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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 »
Turkey
Uluburun Shipwreck
The Uluburun Shipwreck is arguably one of the most important underwater discoveries of the 20th century. It was located in 1982 not very far from the town of Kas in southern Turkey. Eleven consecutive campaigns of three to four months duration took place from 1984 to 1994 totaling 22,413 dives, revealing one of the most spectacular Late Bronze Age assemblages to have emerged from the Mediterranean Sea(a). Because the wreck lay at a depth of 44-61 metres divers could only spend a very limited time 
working on it, hence the large number of dives involved.
Radiocarbon dating techniques and the presence of identifiable pottery types place the date of the wreck as sometime in the late 14th century BCE, probably between 1330 and 1300 BCE.
>Peter James wrote a highly critical paper regarding the dendrochronological dating of the Uluburun shipwreck explaining “why the Uluburun date is dubious in the extreme and how its status as a ‘scientific’ date has gradually unravelled”(e).<
The main cargo of the ship was raw materials. The largest items were copper ingots, 348 of them, totalling 10 tons in weight. These took the form of ‘oxhide’ and circular buns, which refers to the shape they had, forms common in the Bronze Age Mediterranean(b). Isotope analysis revealed the ingots were pure copper and from Cyprus(c). Additionally, the cargo included a ton of tin ingots. These metals were estimated to be enough to make 5,000 bronze swords.
It did not take long before this discovery generated some wild speculation J.S. Wakefield & Reinoud DeJonge proposed that the Uluburun copper had come from the Michigan mines in their book Rocks & Rows, Sailing Routes across the Atlantic and the Copper Trade [760]. The late Gavin Menzies went further and proposed that not only was the Uluburun copper from Michigan but that it had been brought from America by the Minoans identified by him as Atlantean.
Now that exploration of the wreck has finished, scientists are engaged in a study of the amazing array of artefacts salvaged. Articles in 2022 and(d) 2023(f) revealed some of the unexpected discoveries made, including the source of the tin ingots.
(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluburun_shipwreck
(b) https://www.worldhistory.org/Uluburun_Shipwreck/
(c) Isotope analysis reveals origins of Uluburun shipwreck cargo | The Past (the-past.com)
(e) https://www.centuries.co.uk/uluburun.pdf *
(f) https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/2023/02/18/a9360-lost-in-time-uluburun-shipwreck/ *
Bosporus, The
?The Bosporus or Bosphorus is described by Wikipedia as “a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey. It forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe, and divides 
Turkey by separating Anatolia from Thrace. It is the world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and, by extension via the Dardanelles, the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, and by the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov.”
A number of modern commentators have promoted the Bosporus as the location of the Pillars of Herakles; Eberhard Zangger, Christian and Siegfried Schoppe and Werner E. Friedrich.
Arysio dos Santos in his book Atlantis [320.186] noted that “The Bosphorus was considered to be the site of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ even before the name of these famous features was transplanted to the region of Gibraltar, where it remains stuck down to the present time. In reality, bosporus or bosphorus (or bosporos or bosphoros, rather, the Greek words from which the Latin name derives) means ‘cattle passage, oxford’ precisely because Hercules was said to have crossed there with the cattle he rustled from Geryon, in Erytheia.”
Thrace *
Thrace was an ancient kingdom, which according to Greek mythology was named after Thrax, the son of Ares, the 
Greek god of war. Some push back the origins of the Thracians to 3000 BC(b)(c). Homer described the Thracians as allies of Troy. Today Thrace would occupy southeast Bulgaria along with adjacent parts of Greece and Turkey. Some have attempted to link Thrace with Atlantis(a). Abraham Akkerman suggests in Phenomenology of the Winter City[1179.98] that the inspiration for “Plato’s layout of his Ideal City on the island of Atlantis” may be found in Thrace. Keep in mind that situated just north of Thrace was Dacia, part of Romania, another Atlantis candidate.
Also See: Nicolae Densusianu, Romania
(a) atlantis history (archive.org) *
(b) The Enigma of the Thracians and the Orpheus Myth | Ancient Origins (archive.org) *
(c) The Enigma of the Thracians and the Orpheus Myth – Part 2 | Ancient Origins (archive.org) *
Trojan War
The Trojan War, at first sight, may appear to have little to do with the story of Atlantis except that some recent commentators have endeavoured to claim that the war with Atlantis was just a retelling of the Trojan War. The leading proponent of the idea is Eberhard Zangger in his 1992 book The Flood from Heaven [483] and later in a paper(l) published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology. He also argues that survivors of the War became the Sea Peoples, while Frank Joseph contends that the conflict between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples was part of the Trojan War [108.11].
In an article on the Atlantisforschung website reviewing Zangger’s theory the following paragraph is offered – “What similarities did the Trojan War and the war between Greece and Atlantis have? In both cases, the individual kingdoms in Greece formed a unified army. According to Homer, Greek ships went to the Trojan War in 1186 – according to Plato, Atlantis ruled over 1200 ships. The contingents and weapons are identical (archer, javelin thrower, discus thrower, chariot, bronze weapon, shield). The decisive battle took place overseas on both occasions. In a long period of siege came plague and betrayal. (There is not a word in Plato about a siege or epidemics and treason, dV) In both cases, Greece won the victory. After the Greek forces withdrew, earthquakes and floods struck Greece.“(t)
Steven Sora asserts that the Atlantean war recorded by Plato is a distortion of the Trojan War and contentiously claims that Troy was located on the Iberian Peninsula rather than the more generally accepted Hissarlik in Turkey. Another radical claim is that Troy had been located in Bosnia-Herzegovina or adjacent Croatia, the former by Roberto Salinas Price in 1985[1544], while more recently the latter is promoted by Vedran Sinožic[1543].
