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ATLANTIS CHECKLIST


If it is Atlantis, it's gotta be located in the Atlantic Ocean.
Anonymous Wisdom

Introduction

In the present page we gather, in the form of a Checklist, some of the most important pieces of compelling evidence that we have gathered on the location of Atlantis. This Checklist — shown below — is extremely instructive, as it allows the direct comparison of complex information without the encumbrance of wordy arguments and elaborate justifications.

Of course, the reader may reach different conclusions than ours on certain specific issues. But we are confident that these will not change the overall picture that we are arguing here. However, we will be delighted to discuss these with the reader via our feedback page, and will post both the question and and our answer in this page, giving due credit to the querier. We also thank in advance the readers and critics kind enough to devote their attention to our work and, particularly, those who take the trouble to point out its errors to us or to our editor.

In such a schematic presentation as this, we had to make the decisions whether the specific issue in question was factual, doubtful or unsupported by the evidence. In the Checklist we mark the positively supported items with a tick (V), the doubtful ones with a question mark (?) and the negative ones with an x (X).

In the present work we also comment on the several issues (about 30) that we included in our Checklist. Due to problems of space, this discussion is reduced to the barest minimum, and the reader desirous of more details is referred to our book on Atlantis or to our other papers and essays on the matter. As the reader can see for himself in the Checklist, only the East Indies — that is, India and Indonesia — fit the data to perfection.

CHECKLIST

FEATURE 

(Numbers inside parentheses refer to corresponding items  
in explanatory texts above)
Plato et al.
Thera/Crete
Incas of Peru
Mayas of Mexico
Sunken Atlantic Island
Antarctica
Scandinavia and North Sea
Troy (Hissarlik)
Celtiberia
Northwest Africa
Tartessos
The East Indies
ATLANTIC LOCATION (1)
V
X
X
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
NAVIGATION/ IRRIGATION CANALS (2) 
V
X
?
V
X
?
?
X
X
X
V
V
ELEPHANTS (MAMMOTHS?) (13)
V
X
?
V
?
X
?
X
?
V
?
V
CONTINENTAL SIZE (3) 
V
X
V
V
X
V
X
X
X
V
V
V
TROPICAL CLIMATE (5)
V
X
V
V
?
X
X
X
X
V
X
V
COCONUTS/ PINEAPPLES (5) 
V
X
V
V
?
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
PERFUMES AND INCENSES (5)
V
X
V
V
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
LARGE POPULATION (5)
V
X
X
V
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
HORSES AND WAR CHARIOTS (12)
V
?
X
X
X
X
X
V
?
X
?
V
HUMAN PRESENCE AT THE EPOCH (6)
V
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
?
V
V
MEGALITHIC CONSTRUCTION (11)
V
X
V
V
?
X
V
X
V
V
X
V
VOLCANISM AND EARTHQUAKES (4)
V
V
V
V
X
X
V
X
X
V
X
V
SUNKEN CONTINENT (10)
V
X
X
X
X
?
X
X
X
X
X
V
INNAVIGABLE SEAS (9)
V
X
X
X
X
?
?
X
X
X
X
V
BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES (8)
V
X
X
V
V
V
V
X
V
V
V
V
OUTER CONTINENTS BEYOND (8)
V
V
?
?
V
?
V
X
V
V
V
V
MANY ISLANDS BEYOND (8)
V
V
V
X
X
X
V
X
V
V
V
V
SITE OF PARADISE (EDEN) (3)
V
X
V
X
V
X
V
?
X
V
X
V
EVIDENCES OF CATACLYSM (14)
V
V
V
?
?
X
X
X
V
X
X
V
PYRAMID CULT (4)
V
X
V
V
?
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
SARGASSOS SEA BEYOND (9)
V
X
X
V
V
X
X
X
X
X
V
V
TRANSOCEANIC COMMERCE (15)
V
V
V
X
X
X
V
V
X
V
V
V
RICHES IN METALS (16) 
V
X
V
?
?
X
X
X
V
X
V
V
SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY (17)
V
X
V
V
?
X
X
X
X
X
V
V
TERRACED MOUNTAIN CULTIVATION (18)
V
X
V
?
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
V
SACRED GEOMETRY (3); (4); (7)
V
V
V
V
?
V
?
X
V
X
?
V
HOLY MOUNTAIN AND VOLCANOES (4); (7)
V
V
V
V
?
?
V
X
X
X
X
V
DATE COMPATIBLE (13); (14); (15)
V
X
?
?
?
?
X
X
X
X
X
V
TWO CROPS A YEAR (5)
V
X
X
X
?
?
X
X
X
X
X
V
METALS (16); (17)
V
V
V
V
?
?
V
V
V
V
V
V
O BLOOD GROUP (19)
?
?
V
V
?
?
V
7
V
V
?
V
WRITING/ ALPHABET (17)
V
?
V
V
?
?
V
?
V
?
?
V
SCORES (% RIGHT)
97
25
59
56
16
13
38
13
38
41
38
100


1) Located in the Atlantic Ocean

Plato was very specific on the fact that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, this ocean took this name because it was deemed the "Ocean of the Atlanteans". Hence, Mediterranean locations such as Troy, Crete (Thera), Carthage, the Bosphorus, etc., automatically disqualify as the site of Atlantis.

