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Esoteric spirituality sheds unique light
on the significance of Atlantis, its true history and why
it became the stuff of legends. H... can change our judgements
in places - without denying any of the evidence.
This Broadsheet was written in 1995 by Nigel Blair, MA Oxon
(1946-2005), founder of the Wessex Research Group. "I
was writing... to centre on the inner nature of history..."
This, Nigel hoped, would lead to a book - never completed
- so here we are posthumously honouring the stupendous work
Nigel did, collecting evidence. Nigel never radically
altered his theories, but his position shifted in minor
ways.
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LIST
OF CONTENTS
"The Man from Atlantis" ... "The Lost World of Atlantis"
... "The Fantastic Journey" ... "Warlords of Atlantis"
... "Terra X: the Mists of Atlantis" ... "Atlantis
— the Lost Continent" ... the number of popular programmes
connected in some way with this fabled lost continent seems to be
multiplying. Why is there so much interest today in what has often
been regarded as a mere legend? Does it resonate with some deep
impulse? Is there any factual basis behind the often fantastic fictional
stories, and the more sober documentaries?
For orthodox writers on prehistory the answer is all too often to
dismiss the idea without a conscientious examination of the facts.
For well over a century now, however, more discerning writers, willing
to see the hidden links between pieces of evidence which have escaped
others, have asserted the reality of some great prehistoric civilization
which suffered an immense catastrophe — which may be the origin
of the flood legends which occur not just in the Bible, but in religions
all over the world.
Recently, a number of scholarly writers have pointed to the mounting
evidence, much of it newly-discovered, that there was such a civilization
and that it was probably located precisely where legend, and Plato,
in his "Critias" and "Timaeus", put it —
in what is now the Atlantic Ocean. back
to top
1. CHARLES BERLITZ: A GREAT SUBMERGED
MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION
Amongst the best of these writers is Charles Berlitz, the well-known
researcher, writer and linguist, whose remarkable "Atlantis
— the Lost Continent Revealed" was published in 1984
by Macmillan and subsequently in paperback by Fontana; this was
something of a breakthrough, as these were major publishers which
concentrated on subjects well backed with research. His earlier
"Mystery of Atlantis" had been published in the late 1970s
by Souvenir in hardback and Panther in paperback. Writing as he
did with the help of the experienced diver J. Manson Valentine and,
in one chapter, the great prehistorian Egerton Sykes, Berlitz produced
impressive evidence. This included sonar profiles of at least one,
and possibly two, underwater pyramids; the underwater "Bimini
Road" in the Bahamas; submerged megaliths off Venezuela, Morocco
and elsewhere; "cores" taken from the Azores (mid-Atlantic)
Plateau area suggesting it was on the surface in recent geologic
times; and gigantic holes in the Atlantic sea-bed where possibly
great asteroids had struck. Also there were vast overgrown pyramids
of undreamed-of antiquity, unrecognised and unexplored in the forests
of Brazil; and extraordinary similarities between widely-dispersed
ancient legends and tribal rituals depicting overwhelming floods
and the survival of a few who re- founded civilization.
As a linguist who uses thirty languages, moreover, Berlitz is well
qualified to show startling similarities between pre-Classical languages
which could have had no contact with each other, except as offshoots
of some ancient language or, at least, related set of languages
lost in the mists of time. All in all, Berlitz said, this added
up to a great, forgotten ancient megalithic culture centred on the
Atlantic area. This had widespread overseas trade, an advanced alphabetical
language, sophisticated implements and, probably, a large empire.
This could not be later than about 8-10,000 BC, as most of the finds
had been covered by the ocean since that time. Although the idea
of a large surface Azores Plateau home area (possibly destroyed
by an asteroid) fits in with Plato's account, it is not essential
to the Atlantis hypothesis, as is often supposed. As Berlitz points
out, it is accepted knowledge that the ocean sea-level rose by several
hundred feet at some time between six and twelve thousand BC, as
the ice from the last Ice Age, previously locked largely on land,
melted into the sea. Since in those days the main cities were usually
coastal or in low-lying river areas, these would be first to be
flooded. Before this, even without an enormous Azores Plateau island
there was easily enough space for a major Atlantic power, including
far more, and larger, Atlantic islands and the continental shelves
of all the continents, now submerged. This power, with or without
the Plateau, had a strategic position, excellent climate and harbours,
fertile land and the warm Gulf Stream current. back
to top
2. OTTO MÜCK: THE GREAT ASTEROID
OF 8498 BC
The late Otto Mück, the distinguished German geologist, prehistorian
and inventor had already, unknown to the English-speaking world,
written an epoch-making work on Atlantis in the 1950s. When this
was published in Germany in 1976, and in English in 1978 by Collins
as "The Secret of Atlantis", despite good reviews there
seemed to be little response, as if the thesis was, literally, too
earth-shattering for more than a few to contemplate. With the passage
of time, however, helped by a Fontana paperback edition, the incredible
message sank in, and in recent lectures on Atlantis I have found
more people who are aware of it: there is strong evidence that an
asteroid, possibly six miles wide, struck Earth at about the time
of this rise in ocean level, perhaps 8-10,000 BC; were they connected?