Others have located the War in the North Sea or the Baltic. Of these, Iman Wilkens is arguably the best-known advocate of an English location for Troy since 1990. In 2018, Gerard Janssen added further support for Wilkens’ theory(k).
In Where Troy Once Stood [610.18] Wilkens briefly referred to the earliest doubts expressed regarding the location of the Trojan War, starting in 1790 with J.C. Wernsdorf and followed a few years later in 1804 by M. H. Vosz. Then in 1806, Charles deGrave opted for Western Europe. However, it was probably Théophile Cailleux, a Belgian lawyer, whose detailed study of Homeric geography made the greatest inroads into the conventionally accepted Turkish location for Troy. Andreas Pääbo, who contends that the Odyssey and the Iliad had been written by two different authors, proposed that the inspiration for much of the Trojan War came from ancient Lycia. His paper proposes“that Homer had been a military official in an invasion in his time of a location, also with a citadel, further south on the coast, at what is now southwest Turkey, which was ancient Lycia. Proof of this lies within the Iliad itself, in the author’s many references to Lycia, and in particular to using an alternative name for Scamander – Xanthos – which is the river in Lycia around which the original Lycian civilization developed. This paper(u) studies the details given in the Iliad with geographical information about the location of ancient Lycia to prove this case.”
However. controversy has surrounded various aspects of the War since the earliest times. Strabo(a) tells us that Aristotle dismissed the matter of the Achaean wall as an invention, a matter that is treated at length by Classics Professor Timothy W. Boyd(b). In fact, the entire account has been the subject of continual criticism. A more nuanced approach to the reality or otherwise of the ‘War’ is offered by Petros Koutoupis(j).
The reality of the Trojan War as related by Homer has been debated for well over a century. There is a view that much of what he wrote was fictional, but that the ancient Greeks accepted this, but at the same time, they possessed a historical account of the war that varied considerably from Homer’s account(f).
Over 130 quotations from the Illiad and Odyssey have been identified in Plato’s writings, suggesting the possibility of him having adopted some of Homer’s nautical data, which may account for Plato’s Atlantean fleet having 1200 ships which might have been a rounding up of Homer’s 1186 ships in the Achaean fleet and an expression of the ultimate in sea power at that time!
Like so many other early historical events, the Trojan War has also generated its fair share of nutty ideas, such as Hans-Peny Hirmenech’s wild suggestion that the rows of standing stones at Carnac marked the tombs of Atlantean soldiers who fought in the Trojan War! Arthur Louis Joquel II proposed that the War was fought between two groups of refugees from the Gobi desert, while Jacques de Mahieu maintained that refugees from Troy fled to America after the War where they are now identified as the Olmecs! In November 2017, an Italian naval archaeologist, Francesco Tiboni, claimed(h). that the Trojan Horse was in reality a ship. This is blamed on the mistranslation of one word in Homer.
In August 2021 it was claimed that remnants of the Trojan Horse had been found. While excavating at the Hisarlik site of Troy, Turkish archaeologists discovered dozens of planks as well as beams up to 15-metre-long.
“The two archaeologists leading the excavation, Boston University professors Christine Morris and Chris Wilson, say that they have a “high level of confidence” that the structure is indeed linked to the legendary horse. They say that all the tests performed up to now have only confirmed their theory.”(o)
“The carbon dating tests and other analyses have all suggested that the wooden pieces and other artefacts date from the 12th or 11th centuries B.C.,” says Professor Morris. “This matches the dates cited for the Trojan War, by many ancient historians like Eratosthenes or Proclus. The assembly of the work also matches the description made by many sources. I don’t want to sound overconfident, but I’m pretty certain that we found the real thing!”
It was not a complete surprise when a few days later Jason Colavito revealed that the story was just a recycled 2014 hoax, which “seven years later, The Greek Reporter picked up the story from a Greek-language website. From there, the Jerusalem Post and International Business Times, both of which have large sections devoted to lightly rewritten clickbait, repeated the story nearly verbatim without checking the facts.”(p)
Various attempts have been made to determine the exact date of the ten-year war, using astronomical dating relating to eclipses noted by Homer. In the 1920s, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer put the sack of Troy at close to 1190 BC. According to Eratosthenes, the conflict lasted from 1193 to 1184 BC(m).
In 1956, astronomer Michal Kamienski entered the fray with the suggestion that the Trojan War ended circa 1165 BC, suggesting that it may have coincided with the appearance of Halley’s Comet!(n)
An interesting side issue was recorded by Isocrates, who noted that “while they with the combined strength of Hellas found it difficult to take Troy after a siege which lasted ten years, he, on the other hand, in less than as many days, and with a small expedition, easily took the city by storm. After this, he put to death to a man all the princes of the tribes who dwelt along the shores of both continents; and these he could never have destroyed had he not first conquered their armies. When he had done these things, he set up the Pillars of Heracles, as they are called, to be a trophy of victory over the barbarians, a monument to his own valor and the perils he had surmounted, and to mark the bounds of the territory of the Hellenes.” (To Philip. 5.112) This reinforced the idea that there had been more than one location for the Pillars of Herakles(w).
In the 1920s, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer put the sack of Troy at close to 1190 BC.(q)
In 2008, Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo O. Magnasco proposed 1178 BC as the date of the eclipse that coincided with the return of Odysseus, ten years after the War(a). Stuart L. Harris published a paper on the Migration & Diffusion website in 2017(g), in which he endorsed the 1190 BC date for the end of the Trojan War.
