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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 »
UNESCO
Newgrange *
Newgrange is a Neolithic monument in Ireland’s Boyne Valley, County Meath. It was constructed around 3,200 BC, which makes it older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza. Newgrange is a large circular mound 85m (279ft) in diameter and 13m (43ft) high with a 19m (63ft) stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound is ringed by 97 large kerbstones, some of which are engraved with megalithic art.
Newgrange was built by a farming community that prospered on the rich lands of the Boyne Valley. Nearby are Knowth and Dowth which are similar mounds that together with Newgrange have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO(a).
The site was fully investigated and reconstructed between 1962 and 1975. However, the reconstruction was not accepted without criticism(h).
Both Robert Hensey(f), who has studied and written about Newgrange [1766.6] and Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading authority, have endorsed the idea of a French origin for megalith building(g).
Bob Quinn visited the enormous stone circle at Mzora in Morocco and was struck by its similarity to Newgrange(e)!
Newgrange is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange, there is an opening called a roof-box. This baffling orifice held a great surprise for those who unearthed it. Its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the chamber on the shortest days of the year, around December 21st, the winter solstice.
Like all ancient monuments, the Boyne Valley cluster has generated its collection of wild speculation, such as Freddy Silva’s claim that there is a connection between Knowth and Sacsayhuaman near Cuzco in Peru and who also hints at a possible link with Egypt’s Osirion(b)!
The unaccredited Keystone University in Ireland published a video in 2020 in which it claimed that “the neolithic tomb at Newgrange in the Boyne Valley is, in fact, the famed temple of Atlantis and one of the oldest temples on earth as a result(i).” This daft claim is a development of Ulf Erlingsson‘s theories published in 2004.
The winter solstice event is not the only astronomical link proposed for Newgrange. Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore have written(c) about the Cygnus Constellation and a possible link with Newgrange [1441]. Paul Dunbavin also touched on the possible connection between swans in Irish mythology and astronomical events(d).
Even more unlikely is the suggestion from E. A. James Swagger in The Newgrange Sirius Mystery [1683] in which the author endeavoured to link Ireland’s most important megalithic site with both an early understanding of precession and the symbology of the Dogon.
Furthermore, the imaginative Frank Joseph has speculated that “the early date for Newgrange, its circular construction, sophisticated solar orientation and mythic tradition all point to Atlantean origins.” [0636.70]
A common feature of most of the great megalithic monuments, such as Stonehenge, The Maltese Temples or Newgrange is the incorporation of astronomical alignments into their design. Recent years have seen the development of archaeoacoustics and the study of the sound characteristics of various ancient structures. Arguably the most famous site is the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum in Malta, about which Linda Eneix has written an interesting paper(j). She notes that there is a suggestion that sounds there, and possibly elsewhere, might lead to a release of the ‘feel-good’ hormone dopamine. Any inference that this was a deliberate design feature will require evidence. Eneix just touches on Newgrange acoustics that are discussed elsewhere(k).
(a) https://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm
(c) https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/irishgodkings
(d) Mythical Ireland | Astronomy | The Cygnus Enigma (archive.org)
(e) http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/the-mysterious-moroccan-megalithic-menhirs-of-mzora/ (see last comment)
(h) https://www.knowth.com/excavation.htm
(i) The Lost City of Atlantis is Ireland (irishcentral.com)
(j) https://www.academia.edu/63669239/Megaliths_Music_and_the_Mind_The_Latest_in_Archaeoacoustics
Pumapunku
Pumapunku is a terraced earthen mound, faced with blocks and an important part of the Tiwanaku archaeological site on the Bolivian Altiplano. It has unique architectural features including the use of building blocks with up to 80 faces on them. The Tiwanaku site is pre-Inca and has given its earliest radiocarbon date as 536-600 AD and was in use until circa 1000 AD(a), which is a far cry from the flawed 12,000-15,000 BC date claimed by Posnansky(e)(f). Details of how these late dates were arrived at are available in a paper by Jason Yaeger and Alexei Vranich on the Academia.edu website(j).