This had been widely believed by Atlantologists, including Donnelly
and the late Egerton Sykes (who told me personally), but Muck assembled
the evidence impressively. He traced back the previous flight path
of the Adonis Group of asteroids which, for example, came within
186,000 miles of Earth in 1936. In 8,498 BC, there was a line-up
of the planets which could have attracted in to the Earth a hypothetical
extra member of the group, "asteroid A". It could have
flown in over what is now the USA. , white hot and with pieces flaking
off, one of which could have caused the Arizona Meteorite Crater,
and others the line of crop-mark craterlet remnants running diagonally
across South Carolina to the Atlantic. Here "asteroid A",
he suggests, broke into two, causing the two deep holes in the sea-bed
Puerto Rico Trench which now exist. The Maya, he argues, may have
seen it, describing as they did a white "snake in the sky"
which rained down fragments on them, followed by great tidal waves
which flooded them. He even claims, with less evidence, that they
could have dated their famous calendar from this event.
back to top
3. "THE SINGLE DREADFUL DAY...."
— THE SINKING OF ATLANTIS
Mück's further thesis is even more amazing. The asteroid, ignoring
the two-mile Atlantic depth of water (only a third of its own diameter,
perhaps) went straight through the thin hard crust on the sea-bed
and into the serai- liquid magma underneath, causing such eastward
pressures that practically every volcano, surface or subterranean,
for thousands of miles across the Atlantic, erupted. He then enlists
an ally for his theory more often drafted in by opponents of Atlantis
as a foe. Otto Wegener proposed in 1912 the theory of continental
drift, whereby there was originally one giant continent, and the
ones we know gradually broke away and drifted apart over hundreds
of millions of years. Egerton Sykes told me he knew Wegener at that
time and was one of the few, then, to support the theory. Over the
decades, it was elaborated into one of tectonic plates floating
insecurely on a sea of magma, and periodically adjusting themselves,
causing major volcanoes and earthquakes at the juncture lines. (Incidentally,
the academic scientific world regarded this idea as a heresy, and
remained obdurate until "rushing to the aid of the conqueror"
in 1960 when the evidence became overwhelming. ) One of these juncture
lines runs from North to South Atlantic and, according to Mück,
runs all round the Azores Plateau which is a "platelet"
of its own. The pressures from the "asteroid A" strike
caused the magma to erupt all around this platelet, with a drastic
reduction of pressure underneath, in turn causing it to settle,
eventually by over two miles, to its present position. It took Atlantis
with it, leaving only the present Azores. The great Atlantean fabled
mountain, over three miles high, became the present Pico Alto, which
boasts not much over a mile. back
to top
4. THE AGE OF DARKNESS AND THE RISING
OCEAN
The consequences of this hypothetical event bring together all sorts
of loose ends and mysteries of prehistory into a sort of grand theory.
The massive volume of water vapour ejected into the air came down
as continuous torrential rain everywhere, so that whole swathes
of civilized life were destroyed or enervated, especially in the
lowlands. This we have not only in the Noah story, but in flood
legends across the world. Vast quantities of volcanic rock shot
through with holes by volcanic gases came down in a layer and floated
on the sea, followed by mud and magma, confirming Plato's statement
that, following the sinking of Atlantis "in a single dreadful
day and single dreadful night", the ocean beyond the Straits
of Gibraltar was covered by a sea of mud, and unnavigable by ships.