Nikos Kokkinos, one of Peter James’ co-authors of Centuries of Darkness, published a paper in 2009 questioning the accepted date for the ending of the Trojan War of 1183 BC,(r) put forward by Eratosthenes.
New dating of the end of the Trojan War has been presented by Stavros Papamarinopoulos et al. in a paper(c) now available on the Academia.edu website. Working with astronomical data relating to eclipses in the 2nd millennium BC, they have calculated the ending of the War to have taken place in 1218 BC and Odysseus’ return in 1207 BC.
A 2012 paper by Göran Henriksson also used eclipse data to date that war(v).
What is noteworthy is that virtually all the recent studies of the eclipse data are in agreement that the Trojan War ended near the end of the 13th century BC, which in turn can be linked to archaeological evidence at the Hissarlik site. Perhaps even more important is the 1218 BC date for the Trojan War recorded on the Parian Marble, reinforcing the Papamarinoupolos date.
A 2012 paper by Rodger C. Young & Andrew E. Steinmann added further support for the 1218 BC Trojan War date(s),>>also coinciding with the chronology of the Parian Marble.<<
Eric Cline has suggested that an earlier date is a possibility, as “scholars are now agreed that even within Homer’s Iliad there are accounts of warriors and events from centuries predating the traditional setting of the Trojan War in 1250 BC” [1005.40]. Cline had previously published The Trojan War: A very Short Introduction [2074], which was enthusiastically reviewed by Petros Koutoupis, who ended with the comment that “It is difficult to believe that such a large amount of detail could be summarized into such a small volume, but Cline is successful in his efforts and provides the reader with a single and concise publication around Homer’s timeless epic.” (x)
However, an even more radical redating has been strongly advocated by a number of commentators(d)(e) and not without good reason.
(a)Geographica XIII.1.36
(b) https://journal.oraltradition.org/wp-content/uploads/files/articles/10i/12_boyd.pdf *
(c) https://www.academia.edu/7806255/A_NEW_ASTRONOMICAL_DATING_OF_THE_TROJAN_WARS_END
(d) Archive 2401
(e) https://www.varchive.org/schorr/troy.htm
(f) https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/the-trojan-war-in-greek-historical-sources/
(g) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?year=2017&id=509
(j) https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/was-there-ever-trojan-war-001737
(k) https://www.homerusodyssee.nl/id12.htm
(l) https://www.academia.edu/25590584/Plato_s_Atlantis_Account_A_Distorted_Recollection_of_the_Trojan_War
(m) Eratosthenes and the Trojan War | Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (archive.org)
(n) Atlantis, Volume 10 No. 3, March 1957
(o) https://greekreporter.com/2021/08/10/archaeologists-discover-trojan-horse-in-turkey/
(p) Newsletter Vol. 19 • Issue 7 • August 15, 2021
(q) https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25337041
(r) https://www.centuries.co.uk/2009-ancient%20chronography-kokkinos.pdf
(t) Troy – Zangger’s Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)
(v) https://www.academia.edu/39943416/THE_TROJAN_WAR_DATED_BY_TWO_SOLAR_ECLIPSES
(w) https://greekreporter.com/2023/05/25/pillars-hercules-greek-mythology/
(x) Book Review – The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction by Eric H. Cline (substack.com)
Ballard, Robert *
Robert Ballard (1942- ) is probably best known for his discovery of the Titanic in 1985(c) . His discoveries in 
the Black Sea reinforced the idea put forward earlier by Ryan & Pitman[025] that the breaching of a landbridge at the Bosporus circa 5600BC had turned it from a much smaller freshwater lake into a saltwater sea.
In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, and drowned river valleys in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.
Speculation followed, suggesting that this dramatic change from freshwater to seawater was the source of the biblical tale of Noah’s Deluge! In a follow-up to that, a TV special(b) aired by ABC before Christmas 2012 saw further evidence from Ballard linking Noah’s nautical adventure with the Black Sea.
Ballard, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, has described the story of Atlantis as ‘logical’ as it is compatible with the catastrophic floods and volcanic eruptions recorded throughout history. However, he rules out Santorini as Atlantis because the eruption there conflicts with the date given by Plato(a).
However, he is not inclined to accept the existence of Atlantis because “no Nobel laureates” have said that what Plato wrote about Atlantis is true. This is a totally specious argument as Nobel Prizes are only awarded for Literature, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Peace, and Economics and not for History, Archaeology or Classical Studies. Nevertheless, over the past century quite a number of modern classical scholars have expressed their acceptance of some or all of Plato’s Atlantis details as having a real historical basis.
Apart from that, what many scientists think as opposed to what they say is often quite different, as research grants are not normally given to mavericks. It’s little consolation that the worst a nonconformist faces today is penury rather than pyre.
(a) Atlantis Legend | National Geographic (archive.org)
(c) Robert Ballard – Wikipedia *
Ancient Chronology
Ancient Chronology is a subject fraught with difficulties(a) as well as the focus of intense academic debate, particularly over the past half-century.
Archbishop Ussher (1581-1656) calculated the date of creation to have been October 23rd 4004 BC(d). Incredible as it may seem, even today (2019), there are still people prepared to give further consideration to his ideas (c)(e).
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) became the first ‘modern’ revisionist of accepted ancient chronology. His work was heavily criticised and few serious advances were made until the development of Egyptology following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt at the end of the 18th century.
