to Deadly Typhoid and Plague | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

^(e) https://atlantis.fyi/blog/platos-fountain-on-the-athens-acropolis

^(f) A General Program of Defense | Atlantis FYI

^(g)Getting closer to the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, c. 1200 BC | Antiquity | Cambridge Core*

Tagged Acropolis, chariots, Diodorus Siculus, Exodus, Flood of Deucalion, Gulf of Gabes, Hittites, Jesse Millek, Late Bronze Age, Minoans, Nur & Cline, Oscar Broneer, Parian Marble, Plagues of Egypt, Rainer Kuhne, Robert Drews, Sea Peoples, Stavros Papamarinopoulos, Thera, Tony Petrangelo, Ugarit

Broneer, Oscar Theodore

Published February 27, 2012

Oscar Theodore Broneer (1894-1992) was born in Sweden but moved to the United States in 1913. Plato described both the Acropolis of Athens as well as Atlantis at the time of their war. He noted that a spring on the Acropolis had been destroyed by an earthquake at that time. Then in 1939, Broneer rediscovered the spring together with evidence that it had been destroyed around 1200 BC, giving us a possible anchor for dating the Atlantis conflict. Broneer’s papers are archived at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

>An interesting 2020 review by Tony Petrangelo of Broneer’s work and particularly his discovery of the Acropolis spring, can be found on his Atlantis.FYI website^(a)(c).<

Some years ago, Rainer W. Kühne drew attention to the fact that Plato referred to a spring (Crit.112d) on the Acropolis that was destroyed during an earthquake, which he noted had only existed for about 25 years, but was rediscovered by Broneer. This discovery has implications for the historical reality of Atlantis as well as the time of its demise.

The full text of this important illustrated paper is available online^(b).

^(a) A General Program of Defense | Atlantis FYI

^(b) https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/hesperia/146495.pdf

^(c) Plato’s Fountain on the Athens Acropolis | Atlantis FYI *

Tagged Acropolis, Atlantis FYI, earthquake, Oscar Broneer, Rainer W. Kühne, Tony Petrangelo

Parian Marble

Published May 30, 2010

The Parian Chronicle or Marmor Parium is inscribed on a stele made of high-quality semi-translucent marble found on the Aegean island of Paros, which was greatly prized throughout the Hellenic world during the 1st millennium BC. The site of the quarries is now being turned into an Archaeological Park with the intention of it eventually becoming a World Heritage Site.^(o)

An enhanced view of the Middle section of the Parian Marble.

Two sections of the stele were found on the island in the 17th century by Thomas Arundell (1586-1643), 2nd Baron Arundell of Wardour, an ancestor of the 12th Baron, John Francis Arundell (1831-1906), who wrote a rebuttal ^[0648] of Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis theory. A final third section was found on Paros in 1897, silencing claims that the first two were fakes.

As early as 1788, Joseph Robertson (1726-1802) declared the Chronicle to be a modern fake^(e)in a lengthy dissertation^[1401]+, a claim disproved by the discovery of the final piece over a century later. Even before the third fragment was found, Franke Parker published an in-depth study of the inscription in 1859^(f). More recently Peter N. Lindfield has reconstructed the debate that raged around the authenticity of the Parian Marble in the late 1780s^(q).

This important register recounts the history of Greece in chronological sequence from 1581 BC until 264 BC and it is reasonably assumed that the latter date was the year it was written.

The first king of Athens is noted on the stele as the mythical Cecrops commencing 1582 BC. This is important as Cecrops is also mentioned by Plato in the Atlantis texts (Critias 110a). This date is far more realistic than the 9,600 BC told to Solon by the Egyptian priests to be the time of the foundation of Athens. The Parian Chronicle seems to have been given little attention regarding the Atlantis mystery. This lack of a direct reference to the Atlantean war may be explained by a comment in Britannica and cited elsewhere^(k) which notes^(g) that “the author of the Chronicle has given much attention to the festivals, and to poetry and music; thus he has recorded the dates of the establishment of festivals, of the introduction of various kinds of poetry, the births and deaths of the poets, and their victories in contests of poetical skill. On the other hand, important political and military events are often entirely omitted; thus the return of the Heraclidae, Lycurgus, the wars of Messene, Draco, Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles, the Peloponnesian War and the Thirty Tyrants are not even mentioned.”