(Those who cannot believe this are not familiar with the aftermath
of the Krakatoa eruption, west of Java in 1883, when such a sea
of mud appeared, resting on volcanic pumice-stone, rock made light
and buoyant by volcanic gases.) Dust and earth were expelled at
all points; the resulting cloud in the air cut off much of the Sun's
rays for probably several thousand years, especially over northern
Europe, causing a prolonged dark age. According to Otto Muck, evidence
of flora and fauna shows a sparse period at this time, and Greek
myths of "Hades" and the northern "land of shades"
in the distant past were for them a legendary legacy of this period.
The well- known "loess" layer of topsoil which branches
out somewhat like a funnel from the Bay of Biscay coast, through
Europe to Siberia, could be the settling of some of this gargantuan
dust-cloud.
As if this wasn't enough, Otto Muck outlines further consequences.
The warm Gulf Stream, released by the sinking of Atlantis, reached
northern Europe, melting much of the land-locked Arctic ice, which
raised the general ocean level by 300 to 650 feet (estimates differ,
but the fact is not disputed, confirmed as it is by fossils, strata
in rocks, etc.), Because of the dust cloud cutting off the Sun's
rays, which partly counteracted the warming, this only happened
gradually over the centuries, but by, say, 6,000 EC, the British
Isles had been created from the north-west peninsula of Europe,
a sort of "consolation prize", perhaps, for the loss of
Atlantis! The Mediterranean, also, may have become a proper sea
(rather than a series of large lakes) owing to the rising ocean
breaking fully through the Straits of Gibraltar, The continental
shelves of Europe and America were submerged, greatly reducing the
land area and causing what must have been a gradual abandonment
of ancient centres of civilization. back
to top
5. THE SURVIVORS: "HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS"?
Meanwhile, Atlantean Man is identified with Cro-Magnon, or Aurignacian
Man: Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the first really modern human, upright,
with large brain and developed larynx for speech. This culture still
survived as the colonisers of the remnants of the Atlantean empire.
Like other colonisers in history who have lost their homeland, they
preserved what they could of the language, technology and culture,
but they were attacked by predators, hungry and cold in the new
dark age after the floods and dust cloud. They were unable to maintain
their original culture and, like Britain after the Romans left,
declined into a long period of chaos, isolation and racial amnesia:
possibly the distant ancestors of cultures like the Basques, Sumerians,
Phoenicians, Egyptians, Carians, Mayans, proto-North American Indians,
Mayas, pre- Olmecs and pre-Incas. back
to top
6. THE "MODERN CLASSICAL" ATLANTOLOGISTS:
IGNATIUS DONNELLY & LEWIS SPENCE
Other Atlantean authors of note are Andrew Tomas, whose "Atlantis
— from Legend to Discovery" appeared in 1972 (Hale; Sphere
paperback 1973) and established valuable links with Eastern legends,
especially that of Shambhala; and, most recently, Murry Hope, whose
''Atlantis – Myth or Reality?'' in Arkana paperback (1991),
is an excellent overview of modern evidence.
These books build on the remarkably comprehensive earlier works
by U,S.Senator Ignatius Donnelly, whose "Atlantis — the
Antediluvian World" of 1882 was the "breakthrough"
book, worldwide bestseller and modern classic in countless editions.
It was excellently updated by the erudite British prehistorian Egerton
Sykes in 1950 (Sidgwick & Jackson; revised 1970). Donnelly1
s subsequent "Ragnarok: the Age of Fire and Gravel" (1883)
was the first systematic treatment of the "cosmic cataclysm"
theory. The almost legendary Scottish mythologist and historian
Lewis Spence also wrote possibly the best attempts to integrate
Atlantis with wider prehistory, classical history and ancient mythology:
his books, now out of print, are considered great prizes to find
at second-hand bookshops, "The Problem of Atlantis" (1924),
"The History of Atlantis" (1926)and "The Problem
of Lemuria" (1933) were followed by "Will Europe Follow
Atlantis?" in 1942 and "The Occult Sciences in Atlantis"
immediately after the war. All are fascinating and scholarly. Spence
in particular laid down much of the basis for later theories, especially
on Cro-Magnon Man, the Classical view of Atlantis and how it fits
into orthodox views of the Stone Age. back
to top
7. THIS WAS ATLANTIS: PLATO, SOLON AND
THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTS
All, of course (as in philosophy, and much else) have built on Plato's
famous dialogues, which, he was at great pains to point out, were
written in this case as historical fact, not mythology: they were
based on extensive notes taken down in the sixth century B.C. by
Solon, the great founding figure of Athenian democracy, from Egyptian
priests, who in turn were translating from hieroglyphs even then
considered ancient, possibly the Thothic Records, inscribed on a
stone column at Saïs.
