{"id":1964,"date":"2010-05-29T07:39:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T07:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/gades\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T19:21:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T19:21:32","slug":"gades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/gades\/","title":{"rendered":"Gades"},"content":{"rendered":"

G<\/strong>ades<\/strong> is the Roman name of what is generally accepted as having been located at or near modern Cadiz<\/a> in southern Spain<\/a>. In his C<\/em>ritias,<\/em> Plato relates that the twin brother of Atlas, the first ruler of Atlantis, was named Gadeiros although known in Greek as Eumelos<\/a>. It is assumed that he had his realm in the vicinity of Cadiz and had his capital named, Gadeira, after him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, it has been pointed out that the Phoenicians<\/a>, who, before the time of Plato, possessed a port city in southwest Spain named Gadir, <\/em>meaning \u2018enclosure\u2019 or \u2018fortress\u2019 and was, over time, corrupted to Cadiz.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Until recently, it was generally accepted, based on classical writers, including the historian Livy, that the Phoenicians founded Gades around 1100 BC. Writers today, such as, Mark Woolmer, have pointed out [1053<\/a>.46]<\/sup> that the archaeological evidence suggests a more recent date, perhaps the middle of the 8th<\/sup> century BC. <\/b>Around 500BC it was occupied by the Carthaginians and after that, eventually became Romanised.\u00a0<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, a number of locations with similar-sounding names are to be found in the Central and Western Mediterranean region, weakening the certainty normally associated with the more generally accepted identification of Gadeirus\u2019 city with South-West Spain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another solution has recently been proposed by the late Michael H\u00fcbner<\/a>, in which he offers the Souss-Massa plain of Southern Morocco as the location of Atlantis. On the Atlantic coast of the plain is the large town of Agadir, whose name is also probably derived from the word \u2018gadir\u2019 which means fort or enclosure in the local Tamazight language. It can also mean \u2018sheep fold\u2019, which may tie in with Plato\u2019s use of \u2018Eumelos\u2019 as the Greek translation of Gadeiros\u00a0means \u2018rich in sheep\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alternative suggestions have been proposed, including one by Andis Kaulins<\/a>(<\/sup>a<\/sup>)<\/sup>, who is inclined to identify the islands of Egadi<\/a> (Aegadian), off the west coast of Sicily, which is opposite today’s Tunis. Should this Egadi be the original Gades, it would make sense for two of the suggested alternatives for the location of the Pillars of Heracles, either the Strait of Messina<\/a> or the Strait of Sicily<\/a>, w<\/span><\/span>here there is a Gadir on the island of Pantelleria(b)<\/sup>. It would mean that Egadi would have been outside the Pillars of Heracles from either an Athenian or Egyptian perspective. Albert Nikas <\/a><\/span>has pointed out the existence of a place in Malta<\/a> called Il Ghadira, which has the largest sandy beach on the island!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A number of investigators have also identified Gades with Tartessos<\/a>, presumed to be the Tarshish<\/a> of the Bible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More recently Jonathan Northcote<\/a>, has suggested that Gadeira may have been Ireland<\/a>, citing Strabo, who quoted Eratosthenes, who had noted that Gades is five days sailing from the ‘Sacred Promontory’. Wikipedia lists(d) <\/sup>eleven promontories stretching from Crimea to Wales that have been so named, but notes that these were only some <\/em><\/strong>of the locations given that designation. So he arbitrarily chose either of the two Portuguese Capes listed as the most likely starting point for a five-day journey to Ireland (Gadeira)!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stuart L. Harris <\/a>has echoed this, employing linguistic gymnastics(c)<\/sup>. He uses Felice Vinci<\/a>‘s idea that Homeric Greek was in fact a form of Finnish and so Gadeira was K\u00e4de Eiran, meaning ‘Hand of Eira’, supposedly a variant of \u00c9ire (Ireland) and consequently Atlantis lay to the west of Ireland. Convoluted, is an understatement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(<\/sup>a<\/sup>) <\/sup>Pillars of Heracles – Alternative Location (archive.org)<\/a><\/p>\n

(b)<\/sup> Wayback Machine (archive.org)<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(c) <\/sup>(PDF) Sinking of Atlantis by Nibiru in 9577 BC: Part 1, discovery west of Eire | Stuart L Harris – Academia.edu (archive.org)<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(d)<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sacred_promontory<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gades is the Roman name of what is generally accepted as having been located at or near modern Cadiz in southern Spain. In his Critias, Plato relates that the twin brother of Atlas, the first ruler of Atlantis, was named Gadeiros although known in Greek as Eumelos. It is assumed that he had his realm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2406,1053,213,47,884,2407,1322,792,533,2309,190,1690,2408,294,5333,3165,12,3626,2273,1688,90,1023,666,393,1080,38,673,5334,14,13],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agadir","tag-albert-nikas","tag-andis-kaulins","tag-bible","tag-cadiz","tag-egadi-islands","tag-eratosthenes","tag-eumelos","tag-felice-vinci","tag-gadeirus","tag-gades","tag-gadir","tag-il-ghadira","tag-ireland","tag-jonathon-northcote","tag-livy","tag-malta","tag-mark-woolmer","tag-michael-hubner","tag-pantelleria","tag-phoenicians","tag-pillars-of-herakles","tag-spain","tag-strabo","tag-strait-of-messina","tag-strait-of-sicily","tag-stuart-l-harris","tag-tamazight","tag-tarshish","tag-tartessos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66706,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/66706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}