Location hypotheses of AtlantisThese are various proposed real-world settings for the island of Atlantis, (Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος) a lost civilization mentioned in Plato's dialogues
Timaeus and
Critias, written about 360 B.C. In these dialogues, a character named Critias claims that an island called Atlantis was swallowed by the sea about 9,200 years previously. This story was passed down to him through his grandfather,
Dropides who in turn got it from Solon, the famous Athenian lawmaker who translated it from the Egyptian language. Plato's dialogues locate the island in the
Atlantic Pelagos “Atlantic Sea”,
[1] "in front of" the Pillars of Hercules (Ηράκλειες Στήλες) and facing a district called modern
Gades or Gadira (Gadiron), a location that many modern scholars associate with modern Gibraltar; however various locations have been proposed.
It also figures in the Celtic myths concerning Mererid, the sinful daughter of King Gradlon, whose scabrous conduct led to the sinking of the land of Ys. So, in the Americas (Bochica, etc.) and elsewhere.
If we read the Bible attentively, we note that it also speaks of two creations, exactly as Plato also tells of two different Atlantises (cf. Gen. 1 and 2). Moreover, the Bible also tells of two destructions of the world by the Deluge. These two different narratives are quaintly embroidered on each other in Gen. 6, and comprise the Elohist and the Jahvist accounts of the Flood, which relate two visibly different events.
The Bible Is Right After All We see, then, that the tradition (or traditions) narrated by Plato exactly coincides with the Biblical lore. Moreover, as we said above, the two traditions also exactly agree with the prehistoric events observed in the geological and the archaeological records. And, when we trace the worldwide legends to their source, we always end up in India and Indonesia, the two Atlantises of legend, no matter where we start from.
In truth, continents don t sink. It is the sea that rises, flooding entire continents, as it did in Lemurian Atlantis and, to a great extent, in the Indus Valley, the site of the second Atlantis. Relativists will say that both events sea level rise and continental sinking are one and the same thing, at least from the point of view of the observers. But geologists will hotly debate the issue, and claim, as they have long done, that actual sunken continents are a geological impossibility. It is all a matter of perspective, of relativistic illusion. But the best ancient sources say, for instance that magnificent Hindu saga, the Mahabharata speak of sea level rising rather than of continents sinking.
The Elusive Sunken Continent Revealed
However, anyone who inspects a chart of the oceanic bottoms in the region of Indonesia such as the Ice Age Map of Indonesia shown in Fig. 1 below, will readily concede that the South China Sea encircled by Indonesia indeed formed a continent during the last glaciation, which ended some 11,600 years ago. This chart clearly shows the sunken continent of Lemurian Atlantis in Indonesia, as well as the extensive sunken strip of Indian Atlantis at the Indus Delta.
The map leaves no room for doubt about the reality of what we are affirming concerning Lemurian and Indian Atlantis, one almost wholly sunken, and the other sunken to a very considerable extension. We remark that this map in contrast to most others presenting proposed sites for Atlantis and/or Lemuria is purely scientific, rather than an invention of ours or of others. It is based on the detailed geophysical reconstruction of the seabottoms in the region in question, and portrays the areas of depth under 100 meters, which were obviously exposed during the Ice Age, when sea level dropped by that amount and even more.
In fact, several strictly scientific, similar maps exist, and can be seen elsewhere, inclusive in the Internet. One of these maps, was published in the National Geographic Magazine (vol.174, no.4, Oct. 1988, pg. 446-7) and is reproduced, for comparison, in Fig. 2 below. It shows the world as it was some 18,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age. As can be seen, this map corresponds quite closely with ours, shown in Fig. 1.
In particular, please note the huge chunk of land, of continental dimensions, to the south of Southeast Asia, and which became sunken when sea level rose, at the end of the Pleistocene. Another sizable piece of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second Atlantis, also disappeared likewise, at that occasion. No other regions of the world display a similar event, including the Americas (not shown). The conclusion is that Atlantis, if Plato was in fact speaking truthfully, could only have been located in that region of the world.
As both maps above show, a huge extension of continental size prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia. This continental-sized land was indeed "larger than Asia [Minor] and Lybia [North Africa] put together", exactly as Plato affirms. It is seen to have been about two or three times larger than continental-sized India. It was also far larger than Australia, shown exagerated due to the peculiarities of the projection utilized.
The Lost Continent Finally Found, released on August 2005, is Prof. Arysio Santos' latest work.
The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays observe are the unsunken relicts of Lemurian Atlantis, the lofty volcanic mountains that became the volcanic islands of this region, the true site of Paradise in all ancient traditions. The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy, shallow bottoms of the South China Sea.
The South China Sea north of Indonesia and Java Sea have been advocated as a site for Atlantis. Key to this argument that Sundaland was the location of Atlantis is that the Ocean of Atlantis refers to the ocean which encircles Eurasia and Africa, which was the historical understanding until the time of Christopher Columbus. Proponents of this idea claim that natives of Sundaland who fled the rising waters or volcanic explosions eventually had contact with Ancient Egyptians, who later passed the story onto Plato who gets some but not all of the details correct, including location and time period. The main advocate of this theory is the Brazilian professor of nuclear physics Arysio Nunes dos Santos.
During the Last Glacial Maximum, what is now known as the Sunda Shelf was the location of a large subaerial coastal plain that was part of Sundaland. During the Last Glacial Maximum, Sundaland extended northward from Indonesia to Borneo and northwestward to the coast of Southeast Asia. Sundaland is quite tectonically stable lacking any known prehistory of any significant, much less cataclysmic, tectonic subsidence. Numerous studies by petroleum and Quaternary geologists have found a complete lack of any evidence for any Neogene and Quaternary volcanic activity within the Sunda Shelf despite its proximity to Indonesia.
Detailed studies
[100][101] of late glacial and postglacial sea level rise for this part of the Sunda Shelf demonstrates that the first significant submergence of Sundaland by rising sea level occurred between 14,000 and 15,000 years ago. Periods of abrupt rise in sea level submerged a significant part of Sundaland beneath the South China Sea between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago. Between 14,300 and 14,600 years ago, a period of 300 years, sea level rose 16m (62 feet). Between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago, the submergence of Sundaland by rising sea level was relatively minor. A final period of rapid flooding of Sundaland by the South China Sea occurred between 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. The submergence of Sundaland during this period was minor in extent relative to the area submerged between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago. Evidence for any significant or cataclysmic submergence of Sundaland as the result of tectonic processes is completely lacking.
Source:
- http://www.atlan.org/
- http://www.lost-civilizations.net/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis
Rencong (Bahasa Aceh: reuncong) is a traditional Acehnese dagger sharp weapons, the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the shape resembles the letter "L". Rencong including a dagger in a different category with a knife or sword.