The priests clearly considered that the Athenians needed an object-lesson
in the true antiquity of great cultures. They started by pointing
out that the movement of the heavenly bodies periodically undergoes
changes causing earthly catastrophies and the destruction of millions
of lives. Humanity lapses at these points into barbarity and forgets,
amongst other things, the art of writing. The Athenians remembered,
they said, only one world flood, whilst in fact there have been
several. One of these destroyed Atlantis, which was a great island
in the Atlantic (Atlas's) Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits
of Gibraltar). Otto Mück matches Plato's exact dimensions with
the Azores Plateau island, about twice the size of the British Isles;
far too large for Santorini, Thera or any other Aegean island, and
quite unlike them. Around this island there were others, and beyond
them, at the limit of the ocean, a great continent. It is staggering
that this reference to what is clearly the American continent has
escaped general notice. The Atlantean islands were a sort of confederacy
with one main king (originally, Atlas: hence the name) and ten kings
in all, They had a empire which included much of the Mediterranean
shores, and invaded Europe, which was saved by a valiant Greek coalition
under the (original) ancient Athens .
This was clearly the superpower confrontation of its day, remembering
that Greece was then a far larger area than it is today, before
a major part of it had been submerged by the rising sea level. It
was recalled as a sort of Armageddon, and Arraageddons have always
been linked with catastrophes and the end of the age (not of the
world: this was a mistranslation of Revelation). This was no exception,
according to Plato in the "Timaeus". The Atlanteans were
defeated, but shortly after, a violent earthquake tore the Earth
asunder, and heavy and lasting rains ensued. The Greek troops, though
victorious, perished, and Atlantis sank beneath the ocean in a single
day and night. Why did this happen? At first, says Plato in the
"Critias", the Atlanteans were divine and obedient, sober,
gentle and wise, not caring for wealth or luxury; but then this
divine quality began to fade, and gave pride of place to lesser
mortal qualities. 9,000 years before Plato, Zeus, king of the Gods,
wanting to chasten, improve and punish them, called all the Gods
together, and spoke. . . here the "Critias" stops short,
unfinished, but it is clear from the "Timaeus" that the
decision was to destroy Atlantis, rather as, in the "Noah"
story, God punishes humanity for its sins with the Great Flood,
and, in the Hopi and countless other legends, catastrophe justly
visits mankind.
What had Atlantis been like? The "Critias" (alias "The
Atlantic") gives almost a guided tour. Poseidon's son Atlas
was the first main king, but his twin brother got the part towards
the Pillars of Hercules, "as far as Gades" — possibly
modern Cadiz. This reference, usually ignored by "Aegean Atlantologists",
makes it quite clear that Plato could only have been describing
an Atlantic culture, as Cadiz is on the Atlantic side of the Straits
of Gibraltar, and in any case the "part towards" the Straits,
if taken as inside the Mediterranean, would be far too distant from
the Aegean to make any sense of that theory. Elsewhere, as given
above, Plato describes Atlantis as an enormous island which was
submerged, "beyond" the Straits, followed by others and
then the "great continent at the limit of the ocean" (America).
For this and other reasons, all the non-Atlantic theories rapidly
collapse. Some, like the attempts to identify Atlantis with the
Iberian Peninsula, North- West Africa, or even Heligoland Bight
in the North Sea or the Caribbean Islands, are ingenious, and could
well be turning up invaluable evidence of Atlantean outreaches or
colonies: but they are the peripheries, not the centre.
back to top
8. THE BREAKTHROUGH: EGERTON SYKES AND
THE RUSSIAN SEAMOUNT PHOTOGRAPHS
In 1980, I had a striking and unexpected personal confirmation of
this. In the late 70s I had read a front- page item in the "Daily
Telegraph" on the discovery of Atlantis, stating that, in 1974,
a Russian vessel. had photographed mysterious remains of an apparent
stone structure on a seamount (seabed mountain) which reached within
a few hundred feet of the surface in the Atlantic. In May 1980,
with a small group, I founded the Wessex Research Group Network.