Difficulties with details of Egyptian dating slowly accumulated, particularly when endeavouring to align it with Greek, Minoan and other Eastern chronologies. The scholarly debates became very public in the middle of the 20th century with the eventual publication of Ages in Chaos by Immanuel Velikovsky and the attempts made to suppress it altogether. The refining of Velikovsky’s theories followed, with important contributions by S. Talbott, Edward Schorr and John Bimson. Some, such as Emmet Sweeney, have accused Velikovsky of being over-dependent on his belief in the inerrancy of biblical chronology.
The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS)(b) was founded in 1974 and produces regular publications. This was followed a few years later by three important books[229][230][232] by David Rohl and Centuries of Darkness [046] by Peter James, who also wrote The Sunken Kingdom in which he places Atlantis in Turkey. Rohl & James were in agreement on many details, but fell out over the identity of Shishak (was he Ramesses II or III?). However, prior to that, in the early 1980s, they had published a joint paper that gave the world a first look at their New Chronology. Rohl republished it in 2012(v).
On the occasion of the SIS Jubilee Conference in 1999 a paper by P. John Crowe was presented, which gave a valuable insight into historical revisionism before and after Velikovsky(a).
In 2002, Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, both distinguished Egyptologists edited a collection of 45 papers presented at a SCIEM Conference in 2000 highlighting the problems of synchronising the chronologies of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BC(w).
Gunnar Heinsohn (1943-2023) was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Bremen but was also an ardent chronology revisionist,< concerned not just with the dating problems of the ancient world(l) but also with difficulties to be seen in the first millennium of the Common Era(m).
One of the most controversial aspects of Plato’s Atlantis story is the old Egyptian priest’s claim that Atlantis was destroyed 9,000 years before Solon’s visit. He also related that Athens, who fought the Atlanteans, was established one thousand years before the Egyptian state or as is more likely, before the foundation of the city of Sais. Apart from anachronisms in Plato’s narrative, the archaeological evidence completely contradicts the dates seemingly offered by the priests of Sais. It is interesting that most of the chronology revisionist debate centres on the second millennium BC which is arguably the most rational timeframe for the destruction of Atlantis based on the Bronze Age references in Timaeus and Critias, provided they are not just anachronistic embellishments.
I should also mention that while the debates regarding the Bronze Age chronologies rage on, further controversy has arisen regarding claims of duplicated centuries in the first millennium of our era. Leading the charge here are Anatoly Fomenko(k) [1823], Heribert Illig(h)(i)(j) and Gunnar Heinsohn(g). A keen supporter of Fomenko’s work is Garry Kasparov the former World Chess Champion(p). A more critical view of Fomenko’s work is on offer from Stephen Sorensen(s).
Nathaniel Lloyd had written an extensive three-part paper on the history of chronological revisionism(t). This should be read in conjunction with a paper entitled The Glorious Stupidity of Fomenko’s New Chronology(u).
Up to this point, I have outlined some of the problems and theories concerning the accurate alignment of specific events with particular years. A clash of archaeology and accepted history, secular and religious. has generated libraries of debate. However, our problems do not end with the counting of years, but contention has also arisen over the length of the day before the seventh century BC. Evidence is available to show that there was a 360-day year in use around the world in those ancient times.
Some religious sites have proposed that before the Deluge we had a 365-day year, then it changed to 360 days and then reverted to the current 365.2422 days(q). By way of complete contrast Danny Faulkner, a creationist astronomer rejects the idea that the world was created with a 360-day year, although it is a view held by many creationists(r).
William Whiston was one of the first ‘modern’ commentators to conclude that in very ancient times a 360-day year was used(n). More recently, Immanuel Velikovsky devoted a chapter of Worlds in Collision to The Year of 360 Days(o). The Brit-Am movement endorsed Velikovsky’s views in this regard, as does William F. Drankenbring.
(b) Welcome – Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (archive.org)
(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
(e) https://www.academia.edu/36854822/Ussher_Explained_and_Corrected
(f) See (a)
(g) https://www.q-mag.org/_search.html?req=heinsohn
(h) The Phantom Time Hypothesis • Damn Interesting
(i) Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist? (ecplanet.org)
(j) Jan Beaufort: 30 questions about chronology (cybis.se)
(k) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)
(l) THE RESTORATION OF ANCIENT HISTORY (archive.org)
(m) https://www.q-mag.org/_search.html?req=heinsohn
(o) I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, Part 2, Chapter Viii, p.316
(p) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(q) http://xwalk.ca/360vs365.html
(r) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265167051_On_the_Caution_about_the_360-Day_Year
(s) Fomenko’s New Chronology – Ctruth
(t) https://www.historicalblindness.com/blogandpodcast//the-chronological-revision-chronicles-part-one-the-fomenko-timeline (new link)
(v) https://davidrohl.blogspot.com/2012/11/
(w) The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the … – Google Books *
Homer
Homer (c. 8th cent. BC) is generally accepted as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, regarded as the two greatest epic poems of ancient Greece. A recent study of the Greek used by Homer has enabled scientists from the University of Reading to confirm that the language used is compatible with that used in the 8th century BC, in fact dating it to around 762 BC(i).
Nevertheless, there are questions raised regarding the authorship of the ‘Homeric’ epics. For example, Andreas Pääbo is certain that the Odyssey and the Iliad came from two different authors(ar).
Even more extreme was the opinion of the ancient geographer, Eratosthenes who was a persistent critic of Homer, whom he considered to be a fantasist. Strabo reported what the geographer said in the late 3rd century BC: “You will find the scene of Odysseus’ wanderings when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds”(av).