Of the philosophers, I note that Anaxagoras, Aristotle and Socrates are listed, but Plato is excluded^(m). The high 29% of the entries focused on cultural events and personalities may explain this. So, although the Marble is a valuable document it is very far from being comprehensive.

The Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University has published a series of lengthy papers by Andrea Rotstein in which she reviews⁽ⁱ⁾ various aspects of the Parian Marble and commented that “The Parian Marble, as many have noted, may be disappointing as a historical source. People and events that we deem important are missing: Lycurgus, Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles, and the Peloponnesian wars, do not appear in the extant text.” ^(j)

Furthermore, Wikipedia lists pages^(h) of wars, battles and sieges involving the Greeks, few of which are mentioned in Parian Marble, although quite a number of Alexander’s exploits are recorded. Even the critical naval Battle of Salamis with the Persians is encapsulated on the ‘Marble’ in a mere seven words – “in which battle the Hellenes were victorious”.

Another name mentioned on the stele and by Plato is that of Deucalion. While there is some debate regarding the exact date of the deluge named after him, all commentators agree that it occurred in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. J.G. Bennett^(b) has calculated the date of this Flood to around 1478 BC, while Britannica^(c) offers 1529 BC. Stavros Papamarinopoulos developed his own king list based on other ancient sources, which generally parallels the Parian content^(d).

A further item of interest is the date ascribed to the Trojan War, on the stele, as 1218 BC, but again some controversy surrounds this precise date. While there are a number of flawed details in the Parian Chronicle, probably due to the use of defective sources or perhaps transcription errors, the very specificity of the recorded dates strongly suggests that it was produced in order to offer a real historical record and not merely to recount Greek mythology.

The chronicle is far from being comprehensive, particularly regarding the earlier years when understandably information is more sparse.

I believe that the full implication of the inscriptions for the Atlantis debate has yet to be realised.

A paper in 2018 by George Kokkos took a brief look at some important events confirmed by the Parian Chronicle^(p).

It is interesting that Valerius Coucke (1888-1951) a Belgian theologian who had studied the controversial subject of the chronology of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, employed the Parian Marble to support his theories^(l). Independently, Edwin R. Thiele (1895-1986), an American archaeologist, who engaged in a study of the same period arrived at similar conclusions and is in complete agreement that the start of the divided monarchy began in Nisan of 931 BC, despite using different methods to arrive at this date. This may be interpreted as confirmation of the historical value of the Parian Marble!

A 2020 paper by Tony Petrangelo offers his view of the Parian Marble and its relevance to both the Atlantis Story and the dating of the Trojan War.⁽ⁿ⁾

>In March 2024, Caleb Howells writing for Greek Reporter also invoked^(r) the Parian Marble to support circa 1500 BC as the era in which Atlantis existed. He particularly refers to the mention of Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonius, and Erysichthon by both Plato and the Parian Marble, mythical kings of Athens, thought by some to have been real historical figures.

Although this is far from conclusive, I note that Plato refers to a spring on the Athenian acropolis (Crit.112d) that was destroyed during an earthquake, apparently at the time of Atlantis. Rainer Kühne notes that this spring only existed for about 25 years but was rediscovered by the Swedish archaeologist, Oscar Broneer, who excavated there from 1959 to 1967. The destruction of the spring and barracks, by an earthquake, was confirmed as having occurring at the end of the 12th century BC. This evidence also points to the 2nd millennium BC as the time of Atlantis!<

An English translation of the Parian Marble is available on the internet^(a).

^[1401^]⁺ https://archive.org/details/parianchronicle00robegoog

^(a) https://www.attalus.org/translate/chronicles.html#239.0

^(b) https://www.systematics.org/journal/vol1-2/geophysics/systematics-vol1-no2-127-156.htm#9

^(c) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160818063347/https://www.libraryindex.com/encyclopedia/pages/cpxktwkjsf/parian-chronicle-athens-archonship.html

^(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20160508103929/http://geolib.geo.auth.gr/digeo/index.php/bgsg/article/viewFile/6631/6393

^(e) https://archive.org/details/parianchronicle00robegoog

^(f) http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/590755570.pdf

^(g) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Parian-Chronicle

^(h) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Greece

⁽ⁱ⁾ Andrea Rotstein, Literary History in the Parian Marble (archive.org)

^(j) 4. The Parian Marble as a Literary Text (archive.org) (Chapter 4)