Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found

by Arysio Santos

  This early invasion by the Ethiopians is also very probably akin to the one reported by Theopompos, another contemporary of Plato. Though Theopompos places the event in mythical terms, his tradition on the Eusebes is very obviously the same as the historical one just told.

  And this tradition is very clearly based upon reality, the two “Ethiopias” being now known for sure to have both existed, just as affirmed by Homer. Moreover, the White Ethiopians (or Seres) very obviously came from the Far East, just as told by Ephorus.

  Philostratus (Vit. Apol. II:33f), affirms that “The Indians are the wisest of mankind. The Ethiopians are a colony of them, and they inherit the wisdom of their fathers.” The Ethiopia in question here is really Indonesia, in fact early settled by the Indians, who apparently originated there. In fact, the Dravidian colony mentioned here is due to their return to the region, during the Middle Ages.

  Plato’s source was most probably the same as those of Ephorus and Theopompos, among others. And these sources visibly date from the times of Homer, if not far earlier still. This tradition harks back to the times when the Libyo-Phoenicians first settled in Africa, in prehistoric times, which is certainly prior to the rise of dynastic Egypt, as demonstrated by the Amratian vase illustrated here.

  So, the recent attempts by some Atlantologists to identify Plato’s account of the Atlantean invasion to the one of the Sea Peoples in about 1,300 BC is wrong, as it is irremediably too late to account for the far earlier traditions on the Ethiopian invasion reported by both Ephorus and Diodorus.

  However, this myth of the twin Ethiopias also allegorized the dualism of Atlantis and its famous pillars. One of these pairs was located in the Far Orient, the other one in the Far Occident. The western pillars were those of Gibraltar, and the western Mt. Atlas was the well-known one of Morocco. Both these features were purely metaphorical, and were simple “mirror images” of the true ones, located in Taprobane.

  Taprobane, the former site of Lanka, is the same as Indonesia. There the new day started by convention. The true “Pillar of Heaven” was located there, inside Sunda Strait. It corresponded to Mt. Krakatoa, the ferocious volcano, whose giant plume can be seen in this magnificent computer simulation here, made by an expert volcanologist working in the famous national research institute at Los Alamos. ↑055

  The huge size and shape of the “pillar of fire and smoke” created by Krakatoa’s giant explosion allow us to understand why such unique features were called “Pillar of Heaven” in antiquity. And the real two Pillars of Hercules were the two sides of the island or mountain which flank the volcano, the Split Mountain of Paradise.

  This strait (Sunda) is often compared to a gate or door (Gate of Dawn) and its two side islands (Java and Sumatra) are compared to its two pylons or pillars. This gate with its two swinging doors and its two pylons, is just as illustrated here. This swinging gate is the counterpart of the Split Mountain (Mt. Mashu), the mountain of Shamash (the Sun). We discuss this important subject in the main text, and will not repeat this discussion here. ↑056

  This name also applies to the two volcanoes which flank Sunda Strait, the Dempo and the Krakatoa. Sometimes the Toba volcano is substituted for one of the pillars, even though it belonged to a former era. In even earlier times, in the Ice Age, before Sunda Strait was opened, the strait leading into Atlantis – the real Gate of Paradise – was the strait between Bali and Lombok (Lombok Strait).

  This strait is part of the famous Wallace Line, the passage which remained open even when all others closed out. When the Ice Age ended, and the Krakatoa exploded, opening up Sunda Strait, both the name and the function was transferred to this new Gate of Dawn and its two pylons, the two volcanoes just named.

  This disastrous supervolcanic explosion of the Krakatoa actually triggered the catastrophic end of the last Ice Age. In some way, the tradition of this Indonesian event passed to Greece as the myth of Hercules opening up Gibraltar Strait after he crossed the former isthmus during his return from Erytheia driving the cattle he had stolen from Geryon, his former elder self (Grk. geryon = “elder, older”).