Manolis Manoledakis, a professor of Classical Archaeology, in a paper(as) on the Academia website “examines an aspect of the broader issue of the geography of the Odyssey, the primary stimulus being the references of the poem to places that could be associated with the Black Sea, namely the Aeaea and the entrance to the Underworld. As we shall see, while these particular places are indeed relevant to the Black Sea region, they do not belong to the context of a specific journey with specific halts in a specific geographical sequence. The Odyssey is a synthesis of many different episodes, and there is no point in trying to trace a complete geographical course for Odysseus’ voyage.”
It should also be noted that over 130 quotations from the Illiad and Odyssey have been identified in Plato’s writings(s). George Edwin Howes (1865-1942), an American classicist, produced a dissertation[1458]+ on Homeric quotations in Plato and Aristotle.
Almost nothing is known of Homer’s life. He has been variously described as mad, blind and even mythical. Andrew Dalby, the English linguist, has gone so far as to claim[0591] that the author of the two famed epics was a woman! While in 1897 Samuel Butler, the novelist, was even more specific when he proposed that Homer was a Sicilian woman(j).
For centuries it was assumed that the content of these Homeric poems was the product of his imagination, just as the historical reality of Homer himself has been questioned. In 1795, F.A. Wolf, a German academic declared that ‘Homer’ was just a collective name applied to various 
poets whose works were finally combined into their present form in the 6th century BC. Wolf’s ideas sparked furious argument among Greek scholars that still resonates today. Now (2015), historian, Adam Nicholson has claimed that the author ‘Homer’ should not be thought of as a person but instead as a ‘culture’(o).
In a 2021 review of Victor Davis Hanson’s Who Killed Homer? [1854], Adam Kirsch outlines how “Milman Perry proved that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by a lone genius(ah). They were originally not written at all, but through fieldwork in Yugoslavia, Perry (1902-1935) demonstrated how the Homeric epics were the result of traditional bardic storytelling. Wikipedia describes Perry as “an American Classicist whose theories on the origin of Homer’s works have revolutionized Homeric studies to such a fundamental degree that he has been described as the ‘Darwin of Homeric studies’.”
Ed Whelan, an Irish classical scholar, published a brief paper in 2021 that endorsed the Homeric ‘multiple authors’ theory(ap).
An anonymous author offered “Although there has been a great deal of controversy about the question of whether Homer alone wrote the two famous poems, much of the evidence points towards Homer being the author due to the consistent style of writing. Also, some analysts argue that Homer may have written one of the poems but not the other since both differ greatly in style. In contrast, the reason other analysts state for this difference is that Iliad was written in his youth while Odyssey was created during Homer’s years of age.” (aq).
The identification of the site at Hissarlik in modern Turkey as Troy by Heinrich Schliemann led to a complete re-appraisal of Homer’s work and, of course, further controversy. Homer’s Iliad is the story of the Trojan War and it has been suggested that in fact, he had compressed three or more Trojan wars into one narrative. What is not generally known is that there are also ancient non-Homeric accounts of the Trojan War(q).
Kenneth Wood and his wife Florence have built on the research of his mother-in-law, the late Edna Leigh, and produced Homer’s Secret Iliad[391], a book that attempts to prove that the Iliad was written as an aide-memoire for a wide range of astronomical data.
Allied to, but not directly comparable with, is the astronomical information identified in the Bible by the likes of E. W. Maunder (1851-1928)[1137].
Guy Gervis has adopted some of their work and, in a lengthy article, specifies a date of around 2300 BC for the events described in the Iliad and Odyssey, based on an analysis of this astronomical data(n). Harald A.T. Reiche held similar views which followed some of the ideas expressed in Hamlet’s Mill[0524] by Santillana & Dechend who were colleagues of Reiche at M.I.T. They also claimed that “myths were vehicles for memorising and transmitting certain kinds of astronomical and cosmological information.”
Much has been written about the historicity of Homer’s epic accounts, including a good overview on Wikipedia(ab). Many have concluded that Homer did use real events, even if they were frequently dressed in mythological clothing compatible with the literary conventions of his day. I consider Plato to have treated the story of Atlantis similarly.
A recent study of solar eclipses recorded in Odyssey using data from NASA has confirmed that Odysseus returned to Ithaca on the 25th of October 1207 BC(r).
Scholars have generally supported the idea that Homer’s works have a Mediterranean backdrop with regular attempts to reconcile his geography with modern locations, such as the claim in 2005 by Robert Brittlestone, a British investigator to have located the site of Ithaca, the homeland of Odysseus, on the Greek island of Cephalonia. This popular idea should be put alongside the views of Zlatko Mandzuka who maintains[1396] that all the locations mentioned in the Odyssey can be identified in the Adriatic.
Kazmer Ujvarosy of San Francisco State University, has noted that there are 22 different places currently on offer as the location of Ithaca(ax).
Nevertheless, there has been a growing body of opinion that insists that this Mediterranean identification is impossible. A range of alternative regions has been proposed(f) as the setting for the epics, which extend from Portugal as far northward as the Baltic.
In his Odyssey (VII: 80), Homer wrote about the island of Scheria in the western sea. His description of the island has been compared with Plato’s description of Atlantis and has led to the theory that they refer to the same place. There is little doubt that both the detailed geography and climatic descriptions that are provided by Homer cannot be easily reconciled with that of the Mediterranean. Consequently, the Odyssey has had many interpretations, ranging from Tim Severin’s conclusion[392] that it refers entirely to the Eastern Mediterranean to Iman Wilkens’ book, Where Troy Once Stood[610], which has the voyage include the west coast of Africa, then across to the West Indies and following the Gulf Stream returns to Troy which he locates in Britain.
