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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 »
trident
Crimea
Crimea is a large peninsula on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. At the time of writing (April 2023) Crimea was still occupied by the Russian military. From an atlantological point of view, it is interesting that one of the principal icons of Ukraine is a stylised trident, the symbol of Poseidon.
Crimea itself has had a number of attempts made to associate it with the location of Atlantis. The most eye-catching promoters of this idea were the late Leon Flying Eagle and Mary Whispering Wind, who published their theory in The Atlantis Motherland [0138] nearly twenty years ago. They claimed(a) that in the Crimean port city of Kerch the nearby Mithridat Hill was the original site of the capital city of Atlantis confirmed by the surrounding topography that matched closely Plato’s description. They have also suggested that the shallow Strait of Kerch between Crimea and Russia as the location of Plato’s ‘shoals‘(c).
An interesting detail is that the Strait of Kerch was one of several locations that the ancient Greeks referred to as the Pillars of Heracles listed by Robert Schoch in Voices of the Rocks [454.87], but, unfortunately, without citing his source.
They further claim(b) that there is evidence that the Kopet-Dagh fault line, which runs just above the strait, experienced a devastating (8.9) earthquake around 9600 BC destroying Atlantis in the Strait. At this time what we now call the Sea of Azov was the well-irrigated plain adjacent to the city of Atlantis described by Plato. They claim that the earthquake caused a massive influx of water from the Caspian Sea, which had been rising due to the melting ice caps in the north. This combination caused the creation of the Sea of Azov and the flooding of Atlantis.
All this would have been fine except that at the start of their homepage, they announced that “Thirty-nine thousand years ago a primitive tribe of wild robust Neanderthals celebrated the beginning of a new species. Visitors from a distant planet united with their tribe. Together they created the great Empire of Atlantis, the Motherland of all Modern Humans.” For me, this just undermines the credibility, if not the rationality of the authors.
Anatoliy Ivanovich Zolotukhin is a Ukrainian researcher from the city of Nykolaiv (also known as Mykolaiv) who authored Homer: The Immanent Biography [1015], in which he claims that Homer was born in Alibant (Mykolaiv) on September 14, 657 BC)(f). He follows the views of Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) who believed that most of Odysseus’s travels took place in the Black Sea rather than the Mediterranean. Additionally, Zolotukhin locates Atlantis in the western Crimean area of Evpatoria(d) on his multilingual website with the inviting title of Homer and Atlantis(e).
Werner E. Friedrich is a German researcher who published a bilingual booklet in 2006 [0695] in which he firmly located Atlantis in the Black Sea region circa 10,000 BC on a plain west and east around today’s Crimean peninsula.
Christian & Siegfried Schoppe are a father and son team of German researchers, who firmly assert that Atlantis was located in the Black Sea. More specifically they suggest that Snake Island(h) situated 35km east of the Danube Delta, was the location of the Atlantean capital. Snake Island has also been referred to on a Russian website(i) that discusses a Black Sea Atlantis. It includes some video clips with Russian dialogue. Snake Island has also been adopted by George K. Weller as the location of Atlantis(j). Snake Island also featured in the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In his 2020 book, Apocalypse [1874], Dr Sean Welsh agreed that Noah’s Ark finally rested on Mt. Ararat, but took everyone by surprise by claiming that it was not Ararat in Turkey but Ararat mountain/hill on Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula!
Very ancient pyramids have also been claimed for Crimea(g).
(a) http://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html
(b) Great Atlantis Flood (archive.org)
(c) Index (atlantis-today.com)
(d) https://homerandatlantis.com/?lang=en
(e) https://homerandatlantis.com/??-??????/?lang=en
(f) Nikolaev Pushkin club (archive.org)
(g) Archive 3619 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(h) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Island_(Ukraine)
(i) http://survincity.com/2010/04/conspiracy-theory-black-sea-atlantis-the-case-of/ (link broken Dec.2020)
Ukraine
Ukraine has not escaped the attention of Atlantis seekers. The state symbol is a stylised trident, the emblem of Poseidon. The use of this icon can be traced back to at least the first century AD.