However, one should carefully recall that what the ancients called by the name of Atlantic Ocean, or others such as Outer Ocean, Kronius Oceanus, Mare Magnum, Mare Oceanum, etc., was not the same one we now address by that name. As we discuss in detail elsewhere [LINK], the Atlantic Ocean (or simply "Ocean") of the ancients of the times of Plato, Herodotus, Aristotle and others was the whole of the earth encircling ocean. This difference in nomenclature is essential, for it ties with the root of the problem of Atlantis, and explains why all researchers so far have failed to find the true site of Atlantis.

The ancients figured the world — that is, the lands they knew of (Eurasia and Africa), the so-called Ancient World — as a roughly circular plate surrounded all around by the Ocean ("Atlantic"). Outside this Circular Ocean, "containing" it, so to speak, was the true "Continent", the Americas, which encircled it all around.

It was in this Outer Continent that the ancients placed Eden and other such legendary Paradises which they remotely connected with Atlantis. As a matter of fact, the very word "Ocean" derives from the Sanskrit açayana meaning "encircling all around". Hence, in the same way that the Mediterranean regions are automatically discredited as possible sites for Atlantis — for they neither lie in the Atlantic Ocean nor outside the Pillars of Hercules — regions located in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean must be included, for they indeed satisfy these two prerequisites.

Avienus — basing himself on very ancient Phoenician sources — placed the Hesperides and the island of Geryon, Erytheia, "in the Ocean of the Atlanteans". Now, from Avienus' and other detailed descriptions, Erytheia lay in the Orient, in the Erythraean (or Indian Ocean), to which it gave its name. So, we see that the name of "Atlantic Ocean" or "Ocean of the Atlanteans" originally applied to the Indian Ocean. This name was later transferred, first to both oceans and then to the present Atlantic Ocean. We conclude, hence, that Atlantis must be sought first of all in the Indian Ocean, and only secondarily in what we presently call "Atlantic Ocean".

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2) Seaports, Navigation, Irrigation Canals

One of the most fascinating features of Plato's Atlantis was the vast network of canals used for the double purpose of irrigating its extensive agricultural plains and for the fluvial transportation of their produce. The of thecapital of the Atlantean empire was crossed and surrounded by these canals, forming a figure known as "Celtic Cross" or "Crossed Circle", thus . This symbol is often confused with that of the Earth or even of the Sun. But it indeed originally applied, as in ancient Egypt, to the land of Paradise.

This network of canals also contained dams and sluice-gates to control the flow of the rivers. It was a marvel of hydraulic engineering, the likes of which are only attested in the ancient Far East and, to a lesser scale, in Incan America. Moreover, Plato specifically states that Atlantis was a great naval power and that its many ships actively traded with the most distant nations of the overseas. Hence, it is idle to suppose that powers of limited naval abilities such as the Mayan empire or the Celto-Iberian nations of that epoch or, even more, the Canaries and Northwest Africa could ever have been the true site of Atlantis.

The Incas of Peru had a great naval ability, and there is ample evidence — confirmed by Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon Tiki expedition — that they made routine contacts with the Far East via the Pacific Ocean. The Incas of Peru also maintained a regular commercial contact with the Mexican empires. But their empire was located far up in the mighty Andes, and did not include good seaports nor did the Incas base their economy on naval commerce. Water is scarce in their region of the world, in contrast to what Plato affirms of Atlantis.

On this item, we have qualified nations such as Troy, Celtiberia, Tartessos, as well as those of the African and European Northwest, for they are, at least mythically, very much connected with navigation. However, they all present hardly any traces of the extensive network of canals described by Plato, or any solid evidence of their early maritime ability.

Incan Peru also affords no concrete evidence of extensive seaports, though we recognize its maritime skill. Perhaps these ports and canals were submerged in the cataclysm, though any confirmatory evidence of this is definitely lacking.