Location is not a problem exclusive to the writings of Plato. Wilkins’s claims are a reflection of similar ideas expressed by Théophile Cailleux[393] in the 19th century. Gilbert Pillot has also argued for voyages of Ulysses having taken him into the North Atlantic [742]. A Spanish review of Pillot’s book is available(ag). In 1973, Ernst Gideon (? – 1975) wrote in a similar vein in Homerus Zanger der Kelten, reprinted later as Troje Lag in Engelan[1643].
It is worth noting that Bernard Jones in The Discovery of Troy[1638] has recently moved Troy to Britain, probably in the vicinity of Cambridge, a location also preferred by Wilkens! Like many others, he argues that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were not set in the Mediterranean as so many of the details that he provides are incompatible with the characteristics of that sea. However, Jones has gone further and claimed that there are details in Virgil’s Aeneid, which are equally inconsistent with the Mediterranean [p.6-10], requiring a new location! Jones’ book has been reviewed on the Hall of Maat website(at) as well as by Jason Colavito(au).
An interesting overview of the various attempts to transfer the Odyssey from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe is available(w). Damien Mackey has also endorsed the idea of a Northern European backdrop to Homer’s Odyssey(aa).
Another researcher who places most of Odysseus’ travels in the eastern Atlantic is Gerard. W.J. Janssen of Leiden University on the academia.edu website(v). In a series of six papers(ai-an), he systematically reviews Homer’s geography, identifying locations referred to by him with places in the Atlantic. He compares his identifications with other commentators including Iman Wilkens and Théophile Cailleux. His website, with an English translation, offers additional information, including the suggestion(ao) that Homer’s Laestrygonians were to be found in Cuba, an interpretation also offered by Cailleux and Wilkens. They also claim that Odysseus’ Caribbean trip included a visit to Saba, a Dutch possession, which is identified as the Aeolian Isle!
The idea of an Atlantic backdrop to the Homeric epics will not go away. The Dutch researcher, N.R. De Graaf(ae). continues to write extensively on his Homeros Explorations website(ad)(x) regarding many of the specifics in Homer’s accounts. He has proposed Lanzarote in the Canaries as the location of Scheria, which concurs with the views of Wilkens and Janssen. Other specifics are that Ithaca was near Cadiz and that Sparta was Cordoba, while the ancient city of Carmona on the plains of Andalucia are, for De Graaf, Mycenae!(af)
E.J. de Meester also argued(ac) for the British Isles as the location of many of Homer’s references. It struck me as quite remarkable that the level of debate regarding the date, source and geographical details of Homer’s works is rather similar to the controversy surrounding Plato’s Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. The late Edo Nyland was another researcher who had also opted for a Scottish backdrop to the Odyssey and had recently published his views[394].
Felice Vinci also supports[019] a Northern European background to the Iliad and Odyssey. However, in Vinci’s case, Scandinavia, and in particular the Baltic Sea, is identified as the location for the adventures in Homer’s classic. An English language synopsis of his book is available on the Internet. The persuasiveness of Vinci’s argument has recently renewed interest in the idea of a Baltic Atlantis. The assumption is that if Troy could be located in the Baltic, so might Atlantis. Vinci’s views are comparable with those of J. Rendel Harris expressed in a lecture delivered in 1924(p) in which he claims that “we are entitled to take Homer and his Odysseus out of the Mediterranean or the Black Sea, and to allow them excursions into Northern latitudes.”
However, a scathing review of Vinci’s book can be found on the Internet(d) and in issue 216 (2006) of Fortean Times written by Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs.
Further support for a Northern European Troy has come from the historian Edward Furlong, a former naval navigation officer, who has advocated for over twenty years that the journey of Odysseus went as far north as Norway>>after visting Ireland and the Scottish Islands.<< His particular views are outlined on the Internet(c).
Other writers, such as the late Henrietta Mertz [0396/7], have suggested that Homer’s epic refers to a trip to North America. Professor Enrico Mattievich Kucich of Lima University is also certain that the ancient Greeks discovered America America[400]. However revolutionary this idea may seem it shows how this particular subject is growing and would probably justify a reference book of its own.
The idea of an Atlantic backdrop to the Homeric epics will not go away. The Dutch researcher, N.R. De Graaf continues to write extensively on his Homeros Explorations website(x) regarding many of the specifics in Homer’s accounts.
In 1973, James Bailey also proposed in his well-received The God-Kings and the Titans[149] that the Odyssey recorded a trans-Atlantic trip. Evidence exists for large-scale mining in the Americas as early as the 5th millennium BC. Bailey maintained that the Europeans imported enormous quantities of copper and tin from Central and South America to feed the demands of the Old World Bronze Age, an idea that was later heavily promoted by Frank Joseph and in great, if overly speculative, detail by Reinoud de Jong(y).
Finally, the Atlantis connection with this entry is that if, as now appears to be at least a possibility, Homer’s Odyssey was about a journey to the North Sea then the possibility of the North Sea setting for the Atlantis story is somewhat reinforced.
A recent book[395] by Steven Sora has developed the Atlantic notion further with the suggestion that not only was Troy located outside the Strait of Gibraltar but that both Homer’s Trojan War and Plato’s Atlantean war are two versions of the same war with the understandable distortions and embellishments that can occur with a narrative, probably involving some degree of oral transmission and then written down hundreds of years after the events concerned.