>Some years ago a book[138], by Whispering Wind and the late Flying Eagle claimed to have identified the Sea of Azov, north of the Black Sea, as the resting place of Atlantis. They further identified the Acropolis of Atlantis with the Hill of Mithridat in the presentday Crimean city of Kerch. In addition, they also asserted that the Mediterranean did not burst into the originally smaller, freshwater Black Sea but that the Black Sea rushed into the Mediterranean. This would have been fine except that as you plunge deeper into the book’s website(a) you encounter benign alien astronauts establishing Atlantis and so on, undermining the credibility, if not the rationality of the authors.<
The book has only 168 pages but contains over ‘200 colourful images, graphics and maps’, which certainly leave little space for any useful text. The authors are best described by the blurb on the website for the book; “Flying Eagle, great grandson of the famous American Indian Chieftain, Quanah Parker, is a dynamic lecturer, a philosopher, a geologist, an artist, an astrologer and an ad-lib piano composer. Whispering Wind is an artist, counsellor, a dancer, an actress and an adventurer. These two inseparable scientists have extensively researched throughout the entire Earth, to finally solve the world’s greatest mystery; the location of the ancient civilization of ATLANTIS. This 28 year research has opened doors into the innumerable quandaries of almost every field of science. Their research has created a demand for seminars and lectures. They are formulating the nucleus of a worldwide cultural superstructure; The Cosmic Vortex family. This rapidly expanding multinational family is composed of dedicated persons who possess a strong desire to find their true identity and purpose, to facilitate the harmonious rejuvenation of our cultural heritage and to restore balance to our beautiful Earth and ATLANTIS-MOTHERLAND”. This is definitely one for the feeble-minded!
Ukraine is also home to the Association of Ukrainian Mythologists and Atlantologists (AMAU)(b). The site includes a few interesting papers (use your translator), but unfortunately the content does not appear to have been updated for some time.
(a) https://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html
(b) https://atlantida.primordial.org.ua/ (Ukrainian/Russian)
Russian Atlantology
Russian Atlantology was quite unknown to the general reader in the West until the fall of communism. This was mainly due to a combination of the strictures of the communist regime and the language barrier. A recent submission to Wikipedia on the subject of Russian Atlantology was rejected but can be read here(i).
It is accepted that Russian Atlantology began in the 18th century with brief references in a number of technical and poetic works. However, it was not until the 19th century that Avraam Norov attempted the first serious scientific attempt to locate Atlantis. Following a study of Greek and Arabic sources, Norov was convinced that Plato’s lost civilisation had been situated in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Later in the same century, a new element was introduced to the subject with the ‘revelations’ of Elena Blavatsky and the creation of Theosophy. To this day her esoteric waffle is quoted and accepted unthinkingly by many otherwise rational beings. The renowned Russian novelist Alexei Tolstoy devoted an episode in his novel Aelita to the subject of Atlantis.
In 1912, Vladimir Bogachev, a noted geologist published a short work on the geology of Atlantis entitled Atlantida. Bogachev lectured at the University of Dorpat in Estonia and is often labelled ‘the father of Russian Atlantology’. A few years later, the poet and historian, Valery Bryusov, wrote of Atlantis flourishing at the end of the last Ice Age. In 1923 the geographer, Boris Bobrynin, identified the Guanches of the Canaries as the descendants of the Atlanteans.
The doyen of Russian atlantologists in the latter half of the 20th century was undoubtedly Nikolai Zhirov whose studies over many years were published in English in 1970 and again in 2001[458]. It is a work of great erudition although it is a little dated as most of the material was originally published in Russian in the 1950s. Zhirov uncompromisingly determined to promote the Atlantic as the original location of Atlantis. He wrote a short overview of Russian Atlantology for Egerton Sykes‘ Atlantis journal in 1959(j).
More recently Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev published his thesis regarding the location of Atlantis on the Internet(a). He is convinced that it was located on the Celtic Shelf near the Scilly Isles. Vladimir Pakhomov is another supporter of the ‘Atlantis in the Atlantic’ school of thought and also promotes his views on the Internet(b).
In 1994 Vlaceslav Jurikov proposed that Atlantis had been located near the Lipari Islands and its refugees fled to Ukraine resulting in the modern symbol of Ukraine being the trident of Poseidon. Coincidentally, the Ukrainian connection has also received support from non-Russians, the exotic-sounding Flying Eagle and Whispering Wind[138](c) and the Schoppes(d).
The late Alexander Voronin was the president of the Russian Society for Studying the Problem of Atlantis [ROIPA], which has held three congresses on the subject. At the last congress, Alexander Gorodnitsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke controversially of the existence of highly advanced civilisations in the distant past. Voronin was also the chief editor of Atlantis: Problems, Searches, Hypotheses.
Konstantin Dukarev has written a review of scientific Atlantology with particular reference to Russian studies(e). Although the paper is in Russian it translates well, but without paragraphs, making it more difficult to read.
A hyperdiffusionist view of Russia as the world’s mother culture, employing a level of hyperbole not endured since the days of Stalin, can be now read(f) online for your added enjoyment.
There are aspects of modern Russian nationalism that seem to employ some of the rhetoric of the Nazi regime as well as their ideas of an Arctic homeland and even more worryingly, anti-Semitism(g). The linkage of Atlantis with this Arctic homeland was highlighted a few years ago on the Pravda website(h).