This was soon, very rapidly, to become a Wessex-wide holistic lecture
network, and it was our second meeting, in July 1980, that really
got us going. Through a friend, we managed something of a "coup",
and got as a speaker the most distinguished living Atlantologist
in the western world, Egerton Sykes, also well-known as a prehistorian
generally, and re-writer of the famous "Dictionary of Non-Classical
Mythology", He gave us a remarkable overview of Atlantis, confirming
from a lifetime's scholarship and travel (he was then 86), the asteroid,
the mid-Atlantic large island, Atlantean vestiges in Wessex, and
much else. His next item electrified me.
A contact in Eastern Europe had smuggled out to him several extraordinary
photographs taken, it later emerged, by the Soviet research ship
"Academician Petrovsky" in the Atlantic, probably near
the Ampere and Josephine Seamounts, or possibly near the Azores,
and showing a probably artificial structure on a site last on the
surface c. 8,000 years ago at the latest. Here, at last, was the
direct evidence, not just of the sunken colonies of Atlantis (this
was already widespread), but possibly one of the main islands. Sykes
later gave Berlitz the photos, and much information, for his book,
and his unique Atlantean Library to the Edgar Cayce foundation,
the A.R.E. , at Virginia Beach, U.S.A. He pointed out, incidentally,
that there was a vast Russian (untranslated) literature on Atlantis,
dwarfing anything in the West, and that they had amassed extensive
evidence leaving little doubt of its reality; the next most significant,
and most ancient, untranslated literature was in Arabic. He prophesied
that evidence of Atlantis would be found in the honeycomb of tunnels
underneath the Giza plateau which supports the Pyramids in Egypt.
Egerton Sykes has now, sadly, passed on. The finest testament to
his remarkable life would be such a find, Possibly the two large
underground chambers reportedly discovered in summer 1994 near the
Sphinx (as, in essence, predicted by Edgar Cayce), but not yet opened
up, will reveal something dramatic. back
to top
9. A PROSPEROUS CONFEDERATION: PLATO'
S ATLANTIS
Plato goes on, in the "Critias", to describe Atlantis
in some detail. It had more wealth than any country before or after.
Because of its great empire, goods were brought from far afield.
It was well supplied with minerals (including a strange red metal
called orichalcum), trees, plants and elephants. It had extensive
temples, palaces, harbours and docks; its famous canals included
an enormous one 300 feet wide and 100 feet deep. It had cold and
hot springs and red, white and black rocks (both abundant in the
Azores), excellent soil, and two crops a year. There were public
baths and gardens, places of exercise, horse-race courses, tin and
bronze, and many temples for many gods. Part of the country on the
main island was hilly, perhaps mountainous, but to the south and
centre was a great level plain, partly levelled by excavation, with
many canals and wealthy villages. This surrounded the great capital
city built to a plan of concentric circles, which some have thought
Carthage, with its famous circular harbour, was an attempt to emulate
through a distant memory. The harbours were full of ships and traders
from all parts. The royal city state of Atlantis (the main one of
the ten kingdoms) alone could raise 60,000 soldiers, 10,000 manned
chariots and 1,200 warships — a staggering total for ancient
times.
In the middle of the main island, Plato says, was a column of orichalcum
by a great Temple to Poseidon, the god of the sea. On this column
was inscribed their constitution, defining the relative positions
of the ten kingdoms: every fifth or sixth year people from all the
kingdoms gathered there, hunted bulls, sacrificed one in the temple,
discussed public issues and disputes, and swore oaths to judge according
to the laws on the column. A special law forbade the kingdoms to
fight each other, and all were to intervene if any city attempted
to overthrow the central royal House of Atlas, Was this the world's
first confederation? Was it a distant precursor of the European
Union, or NATO, or of the successor to the Soviet Union, the Confederation
of Independent States? Or was it a closer union, more like the U.S.A.,
Australia or Canada? Whatever it was, it was apparently a highly
enlightened arrangement as long as the Atlanteans remained a spiritual
people. Atlantis is archetypal, not only in its destruction, but
in its fabled golden age. It is no accident that great writers,
like Plato or Francis Bacon in his "New Atlantis", have
used it as a model for the ideal society. back
to top>
10. "ISLANDS IN THE EXTERNAL SEA..."
— THE CLASSICAL WRITERS' ATLANTIS
What, then, is the wider evidence for such a colossal prehistoric
empire? Firstly there are ancient classical writings, beyond Plato's.