Crete was undoubtedly a maritime power, and so were the Scandinavian nations with their world roving Vikings. The two Indies (India and Indonesia) are acknowledged for their intensive trade with the ancient Middle East and the Far East, and possibly even the Americas. The African Northwest was settled by the Phoenicians, who had colonies in Tartessos, Carthage and Cadiz (Gadeira). However, it is difficult to establish that such colonies indeed date from Atlantean times, as the archaeological searches point to post-Bronze Age settlements only. Indeed, these are so small as to suggest that they were mere outposts of the Phoenicians, used for the re-supplying of their ships during their frequent travels to the Indies, with which they maintained a regular commerce from remotest antiquity.

On Antarctica and on some possible sunken Atlantic island or continent we have any no clearcut, scientifically acceptable evidence, and the matter awaits confirmation by the experts. Their pronouncements up to now have unanimously affirmed that both notions are scientifically preposterous, a conclusion that should not be taken lightly. The important thing to keep in mind is that the main feature of Atlantis was its naval prowess and the impressive network of canals and sluices for both navigational purposes, as well as for agricultural irrigation. Such wonders of hydraulic engineering we only find in the Far East and, perhaps, in the Amazonian extensions of the Incan empire, as some authorities believe.

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3) Continental Size and Sacred Geometry

Plato's text is somewhat confused on the actual size of Atlantis. Indeed it should be understood that he speaks of two Atlantises: the true one and the "skeletal" realm he calls by the name of "Primeval Greece". By such "Greeks" — the enemies and vanquishers of Atlantis — Plato indeed means the Aryans and their long lost Aryanavarta ("Country of the Aryans") that is indeed the sunken realm of Lemurian Atlantis.

Actually, the "skeleton" of this primordial Atlantis now forms the Indonesian archipelago, whose islands are the volcanic peaks that remained above the water when the immense expanse of the Elysian Plains sunk under the sea. These islands are now reduced to the Realm of the Dead known to the Greeks as the Islands of the Blest. But they once formed a vast continent, now mostly sunken under the South China Sea. This huge piece of land was, then, indeed "greater than Asia [Minor] and Libya [North Africa] put together", precisely as Plato asserted of Atlantis.[See Fig.1]

The second Atlantis of Plato and other mythographers is that part of India whose remains can now be observed in the Indus and the Ganges valleys. Both were the sites of magnificent civilizations such as those of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Plato also speaks of the Atlantean capital — called Atlantis by him and Poseidonis by certain Atlantologists. This royal capital — indeed reserved for the nobility, the priesthood and the royal guard — has often been confused with the whole of Atlantis by a few researchers. But is was only a small island, the sacred capital of the whole empire.

We find, to be sure, several capitals that imitated — or attempted to imitate — the Atlantean capital. One such was the royal capital of the Incas, located in an islet of Lake Titicaca, in the neighborhood of Tiahuanaco (Bolivia). Another one was the island of Thera (Santorini), perhaps the sacred capital of Minoan Crete, as some Atlantologists will. Troy too was described by Homer as fitting this sacred paradigm, and to have been submerged by the Flood after its destruction by the Bronze Age "Greeks".

Schliemann's "Troy" in Turkey hardly fits this standard description. So, it is hard to see how it could ever have been identified to either Plato's or to Homer's paradigm. The Aztecan capital in Mexico, Tenochtitlan, also followed an inland adaptation of the primordial model, with the Holy Mountain at the center (Mt. Atlas) replaced by a pyramid, and the crossing and encircling canals replaced by avenues and majestic gateways.

This Sacred Geometry is amply attested in the Far East (Angkor, Java, etc.). So, there can be little doubt that the model came to us from there. Cruder copies are also found in the Scandinavia and in Celtiberia, in monuments (cromlechs) such as Stonehenge and the likes. The universality of this tradition attests the reality of Atlantis as the prototype of the cities that follow the model of the "Celestial Jerusalem". In India and Indonesia we find a profusion of entire cities and temple complexes such as Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat and Borobudur, which were based on the model of Atlantis' capital either in full size or as smaller scaled down replicas.

As we discuss elsewhere[LINK], the Sacred Geometry of Atlantis' capital city is itself a replica of the world, in an idealized form that dates from remotest antiquity. The four quadrants of the Cross of Atlantis represent the Four Corners of the World, that is, the Four Continents (Eurasia, Africa, America and Australia). Likewise, the Center represents the continent of Atlantis, sunken under the sea, and reduced to a tiny portion (Indonesia) of mere insular proportions. (See also next item, below).

