Actually, we present this proposal to the dear readers as mere food for thought and as an inquest on matters never before researched. However, my example – regardless of being realistic or not – also shows that only a people of navigators, capable of roving the whole world, could be capable of devising such a schematic world model. The very idea of global oceans and continents would never arise in a people confined to a small region of the earth, regardless of its location.
Besides, why would the ancients also develop and implement the concept of an International Dateline if they lived confined to a small region of the earth, as supposed by the current doctrines on human development and on human prehistory? Moreover, the very fact that this pristine International Dateline was placed in Indonesia (Lanka) singles this place out as the true site of the capital city of Atlantis’ worldwide empire.
And we further note that the Hindu dvipas are also concentric like the ones of Atlantis, which they closely evoke. These dvipas are known to represent the paradisial continents and the seas surrounding them. What this close geometric identity tends to show is the fact that the Greek symbolism expounded by Plato actually derives, one way or the other, from the Hindu paradisial dvipas just illustrated. ↑045
The Sacred Geometry of Atlantis in America and Elsewhere
The drawing below shows the ruins of a temple of the Pueblos, the most ancient Indians of Colorado, in the USA. Before the arrival of the
first whites, the region was inhabited by these Indians. The Pueblos had agriculture, and were remarkably advanced.
The Pueblo Indians left many ruins of their remarkable temples (kivas) and of their cave habitations in the mountains, which probably served as refuges and citadels, rather than everyday homes and temples. Many of these fortified houses were built with bricks, and several such ruins survive even today.
These Indians were later driven out by the Spaniards, and other wild, nomadic Indian tribes moved into the vacuum left by their predecessors. This region of the USA was long associated with the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, which the greedy conquistadors soon identified to the ones of Eldorado.
Eldorado (“Golden One”, in Spanish) is of course an alias of Atlantis, and other such golden realms including Cipango, Ophir, Taprobane, Chryse, and so on. In fact, the very name of Cibola can be traced back to the Dravida civ-pola (“golden city”). The legend of the Golden Realm had somehow reached the Americas already in pre-Columbian times via cultural diffusion.
The mythical Seven Cities of Cibola are also visibly the same as the Seven Islands of the Blest, also often associated with the legend of Taprobane. The name of Taprobane derives from the Sanskrit tamra-parna and the Dravida tamara-parana, and means the same as “golden peninsula”. As is clear, all these names and all these mythical locations are one and the same: the fabled golden realm of Atlantis-Eden.
The curious shape of the temple herein illustrated leaves little room for doubting its direct connection with Atlantis and its triple circular walls described by Plato. We also find such triple enclosures all over the Old World, for instance in the famous megalithic ruins of Stonehenge and Avebury (England).
Actually, the Pueblos’ temple shape is a stylized map of the world, illustrating the three concentric oceans and the three strips of land which contain them. We already commented this important issue in the above entry, to which the interested reader is now directed.
Chapter 7 – Atlantis in Ancient Maps
You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.
Plato (427 BC–347 BC)
The Idealized Maps of Atlantis
The above quaint map shows an idealized rendering of the “island” of Atlantis as conceived by Athanasius Kircher, the famous Renaissance Jesuit. It illustrated his book on sunken lands and global disasters, entitled Mundus Subterraneus, published in Amsterdam in 1665 AD. This map is typical of the many ones found just about anywhere. All such “maps
of Atlantis” or of “Lemuria” are purely imaginary and only show idealized concepts which only exist in the minds of their authors.
Kircher was a very well informed polymath, who dabbled in many sciences, both occult and exact. Among his many scientific endeavors lies the attempt to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, long before other sages attempted to do so, Champollion included.
The reader should please note that Kircher’s map is inverted, so that south is up and north is down, just as indicated by the compass’ needle there. This convention was usual in antiquity, and was later inverted for a series of reasons. Due to this inversion, Gibraltar, along with Africa and Spain (Hispania), lies to the left, and America to the right. The Latin legend on top the map reads: “Site of the island of Atlantis, anciently swallowed by the sea, as conceived by the mind of the Egyptians, according to
Plato’s description.”
We note that Kircher’s ideal Atlantis consists of a huge island or continent in the mid-Atlantic region. More recent oceanographic research has indubitably shown that no such lands or even any large islands ever existed in this region of the world, which has been most thoroughly studied for military purposes. The only islands in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are the Azores, which some researchers have in fact identified to Atlantis. But this identification is impossible, as is easy to show.
The Azores rise directly from the ocean floor, more than three thousand meters below. The Azores are an integral part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and consist of semi-submarine basaltic matter created by the upwelling magma that rises, rather than sinks from the boundaries of the plates meeting there.
Kircher’s map was shown here as a vivid testimony that the midAtlantic placement of Atlantis, like the one of Spain, is centuries old and that people such as Ignatius Donnelly were just reviving far older proposals. But this mid-Atlantic location, like those in the Mediterranean Sea, or off or on the coasts of Spain, Morocco and so forth, was mainly the result of a gross misinterpretation of Plato’s text.