Ukraine is soon to be added to the growing list of alternative locations for the setting of Homer’s epics with the publication of Homer, The Immanent Biography, a book by A.I. Zolotukhin(g). He claims that Homer was born in Alibant (Mykolayiv, Ukraine) on September 14, 657 BC(t). 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, he locates Atlantis in the western Crimean area of Evpatoria(l). His 60-page book is available on his website(m).
An interesting paper(e) by the German historian, Armin Wolf, relates how his research over 40 years unearthed 80 theories on the geography of the Odyssey, of which around 30 were accompanied by maps. One of the earliest maps of the travels of Odysseus was produced by Abraham Ortelius in 1597(u), in which the adventures of Odysseus all take place within the Central and Eastern Mediterranean, arguably reflecting the maritime limits of Greek experience at the time of Homer or his sources! Another website(z) by Jonathan S. Burgess, Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto offers further information on this, including some informative bibliographical material.
In 2009, Wolf published, Homers Reise: Auf den Spuren des Odysseus[669] a German-language book that expands on the subject, also locating all the travels of Odysseus within the Central and Eastern Mediterranean.
Wolf’s ideas were enthusiastically adopted by Wolfgang Geisthövel in Homer’s Mediterranean[1578], who also concurs with the opinion of J.V. Luce [1579], who proposed that Homer was “describing fictional events against authentic backgrounds.” This would be comparable to a James Bond movie, which has an invented storyline set in actual exotic locations around the world.
Perhaps the most radical suggestion has come from the Italian writer, Michele Manher, who has proposed(h) that Homer’s Iliad originated in India where elements of it can be identified in the Mahabharata!
In August 2015, a fifteen-hour reading of the Iliad was performed in London.
[1458]+ https://archive.org/stream/jstor-310358/310358_djvu.txt
(c) https://www.academia.edu/8167048/WHERE_DID_ODYSSEUS_GO_
(d) https://mythopedia.info/Vinci-review.pdf
(e) https://authorzilla.com/9AbvV/armin-wolf-mapping-homer-39-s-odyssey-research-notebooks.html (link broken)
(f) https://codexceltica.blogspot.com/search?q=atlantis
(g) https://pushkinclub.homerandatlantis.com/english/homer.html
(h) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=100
(i) https://www.insidescience.org/content/geneticists-estimate-publication-date-iliad/946
(j) https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aoto/index.htm
(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20180320072706/https://www.nwepexplore.com (see ‘n’)
(l) https://homerandatlantis.com/?lang=en
(m) https://homerandatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Homer_The_Immanent_biography_pdf2.pdf
(n) https://web.archive.org/web/20180320072706/https://www.nwepexplore.com
(o) https://www.newser.com/story/200859/homer-wasnt-a-person-historian.html
(p) https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m1163&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF (link broken)
(q) https://luwianstudies.org/the-homeric-epics/
(r) Scientists provide evidence that Homer´s Odyssey is not fiction (archive.org)
(s) https://plato-dialogues.org/tools/char/homerqot.htm
(t) https://homerandatlantis.com/?p=4938&lang=en
(u) https://kottke.org/19/03/mapping-the-odyssey-isnt-easy
(v) https://www.academia.edu/38535990/ATLANTIC_OGUGIA_AND_KALUPSO?email_work_card=view-paper
(w) https://codexceltica.blogspot.com/2009/10/homers-north-atlantic-odyssey.html
(x) http://www.homeros-explorations.nl/
(y) https://www.academia.edu/3894415/COPPER_AND_TIN_FROM_AMERICA_c.2500-1200_BC_
(z) https://wakeofodysseus.com/
(ab) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Homeric_epics#History
(ac) https://web.archive.org/web/20090907222615/https://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engodyssey.html
(ad) Homeros Explorations – Homer, facts or fiction? (homeros-explorations.nl)
(ae) https://www.homeros-explorations.nl
(af) Mycenae, rich in gold – Homeros Explorations (homeros-explorations.nl)
(ag) Perijóresis: Odisea (perijoresis.blogspot.com) (Spanish)
(ah) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/14/the-classicist-who-killed-homer
(ai) https://www.academia.edu/40668880/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_I
(aj) https://www.academia.edu/40849368/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_II
(ak) https://www.academia.edu/40982169/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_III
(al) https://www.academia.edu/41200642/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_IV
(am) https://www.academia.edu/41474241/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_PART_V
(an) https://www.academia.edu/41625852/ATLANTIC_GEOGRAPHY_IN_HOMER_PART_VI
(ao) LAISTRUGONIACUBA, LA HAVANA (homerusodyssee.nl)
(ap) The Homeric Question – Who WAS Homer? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
(aq) Homer | Biography, Books and Facts (famousauthors.org)
(ar) (26) The Odyssey’s Northern Origins and a Different Author Than Homer | Andres Pääbo – Academia.edu
(at) http://www.hallofmaat.com/migrations/the-discovery-of-troy-and-its-lost-history/
(av) Strabo 1.2.15
Wright, Erick W.
Erick Wright is an American atlantologist who was a regular contributor to Atlantis Rising forums in which he has been an enthusiastic supporter of a Moroccan location for Atlantis. However, as his investigations proceeded he felt obliged to change his views and then opted for a Southern Turkey site(b) . This was followed by a dramatic expression of agnosticism regarding the very existence of Atlantis. In 2005 he presented a paper at the Atlantis Conference on Melos [629] in which he outlined his ongoing research into the original Egyptian meanings of the names of the characters in the Atlantis story that were given to Solon.