As with so many other enigmatic ancient sites, various members of the ‘lunatic fringe’ have attributed the construction at this location to either ancient astronauts or Atlanteans or an exotic combination of both, based on either over-fertilised imaginations or flawed data or again, both. Jason Colavito has written a critique of some of the more silly suggestions(b).>>In September 2024, Ancient Aliens revisited Puma Punku (S20.E20), recycling silly claims about extraterrestrial visitors. Once again, Colavito was obliged to put fingers to keyboard to review this latest episode(l).<<
Ancient astronaut advocate Von Däniken[1147.221] and Brien Foerster(d) among others have claimed that the stones of Pumapunku were composed of diorite, an exceptionally hard stone, which would have required a modern diamond-tipped drill to work it. The implication is that only Atlanteans with their advanced technology or extraterrestrials could have worked the stone with such precision.
Brien Foerster also published a paper on the Academia.edu website in Feb. 2023 in which he decries “The extraction, wanton destruction, and recycling of much of the Puma Punku site that can be easily seen in the small nearby town also called Tiwanaku, where many of the buildings, including the church, contain the telltale grey andesite blocks, with smooth flat surfaces, which clearly came from Puma Punku.” He also points out that while Tiwanaku has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, Puma Punku has received little attention(k).”
However, Colavito and Michael Heiser(c) have pointed out that this identification is untrue and that they were composed of the softer andesite and red sandstone. Apart from this, the Code of Hammurabi was incised on diorite, without Atlantean or extraterrestrial assistance, 2,000 years before the development of Pumapunku!
Joseph Davidovits who controversially proposed that Giza’s Great Pyramid stones had been cast rather than carved has also claimed that other well-known structures had been created in a similar manner, such as at Tiwanaku and Puma Punku in Peru(g) and Easter Island(h).
Javier Escalante Moscoso is an architect with a degree in archaeology who has extensively excavated and surveyed the Tiwanaku monuments. (see map above).
A fully illustrated guide to the monuments of Tiwanaku/Puma Punku is an excellent introduction to the site including a map by Moscoso(i).
(a) https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4202
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-in-search-of-aliens-s01e07-the-mystery-of-puma-punku
(c) See: https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2803/
(d) https://hiddenincatours.com/posts/videos/#!/keyword_filter=Puma%20Punku
(e) The age of Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) Site, Bolivia (archive.org)
(f) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg62910.html
(g) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/tiahuanaco-monuments-tiwanaku-pumapunku-bolivia/
(h) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/
(i) Tiwanaku, the mysterious pre-Inca capital – mapaymochila.es
(k) (99+) The Enduring Enigma Of Puma Punku in Bolivia | Brien Foerster – Academia.edu
(l) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s20e20-resurrecting-puma-punku *
UNESCO
UNESCO was the surprising sponsor of a two-week exhibition(a) in Paris, in 2005, based on the work of Sergio Frau, which placed Atlantis in Sardinia.
Baalbek *
Baalbek, situated in the Bekka Valley in Lebanon, undoubtedly presents us with what I consider to be one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. It was the site of a most impressive Roman temple complex dedicated to Jupiter. However, the very name Baalbek suggests an earlier connection with the Caananite/Phoenician god Baal.
Peter Mungo Jupp has suggested that the original temple at Baalbek had involved Holy Prostitution in the service of Baal(z), while another commentator has even suggested a link with Indian yogis!(t)
Although the Roman remains are still impressive, it is some blocks in the lower and presumably earlier courses(d), that have continued to stump archaeologists, three of which are of cut limestone and are estimated to weigh 
up to 800 tons(c). (compare with the content of the link(k))
An article(q) by Gian J. Quasar regarding this strange masonry is worth a read.
Even more disturbing is a block still lying in a nearby quarry, where it was cut, and which has been calculated to exceed 1000 tons and named The Stone of the Pregnant Woman. Another block, in the same quarry, was only discovered in the 1990’s and is thought to be even heavier at 1200 tons(g).
In 1997, Andrew Collins ventured to suggest that Baalbek because of its high elevation “hints at the fact that it once served as some kind of platform for the observation of celestial and stellar events”(v). Collins expanded on his views in two later papers on his website(w)(x).
While the Baalbek monoliths are astoundingly impressive, they would appear to be outshone by the unfinished stele in the quarry at Yangshan in eastern China. Its estimated weight has been put as high as over 6,000 tons. Its creation is attributed to the reign of the Yongle Emperor in the early 15th century. However, others claim much greater antiquity, insisting that “although it is a limestone quarry, the stones were not cut and shaped with hammer and chisel, as you will see. They were machined.(y)!