As just stated, all such maps are no more than sheer idealizations, free creations of the mind of their researchers. They are based on no geological or geographical evidence whatsoever, and have no foundation in fact or evidence of any kind.
So, they must be rejected by the savvy readers, at least until more solid evidence is provided by their proponents, very much as we did ourselves. The possibility of mid-Atlantic locations has been thoroughly refuted by all sorts of scientific investigations, including the recent ones
obtained by means of outer space satellites. These satellites are now quite capable of spying the seafloor in detail, directly.
In contrast to Kircher’s map and others such, my detailed map of the sunken continent of Atlantis was derived from several oceanographic studies of the region of Indonesia, where I succeeded in locating Atlantis. These studies included the earlier ones done by oceanographic ships and subs, as well as the more recent by the NOAA’s and NASA’s spy satellites just mentioned.
Hence, regardless of the existence of Atlantis there or elsewhere, my maps of the seafloor of the region of Indonesia are both reliable and accurate, and must be accepted by all. The fact that my maps also firmly establish the reality of Plato’s claim in both date and continental extension, as well as on the actual nature and worldwide extension of the Atlantean cataclysm, is also a strong confirmation that the great philosopher in fact well knew what he was talking about.
Homer, Crates and the Map of Hecatæus of Miletus
These figures reproduce both the map of Hecatæus of Miletus (c. 500
BC) and the famous globe of Crates of Mallus (170 BC). This globe was per-
haps the first such ever to be fabricated. Hecatæus’ geographical work was freely ripped by Herodotus in his History. So, it was quite familiar to the educated Greeks of Plato’s time, including the philosopher himself. ↑046
As the map of Heca
taeus shows, there was no island – great or small – before Gibraltar Strait, here called Pillars of Hercules. So, how could Plato affirm precisely the opposite, and foolishly place immense Atlantis at this mouth to the Ocean without giving any explanation for this strange notion? Would Plato so risk being taken for a fool?
Hecatæus’ world conception also closely parallels Homer’s. Homer was of course a poet and no geographer, and cared little for such technicalities. Hence, Homer limited himself to describing the world as it was then conceived, in a somewhat idealized form full of poetic license.
This description of the world was by him masterfully done in the famous passage of the Iliad (18:478). According to it, Hephaistos, the divine smith and artificer, fashioned the shield of Achilles as a replica of the world itself: a flat disk of earth completely surrounded by water, the Ocean.
Some ancients – among them Plato, Eratosthenes and Cosmas (see next two entries) – placed a strip of environing land on the far side of the Ocean, in order to prevent its waters from spilling over into space.
In this picture, the world consisted of a circular island at the center, surrounded by the Circular Ocean, having a concentric strip of land on the outside. This strip was the Peirata Gês (“Encircling Land”) which most experts believe to be the Americas. This picture of the world closely resembles the inner portion of the plan of Atlantis’ capital city, as discussed in the entry for its map shown above.
The land is shown as limited to the oecumene and is almost perfectly circular. It is entirely encircled by the Ocean (Oceanus, its Latin name). The oecumene (or Old World) is, as shown in the map, composed of Europe (Europa), Africa (Libya) and Asia (Asia). Africa has been foreshortened to the portion above the equator. And Asia has been even more reduced, to little more than Arabia and India.
In reality, the map of Eratosthenes does not represent the whole world, but only one of its quadrants. This fact can be seen in the globe of Crates of Mallus illustrated above, where the Classical Greek conceptions are far more clearly represented. Here, the world is composed of four quadrants or “islands”: the Oecumene, the Perioeci, the Antoeci and the Antipodes.
The word “island” which I used here literally corresponds to the Greek nêsos, rather than its usual English meaning. The Greek word embodies the ideas which we nowadays express as either “islands” proper and “con-
tinents”, in the sense of large extensions of land entirely surrounded by water.
The idea is apparently derived from the fact that the four “islands” shown are in fact separated from each other either by the line of the equator or by oceans. It is also precisely in this sense that Plato referred to Atlantis as being an “island”, even though the philosopher unequivocally affirms its continental size as being “larger than Asia and Libya put together.” “Put together”, and never “midway”, as some suggest.
The above usage of the word was also adopted by several other Platonists: Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch and Macrobius, among others. Even conservative geographers such as Strabo – who specifically calls the oecumene (or Old World) an “island” (nêsos; Geogr. I:1:8.) – used the term in Plato’s context. And this concept probably derived from the fact that Crates’ four quadrants were in fact deemed absolutely isolated from each other by impassable barriers formed by water or by dismal deserts (cf. I:2:24f.). ↑047
Strabo apparently refers to this fact in the above passage when he says that, even though “It is unlikely that the Atlantic Ocean is divided into two seas, thus being separated by isthmuses so narrow as to prevent the circumnavigation; it is more likely that it is one confluent and continuous sea.” The ships which attempted this crossing departing from one side or the other (east and west) gave up and desisted, “because of their utter destitution and loneliness.”
Moreover, the ancient relations all converge on the fact that the Ocean could not be crossed in any way, except in a supernatural way. This tradition figures, among others, in the Rig Veda and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, both of which are among the oldest texts now extant. Crates’ world view is crucial for reconstructing these ancient conceptions of the world which are so often misinterpreted by everyone.