(a) Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev’s Hypothesis on Plato’s Atlantis (archive.org)
(b) Atlantis. Map of Atlantis (archive.org) *
(c) https://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20190819053842/https://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/schoppe.pdf
(e) https://www.proza.ru/2012/12/20/355
(f) https://www.facebook.com/notes/739187389451526/
(g) See: Archive 2415
(i) See: Archive 3918
(j) Atlantis Vol.13 No.1 Dec 1959
Poseidon
Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympians of ancient Greek mythology. He was also the Greek god of the sea who was given the island of Atlantis as his realm. The Romans later knew Poseidon as Neptune. Herodotus (II.50.2) claimed that the Greek gods were imported from Egypt with a few exceptions including Poseidon. Some have suggested that the ancient Egyptian god Sobek was the equivalent of Poseidon, but the connection seems rather tenuous.
>Eire Rautenberg has proposed that Poseidon was not originally a Greek god but instead came from the Libyans of North Africa(b).<
Some writers have suggested that Noah was to be equated with Poseidon. His symbol was a trident.
Poseidon is also credited with having been the first to tame horses. Others, such as Nienhuis, have equated Poseidon with Sidon referred to in Genesis 10:15.
The Phoenician sea god Melqart is frequently seen as the son of Poseidon whereas others, such as Jonas Bergman, consider them to be identical. The Nordic sea god Aegir is also seen as a mirror of Poseidon. In Portugal, Saint Bartholomew is considered a Christianised Poseidon, where statues of him are similar to those of Poseidon including a trident.
The Celtic god of the sea was known as Manannán Mac Lir who is frequently associated with the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
When the Greek gods divided the world among themselves, Poseidon received Atlantis as his share. He fell in love with a mortal, Clieto, who bore him five sets of twin boys, of whom Atlas was the firstborn and primus inter pares. Atlantis was then shared between them.
In December 2017, Anton Mifsud, Malta’s leading Atlantologist, published an intriguing suggestion(a) , when he pointed out that on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Neo-Platonist Michelangelo, something odd can be perceived in the central panel, known as The Creation of Adam. There, we find ‘god’ surrounded by five pairs of flightless ‘cherubs’. This is reminiscent of Poseidon’s five pairs of twin sons. Atlantis. However, Christian iconography invariably shows cherubs with wings, so it begs the question; why this departure from the norm? Mifsud contends that together with other aspects of the fresco, this depiction is closer to Plato’s ‘god’, Poseidon, than that of the Mosaic creator in Genesis!
(a) https://www.academia.edu/35425812/THE_CREATION_OF_ADAM_-_Genesis_or_Plato?auto=download
(b) Poseidon is not a Greek god! – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Jurikov, Vlaceslav
Vlaceslav Jurikov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced in 1994 that Atlantis had been located near the Lipari or Aeolian Islands off the northern coast of Sicily. He specified a point 15km from Cape Peloro at a depth of about 500 feet. This region is also favoured by Winfried Huf as the centre of the Atlantean sphere of influence.
He questions Plato’s report that Atlantis was submerged in a day and a night, suggesting instead that it was a much slower process allowing its inhabitants time to emigrate.
Jurikov further asserts that refugees from Atlantis fled to the Ukraine bringing with them the symbol of Poseidon, the trident, which is now found on the coat of arms of Ukraine.
>In 2015, the Atantisforschung.de website reported that evidence had emerged suggesting that Jurikov had never been a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and that the whole Lipari claim was just an invention(a)!
(a) https://atlantisforschung.de/index.php?title=Vlaceslav_Jurikov<
Pakhomov, Vladimir
Vladimir Pakhomov was born in 1943 in Central Russia. He is a professional mathematician and a researcher into ancient structures, calendars, mythology and astronomy.
He has a website(a) in English that, among other subjects, offers a fairly standard outline of the ‘Atlantis in the Atlantic’ school of thought(d). His only claim to ‘originality’ is his over-imaginative identification of the trident of Poseidon as a representation of the outline of the islands of Atlantis as viewed from the sea! This, like the stopped clock being correct twice a day, could only be true from one specific direction.
Pakhomov has also written(b)(c) about the Giza pyramids and Sphinx including a pathetic attempt to relate contour outlines on the plateau with a map of the North American continent. These two Web Pages are intended to be teasers to encourage readers to purchase his e-book, an intention that failed to prompt me to buy.
(a) Atlantis. Map of Atlantis (archive.org) *
(b) https://www.angelfire.com/retro/calendar/pyramids.html
(c) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20130721180646/https://www.pakhomov.com/giza.html
(d) See Archive 2362