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4) Holy Mountain and Volcanoes

The essential feature of Atlantis was its Holy Mountain. This mountain was placed at the center of the capital and was identified with Atlas himself in his role as "Pillar of the Sky". As the legend goes, when this pillar collapsed, the sky fell down upon the world, destroying and asphyxiating it. In reality this is an allegory of the explosion of Mt. Atlas — indeed a volcanic peak — and of the cataclysm that caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, as we argue in detail elsewhere.

The Holy Mountain that we find in essentially all religions and sacred traditions concerning Paradise is indeed Mt. Atlas, the archetype of them all. We encounter the Holy Mountain under names such as Mt. Meru in the Indies, Mt. Calvary (or Golgotha) in Christianism, Mt. Qaf ("Skull" = Calvary) in Islamism, Mt. Kailasa (idem) in Shivaism, Mt. Salvat (or Calvat = "Skull") in Catharism, Mt. Olympos in Greece, etc.. all such derive directly from the Atlantean model, both in the New and the Old worlds.

Mt. Olympos, for instance, derives its name from the Greek Olmos Hippous, meaning "the Mountain of the Centaurs". But the Centaurs (Khentarfos) derive their name and their myth from the Gandharvas of India, where Mt. Meru is called "the Mountain of the Gandharvas". This fact shows the Indian origin of the myths of ancient Greece. Again, the Holy Mountain — this time directly connected with an Atlas figure (Ayar Cachi) turned to stone — is also found in Peru as the Huanacauri of the Incas. In fact, wherever we find the myth of the Holy Mountain of Paradise, we are able to trace it back to Mt. Meru and the Indies, that is, to Atlantis.

In symbolic form, the Holy Mountain is also represented as a pyramid or an obelisk, or similar structures. These include artefacts such as the pylons of Egyptian temples, the towers of the Babylonian ziggurats, the spires of the Gothic cathedrals and the Hindu gopuras and pyramidal temples. The pyramids — above all the step pyramids of Egypt (Zozer's), of Mexico, of Peru and of the Far East (China, Japan) — are all replicas of Mt. Meru, which is also shaped as a four-sided pyramid in Hindu traditions.

The pyramidal temples of India have all been destroyed by the Muslim invaders, who replaced them with mosques and palaces. But many have been reconstructed according to the former paradigm that of the Holy Mountain. However, the best examples extant are those of Angkor (Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom) and of Java (Baphuon, Borobudur) which replicate not only the Holy Mountain, but the sacred capital of Atlantis itself.

As we already said, the Holy Mountain of Atlantis, Mt. Atlas, was a huge volcanic peak which exploded, taking the sacred capital under, in its wake. So, this is another essential feature of Atlantis that cannot be forgotten when seeking for the site of Atlantis. To give a specific example, the archetypal Jerusalem was characterized by the central presence of Mt. Zion. This Holy Mountain is really the same as Mt. Sinai. Mt. Sinai is often described as a terrifying volcano whose "pillar of fire and smoke" actually guided the Israelites in their exodus from the site of their destroyed paradise. This paradise — which lay in Primordial Egypt (or Eden), rather than in the country now so named — is indeed Indonesia, the original homeland of the Jews.

Hence, it is a waste of time to seek Atlantis outside the regions tormented by volcanism and earthquakes. Such regions are indeed quite few in the world. First there is Thera, the favorite of the more scientifically minded Atlantologists, precisely because of this feature. The realms of the Incas and the Mayas is also frequently castigated by this type of event, but apparently never in the scale preconized by Plato and others. The reason for that is that their volcanoes are not of an explosive nature, in contrast with those of the Far East.

The same absence of explosive volcanism seems to be true of Scandinavia and of Greenland and Antarctica. No volcanoes exist in Schliemann's Troy, in Tartessos (Spain) and in Celtiberia (France and British Isles). India has no volcanoes, but is indeed frequently victimized by devastating earthquakes. So, we are left, on this account, with the Indies and with Thera as probable locations, and with the other volcanic regions of the globe as rather unlikely candidates. The non-volcanic regions can perhaps be safely excluded from our list.

Indonesia is the most volcanically active region in the world. This is attested within historical times by cataclysms such as the explosive eruption of the volcanoes Krakatoa and Tambora, and of others such in the region of Indonesia. Sunda Strait — the site of the ferocious Krakatoa volcano — is indeed the giant volcanic caldera of this semi-submarine volcano. Lake Toba, in Sumatra, is deemed earth's largest volcanic caldera, fully 100 km across.

Another immense volcanic caldera of the region, having a comparable size, is the one of Lake Taupo, in New Zealand. All these giant calderas result from huge volcanic explosions which occurred in relatively recent geological times, some 70 kya (kiloyears ago). So, the geologic record of the region indicates the reality of incomparably large disasters and the possibility of worldwide cataclysms of fire and water of the nature described by Plato and others in relation to paradisial Atlantis.

