PROF. ARYSIO SANTOS
ATLANTIS
THE LOST CONTINENT FINALLY FOUND
Copyright © 1997–2015 by Prof. Arysio Nunes dos Santos
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Runoko Rashidi, The Ancient Sumerians
A Note of Caution on Internet Links
Introduction
Indonesia, the Remnants of Sunken Atlantis
The Word “Island” in Plato
The “White Island” of the Universal Traditions
Plato’s Atlantis Was a Tropical Paradise Even During the Ice Age
The Quest for Lost Atlantis Is Only Now Feasible
A Major Scientific Revolution in the Making
Chapter 1 – Indonesia as the True Site of Eden
Forewarning Note
Introduction
Indonesia as the True Site of Eden
Eden Was in Fact Lemurian Atlantis
The Seminal Exodus
Chapter 2 - Atlantis and the “Atlantic Ocean”
The Reality of the Civilizing Heroes
The Bible Is Right After All
The Elusive Sunken Continent Revealed
The Great Rift and Hesiod’s Khasma Mega
Chapter 3 - What Really Happened During the Last Pleistocenic Ice Age?
The Actual Cause of the Ice Ages
Thermal Runaway and the Quaternary Extinctions
The Collapse of the Holy Mountain
The Meaning of the Myth of the Primordial Castration
Egypt, India and the Origin of the Legend of Atlantis
Atlantis and the Illusions of Darwinian Uniformitarianism
The Krakatoa Volcano and the “Innavigable Seas” of Atlantis
The Chimerical Atlantises
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Donnelly’s Atlantis
Chapter 4 - Indonesian Atlantis and the Four Rivers of Paradise
The Flood and the Destruction of Paradise
Chapter 5 – Atlantis in America
Introduction
The Foundering of Aztlán (Aztec)
The Foundering of Tolán (Maya)
The Atlantes of Tula (Mexico)
Chapter 6 – Atlantis in Ancient Cosmograms
The Mountain of Sunrise and Sunset
The Cross of Atlantis
The Plan of Atlantis as a Replica of the World
The Sacred Geometry of Atlantis in America and Elsewhere
Chapter 7 – Atlantis in Ancient Maps
Plato (427 BC–347 BC)
The Idealized Maps of Atlantis
Homer, Crates and the Map of Hecatæus of Miletus
The Map of Eratosthenes
The World Conception of Cosmas Indicopleustes
The Map of Grazioso Benincasa
The Map Presented King Henry VII
Chapter 8 – The Many Pillars of Hercules
Ptolemy’s Map of Taprobane
The Many Pillars of Hercules
The Global Extent of the Former Atlantean Empire
Atlantis and Its Great Plain
Chapter 9 – Atlantis in Minoan Symbolism
The Logo of Atlantis Publications
Chapter 10 - The Atlantic Ocean of the Ancients
Introduction
The Case of Ys Brazil
Setting Out to Disprove Atlantis
“Like Oil, Atlantis Is Wherever It May Be Found”
Three Proofs of the Above Conclusions
The True Location of Paradise
Columbus and the Interposed Americas
Back to the Suda
Chapter 11 - The True Pillars of Hercules
The Tabular Comparison
The Case of Cuba and the Caribbean Islands
Crete, Cyprus, Malta and Other Mediterranean Locations
Robert Sarmast and the Cyprus’ “Discovery”
No Such Cataclysm Ever in the Times of Man
Bob Ballard and the Black Sea Flood
The Ramayana and the Vadavamukha
Opening of Sunda Strait
Starting to Bear Fruits
The Results for the Mediterranean Locations of Atlantis
Chapter 12 - The Celtic Shelf, Morocco and Tartessos
The Many Islands Ahead
The Dualism of Hercules and Atlas
Gades, Gadeira, Cadiz and Gadir
Chapter 13 - Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean
Pole Shift and the Force of Sacred Traditions
Taprobane and the Atlantic Islands
Chapter 14 - Diodorus Siculus on Atlantis
The Atlantean Origin of Agriculture
The Celts and the “Pious Ethiopians” of Taprobane
The Connections With Atlantis
Diodorus, Plato and the Two Hesperias of the Ancients
Homer and the Islands of the Blest
The Twin Ethiopias, the Two Hesperias and the Dual Spains
Hercules’ Twelfth Labor
The Legendary Cassiterides and the Mysterious Source of Tin
The Split Mountain and the Twin Tree of Life
Chapter 15 - The Jewish Encyclopedia on the True Site of Eden
The Authority of Thomas Aquinas
Dante on the Location of Paradise
Rabbi Nahamanides and the Jewish Traditions
The Zohar and Alexander’s Visit to Paradise
The Pishon, the Nile and the Ganges
Chapter 16 - The Case of Taprobane and Sunda Strait
Introduction
Pindar, Plato and the Pillars of Hercules
The True “Pillars of Hercules”
The Perfect Fit of the Indonesian Site
Plato and the Prehistoric Crossings to America
Atlantis (General)
Catastrophism, Ice Ages, Geology and the Flood
Archaeology and Egyptology
Sea Peoples
Mythology and Religion
Archaeoastronomy
Crete
Troy, Mycenae, Hittites
Contents
Dedication and Acknowledgements............................................................ iii
Preface ....................................................................................................... v
Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
Part I - The True History of Atlantis ..................................................... 29
Chapter 1 - Indonesia as the True Site of Eden ..............................