Hugh Newman, a self-described ‘megalithomaniac’(r), has produced a paper(s) on the enormous Baalbek monoliths, in which he cites Graham Hancock speculatively dating the age of Baalbek megaliths at 12,000 years or more.
In March 2014, it was widely reported(e) that even heavier megaliths had been identified on Siberia’s Mount Shoria. However, the images I have seen suggest to me a natural origin(f). A short video clip is available(j).
We do not know how such huge objects were made or moved in ancient times. I often think that the bigger question is why did they bother to cut such large blocks! An online article(b) tells how the ingenuity of our ancestors produced the most powerful hand crane in history which multiplied the force of its operator 632 times. However, just because we do not yet know precisely how the Baalbek blocks were manipulated, does not justify wild claims that they were moved by high-tech Atlanteans or extraterrestrials. I may not know how stage magicians saw ladies in half, but that does not compel me to label them Atlantean or alien.
The most persistent question relating to all megalithic structures is “how did they manage to build them using such large heavy rocks and blocks”? Many ingenious solutions are on offer, but perhaps the most remarkable is that proposed by W. T. Wallington who demonstrated that using basic materials, which were available to the Egyptians, one individual can manipulate a 4500kg stone block. His website includes a remarkable video clip of his method. A review(n) of this video is worth a read. Another or comparable technology may have been used by Edward Leedskainin when he single-handedly built Coral Castle in Florida City(o). What is certain is that Leedskainin had no help from intergalactic visitors.
The late Alan Alford wrote an extensive paper on Baalbek(a). Immanuel Velikovsky and others have supported the idea that Baakbek was in fact the location of the biblical city of Dan, recorded as the most northern city of ancient Israel. Furthermore, the earlier notes on the subject by Velikovsky are also available online(i) in which he suggested that Baalbek was the temple built by Jeroboam in the north of the former Kingdom of Israel to compete with Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem in the south.
December 2014 found the latest estimate for the weight of the largest dressed stone found at Baalbek was calculated to be 1650 tons(h). It is clear that some explanation is required, hopefully, something better than the implication of extraterrestrial intervention. I would like to think that if we had alien visitors that their technology would be in advance of the ‘stone’ age. Surely they would have something better to produce than enormous foundation stones, which to my puny mind does not smack of the best that a civilisation capable of travelling across the cosmos would have to offer! I find the claims of Graham Hancock or Erich von Dániken equally unconvincing in this instance.
A sober well-referenced article outlining the arguments in favour of identifying the megaliths as Roman is available online(k) as well as supportive blogs from Frank Dörnenburg(m).
A UNESCO-sponsored hitech survey of the Baalbek site as part of a Risk Preparedness Strategy is now proposed so that the most appropriate remedial action can be taken in the event of natural deterioration or even war damage(l).
Brian Foerster’s website(p) has some remarkable images of the Baalbek masonry.
There are a number of YouTube videos featuring the Baalbek ruins(u).
(a) See: Archive 3414
(b) https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/03/history-of-human-powered-cranes.html
(c) https://vejprty.com/baalbek.htm
(d) https://grahamhancock.com/third-megalith-baalbek-hancock/
(e) https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/megaliths-russia-advanced-civilisation/
(f) https://www.academia.edu/6200990/Super_Megaliths_in_Gornaya_Shoria_Southern_Siberia
(i) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_baalbek_5.htm
(j) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXeuTK2fhwI
(k) See: Archive 2653
(l) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301701044_Protecting_Baalbek%27s_Integrity *
(m) https://www.ramtops.co.uk/baalbek.html
or See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170711050921/https://www.ramtops.co.uk/baalbek.html
(o) https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/overcoming-gravity-enigma-coral-castle-005051
(p) https://hiddenincatours.com/worlds-largest-megalithic-stones-baalbek-lebanon/
(q) http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Baalbek_Temple_of_Jupiter.html
(r) https://www.megalithomania.co.uk/hughnewman.html
(s) See: Archive 3409
(t) Baalbek – Lebanon’s Ancient Yogic Connection – The Isha Blog (archive.org)
(u) https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=baalbek+Lebanon
(v) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_baalbek_4.htm
(w) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/baalbek.htm
(x) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/baalbek2.htm
(y) http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/yangshan.html
(z) Baalbek Temple prostitutes and Holy Prostitution for Baal (archive.org)
Tehenu and Temehu
Tehenu and Temehu are terms used in the ancient inscriptions of Egypt when referring to the Libyans. Ulrich Hofmann links them with the predecessors of the Berbers whom he identifies as the people of Atlantis in his recent book, Platons Insel Atlantis[161] published in German. Similar views are held by Alberto Arecchi.