The tektites that line a substantial portion of the oceanic beds of the region with an immense strewn field is further evidence of still larger cataclysms there, in the farther past. These tektites are believed to result from a cometary or asteroidal impact which occurred at about 700 kya, that is, well within the times of Man in the region. Tektites are glass beads, sometimes of a large size, resulting from such huge impacts, which cause the melting and the ejection of the silicic rocks that underlie earth's crust.

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5) Tropical Climate and Two Crops a Year

The tropical, pleasant climate of Atlantis is one of the central features of Plato's Atlantis. The fact that the great philosopher was not idly inventing, but knew his marbles, is patent everywhere in his account. To start with, there is the issue of the two crops a year that he specifically mentions. The Greeks of Alexander were marveled by this fact when they witnessed it in the Indus Valley.

Two crops a year — generally of rice, wheat or barley — occur not only in the Indies, but almost everywhere in the Far East. They are the result of a felicitous combination of events that is unique of this vast region of the world. In the summer, the meltwaters of the Himalayas and other mountain glaciers of the region provide the riverine floods that are used to irrigate the crops. This is done by means of an artfully arranged network of dams, canals and terraces quite like the ones described by Plato as existing in Atlantis.

Such a feature is particularly observable in the Indus and the Ganges valleys, not to mention Indonesia, China and neighboring regions. It is only in Peru and the rest of the Incan empire that we find something comparable, even though of a far lesser scale.

The second yearly crop — and sometimes even a third one — is afforded by the monsoon rains that fall abundantly in the region during the winter months. The monsoon winds, loaded with moisture and coolness, are also very useful for navigation. Again, they are a very special feature of Paradise in texts such as those of Homer, of Hesiod and Josephus, as well as of several other Classical authors.

The monsoon winds are mythically the same as the legendary Boreas that blew from Hyperborea, the legendary site of Apollo's Island of the Sun. This island is also called by names such as Hypereia, Delos, Erythia, Phoenicia, Ortygia, etc.. In reality, all such islands were allegories of the paradisial island of Taprobane (Sumatra).

Many other facts mentioned in the Critias confirm the tropical nature of Plato's Atlantis: the rain forests, the palm-trees, coconuts, rose woods, incense trees, pineapples, bananas, etc.. Of course, there is also Plato's mention of "this felicitous island under the sun". This expression means, in ancient parlance, the same as the modern one of "equatorial", that is, "lying under the path of the sun in the skies".

We must recall that Plato's Atlantis flourished during the last glaciation, an epoch when global temperatures were 5° to 10° C below the present. Then, most temperate and polar regions were gelid, and entirely covered by mile thick glaciers. So, great civilizations — necessarily based on agriculture and cattle herding — could only exist in tropical and equatorial regions such as those of South India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Central and South America, and North and Central Africa and the Near East.

The advocates of icy regions such as the North Sea, Antarctica, the Arctic and such, appeal to farfetched explanations like Pole Shift and instant Continental Drift. But these events are wholly outside the realm of scientific geology, and should not be accepted unless some factual evidence develops to support their claim. This evidence — and the theory that would back it up — has also to explain the observed fact that glaciers such as those of the Himalayas, of Greenland, of Antarctica, etc., have been on place for several millions of years.

Likewise, equatorial forests such as those of the Brazilian Amazonia, Africa and Indonesia have existed for millions of years, gradually developing their enormous variety of species, in a delicate ecological equilibrium that is very easily disrupted by any form of interference. If the Pole had indeed shifted in recent geological times, these forests would have been carried into the temperate or the polar regions of the world, alongside with Atlantis. The fact that these forests still exist, as they have existed for millions of years is proof sufficient that Pole Shifts never ocurred in times within the Atlantean horizon.

So, scientifically minded Atlantologists would better forget about Pole Shift and Arctic or Antactic locations for Atlantis, if they indeed want to be taken seriously by the academic community. By the way, there is a frequent confusion among several of the proponents of these obstreperous ideas. The earth has both a Magnetic Pole and a Celestial Pole. One is determined by its magnetism, and changes rather often over geological times. But its shifting causes only very minor effects on life and over the earth's crust. The other one is dictated by earth's spinning in relation to the stars, and is essentially invariant due to the Conservation of Earth's Angular Momentum. In other words, the earth behaves as a sort of giant gyroscope, and tends to keep fixed the direction of its axis of rotation relative to the stars, even if disturbed by considerable external influences.