  One should keep in mind the many millennia which elapsed since these myths were first composed, perhaps in Atlantean times. People moved a lot and one civilization succeeded the other as time inexorably flowed. But they invariably carried along their sacred traditions, the very foundation of the ancient Mystery Religions. Hence, a lot of change would naturally result, no matter what.

  Myths are often transferred from one place to another in this way, leading to a terrible confusion which few if any experts manage to overcome in practice. We have already discussed this subject in the main text, and the interested reader is directed to it, as well as the related glosses of the Classical maps discussed further above.

  The Global Extent of the Former Atlantean Empire

  This remarkable figure reproduces the map of Leo Frobenius (1873– 1938). Leo Frobenius is the great German archaeologist who specialized on Atlantis. He left behind many thousands of written pages and similar numbers of archaeological artefacts he had uncovered during the great many expeditions he personally led around the whole world, Black Africa in particular.

  The great researcher came to the surprising result that Atlantis was formerly located in Benin, in West Africa. Frobenius was also able to trace the vestiges of what he believed to be the Atlantean Culture extending all the way to the most distant places in the world, the Americas included, as shown in the map below.

  Still another important contribution made by Leo Frobenius consisted in demonstrating the fact that contacts between the Old World and the New were effected via the Pacific Ocean, rather than across the Atlantic Ocean, a dead region insofar as ancient navigation was concerned.

  This reality has now been abundantly confirmed by several expert researchers. The crossing of the wide Pacific Ocean has now been shown to be viable even in primitive vessels, such as the ones used by Thor Heyerdahl and several other adventurers and explorers.

  The greatest contribution made by Leo Frobenius was his courageous research of tabooed subjects such as Atlantology, which he turned into a reputable academic discipline.

  The numbers 1 to 4 in Frobenius’ map trace out what the great researcher called the “Poseidonic Culture”. It was apparently born in Asia Minor (1), next diffusing to Etruria (2) and then to Spain (3), next passing to the region of Benin, in West Africa (4). It is interesting to note that, with the possible exception of Black Africa, all these places were ruled by “red” races of Dravidian origin: Pelasgians, Etruscans, Phoenicians, Celtiberians, Guanches, Berbers, Libyans, Ethiopians and so forth.

  It is quite possible that all this is no more than a chancy coincidence. But when such coincidences start to pile up, the astute investigator is forced to pause and to ponder the matter, starting to search for a causeand-effect relationship; a global diffusion of the myths rather than a series of random coincidences.

  It is also interesting to quote here a strange ritual once observed by another field anthropologist working in the region of Benin, the one marked by the number (4) in the map. This investigator personally observed a curious ritual where a native, dressed in long clothes and with the whole body painted white, landed from a boat and then started instructing the dark natives into the arts of agriculture, metallurgy, astronomy, and so forth.

  I believe that this strange ritual somehow imitated events that really took place in the dawn of time: the instruction of the Benin natives, whom Frobenius found to be far more civilized than their neighbors.

  Let me make it clear that it is not my intention to denigrate the contributions made by Black Africa to civilization: quite the contrary. All I want is the truth itself. Ethnic pride is a poor counselor both to blacks and whites. I do not claim that we whites actually invented all things. Actually, the opposite seems to be the actual case, at least insofar as the rise of humanity itself is concerned. The reds did it, not the whites.

  One culture and one race influences t
he others, so that change and evolution, and hence progress results. Otherwise, what we have is stagnation, despite the foolish claims of Darwin and others. Ask any plant or animal breeder and they will tell you. In order to have evolution, crossbreeding is absolutely required. It is only thus that change results, permitting selection to work: natural, sexual, artificial, etc..

  In this context, we humans are all mongrels, with some of us black and better adapted for Africa’s sunny climate, and some white and best adapted for the cooler regions. And these include the densely forested, shady regions of Southeast Asia and Amazonia, where the sun is blocked out by the trees and is hence very scarce at ground level.

