{"id":1503,"date":"2010-05-23T08:48:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-23T08:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/madeira-2\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:43:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:43:46","slug":"madeira-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/madeira-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Madeira"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/strong>adeira<\/strong>, an autonomous region of Portugal, is a small\u00a0group of islands\u00a0in the Atlantic, just north of the Canaries. The archipelago includes the tiny independent Principality of Pontinha(a)<\/sup>, which today has bitcoin as its official currency.<\/p>\n

The French philosopher, Voltaire, seems to have been somewhat sceptical about the existence of Atlantis, remarking in his Essai sur le moeurs <\/em>[1504<\/a>] <\/sup> that\u201c if it were true that such a part of the world ever existed. Most likely it was none other than the island of <\/em>Madeira<\/em>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ignatius Donnelly<\/a>\u00a0proposed it as\u00a0one possible location for Atlantis. This followed soundings taken in the area at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century, which suggested that there existed a submerged \"map-madeira\"<\/a>ridge linking the islands with the European mainland.\u00a0Madeira is frequently linked with the Azores<\/a> and the Canaries<\/a>\u00a0as visible remains of Atlantis.<\/p>\n

In the 1920s Edwin Bjorkman<\/a> noted [0181<\/a>.68]<\/sup>\u00a0that many of his peers, including Richard Hennig<\/a>(d)<\/sup>, considered Madeira to have been Homer\u2019s Ogygia,<\/a> itself frequently associated with Atlantis.<\/p>\n

By way of balance, I must include reasons offered by Stelios Pavlou<\/a> for not identifying the Madeiras as one the remnants of Atlantis<\/p>\n

1.) There is no evidence that this\u00a0archipelago\u00a0was once a larger island.<\/p>\n

2.) There is no evidence it was ever connected to the Canary Islands or the Azores.<\/p>\n

3.) There are no traces of a megalithic civilization there(f)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Atlantisforschung has published a short list of other commentators who have considered the Madeiras as possible remnants of Atlantis,<\/p>\n