According to Plato, the capital of Atlantis
was a 14 mile wide complex of canals, walls, gardens, barracks and a public
race track, arranged in circles around a royal palace and temple to the sea
god Poseidon, the city's patron.
Plato's narratives, from the
Timaeus
and
Critias, are the sole ancient source of the
Atlantis legend. Yet the awe-inspiring scale of the drama ― of a wealthy,
powerful and corrupt continent, abruptly consumed by some great natural
cataclysm ― has gripped the Western imagination ever since.
A physical and intellectual
journey, a worldwide exploration diving for the underwater ruins
of a lost civilization, this book follows clues in ancient
scriptures and mythology and in the scientific evidence of the
flood that swept the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age. This
text explores the question of early humans swept away by the
catastrophe. Who were these populations - pre-civilized
hunter-gatherers or more sophisticated peoples altogether? The
text is written as a personal adventure involving the reader in
the travels, the practicalities and the risks while developing
the larger themes along the way, building up to the explosive
revelation of a global mystery.
The modern myth of
Atlantis began in earnest in 1882 with the publication of Atlantis:
The Antediluvian World by ex-American congressman Ignatius
Donnelly. Originally inspired by documents he read at the Library of
Congress, Ignatius took upon himself to write a fanciful account of his
own invention, concluding that Atlantis was the location of the Garden of
Eden and crediting its people with the creation of alphabetical writing
and scientific medicine. Furthermore, he claimed that the ancient peoples
(Greeks, Phoenicians, Hindus and Scandinavians) gods and goddesses were
simply the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis and that the acts
attributed to them in mythology are a confused recollection of real
historical events. Even today there are people that, inspired by
Donnelly's book, believe that mankind first rose to a state of
civilization in Atlantis. They claim that the Sun-worship found throughout
the world are relics of the original religion of Atlantis. And Donnelly's
'brave new vision' on Plato's story is still the basis for the flood of
books on Atlantis that continues to pour from the presses.
In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries
a range of occult theories appeared regarding the lost island race.
Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, cofounder of Theosophy, believed that the Atlanteans
were descendants from another notorious lost continent, Lemuria,
and were the Fourth Root Race of all humans. She declared that the information had come
from the book of Dyzan,
a supposedly Atlantean work that had survived and was now in Tibet. The philosopher and occultist
Rudolf Steiner, claimed to be able to
access the Akashic Records by
psychic means, which also described
the Atlanteans as descendants of Lemurians. He even wrote a book about it,
titled
Atlantis and Lemuria.
Edgar Cayce, the American
clairvoyant known as
'the sleeping prophet', supposedly got the information while in a state of
trance, from which he also allegedly derived
the thousands of medical diagnosis for which he is renowned. Cayce gave
detailed recreations of everyday life in ancient Atlantis, and even spoke of
a 'Great Crystal', that powered their society.
In 1933 Cayce
predicted that a portion of the Atlantean architecture would be discovered
beneath the slime of ages of sea water. . . near what is known as
Bimini, off the coast of Florida.
He declared that this would happen in 1968 or 1969. It so happened that, in
the summer of 1968, a pilot flying over the island of Andros, south of
Bimini, observed a sunken rectangular structure in the shallow water off the
northern tip of the island. This structure, now known as Bimini Road, it is
a man made assembly of humongous blocks of stone, or is it? Skeptics claim
that the Bimini road is a natural formation, even though it seems to be
unique. In their side are geological tests showing that the 'J' shaped
structure is actually a limestone beachrock, with the same grains and
microstructure — a quality difficult to replicate in a series of blocks. But there is no denying that Cayce's prediction was uncannily
accurate, and that the "roads" are straight and look man made, perhaps part
of an ancient wall that has collapsed, or a portion of a larger covered
structure. The verdict still not out on this strange formation. . .
Some
writers have speculated that the present-day American Indians migrated
from the Old World to the New by way of Atlantis; shadowy legends among
them (the American Indians) seem to assist these speculations. Others
point out the startling similarities in technology and culture among
ancient peoples who never could have seen each other, and universal myths
of a great flood and a race of gods, as evidence of its existence.
Although traditional accounts of Atlantis have been proved
mostly false,
today some archaeologists
speculate that the Atlantis legend may have originated with the volcanic eruption that
destroyed a highly civilized Minoan town on the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea about
1450 BC. Regarding this possibility, Dr James Mavor's book Voyage
to Atlantis caused a minor sensation when was first published in
1969.
Legend of Atlantis
Another book — The Secret of Atlantis,
by Otto Muck — points to evidence of the impact of a colossal body with
the Earth in the southwest Atlantic as the cause of Atlantis' demise.
Fiery debris rained on Atlantis, followed by tidal waves that inundated
the island. Muck refers to twin depressions 23,000 ft deep in the sea
floor close to Puerto Rico, and to 3,000 shallow, eroded troughs,
occupying part of a elliptical area that extends out over the Atlantic. He
deduces that these were the result of an asteroid 6 miles (10 kilometers)
wide that hit the Earth with an explosive force of 3,000 medium-sized
hydrogen bombs,
triggering the earthquakes described in Plato's story, and
splitting the Atlantic open along the line of the present-day mid-Atlantic
Ridge. Furthermore, the Earth's Poles were shifted, and a new geological
age abruptly began, with the seasons becoming sharply differentiated for
the first time. Siberia, until then having a cool, but not freezing,
climate, was suddenly plunged into Artic cold, instantly freezing
thousands of mammoths and woolly
rhinoceroses, many of them to be found in good condition several millennia
later.
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