But the real existence of this enormous sunken continent in the region of Indonesia – right where Plato and other ancient authorities placed it all the time – proves that, at least in this case, these ancient traditions were all mainly founded on actual fact.
So, the reality of the words of the great philosopher Plato cannot be doubted anymore by those informed on such matters, or by those who take the trouble to verify the facts which we are presenting here and in other chapters of the present book.
In particular, please note in the above map the huge chunk of land – of continental dimensions – to the south of Southeast Asia, which became sunken when the sea level rose at the end of the Pleistocene.
Another sizable hunk of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second Atlantis, also disappeared then, at the end of the Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago, which, as we have already commented, is also the exact date given by Plato in his seminal dialogues on Atlantis. Another portion of this region disappeared later, at the start of the Kali Yuga, some 5,100 years ago.
No other region in the world displays a similar feature: an entire semi-submerged land of continental extension. And this includes the region of the Americas (not shown) as well as several others. The only logical conclusion is that Atlantis could only have been located in the Indonesian region of the world. This, unless Plato was in fact speaking lies in his very detailed description of the Lost Continent, and was wildly exaggerating the dimensions of sunken Atlantis.
But if Plato was wrong or lying or inventing, his dialogues are worth very little, and should in fact be ranged alongside certain charming novels and romances of antiquity which speak of similar fairylands: the Epic of Gilgamesh; the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Odyssey, the Iliad, etc., etc..
By the sheer weight of the scientific evidence confirming many of the descriptions Plato gave of Atlantis, we can safely assume that what Plato wrote may have been slightly embellished by his poetic brain, but was not altogether mere fiction or invention or lies. To think otherwise would be to believe in the far more improbable series of coincidences that our detailed researches of this theme have brought to light.
As the several maps illustrated above show, a huge extension – visibly of continental size and as large as Australia itself – prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia, to which it was attached in the Ice Age. This continent-sized land was indeed “larger than Asia [Minor] and Libya [North Africa] put together”, exactly as Plato affirms.
Plato’s usage of the term “island” (nêsos) to describe the Lost Continent was in consonance with his times, and really referred to what we nowadays improperly call “continents”, since they in fact contain no oceans and are entirely surrounded by sea water on all sides, just as islands actually are.
This usage of the word “island” is actually instanced in Plato himself, and in the Platonics of later times. An example is Cicero, who utilizes the word in this connection in his remarkable Scipio’s Dream. Even Aristotle, the most famous of Plato’s disciples, uses the word nêsos (Greek for “island”) thus in his famous De Mundo. And so does Theopompos, another Greek author contemporary of Plato.
This sunken continent is here seen to have been about two or three times larger than India, itself a large expanse of land of continental size. And it was also far larger than the continent of Australia itself, here shown somewhat exaggerated due to the peculiarities of the cartographic projection (Mercator’s) utilized in this map of ours.
The Great Rift and Hesiod’s Khasma Mega
The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays observe are really the unsunken relicts of Atlantis. They are in fact the lofty volcanic mountains which became the volcanic islands of this region, the true site of Paradise spoken of in all ancient traditions.
The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy, shallow bottoms of the South China Sea and the Java Sea in the Indonesian region. It is encircled by the islands of Indonesia and forms the boundary of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.
Indonesia is part of the volcanic “Fire Belt” which serves as a sort of wall or fence separating the two oceans (Indian and Pacific) and the two worlds (East and West) which they delimited.
Then, as now, Indonesia formed the divide of the New and the Ancient Worlds. Indonesia was also what the ancients called the Ultima Thule (“Ultimate Divide”). Thule also corresponded to what our elders named the “Pillars of Hercules”, which, according to Plato, were placed “just in front of Atlantis”.
The “Pillars of Hercules” in Gibraltar and in the Bosphorus (or Bosporus) are of course no more than mere replicas or copies of the real Pillars of Hercules (and/or Atlas). The true “Pillars of Hercules” are those of Sunda Strait, the one leading to the interior of the Atlantean continent, in Indonesia. Sunda Strait is the very location of the Krakatoa volcano.
And the Krakatoa is the “pillar of heaven” whose giant explosion caused the demise of Atlantis and also triggered the catastrophic end of the last Pleistocene Ice Age.
The other “Pillar of Hercules”, its dual, was in fact Mt. Dempo, the other volcano flanking Sunda Strait, in the region between Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia. But in a former era, this other “pillar of heaven” was the Toba Volcano, which likewise destroyed the world when it exploded and collapsed into its giant caldera.
These Pillars of Hercules were also the impassable frontier between the Old and the New Worlds, separating, as they then did, the Ocean in two separate halves: the Indian in the west, and the Pacific in the east. These two separate world-halves are often mentioned in the Rig Veda. And they were also long called “Orient” and “Occident” in the ancient traditions.
These two “worlds” (or rather, “world-halves”) of antiquity are in fact sundered by the volcanic island arc of Indonesia. These volcanic islands are truly the boundary of the Tectonic Plates that form the continents of the region. And they were often personified by “heroes” such as Purusha, Vishnu, Shiva, and, of course, Atlas and Hercules, their Greco-Roman counterparts.