  Such was particularly the case during the Ice Age, when the weather was normally clouded and cold, and sunshine quite inadequate. It was for this reason that the pale-skinned races developed in Asia whereas the dark-skinned races developed in Africa’s savannahs, sunny and dry, particularly during the Ice Age.

  The most interesting feature of Frobenius’ research is the fact that the Atlantean culture he charted (see above map) is typically tropical, and is mainly delimited by the two tropics. This is an extremely curious find, since most Western experts firmly believe that Civilization arose in the temperate regions of the world, and hold that the tropics are fated to be backwaters of the far more advanced temperate cultures.

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  These experts perhaps forget the fact that world development started, to believe Plato, during the Ice Age, when earth’s presently temperate regions were covered by mile thick layers of ice which prevented not only agriculture but even the development of humanity in substantial numbers.

  We also observe that the true site of Atlantis – the one which we have recently discovered in Indonesia and Southeast Asia – is located right at the center of the vast expanse covered by the seminal culture revealed by Frobenius’ exhaustive research. Moreover, Taprobane, its heart, was located right at the Line of the Equator.

  This widespread diffusion seems to have occurred via the wide expanses of both the Indian and the Pacific Ocean, with the Atlantic Ocean being no more than an empty desert which no one dared to sail. It is natural that cultures diffuse departing from the center towards the periphery, rather than depart from an extremity, as proposed by the great researcher in the present connection.

  So, it seems that our own hypothesis is far more consentaneous with actual reality than is Frobenius’ proposal of a center in Benin, at the empire’s western fringe. Benin was a very good guess, given the early date and the state of the science of Archaeology at the time when it was proposed. But the advancement of Science has been enormous since then, so that it is natural that this view be superseded and changed now.

  Atlantis and Its Great Plain

  As disclosed by Plato, both the empire and its capital city were named Atlantis. In the map below, we present a detailed chart of the Great Plain of Atlantis as described by Plato and by the quaint illustrations typical of the Jaina sect of Hinduism. Above all, note the huge size of the Great Plain, its rectangular shape, and the uncanny similitude with the seafloor of the Java Sea region discussed further above.

  An attentive examination of this map will reveal the fact that its central peak corresponds to a replica of Mt. Atlas (or Meru) with its four “heads” descending down the four faces of this central pyramid. These features are explicitly shown in the Jaina Cosmogram linked here. ↑057

  This symbolic replica represents real Mt. Atlas, which is the central feature of Atlantis City shown in successively enlarged forms in the next two figures. This is the shape actually described by Plato, which is also shown in certain Jaina Cosmograms of Jambudvipa, the Hindu Paradise.

  Atlantis City is located at Sunda Strait, the one sundering Java and Sumatra and allowing the ingress to Atlantis’ Great Plain via the huge canal leading to the sea in front along what is now the Sunda Strait.

  This huge canal was fully 50 km long, according to Plato. The city proper was built on the volcanic mound (Mt. Krakatoa) which was later transformed into the giant caldera known as the Vadavamukha, the “Mouth of Hell” when the volcano erupted and exploded, caving in, and opening up Sunda Strait.

  When all such details are compared, one is unavoidably led to conclude that the two traditions originated from a common source. And since both traditions so closely coincide with the actual geographical features

  of the Indonesian region, we are also compelled to conclude that these sacred traditions are ultimately based on real events. We are presently in the process of organizing an oceanographical expedition to research this location in detail for relics of these singular features.

  Chapter 9 – Atlantis in Minoan Symbolism

  I am the Sun who arose in the Primeval Waters. My soul is God, I am the All-Creator...

  I am the Word, the Immortal Spirit;

  In this my name of “Soul of the World”.

  Coffin Texts, Spell 317

  The Logo of Atlantis Publications

  Our logotype (illustrated above) represents Atlantis as a sort of sun rising from the waters of the ocean to herald the dawn of a new age to the world. This motif is not originally ours, but is based on one from the elegant rhyton from Minoan Crete also illustrated above.

