Atlantis Old and New (I)

Painting by Nicholas Roerich (1928 - in private collection)

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Some suggest the position of Atlantis was on land now beneath the Antarctic ice. This theory is put forward in a rather good book surveying the evidence, by Colin Wilson and Ram Flem-Ath. Their research is detailed, and it is a compelling read, not least for the way they demonstrate how certain key ancient sites in the world fall in a geometric pattern. Rand had been asked by a friend (who wanted to organise a rock concert at Giza), if the pyramid was indeed the prime meridian for the world (rather than Greenwich). Looking at the latitude and longitude of famous key sites, but starting from Giza rather than Greenwich, produced results in whole figures.

Tiahuanaco (on the shores of Lake Titicaca, in the Andes Mountains in present day Bolivia and Peru), is the site of a civilisation that sprang up in 300 AD, only to vanish amid sharp climate changes some six hundred years later. This site is exactly 100 degrees west of the Great Pyramid. The Inca capital of Quito is 110 degrees west and Easter Island is 140 degrees west. To the east, Ur is 15 degrees and the Tibetan capital of Lhasa is 60 degrees east.

To have these - and several other famous sites - fall on a geometric pattern suggested something other than chance. To Wilson and Flem-Ath it confirmed the hunch that there had, at one time, been a civilisation that influenced these position of each of these other places. They speculated it was the fabled Atlantis. They suggested that far from having sunk in the middle of what is now the Atlantic ocean, it was buried deep under Antarctic ice.
Their book is well worth reading, but you will need to buy a second hand copy (they are available here).

In his famous (some would say infamous) Channel 4 TV series (Quest for the Lost Civilisation 1998), Graham Hancock suggested a similar theory, that a world wide civilisation collapsed around 10,500 BC. He was roundly attacked for putting such an iconoclastic theory forward, challenging all of modern archaeology, but his programme and book remain full of really interesting material for which there are few explanations. Much that he found is simply ignored.

Anyone who has ever sailed will know the importance of good maps. And anyone exploring areas largely unknown or infrequently visited, will know the value of maps of those who went before. In the 1513 a map-maker called Piri Reis, drew on existing sources to put together a map for his Ottoman masters, If you look this up on Wikipedia, you can see the fragment that remains. What you won't learn through the Wiki site, is that the northern coastline of Antarctica is also shown. However, that coast is represented as ice free. The shape of that coast has only become available for study since ice penetrating radar/sonar could be used. The last time that this area was ice free was about 4,000BCE.

Charles Hapgood, a professor of anthropology was interested in this map and wrote to the U. S. Air Force in July 1960 about his theories. Here is their response.

Dear Professor Hapgood,
Your request of evaluation of certain unusual features of the Piri Reis Antarctica map of 1513 by this organization has been reviewed.. The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctic, and the Palmer Peninsular, is reasonable. We find that this is the most logical and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map. The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice-cap by the Swedish-British Antarctic Expedition of 1949.This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice-cap. This part of Antarctica ice free. The ice-cap in this region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in 1513.

Harold Z. Ohlmeyer Lt. Colonel, USAF Commander

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So we have an anomaly, that as far as we are aware has never been resolved sufficiently to make it into the history text books in schools. the implicatio that we have accurate maps of the Antarctic dating back 500 or more years, is simply mind boggling.
A full exploration of this remarkable map is offered here.

It is the belief of the current writer, that there have been a series of civilisations that have taken the name Atlantis. Just as New York is not built on the site of the York that persists to this day in Yorkshire, so the various Atlantis's were contiunuums of one civilisation, until it finally disappeared between wave or ice (or both).

Plato's Atlantis
There is a further complication put by the brilliant essayist and esotericist, Manly P. Hall. He writes about Plato's myth of Atlantis, explaining its various aspects. However, Hall points out that Plato seems to break off the story suddenly. He offers the opinion that Plato may have been using the myth of Atlantis as a symbol of some aspect of the Mysteries into which Plato had been initiated. He stopped at that point where he would have put his life in jeopardy by speaking further. It is an interesting theory that adds to the complexity of understanding exactly what and where Atlantis was.

Different Equator

There is interesting speculation here, that the electromagnetic grid for the Earth was different 70.000 years ago, and the equator was in a different position. At that time, is is suggested, the equator would have run in a different way, and crossed South America and Africa at a different angle (red line below)
Of course proving this would be very hard. However, there is interesting evidence when we look (again) at the position of ancient artifacts and spiritual centres across our globe.

At this time, with this equator, the (now) Antarctic, would have been temperate or semi-tropical.

As pointed out by world-mysteries.com, ancient sites like Giza, Siwa, Tassili n’Ajjer, Paratoari, Ollantaytambo, Machupicchu, Nazca, Easter Island, Aneityum Island, Preah Vihear, Sukhothai, Pyay, Khajuraho, Mohenjo Daro, Persepolis, Ur, Petra are shown clockwise from Giza on the equal azimuthal projection. The projection is centered on the axis point in southeastern Alaska (emphasis delphic oracle)
Distances to any location from the centre of an equal azimuthal projection are equally scaled. Since all of the sites on the great circle alignment are equally distant from the axis point at one-quarter of the circumference of the earth, the alignment forms a perfect circle halfway between the center and the outer edge of the projection.
For those with a statistical turn of mind - what is the chance of these sites falling almost perfectly on a circle like this, by chance?

In the next post on this theme we will look at Atlantis emerging. Click here