Only a major interference — say, a giant meteoritic collision of planetoidal size — would cause a major shift of earth's Celestial Pole. There are no traces whatsoever that this has happened in the last several million years, as we just said. Moreover, the detailed observations of rock magnetism, of pallimnological analyses (pollen studies), of sedimentology (marine and lacustrine deposits) and of varve analysis (lake level yearly variations) leave no doubt at all that Pole Shift is indeed an illusion of frustrated amateur Atlantologists that have despaired of ever finding the lost continent of Atlantis anywhere in this real world of ours.

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6) Large Population

Plato gives several clues that the population of Atlantis was indeed huge for the epoch in question. This fact alone rules out most regions of the ancient world such as Europe, North Asia and North America, which were icy deserts in the Glacial Age. It also precludes North Africa and the Near East, which were mainly desertic in that epoch. We are thus left with Central and South America, as well as with the Indies and Southeast Asia.

Agriculture and Animal Domestication — as contrasted with hunting and gathering — are the two primordial requisites for the development of city life and large, stable, civilized societies. Such large communities were rarity in the Old World outside Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and the Far East. As for the Pleistocene epoch, they probably inexisted outside Atlantis proper.

The population of Atlantis can be estimated from the facts disclosed by Plato. First of all, we have the great extension of the country, its fabled fertility, its two yearly crops and the immense network of irrigated culture grounds. These were, says Plato, about 600 x 400 km² . If we take the typical productivity of Asian agriculture (rice), we get an yearly crop for the region of something like 10 to 20 million tons of rice, plus a corresponding plurality of other agricultural and pastoral products.

Now, this is enough rice and produce to feed a population of 15 to 30 million people and still leave an ample surplus for exports. These are numbers that equate well with the ones actually observed in the South Asian regions. So, we see that Plato was speaking of reality rather than inventing anything. In all probability, these crops were partly exported for cash, affording the legendary riches of Atlantis. These exports of food and the proverbial abundance of the Isles of the Blest (Atlantis) are commemorated in many myths and traditions which we comment elsewhere.

We can also estimate the population of Atlantis by the data of Plato concerning its armed forces. Plato gives their number in detail, which totals 1,160,000 soldiers. If we consider that one half of the population was female and that about a half of the males were children and that, furthermore, in all probability, no more than 1/4 or so of the adult male population was actually conscripted, we come up with a population of some 20 million people, in fair agreement with the number estimated above.

This number is huge according to the norm of the Old World, particularly when we consider that Atlantis flourished at an epoch that predated the Neolithic Age. Hence, just as Plato states, no nation of the epoch could oppose the might of Atlantis. Such is particularly the case of Athens, which could muster no more than 30 to 50 thousand men even at the peak of its power, in the times of Pericles. But we must excuse the understandable patriotism of Plato who was, moreover, writing for a Greek audience.

We thus conclude that the huge population of Atlantis uniquely points to the Far East — the only place where such large armies could be mustered in antiquity — for the reasons pointed out above. In fact, the ancient Greeks, like other nations, marveled at the giant size of the armies of the East, and particularly that of Porus, the king of one of India's realms conquered by Alexander, the Great.

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7) The Sacred Geometry of Atlantis' Capital

The City of Atlantis — the holy capital of the vast empire of the same name — had a Sacred Geometry that became the paradigm and model for all other subsequent capitals. The geometry of the city is described in detail by Plato as well as by other mythographers, symbolists and Atlantologists. Basically, it follows the model of the so-called "Celtic Cross" or "Atlantean Cross", a circle with crossing diameters.

This sacred glyph is often equated with the Sun or the Earth, which it came to symbolize in Astrology. But it is indeed the emblem of Atlantis which some Atlantologists such as Otto Muck call by the name of "Cross of Atlantis". In Egypt, as we said above, this symbol was the hieroglyph of Paradise (Punt), as well as of the Holy Eucharist (the Sacred Bread). This idea of "Primordial Sacrifice" is invariably associated with Atlantis and its doom.

At the center of Atlantis' capital lay the Holy Mountain (Mt. Atlas), which is no other than the sacred mountain of the Hindus (Mt. Meru). Mt. Meru is pyramidal shaped, and is indeed the archetype of all pyramids and pyramidal sacred mountains everywhere. These pyramids are often stepped, a geometry that parallels that of the mountains of Atlantis (the Indies), which were stepped with terraces intended for agricultural purposes, as we already discussed further above.

The fourfold division of the Cosmos characterized by the pyramidal shape dates from Atlantean times. It is found just about everywhere in both the Old and the New Worlds. We also find it in the Hindu four castes, in their pyramidal-shaped temples and, particularly in their sacred mandalas. Indeed, mandalas such as those of the Pure Land type (Shveta Dvipa) portray Paradise as seen from above. At the center of the circle that represents the circular canal surrounding Atlantis, we have Mt. Meru represented as a stepped, square pyramid.