The story was widely believed to be factual in learned circles in
the classical world, including in Alexandria, the great centre of
scholarship with its famous library, in the first few centuries
A. D. Proclus (410-485 A. D. ), a major philosopher in his own right,
in his commentary on Plato, says the Greek, Krantor, visited Sal's
three hundred years after Sol on. He confirmed the existence of
the hieroglyphic column with the identical Atlantis story to that
contained in Solon1s notes and Plato's account. (Some commentators
says Plato later personally confirmed it, ) He adds, citing Marcellus,
that certain historians (whose writings are lost to us, but may
have existed in the great Alexandrian library which was so tragically
burned later) said there were seven islands in the "external
sea" (beyond the Straits of Gibraltar). On the largest of these,
sacred to Poseidon, the inhabitants preserved the memory of the
once great and wonderful Atlantic island which had for centuries
dominated all the other Atlantic islands. Plutarch (Roman historian,
46-120 A. D. ) wrote of an Atlantic continent called Saturnia; Timagenes
(Greek historian, 1st century B.C.) said the Gauls (of what is now
France) told how their land was once invaded by people from an island
that sank. Marcelinus (Roman historian, A. D. 330-395) told of a
type of earthquake which swallowed up whole portions of the Earth:
he cited "a large island. .. in the Atlantic Sea, on the coast
of Europe", stating that the Alexandrian educated class regarded
the destruction of Atlantis as a fact. Herodotus, a Greek often
regarded as a founding father of scholarly history, referred to
the "Atlantes", who took their name from Mount Atlas in
north-west Africa, probably a colony of Atlantis.
Diodorus Siculus (distinguished Greek historian, 1st c. B.C. ) writes
of the "Atlantioi", named after King Atlas (the first
king of Atlantis, after whom the mount was named). We get fascinating
extra detail from Diodorus: they dwelt in a large island "a
number of days' voyage to the west", "out in the deep
off Libya", which meant the whole of North Africa. His description
confirms Plato: a fruitful, fertile, mild land, with varied trees,
gardens, streams and costly villas, banqueting houses, hunting:
like a "home of the gods and not of men". Atlas was the
first to publish the "doctrine of the sphere", which is
why, he says, the idea arose of the entire heavens being supported
by Atlas: this suggests he knew the Earth was a globe, when almost
all other ancient societies thought it was flat. He also, Diodorus
says, "perfected the science of astrology": since this
included astronomy in ancient times, this meant an advanced culture.
Atlas's daughters, through the "most famous gods and heroes",
became "the first ancestors of most of the human race".
Could this be an allegory of the origin of "Homo Sapiens Sapiens",
"Cro-Magnon", "Aurignacian" Man? We know the
latter appeared mysteriously in Western Europe in waves, especially
on the vest coastal regions, from at least 35,000 B.C.: where from
has long been a mystery. They obliterated, or at least superseded
and perhaps interbred with, the previous, more apelike (but still
intelligent) "Neanderthal Man". Lewis Spence, in his "Problem
of Atlantis", argues cogently that there were three successive
waves escaping from the progressive break-up of Atlantis: this,
he says, explains why most of the archaeological finds are on or
near the Atlantic coast; also why, adds Otto Muck in his "Secret
of Atlantis", many north, and some south, Native American cultures
have also been of Cro-Magnon type, making Atlantis "the empire
of the red-skinned man", They, and later variants of "modern
man", went on arriving down to the end of the last Ice Age.
The migrations ended at about this point (8-10,000 BC) when their
homeland, Atlantis, sank; the ensuing rise in sea-level flooded
the large coastal shelves everywhere and the large atmospheric dust-cloud
from the hypothetical asteroid caused a long dark age over northern
Europe. The megalithic cultures started after 6,000 BC. Evidence
is abundant, from the relative lack of advanced artifacts and cave-art
from c. 8-10,000 to c. 6, 000 BC, of a serious interruption to European
civilization at this point. The ancient Greek references to a mysterious,
gloomy "land of Hades" where the Hyperboreans, "beyond
the north wind", lived, could be a dim memory of a dark land
cut off from much of the Sun's rays in the aftermath of the cataclysm.
back to top
11. "THE PEAKS OF SUNKEN LANDS":
THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS
Many other noted classical authors write of Atlantis and clearly
accept it as a fact. These include Philo Judaeus (20 BC - AD 40),
Claudius Aelianus (third century BC), Tertullian AD 160-240) and
possibly Homer and Theopompus. But there is more direct evidence.