  This Late Minoan vase dates from about 1,500 BC, and is hence prior to the cataclysm which destroyed Crete soon after that date. This type of decoration is of the so-called “marine style” which was obsessively used in Minoan Crete at that time. We strongly suspect that this type of decoration has everything to do with Atlantis, as the triple concentric circles of the odd starfish at the center are characteristic of the lost continent.

  Needless to say, no real starfish bears such a curious decoration. Moreover, this starfish looks like a shining sun with 15 rays. As such, Atlantis is here portrayed as the terrestrial sun shining under the waters. And this sun is in turn connected with Atlantis’ downfall, as we shall see next. It is also the “sun” shown shining on top of Tanit’s head.

  If this reasoning is right, and this symbolism is really connected with Atlantis, we can draw two conclusions from this quaint Minoan vase. First, since it is over a full millennium prior to Plato himself (428–348 BC), in no way could the great philosopher have invented the story of Atlantis or, even less, have based himself on Crete’s demise in order to compose his tale of a great civilization submerged by the Flood.

  Second, since the decoration necessarily predates the demise of Minoan Crete by the Thera volcanism, it is also clear that in no way could the Minoan Cretans themselves have derived the Atlantean symbolism from their own tragedy, which actually finished them off for good. Consequently, alternative explanations for the Minoan obsession with Atlantean motifs must be found.

  Excluding the possibility of foresight, of divine revelation or of universal archetypes as unscientific, we are left with the hypothesis of diffusion. And this diffusion could only have come from Atlantis itself. Or can anyone offer a better explanation than ours for these uncanny coincidences?

  We also note another interesting feature of this type of “marine style” decoration typical of Minoan Crete. Even though the symbolic connections with Atlantis are somewhat obvious to those familiar with this type of thing, these motifs are invariably disguised in some way: as a starfish, a giant octopus, a murex shellfish, a dolphin, sargasso weeds, the rising sun, and so on.

  Hardly could the Minoan artist have intended to represent a real starfish in this curious decoration, since these organisms never display the triple circle feature depicted here. Had he intended to do so, he would choose a more natural decoration observed in real starfishes, as these creatures actually abound in Crete.

  As is clear, this odd “starfish” closely resembles a “submarine sun”. And this sun is visibly an image of Atlantis itself as a now submerged realm hidden under the waters. It was this connection which inspired us to use this quaint marine symbolism as an image of the rising sun.

  The other features illustrated in
this remarkable Minoan vessel are also very characteristic of Atlantis as well. The kelp or sargasso – which does not exist in the Mediterranean Sea – is characteristic of the South Seas (South Pacific), the very region where we have located Atlantis. In fact, these seas were formerly called Prasodum Mare (“Sea of Sargassos”), the name actually used by Claudius Ptolemy.

  Columbus – who firmly believed himself to be navigating this far off sea – actually named the Sargasso Sea of the Caribbean region after the original East Indian one. The story of this archetypal Sargasso Sea is closely tied with the one of Atlantis, as we discuss in our Internet site. They were mentioned by several ancient authors, among them Aristotle, Pliny, Himilco, Scylax, Avienus, etc..

  These sargassos were said to be so thick as to be able to tie up the ships, dragging them down and causing them to wreck. And they were also attached to the legend of the “Hand of Satan” which issued from the sea to carry ships under, directly to Hell itself.

  This thick vegetation was also said to be connected with the now submerged trees of Atlantis, turned into seaweeds. In one way or another, this tradition on the “Hand of Satan” and the terrible sargassos associated with it got transferred to the Atlantic Ocean, where it survived down to the times when the explorations of the Age of Navigation had combed this ocean all the way to the Americas and beyond.

  The murex shellfish was the source – real or alleged – of the precious purple dye so appreciated by the ancients in general. The purple color was the very emblem of royalty. And this symbolism is also directly associated with Atlantis itself. The Phoenicians, whose name is directly associated with this purple dye – called phoinix in Greek – were the exclusive suppliers of this precious commodity, which they actually fetched from the East Indies, its true source.