Next we have the triple wall with its four doors, one at each of the Four Cardinal Directions. Around it all, we have the circular River Oceanus. This circular river is often represented as the Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its own tail. The mandala is often represented as a fiery lotus (the Golden Lotus), a shape that allegorizes the essence of the sacred syllable, OM MANI PADME HUM. That mantra (prayer) subsumes the Conflagration that destroyed Atlantis, the a cataclysm of Fire and Water we know as the Flood.

So, the Sacred Geometry of Atlantis is indeed that of the mandalas and yantras we find all over the Far East, but particularly in the Indies. More exactly, the Hindo-Buddhic mandalas represent Atlantis, the true site of Paradise. This representation includes Mt. Atlas as the Holy Mountain of Paradise. This mountain is often explicitly figured as a volcano, the fiery source whose explosion actually destroyed Atlantis.

Moreover, the Indian mandalas in question also represent the Triple Wall of Atlantis (trimekhala). This Triple wall corresponds to the ringing ocean (or River Oceanus) around the sacred city. Again, the four gates (toranas) represent the four maritime straits which allowed the accessing of Atlantis from the four corners of the World. The fact that we encounter the legend of Atlantis described so faithfully in Far Eastern mandalas that form the base of Hinduism and Buddhism proves the extreme importance of the Atlantean myth in the Far Orient.

But, the fact is that, on hindsight, this mandalic figuration of Atlantis and its sacred geometry is found just about everywhere. As we just saw, it is schematically figured in the Celtic Cross as well as in monuments such as Stonehenge, which in fact represent the same thing.

So does the so-called Celtic Triple Wall, a schematic mandalic symbolism also found just about everywhere in the world. In the Americas, mandalas essentially identical to those of Hindu-Buddhists — and actually done by the same sacred technique of sandpainting — are found among the Navajo and the Pueblo Indians of North America.

An identical motif is also found in Egypt, where the pyramidal complexes also represented the pyramid-shaped Holy Mountain. A famous blue faience bowl found in Thebes and dated at the New Kingdom shows the pyramidal Holy Mountain, in plan view, as an island surrounded all around by an encircling canal. At the four corners, the Four Cardinal Directions, are the four Trees of Life shown as giant lotus plants. The picture closely resembles the similar mandalic designs of the Mayas and Aztecs, which often embody the four Trees of Life. It also evokes the Hindu mandalas representing Mt. Meru, likewise seen from above, with its four subsidiary peaks, each with its own Tree of Life. It is extremely unlikely that such identical designs and sophisticate paradisial symbolisms developed independently in all these distant, isolated regions of the world.

In more disguised form — but symbolizing precisely the same ideas and the same sacred geometry of Atlantis — we also have similar mandalic shapes representing the Celestial Jerusalem as the Center of the World. The Holy Mountain is here represented by Mt. Calvary (= Mt. Atlas or Meru) and the Cross (= Golden Lotus = Conflagration). Indeed, most capital cities such as Washington DC, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, Llassa, Harappa, Mecca, and so on, are built according to the Sacred Geometry of Atlantis, the actual source of all such archetypes.

These cities all have as their central feature, the obelisk at the middle of a circular plaza, from which depart the four main avenues along the Cardinal Directions. Anyone familiar with the inherent meaning of Hindu-Buddhic mandalas representing Mt. Meru as the Holy Mountain of Paradise will have no difficulty in realizing the Indian origin of this universal symbolism. The very fact that it is both universal and extremely ancient proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that its worldwide diffusion can only have been carried out by the Atlanteans, in the dawn of times. How else?

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8) Beyond the Pillars of Hercules

Since Atlantis was located in the Outer Ocean, it has to be sought outside the Pillars of Hercules and the Strait of Gibraltar. Actually, there were several Pillars of Hercules in antiquity created by the cunning Phoenician in order to confuse the navigants seeking the secret route to Paradise, indeed the one of the profitable commerce with the Indies.

Thus, we find Pillars of Hercules — sometimes confused with those of Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven — not only in Gibraltar, but also in Tartessos (Spain), Gadis (Spain), Gadir (Morocco), the Bosphoros (Black Sea), the Bab-el-Mandeb (Arabia) and even as far as the Indus Delta (India) and the Strait of Sunda (Indonesia).

In reality, it was the opening up of the Pillars of Hercules in the Strait of Sunda that created the legend of the Hero opening the Strait of Gibraltar as his topmost work. In reality this was done by the giant explosion of the Krakatoa volcano, which was formerly Mt. Atlas, and lay between Java and Sumatra.