Robert Temple discusses[736.414] the etymology of ‘ Ta Tehenu’ which although used to refer to Libya actually means ‘olive land’.
There is a website(a) which gives an overview of the land of the Temehu from 55 million BC until modern times. In 1983 UNESCO commissioned A.H.S. El-Mosallamy to write a paper on the relationship between the Tehenu and ancient Egypt(b).
*The Libyans controlled North Africa as far as the borders of Egypt and were constantly in conflict with the Egyptians. Plato describes the Atlantean control in North Africa in similar terms, which also fits with the Libyans (Labu) as one of the allies of the Sea Peoples .*
(a) https://www.temehu.com/History-of-Libya.htm
(b) https://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0005/000577/057711eb.pdf
Poverty Point
Poverty Point is an ancient site in north-eastern Louisiana with remarkable concentric ridges reminiscent of Plato’s description of Atlantis. Poverty Point is claimed as the remains of the oldest city in North America having been dated to around 1600 BC. Estimates have put the population of the city at 5-15,000 people at its greatest with two major influxes around 1600 and 1000 BC. It appears to have been suddenly abandoned and eventually covered with debris until it was discovered in 1950, when it was spotted from the air.
“The site is composed of some six C-shaped concentric ridges with each ring separated by a gulley. The ridges are all half circles. While the ridges range from 0.3 feet to 6 feet, they would have been much higher in the past as they have worn down over the many years. Much of the geometric design is hard to make out today on the ground, the scale and geometric design of the site only became apparent after aerial photographs were taken.“(e)
The purpose of the site is unknown, although various theories are put forward on a regular basis, one of which is that it was used as the world’s largest solstice marker(b)!
Frank Joseph suggests a definite link with the Atlanteans, claiming [0104.229] that “the site is fundamentally a mirror-image of Plato’s description of Atlantis, an identification reaffirmed by sudden cultural florescence at Poverty Point in 1200 BC, just when Atlantis was finally destroyed, and some of its survivors sought refuge in what is now America.”
The late Professor Antonis Kontaratos went further when he presented three papers [750.237] to the 2008 Atlantis Conference in Athens in which he expressed strong support for the American Hypothesis and that Poverty Point had been the capital of Plato’s Atlantis.
Gavin Menzies claimed [780.290] that Poverty Point was actually where the Minoans processed copper brought down the Mississippi from Michigan before transporting it back to the Mediterranean to feed the Bronze industries there! J.S. Wakefield expressed similar ideas, in great detail, in a 2015 article(d).
It has also been suggested that the mounds of prehistoric Louisiana, including those at Poverty Point, were constructed as a protection against seasonal flooding!
Poverty Point has now been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site of which there are less than 1,000 worldwide and only 24 in the United States (2019)(f). It also has an official website(h).
The results of a study of Mound A, published in the January 2013 edition of Geoarchaeology, have revealed that the structure was built in 90 days or less(a).
An extensive paper from 1996 by Jon L. Gibson is available online(c).
Dr Diana Greenlee of the University of Louisiana Monroe and station archaeologist at Poverty Point was involved in recent research that shows Poverty Point to be more complex than previously believed. Thanks to a 2019 Preservation Technology and Training Grant from the National Park Service, ULM and Minnesota State University Moorhead were able to use radar to send electromagnetic pulses into the earth, helping shed light on what lies below and between the mounds and ridges. What they discovered was a new ridge hidden underground and more information about the creation of the site(g).
Work continues at the site.
(b) https://www.messagetoeagle.com/is-the-poverty-point-octagon-worlds-largest-ancient-solstice-marker/
(c) Louisiana Archaeology Poverty Point Anthropological Study Series (archive.org)
(e) The History Of Poverty Point: One Of America’s Oldest Archeological Sites (thetravel.com)
(f) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_the_United_States
(h) https://www.povertypoint.us/ *
Peru *
Peru has recently been shown to have been home to one of the oldest monument building cultures in South America. The valleys of the Norte Chico region have revealed cities with pyramids and other large ceremonial structures that have now pushed the date of the earliest buildings to the end of the 4th millennium BC. Dr Jose Oliver, who lectures in Latin American archaeology at University College London, has stated: “that by 3100 BC monumental buildings were already underway, not just at an isolated site but also across a whole region”. Such structures were being erected 400 years before the earliest Egyptian pyramids! The Sechin Bajo site is now (2017) being claimed(r) as having the oldest manmade structures in the Americas and having been dated to 3500 BC.