Wright is among a significant number of commentators who saw the story of the Sea Peoples “to be the most likely connection to the Atlantis story, as there are definite parallels between the two stories.” [p.105]
“Because I have done my own metaphrastic translation and I have followed the clues left to me by that translation, and that translation has led me to a very ‘un-popular’ conclusion, specifically that the Atlantis story is the story of the Invasions of the Libyans and Sea Peoples.”(a)
(a) Atlantis Forums 274 (Now offline) 30th Match 2003
Tyrrhenia
Tyrrhenia was the Greek name for that part of modern Italy formerly occupied by the Etruscans, who were known as Tusci by the Romans, from which we get its current name, Tuscany. Plato twice described (Tim.25B & Crit.114C) Tyrrhenia together with Libya (North Africa), as far as Egypt, providing the northern and southern boundaries of the Atlantean sphere of influence.
>The exact extent of Egyptian-controlled territory in Libya at the time of Atlantis is unclear. We do know that “In the mid-13th century, Marmarica was dominated by an Egyptian fortress chain stretching along the coast as far west as the area around Marsa Matruh; by the early 12th century, Egypt claimed overlordship of Cyrenaican tribes as well. At one point a ruler chosen by Egypt was set up (briefly!) over the combined tribes of Meshwesh, Libu, and Soped.”(e) Another site(d) suggests that Egyptian control stretched nearly as far as Syrtis Major, which has been proposed by some as the location of Atlantis.<
Anton Mifsud points out[209] that the present Maltese Islands were considerably more extensive in prehistoric times and is situated between these two locations adding considerable credence to his claim that the Maltese Islands are probably the remnants of Atlantis. Some ancient maps mark the sea to the west of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy as the ‘Atlantic Ocean’. Furthermore, this strait has also had the title of ‘the Pillars of Heracles’.
One dissenting voice is that of R. McQuillen who is convinced(a) that the Platonic tale refers to another Tyrrhenia, in Turkey, while Taylor Hansen considered the Tyrrhenians to have moved east where they were known as Phoenicians[0572.34]. However, there are persistent claims that the Tyrrhenians did originate in Anatolia with Troy, Lemnos and Lydia being frequently mentioned. There are also counterclaims based on the conflicting account by classical authors(a). The matter remains unresolved.
The Tyrrhenians were also known to the Greeks as Tyrsenians and some have identified them with the Teresh, one of the Sea Peoples(c).
(a) http://gizacalc.freehostia.com/Atlantis.html
(b) Tag – Anatolian origin theory – Someone Was Wrong On The Internet (archive.org)
(c) http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/identifying-teresh-sea-peoples-001959
(d) https://starshinetours.com/first-signs-of-weakening/ (link broken) *
(e) https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/egyptians-and-libyans-in-the-new-kingdom/ *
Turkey
Turkey is the preferred location of Atlantis according to authors Peter James and Eberhard Zangger. In his book[047] James asserts that Plato took the idea for Atlantis from the city of Tantalis, which was located in what is today the Province of Manisa in Western Turkey, just north-east of the ancient port of Smyrna (today’s Izmir). Zangger also opts for Turkey but favours ancient Troy as the original Atlantis[483].
Coincidentally, Çatal Hüyük, one of the world’s oldest cities, is located in Turkey just over 200 km south of the capital Ankara. Like Atlantis, Çatal Hüyük also had a bull cult and a Great Mother Goddess reminiscent of ancient Malta. After decades of work, excavations are continuing at the site(a). Mysteriously, this early city of some seven thousand people apparently abandoned their homes around 5600-6000 BC. They were not the only settlement to be abandoned around this period. Cyprus, Palestine and Syria and more famously Jericho all provide evidence of abandonment at the same time.
Ian Wilson has pointed out that following the Younger Dryas mini Ice Age of around 9000 BC a further mini Ice age occurred between 6200 BC and 5800 BC, a period that coincides with this unexplained desertion of Çatal Hüyük and elsewhere.
However exciting Çatal Hüyük may be, its antiquity would appear to have been overshadowed by the discoveries made at Göbekli Tepe where the site has been dated to 9600BC. Also noteworthy is Asikli Höyük which is 1,000 years older than the Çatal Hüyük settlement on the Konya plain and as the earliest village settlement founded in the Cappadocia region, the site is no less important(b).
Although Zangger and James have had little support for their Turkish locations for Atlantis, a more recent attempt to situate Atlantis near the west coast of the Asian landmass of Turkey is offered by an American researcher, Joe Plegge. In 2012 Plegge published Turkish Stonehenge: Göbekli Tepe [1909] in which he claims that the two sites share some similar astronomical features. In his Atlantis paper, he reveals how he also sought to link Göbekli Tepe with Atlantis but found no evidence to support this idea. Plegge accepts Plato’s apparent early date for Atlantis of circa 9600 BC even though by his own admission this date conflicts with Plato’s anachronistic references to metalworking, a one-million-man army, horses and chariots. However, for me, Plegge’s use of Paul Schliemann as a source destroys his credibility as a researcher.
Readers may find it of interest that in April 2019 there were media reports that “researchers compared DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains found across Britain with that of people alive at the same time in Europe. The Neolithic inhabitants were descended from populations originating in Anatolia (modern Turkey) that moved to Iberia before heading north. They reached Britain in about 4,000 BC. Details have been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The migration to Britain was just one part of a general, massive expansion of people out of Anatolia in 6,000 BC that introduced farming to Europe.” (d). This has led to the conclusion that Stonehenge was built by descendants of these Anatolian settlers!
(c) (99+) (PDF) Atlantis in the Meander Valley, Turkey | Joe Plegge – Academia.edu