This impassable barrier to navigation, in the region of Atlantis is also insistently mentioned by Plato and several other ancient sources on Atlantis, often under disguises as the ones of the Odyssey (Scylla and Charybdis), the Vadavamukha (or “Submarine Mare”) of Hindu traditions, etc..
These pillars or pylons actually flanked the strait which allowed the passage of ships from one side of the world to the other. We will return to this subject in more detail in Part III of the present book.
The myth of Hercules ripping open the Strait of Gibraltar during the course of his tenth labor (the rustling of Geryon’s cattle) is really a copy of identical Javanese myths of an extreme antiquity and of other Hindu myths, which can be traced back to the Rig Veda itself.
This Javanese legend is told in detail in the Pustaka Raja Purwa (“Book of the Ancient Dynasties”) and there refers to the opening of Sunda Strait by a prehistoric eruption of the Krakatoa Volcano followed by ground subsidence and the formation of the strait. ↑020
The very fact that this book’s title is in Sanskrit unequivocally betrays its Hindu origin, and attests the fact that Indonesia was still part of India’s empire when it was originally written, probably a very long time ago. The event even figures in the Rig Veda, in the verse quoted above on Indra having “split open the belly of the mountains” like some volcano.
Some researchers, for instance David Keys and Ken Wohletz, to whom we will return later on, believe that this giant eruption corresponds to the one which, in 535 AD, caused the demise of the Byzantine Empire. But this claim is actually impossible, as this legend on Sunda’s opening is far prior to that date, dating from Classical antiquity or even before.
In contrast to the opening of Gibraltar Strait – which was not formed by any volcanoes and actually dates from far before the times of Man (5.2 million years ago) – the opening of Sunda Strait by a giant volcanism was real, and really dates from relatively recent tim
es such as the Late Pleistocenic dates in question here.
The great rift that came to separate the islands of Java and Sumatra was caused by the subsidence of the Krakatoa volcano, which turned into a giant submarine caldera. This submarine caldera – which the Hindus equate with the Vadavamukha – presently forms the so-called Sunda
Strait.
This great rift separating (or linking) the two world-halves was very well known to the ancients. Hesiod called it Khasma Mega (“Great Rift”), a designative he somehow learnt from the ancient Hindus. This people called it (in Sanskrit) by names such as Abhvan (“Great Abyss”), Kalamukha (“Black Hole”), Aurva (“Fiery Pit”) Vadava-mukha (“Fiery Submarine Mare”), and so on.
This Great Abyss is also the same one that the Egyptians called Nun, and which the Mesopotamians named Apzu (“Abyss”). Hesiod and several other ancient authorities place this Khaos (“Divide”) or Khasma Mega at the world’s divide, at the very entrance to Hell (Tartarus). And Hell – or Hades or Tartarus, or Cimmeria, etc. – was the name applied by the ancients to the region of Paradise Destroyed. There were located, as Hesiod mentions, the three realms of space: Heaven, Hell and Earth, coexisting side by side, in different dimensions.
Hesiod also places, in his Theogony, Atlas and his Pillar (Mt. Atlas) in the gloomy spot where the ancient navigators such as Ulysses and the Argonauts all met their doom. As we said above, this terrifying Black Hole – the archetype of all such that haunt Man’s imagination since remotest antiquity – is indeed the Krakatoa’s fiery caldera, ready to revive at Doom, at least in Hindu traditions on the Vadava-mukha.
A famous Jataka (Buddhist collection of traditional tales) tells the story of Supparaka, the best of sailors, himself one of the many avatars of Buddha. In the course of his navigations in the South Seas, Supparaka one day reached the region known as the Vadavamukha, the fiery Gate of Hell.
The Vadavamukha is in fact the giant submerged caldera of the Krakatoa volcano, the one lurking inside the Strait of Sunda, separating Java and Sumatra. And Supparaka and his ship were miraculously saved at the last moment, when escape already seemed impossible.
This story somehow early reached ancient Greece, where it was converted by Homer into the saga of Ulysses and his navigations in the South Seas region, the masterful Odyssey. In the course of his navigations, Ulysses also met a similar feature, which Homer names Charybdis, the Maelstrom of Death.
Ulysses’ ship was wrecked, and his crew were all killed. But the hero himself was also saved by a miraculous intervention of Ino or Leucothea, the White Goddess who herself personifies Atlantis’ paideuma. Similar maritime features, the Symplegades or Cyanean Rocks, were also met by Jason and the Argonauts, who were apparently sailing the same Far Eastern region of the world as Ulysses.
Anyone who bothers to compare the details of Homer’s poem with the Jataka tale just named will not fail to realize that both originated from a common source of immense antiquity.
And since the actual geographical feature – the Vadavamukha – really exists in the region of Indonesia, and not in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic Ocean, it is rather logical to suppose that the charming tale originated there, and somehow got transferred to Greece in very pristine times, the ones of Homer and Orpheus.