The prehistoric coastal city of Caral (3400 BC) has also revealed that quipus, the ancient South American ‘writing’ system, was in use there as early as 3000 BC. A cache of 25 well-preserved quipus was discovered in an ancient warehouse in Peru in June 2014(d). It may be worth noting that systems similar to the quipus have been identified in Hawaii and ancient China(q).
Philip Coppens gave an interesting overview of the Caral site(a). A 2016 report(j)(k) reveals further details of the level of technology achieved at Caral(o). Also near Caral is Aspero (3700-2500 BC), another large pre-ceramic site(p).
As early as the 16th century Agustín de Zárate identified Peruvian natives as originally having migrated from Atlantis. Ignatius Donnelly made a similar suggestion in a chapter of his book that he devoted to a description of Peru as an Atlantean colony (Pt.5 Chap.5).
In the late 1950s and the 1960s, Mrs Karola Siebert of Lima attempted to link her own finds and other discoveries of structures and inscriptions in Peru with Atlantis. In 1958, she claimed to have found evidence of an Atlantis based religious cult in the Manchay Valley of Peru(a). She published her findings in a 24-page booklet, Atlantis in Peru [0547]. The rather tenuous links suggested by her were compounded with a high degree of supposition. A few years later James Bailey also opted for Peru as the site of Atlantis.
Brien Foerester has proposed that the amazing Sacsayhuamán site has an Atlantean connection!(u) At other locations in Peru, Foerester claims that pre-Incan high-quality structures are evidence of Atlantean influence, which can be seen in a number of videos on his website.
In 2004, Professor Robert Benfer unearthed a structure at the Buena Vista site in Peru that was named the ‘Temple of the Fox’. This 33-foot high Andean temple revealed the earliest known astronomical alignment and sculptures in the Americas(e).
Peru also offers another rarely discussed mystery, namely, a long band of holes, numbering thousands, in the Pisco Valley, which has led to much head-scratching among archaeologists(l).
Band of Holes
Petroglyphs, dated between 3,500 and 4,000 years old and described as an ‘astronomical laboratory’, have been discovered in northern Peru and disclosed in July 2014 in Archaeology magazine(c).
The Peruvian Times have an extensive ongoing (2011) series(b) on the history and culture of Peru which is well worth a look.
The Smithsonian Magazine claims that Peru was home to the oldest calendar in the New World(g), as well as the oldest solar observatory in the Americas(f), which is credited to the 4th century BC, thirteen towers of Chankillo(h)(i)(t), which is now a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It was announced in August 2016 that an intensive search from space of undiscovered archaeological sites, would begin with Peru(m)(n).
Chankillo Towers
In June 2018, a report(s) from Miami University “chronicles the remarkable skill of ancient Peru’s cranial surgeons” and reveals that with over 800 ancient trepanned skulls, Peru has “more than the combined total number of prehistoric trepanned skulls found in the rest of the world.”
Also See: Cuzco
(a) https://www.philipcoppens.com/caral.html (offline Dec. 2017) (See Archive 2138)
(b) https://www.peruviantimes.com/23/history-of-peru-series-part-1-the-dawn-of-urbanization/6447/ Subsequent parts of this series are to be found in the History section of the Peruvian Times.
(c) https://www.ibtimes.com/peru-archaeologists-uncover-ancient-astronomy-lab-peruvian-ruins-1640124 *
(d) https://www.seeker.com/rare-incan-calculators-found-in-peru-1768752683.html
(e) https://web.archive.org/web/20160410040543if_/http:/articles.latimes.com/2006/may/14/science/sci-observatory14 (in 2 parts)
(f) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/return-of-the-sun-cult-152321532/?no-ist
(g) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-new-worlds-oldest-calendar-152115988/
(h) https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6408231.stm
(i) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619455
(l) See Archive 3009
(p) https://web.archive.org/web/20190108223937/https://www.arqueologiadelperu.com.ar/aspero.htm
(t) Ancient Calendars (joedubs.com)
(u) https://hiddenincatours.com/atlantis-evidence-at-sachsayhuaman-peru/