............ 30
Chapter 2 - Atlantis and the “Atlantic Ocean” ............................................. 43
Chapter 3 - What Really Happened During the Pleistocene? ...................... 60
Chapter 4 - Indonesian Atlantis and the Four Rivers of Paradise ................. 75
Part II - Ancient Cosmograms, Maps and Symbolisms ...................... 83
Chapter 5 - Atlantis in America ................................................................ 84
Chapter 6 - Atlantis in Ancient Cosmograms .............................................. 96
Chapter 7 - Atlantis in Ancient Maps ........................................................ 110
Chapter 8 - The Many Pillars of Hercules .................................................. 126
Chapter 9 - Atlantis in Minoan Symbolism ................................................ 143
Part III - The Many Sites of Atlantis .................................................... 151
Chapter 10 - The Atlantic Ocean of the Ancients ....................................... 152
Chapter 11 - The True Pillars of Hercules ................................................... 173
Chapter 12 - The Celtic Shelf, Morocco and Tartessos ................................. 206
Chapter 13 - Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean ............................................ 218
Part IV - Paradise and the Far Eastern Atlantis ............................... 233
Chapter 14 - Diodorus Siculus on Atlantis ................................................ 234
Chapter 15 - The Jewish Encyclopedia on the True Site of Eden ............... 270
Chapter 16 - The Case of Taprobane and Sunda Strait .............................. 284
Bibliography ........................................................................................... 297
Endnotes ............................................................................................... 303
Subject Index ......................................................................................... 347
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all those who believe, like myself, that the legend of Atlantis is something more than just a fable or a moral tale invented by Plato or some other ancient mythographer. I hope that the three decades which I have joyfully dedicated to the research of Atlantis were not altogether lost, and that at least some of the seeds which I have scattered far and wide will fall on fertile ground and grow to bear further seeds, turning this type of research into a reputable academic discipline serving the welfare of all mankind.
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of some 30 years of research. Over these many years, several people have helped one way or another. Some people helped with expert advice, some with suggestions of themes for research and clarification, others by providing answers to our specialized questions, still others by pointing out errors of substance, and so forth.
Above all, I want to thank my many readers and fans for the support they have provided reading my site and my books and publications, and for the many questions they posed, which forced me to dig deeper. Among these early supporters I name Frank J. Hoff and Renato R. Carneiro, who provided both help and encouragement.
This research would not have been possible without the unfailing help of my wife, who became the “man of the house” while I was lost navigating the South Seas in the wake of Ulysses, Jason, Hercules, Aeneas, Gilgamesh, Alexander, and a host of other ancient explorers. And I also want to thank all my four children, each of whom helped in a great many ways: Bernardo, Carlos, Antonio and Andrea. My blessings and my thanks to them all.
Arysio Nunes dos Santos, February 2005
Preface
“What became of the Black people of Sumer?” the traveler asked the old man; for ancient records show that the people of Sumer were Black. “What happened to them?” “Ah,” the old man sighed. “They lost their history, and so they died.”
Runoko Rashidi, The Ancient Sumerians
Thousands of books have been written on Atlantis since its existence was first disclosed by Plato, the prince of philosophers, some two and a half millennia ago. One may well wonder whether a new book on the subject is really needed. Can anything new actually be said about Atlantis?
The answer is a most emphatic yes!
After all, the riddle of Atlantis has never been solved thus far to the satisfaction of most people, the academic experts in particular. Hundreds of possible locations have already been proposed as the site of Atlantis. Some authorities think that Atlantis is located on an island such as Crete, the Azores, Ireland or Espartel, or even the Canary Islands or the Antilles, the Florida Keys, etc..
Other people think that it is a continental location such as Africa, America, Western Europe, Antarctica and so on. More recently – after we pointed out in detail the fact that Plato specifically speaks of Atlantis as definitively having sunk under the sea – some researchers have concentrated on submerged locations such as the Celtic Shelf, the North Sea Shelf, or sunken regions off Spain (Tartessos), off Cyprus, off Gibraltar and so on.