We also find a very similar relation in the so-called Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. This tale, which figures in the very early traditions of ancient Egypt, is both strange and traditional. As is clear, these sacred traditions originated in the region of Indonesia, diffusing to the whole of the Old World quite early in time. And only a civilization capable of roving these distant seas would be able to carry out this early process of diffusion of sacred traditions on former paradisial locations.
Chapter 3 - What Really Happened During the Last Pleistocenic Ice Age?
In the Beginning the Golden Womb arose...
And held sundered Earth and Sky...
He propped up the skies, creating space...
The Rig Veda (10:121)
Let us here recapitulate briefly what actually happened during the Pleistocene Ice Age, for its true significance seems to have escaped the notice not only of scientists but also of all Atlantologists so far. This is how Ice Ages start. Converted into clouds by the sun, sea water is carried (as clouds) into the continents by the wind, where it pours down as either rain, hail or snow.
If conditions are right, as they were then, during the Ice Age, this rain water is then retained in glaciers which end up covering the temperate regions of the world in a shroud of ice that is generally one or two miles thick. Deprived of so much water, sea level consequently drops by the huge amount of 130–150 meters and even more, exposing the shallower seafloors all over the world. Normally, this fall amounts to a few millimeters or less.
This exposure was the case of the South China Sea, whose depth seldom exceeds 60 meters or so, as shown in the map of page 46 above or the global one of Fig. 1 and 2 in our Atlantis site. When the Ice Age ends, this process is reversed. The glaciers melt away, and their meltwater quickly drains off into the sea. In consequence, the previously exposed bottoms which had turned into dry land become submerged once again.
As is easy to see, the world works as some kind of electronic flipflop or swing, forever oscillating between these two extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly enough, it is Life itself that re-equilibrates the balance, introducing a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to freeze or to sizzle, much as happens, say, in Venus and Mars, our two nearest neighbors in the Solar System.
For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called Greenhouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling Venus, whose present atmosphere is almost pure CO2. And this extra CO2 may well have been introduced by the fall of a comet whose body consisted of this gas, perhaps mixed with water and other substances.
In contrast, in gelid Mars, whose atmosphere (and Life) was very probably all lost in a tremendous cataclysm – seemingly caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size – the opposite swing apparently took place, again permanently killing all life there.
Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 content of the atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow more luxuriantly, fixing and removing the excess of atmospheric carbon dioxide inside themselves, and thus alleviating the situation of excess CO2.
The opposite process happens if the CO2 content of the atmosphere is catastrophically reduced for some reason. Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter – mainly the plankton in the seas, rather than really the tropical forests, as most experts think – decreases, liberating the excess CO2. This release increases its atmospheric content, tending to restore earth’s temperature back to its normal value.
However, this negative feedback compensation by Life only works within very narrow limits, and any excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age, as is fast becoming apparent to experts now that we have discovered how these things really work.
As with flipflops and balances, this transition is enhanced by positive feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations which are, once again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again.
For instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 in them is strongly decreased, and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase earth’s temperature, and vice-versa. Moreover, an ice cover effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature consequently drops, the glaciers further increase, until they cover all the temperate regions of the whole earth.
The Actual Cause of the Ice Ages
In the absence of Life, we have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. The causes of the Ice Ages and of the periodic advance and retreat of the continental glaciers is not presently well-known. But, at least to believe the ancient myths, the en
d of the Pleistocene Ice Age was in fact triggered by the cataclysmic explosion of Mt. Atlas, the one which wiped Atlantis out of the map.
Mount Atlas – “the Pillar of Heaven” which was the pride of Lemurian Atlantis – was an immense volcanic peak in the region that now corresponds to the island arc of Indonesia. To be more precise, this volcanic peak was first the Toba, then the terrible Krakatoa. Both supervolcanoes are still very much alive and highly active even today, despite their monumental explosions and cave-ins in Atlantean times.
Similar huge cataclysms of global import in this remote region of the world are also testified by the tektite belt and the volcanic ash layer that cover most of the South Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia, as well as much other more local evidence. 4
The ashes and dust liberated by the gigantic explosion of the Krakatoa volcano were carried away by the winds, eventually settling to cover the glaciers of North Asia and North America with a dark veil of ashes, carbonized matter and soot. The result was an increased absorption of sunlight and a quick melting away of the glaciers that covered all the continents beyond the tropical regions themselves.
The process of glacier melting was far from uniform, as many geologists of the Darwinian school tend to think. The meltwaters of the glaciers quickly flowed back into the seas, creating huge stresses between the overloaded sea bottom and the alleviated continents. Earth’s crust cracked and rifted in many places, again giving rise to volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis of unprecedented proportions.
And this violent process continued, impelled by its own momentum until it was finally complete and the earth had quit the last Ice Age. In the course of this terrible event – the same one that the myths call the Universal Flood – over 70% of the species of great mammals became extinct.
Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found Page 9