The southern portion of Africa is here deemed separated from the northern one at the equator, and visibly corresponds to the Antoeci (“those who live opposite the Oecumene”).
The Antoeci correspond to the black Africans, separated from the white Africans (Libyans) by the Sahara Desert. This is probably the “torrid zone” illustrated by Crates. The same conception was adopted by other ancient geographers, for instance Strabo and Pomponius Mela. Mela specifically identifies the Antoeci with the Antichthones, as can be seen in his map. ↑048
In fact, this term (Antoeci) was also loosely used to designate the Antipodes in general. A close reading of Strabo’s text on the name of
“Ethiopian” being applicable to all peoples living south of the equator suggest that the Antipodes were in fact identical with the Ethiopians in general. If so, the Atlanteans – who also lived in the Southern Hemisphere, as we have shown – were Ethiopians, regardless of being easterners or westerners.
The Perioeci (“those who live near the Oecumene”) probably correspond to the Americas. This is easy to see in Crates’ globe illustrated above. Finally, the Antipodes (“those who have the soles of their feet opposite ours”) apparently corresponds to the now sunken continent of Atlantis, alias Australasia. Again, this fact is easy to deduce from Crates’ remarkable globe, given that Australasia is actually antipodal to Greece.
Australasia was placed at the southern hemisphere, just as is the case of the sunken continent of Atlantis which I discovered to lie in the region of present-day Indonesia, a part of it. So, at least geographically speaking, my siting of Atlantis makes far more sense than the usual ones, at least in a Platonic context.
Several Platonic philosophers actually identified the Atlanteans with the Antipodes or Antichthones. For instance, Thomas More actually places his Utopia – an obvious alias of Atlantis – in an antipodal region close to the East Indies. More, a close friend of Erasmus, was also a fervent admirer of the Platonics Marsilio Ficino and Pico de la Mirandola, whose works he translated into English.
So, it is quite easy to deduce whence More drew the inspiration for his famous initiatic short novel. Very much the same thing can be said of Francis Bacon who places his New Atlantis in the Far East, beyond the Pacific Ocean. So, Tommaso Campanella, who places his City of the Sun – another Utopian Atlantis – right in the middle of Taprobane. It was facts like these that led me to seek Atlantis in this part of the world. After all, who but the Platonics of all times should know more about the Lost Continent?
Curiously enough, the problem of whether the Antipodes existed or not as a physical reality ultimately derives from the similar controversy on whether Atlantis really existed or not. The Antipodes are, as we now know, the Atlanteans themselves. Even the name of Atlantis is intimately connected with the ones of Antilia, Antipodes, Antoeci, Antichthon, etc., all of which mean “antipodal”.
The suffix -anti(s) of its name suffices to demonstrate this fact when the surplus -s is eliminated. So, Atlantis is really the paradisial “land opposite” mentioned by Cosmas Indicopleustes in his map. The main idea of the word anti- corresponds to “opposite, antipodal”.
Moreover, the very name of Atlantis is actually synonymous with it, being ultimately derived from the Dravida attal-anti meaning “having the feet (attal-) opposite (anti)”. Put otherwise, the name of Atlantis literally means the same thing as “antipodal”.
As can be seen in this excellent monograph on the globe of Crates of Mallus here, the Ethiopians are also intimately connected with the antipodal location of Atlantis. Crates, who was a great expert on Homer’s Odyssey, placed the Ethiopians near the line of the equator, on both sides of it. Like Homer, Crates also spoke of twin Ethiopias. And Homer placed them one in the Far East, the other one in the Far West. ↑049
In order to e
xegetize Homer’s passage: “The Ethiopians who dwell sundered in twain, the farthermost of men”, Crates supposed that they lived at the two opposite shores of the Ocean, one on the farthest west, the other one in the farthest east. Crates’ description is intentionally garbled since, as a Platonic, the illustrious grammarian was prevented from speaking clearly on these forbidden matters.
By “farthermost”, Homer specifically meant the fringes of the world, one on the far west (at Gibraltar), the other one in the far east (Indonesia or Taprobane). And this agrees with Diodorus Siculus’ text on Atlantis which we comment in detail in the main text. Diodorus too places the Atlanteans at the farthermost fringes of the world, on the banks of the ocean.
If one looks at Crates’ globe, it is easy to see that the Eastern Ethiopians were located on the far side of the ocean, at the Antipodes, whereas the Western Ethiopians were located in west Africa, more or less in the region corresponding to present day Morocco and Mauritania. If this is right, we see that these Ethiopians are the Libyans and Berbers, etc., that is, whites, rather than blacks.
In turn, the Eastern Ethiopians actually are the Tocharians (or Yüeh-chi, etc.) of China and Taprobane. These peoples are also called Hephthalites or White Huns. They are tall, blond and blue-eyed, and look like Nordic Aryans or Guanches in essentially all features. But they are actually partly Dravida in origin, despite their looks and their language (Tocharian), which is part Aryan, part Dravida.
Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found Page 15