Charles Berlitz, to whom I am much indebted for inspiration and
information, points out in his "Mystery of Atlantis" that
there is much from the very remnants of Atlantis itself —
the Atlantic islands. When the Canary Islands were discovered in
the fourteenth century, the people said they thought all humanity
had died in a great flood, save their own home, the tips of mountains
which had remained above water. They had a monarchy of ten kings,
like Atlantis; built red, white and black houses, mummified their
dead, built circular forts and canals, and had a written alphabetical
language: all things associated with Atlantis. The Canaries would
have been remnants of one or more of the south-eastern outlying
islands of the Atlantean Empire.
The Azores were probably the remnants of the main island: Otto Muck,
the distinguished German geologist, scientist and inventor, draws
in his scholarly "Secret of Atlantis" a detailed parallel
between the Azores Plateau island and Plato's island. Amongst other
things which Plato mentions, the Azores have black, white and red
rocks; hot springs; temperate climate; fertile fruit crops; and
the great mountain, now Pico Alto. The Azores as a whole, great
mountains emerging straight from the sea, have the look of the peaks
of sunken lands. On the sea-bed below, up to two miles down, the
jagged and sharp mountainous terrain suggests recent submergence,
as over millions of years it would have been smoothed out by erosion.
I am also told by a friend of mine who went to the Azores frequently
that the snaking paths of river-beds can still be traced offshore
on the shallow sea-bed of the Plateau, showing that the area was
once on the surface. Berlitz reports that flyers, on the very occasional
glassy-calm day, can see what seem to be rectangular shapes, as
if sunken buildings of unknown origin, The Russian Seamount photographs
cane therefore as a confirmation of an already likely theory, first
scientifically researched by the Royal Naval survey ship "Challenger"
in the last century. Its crew, like the then Prime Minister William
Gladstone, were convinced they had found either Atlantis, or something
eerily corresponding to it. back
to top
12. "THE STONES OF ATLANTIS"
— SUBMERGED RUINS AT BIMINI
As if this is not enough, we have the extraordinary finds at Bimini
in the Bahamas, probably one of the colonial outlying islands of
Atlantis. The "Bimini Wall" was first discovered by the
naturalist, explorer and diver J. Manson Valentine, and written
up in Berlitz's books. It was further explored by Dr, David Zink
in his remarkable "Stones of Atlantis", published by W.
H. Alien in 1978. It is a clearly artificial paved stone "road"
in a "J" shape, about thirty feet down in sea-bed last
thought to have been on the surface before the rise in sea level
at the end of the last Ice Age, c. 8-10,000 B.C. Dr. Valentine,
as reported in chapter eight of Berlitz1 s "Atlantis —
the Lost Continent Revealed", thinks it was a ceremonial road
leading to a special site, as with the Mayan one, the Sacbe, a raised
causeway in Yucatan which goes on for over a quarter of a mile undersea.
It was only one of veil over thirty areas containing what he calls
"ghost patterns", vague patterns in the seabed too deeply
buried to be traced in detail, including large rectangles connected
by straight lines, comparable in some ways to the Lines of Nazca
in Peru. He has researched them since 1958. He thinks they were
built by a widespread prehistoric race that could transport cyclopean
megaliths in a mysterious way, such as (later) Stonehenge, Baalbek
in Lebanon (c. 200 tons), or Tiahuanaco, over two miles up in in
Bolivia.
Finely cut stone blocks and a "stylized head" have been
brought to the surface by Dr. Zink at Bimini, who has also pointed
out an amazing vertical plinth arising out of the seabed which could
not be a natural object. All this fulfils the prediction of the
famous American psychic Edgar Cayce, who said, speaking in the 1930s,
that evidence of Atlantis would be found at Bimini in 1968-9 —
which is when in was, in fact, first definitely discovered. Further
south, off Florida under some three hundred feet of ocean, a massive
pyramid, it is claimed, has been found by the depth finder of a
fishing boat. Berlitz estimates a total of between fifty and sixty
unexplained underwater stone walls, roads and circles in the Caribbean
and Bahamas areas: in fact, over the continental shelves of the
Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific coast of South America, extraordinary
evidence is being found of the remains of an incredibly ancient
megalithic civilization with, at least, extensive seaborne communications
and trade. back to top
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