We have also long been pointing out – for the first time ever in connection with Atlantis – that the sea level rose by 130 meters and more ever since the end of the last Ice Age and that, in consequence of this reality, Plato might well be right, after all. As a result of this enormous rise in sea level, several regions, often of a continental extension, sank in several regions of the world: in Indonesia (Sunda Shelf), in Europe (Celtic Shelf, North Sea Shelf), in the Americas (the Antilles Shelf), and so forth.
Plato also gave the specific date of 11,600 BP [Before Present] for the Atlantean cataclysm of long ago. And this date exactly corresponds to that of the catastrophic end of the last Pleistocene Ice Age and the so-called Younger Dryas event. Now, such exact coincidences are highly unlikely in practice, as all physicists well know, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of many geological experts, who stolidly cling to the now sorely outdated Uniformitarian theories of Darwin and Lyell.
It therefore stands to reason that it is in these now sunken regions of the world that people must begin their quest for Atlantis, if they really want to find it. This is far more logical than just relying on the ever-changing though often negative opinions of experts on the many disciplines directly or indirectly related to Atlantis: Geology, Climatology, Evolution, Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics, Comparative Religion and Mythology, Paleoanthropology, etc..
In other words, we must heed scientific facts and reason rather than mere opinions, no matter how authoritative. Scientific theories and expert opinions are no more than mere speculation, often very poorly founded and suggested as a mere working hypothesis of a tentative character. As Plato teaches in his remarkable Critias, one of his two dialogues on Atlantis, these opinions keep changing with time, and are hence unreliable, in contrast to Tradition, which is perennial.
This constant evolution is really the essence of the Scientific Method, the one recommended for doing Science by epistemologists and philosophers such as René Descartes and a host of others.
To put it otherwise, where Atlantis and its location are concerned, we must first look for and list all the possible candidates. Then, and only then, we must retrofit them to Plato’s words and statements, in order to verify if the two can be reconciled in some way.
The non-conformities must be deemed unexplained paradoxes or anomalies, to be studied further and clarified with additional research and more reliable data.
Do this for every possible candidate, and let the best candidate stand up, becoming the tentative starting point as the best prospect. Then, begin to gather further data, both traditional and new, and see which candidate best fits the new evidence. Then, try to predict what telltale features will probably be found.
Repeat this over and over again, until all entries are exhausted. Above all, look for the confirmation of
these specific predictions: past tropical climate in the Ice Age; Pleistocenic fauna and flora; archeological and geographical evidence, immense mineralogical and gemological riches, and so forth. Eventually, when the right candidate is finally found, all items will start to fall in place, as if by magic.
In a sense, the present book is a dramatic break with the past reality where academics carefully avoided the subject of Atlantis. It is an attempt, by a professional scientist trained in the Scientific Method and in Epistemology – the philosophical science concerned with the framing of theories and their scientific analysis – to systematically study, perhaps for the first time ever, the various existing theories on Atlantis’ location and its unavoidable scientific reality.
What is even more curious is the fact that my original intention was to dispel the physical reality of the myth of Atlantis and related traditions such as the reality of the Flood, of Eden and other such mythical Paradises which I, like most of my academic colleagues, deemed the result of religious zeal or sheer superstitions held by backward natives or extremely ignorant ancients.
Much to my surprise, the vast sunken continent which I discovered in the region of Indonesia turned out to be the only candidate which consistently withstood all attempts at dismissal, even after all the other alternative candidates had been thoroughly eliminated for one or more reasons impossible to overcome in any reasonable way.
In order to find the truth, you must first prepare yourself to cope with it. Otherwise, you will not be able to believe even your own findings. Truth might be so utterly unbelievable as to require an entirely new paradigm in both Science and Religion. In order to accept such novel truths, you must make your mind a razed board where new ideas might be written.
This vast sunken continent, which we might call Sundaland or Australasia – or, even more appropriately, Atlantis or Eden – endured and refused to go away. This after a series of consistent failures to find discrepancies with either known geological facts or the traditional descriptions such as the ones given by Plato, Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Diodorus, Pliny, and a host of other authorities, from Greece and other places both European and otherwise.
Suddenly, as if by magic, the pieces of the giant jigsaw puzzle all began to fall in place. The more facts I adduced, the more I researched this region of the world, the more the predictions of Plato and other mythographers started to come out as true: a tropical climate in the Ice Age; a vast continental extension now sunken, but formerly subaerial, inhabited and crisscrossed by many rivers and canals, etc..