Writing in Atlantis

Published June 13, 2010

Writing in Atlantis. The text of Plato makes it quite clear that writing was a feature of Atlantean culture. This is just another element in the overall picture presented by Plato of Atlantis as a Bronze Age civilisation, although there is always the possibility that the inclusion of writing might be a Platonic addition, designed to enhance the underlying core tale of a very ancient civilisation destroyed by flooding. If this flooding coincided with the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age then it could be dated to around 9500 BC, a date that is in agreement with Solon’s apparent date for the demise of Atlantis.

R. Cedric Leonard^(a) has developed the idea that an even older writing system in Western Europe, such as that found on the Glozel Tablets may have had a link with Atlantis. These tablets have been dated to as early as 10,000 BC, but I have some reservations regarding the reliability of this date. Similarly, the writing of the Vinca culture of Eastern Europe is believed to date from around 5500 BC.

However, an article in New Scientist (20.02.10) reports that a study of cave markings at 146 sites in France revealed that a total of just 26 signs were used with a varying frequency between 33,000 BC and 8000 BC. The symbols were only found in Southern France as most of the north was glaciated for much of this period. If these findings are substantiated it will raise questions regarding the date of the arrival of modern man into Europe.

Genevieve von Petzinger a Canadian paleoanthropologist and rock art researcher has studied geometric signs found in caves and other sites dating back 40,000 years. In a 2019 paper, her work is discussed including that she has identified “32 recurring symbols in all cultures of 40,000 years ago.” That was the easy part, now they must be interpreted^(g⁾.

It is generally thought that there is no evidence of any developed writing system until around 3500 BC in Harappa in the Indus Valley, while a few hundred years later the Sumerians were using a sophisticated cuneiform script and the Egyptians had developed a system of hieroglyphics^(d⁾. In 2010, Orly Goldwasser had an article published in the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) in which she traced the development of the Canaanite alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics!⁽ⁿ⁾

In turn, the Phoenicians developed their script circa 1000 BC and from them, the Greeks developed their Linear A & B. However, the discovery in 1993 of the Dispilio Tablet^(j⁾ in Greece has pushed back the use of writing in Greece to around 5200 BC, which is long before the people recognised as Phoenicians emerged in the 2nd millennium BC⁽ⁱ⁾!

In 2017, an ancient ivory comb was discovered and dated to around 1700 BC. It was later spotted that the object had been inscribed with the earliest complete sentence in a Canaanite dialect^(l⁾.

This debate regarding the origins of writing, both when and where will continue for some considerable time. An article on the Ancient Origins website in September 2022 ended with the following comment – “Conventional history dictates that these kinds of Neolithic discoveries are merely evidence of proto-writing, a term which refers to a way of communicating limited information, rather than proof of an entire language. But should additional artifacts comparable to the Dispilio tablet emerge, they could completely change the history of writing and with it the story of humanity.”^(k⁾

Crete had crude writing around 3000 BC, but it would be another 1000 years before the earliest alphabetic inscription discovered so far would be inscribed on a rock, in what is now Southern Egypt. This has been dated to the 1900s BC, two hundred years earlier than expected. This particular epigraph has prompted speculation that what we know as an alphabet originated in Egypt, but it is not unreasonable to think that this revision will not be the last. However, the March/April 2010 edition of the respected Biblical Archaeology Review has an article that identifies the early alphabet as a development of hieroglyphics⁽^c⁾.

This evolution from hieroglyphs to modern European scripts is now available as a chart by Matt Baker^(o⁾.*

Although the Phoenicians have often been credited with the invention of the precursor to modern Western scripts around 1,100 BC, it now appears more likely that they were responsible for the adaptation of an even earlier character system. The earliest known Hebrew writing has now been dated to the 10^th century BC⁽^b⁾.

Peter Daughtrey in his book, Atlantis and the Silver City ^[893] has devoted chapter seventeen to offering the claim that the earliest alphabet developed in southwest Iberia and by extension in Atlantis. An abbreviated version can be read on his website^(h⁾.

In Meso-America, the Olmecs appear to have been the first to develop a writing system around 900 BC, 600 years earlier than the Maya. However, the late emergence of a script there would appear to argue against a common Atlantean source for cultures on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1905, Flinders Petrie and his wife, also an archaeologist, discovered strange signs on the side of a mine in the Sinai Peninsula, which they identified as alphabetical. After a decade of study, Sir Allan Gardiner published a decipherment of the symbols in 1916^(f). They became known as proto-Sinaitic script and dated to between 1850 and 1550 BC. However, there were individual ‘letters’ whose identities were disputed. In 2017, Douglas Petrovich claimed to have solved all outstanding issues ^[1767]. Today, Orly Goldwasser, an Israeli Egyptologist, is arguably the leading promoter of the idea that this was the earliest example of an alphabet discovered so far^(e).

The insistence by some on the great antiquity of ancient scripts is driven by those Atlantis researchers who blindly accept the 9,600 BC date for the destruction of a literate Atlantis given by Plato. If an early date for writing cannot be more fully substantiated then Plato’s date must be reappraised.

>An “Atlantean language was created for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire by Marc Okrand, who worked with John Emerson, a designer at Disney, to produce an alphabet for the language. The language is spoken and written by the people of Atlantis in the film and is integral to the plot.”^(m⁾<

^(a⁾ https://web.archive.org/web/20170615131537/http:/atlantisquest.com:80/classical.html

⁽^b⁾ https://phys.org/news/2010-01-ancient-hebrew-biblical-inscription-deciphered.html

^(c)https://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06 (link broken) *

^(d) https://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s17999.htm

^(e)https://www.academia.edu/38014205/Goldwasser_O_2016_The_Birth_of_the_Alphabet_from_Egyptian_Hieroglyphs_in_the_Sinai_Desert_in_Daphna_Ben_Tor_ed_Pharaoh_in_Canaan_the_untold_story_Exhibition_catalogue_Jerusalem_Israel_Museum

^(f) Who Invented the Alphabet? | History | Smithsonian Magazine

^(g) There are 32 recurring symbols in all cultures of 40,000 years ago – The Tapestry of Time (larazzodeltempo.it)

^(h) http://atlantisandthesilvercity.com/atlantis-blog/?p=28

⁽ⁱ⁾ Greek Writing System Spans Millennia and Did Not Originate From the Phoenicians – HistoryDisclosure.com (archive.org)

^(j) https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/dispilio-tablet-the-oldest-known-written-text

^(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/dispilio-tablet-00913

^(l) First sentence ever written in Canaanite language discovered: A plea to eradicate beard lice (phys.org)