When the Greeks moved from their primeval homeland in the Indies into their new one in the Mediterranean, they brought along their myths, which they transplanted to the local geographical features. Hence, they created a new pair of Pillars of Hercules in Gibraltar, a new Atlantic Ocean, a new Garden of the Hesperides, a new set of Islands of the Blest, and so on.

But, as we just said, the archetypal Pillars of Hercules really lay in Indonesia, the true site of Atlantis and of Eden. There is where the whole story indeed started. But, whether one accepts this seminal discovery or not, this matters little, for Plato is very specific on his disclosure that Atlantis in fact lay in the Outer Ocean and "beyond the Pillars of Hercules".

Actually, the famous philosopher uses the word hyper which is a Greek adverb meaning "beyond", with a sense of "transposing", "crossing", "passing beyond", "going further", "yonder", "past", "over", etc.. So, the proposals that place Atlantis inside the Mediterranean Basin, though attractive and scientifically convincing, must be discarded as specious. Such is the case of Thera (Santorini, near Crete), of the Schott-el-Djerid (Libya), of the Bosphoros (Black Sea), of the Kertch Strait (idem), of Troy (Hissarlik, in Turkey) and so on.

The specifications of Plato further embody certain puns — so liked of the ancients when treating matters related to the secret of the Mysteries — which we now explain. To start with, the word hyper discussed above also has the sense of "placed above as a substitute". This is probably what Plato had in mind when he wrote that "the Atlanteans lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules" (hyper ten Heraklei Nyssai).

We have precisely the same kind of pun in the Egyptian name of the country of Hau-nebut, the mysterious people of the shady "Islands of the Middle of the Great Green (Sea)". These islands, which have been confused with Crete by many Egyptologists of merit, are indeed those of Indonesia, the primordial Paradise of the Egyptians (Punt). The name of Hau-nebut derives from a wordplay, in Sanskrit and Dravida, the primordial languages of the place, and means something like "the Islands (or Marshes) beyond the Pillars (of Hercules)". In other words, these distant isles are precisely those of Atlantis, left behind when the great continent foundered long ago.

This exegesis might be considered farfetched, were it not for the fact that Plato makes another similar wordplay when he makes the priest of Sais affirm that Atlantis lay "in front of the straits which are by you called Pillars of Hercules". What Plato is indeed hinting at is that the Pillars of Hercules in question are truly those of Indonesia. For, there are no lands or islands, sunken or not, "before Gibraltar" except the distant continent of North America. No one so far, in modern times, has dared to identify America to Atlantis.

This fact is in contrast to the geography of Sunda Strait, indeed the ancient gateway to Atlantis. Before it, an enormous continent, now sunken, then lay as an enormous expanse just in front, precisely as Plato affirms. What the great philosopher affirms of Atlantis was perfectly true of Indonesia during the Pleistocene Ice Age:
 

"There was an island [or continent] beyond the Pillars of Hercules... larger than Libya and Asia Minor put together. This continent [of Atlantis] was the way to other islands [Oceania]; and from these you might pass to the opposite continent [the Americas], which encompasses the true Ocean".
Look at a good map of the world, and you will immediately realize that Plato spoke truly, and that this region is the only one in the world that fits his words adequately at the epoch in question, the Pleistocene Ice Age.

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9) Innavigable Seas and Sargassos Sea

Another subject of extreme importance in the texts of Plato on Atlantis is the matter of the "innavigable seas". The philosopher refers to these innavigable seas twice, one in the Critias and the other in the Timaeus. In the Timaeus (25d), Plato mentions that when Atlantis sunk underseas, "the sea in the region became impassable and impenetrable because of the shoals of mud in it, caused by the subsidence of the island [of Atlantis]".

In the Critias (108d) Plato repeats the same story of the "impassable barrier of mud", adding the detail that the island that sunk was indeed "greater than Libya and Asia put together". The Greeks had no name for "continental" in the modern sense. So, they used the word "island" for it, in the sense of an extension of land "isolated" by the seas. This usage has caused an enduring difficulty for Atlantologists unfamiliar with this fact. Such is the reason why they believe that Atlantis was an island rather than a continent or a large piece of land of continental size isolated by the seas.

But let us return to the matter of the "innavigable seas". The Atlantic Ocean — particularly in the region outside the Strait of Gibraltar — is actually very deep and very fit for navigation. It apparently never posed a barrier for navigation and never presented shoals of sand or mud either natural or as the result of the sinking of any islands or continents there.

Hence, the oceanographers and other such specialist put the words of Plato to rest, and started looking for Atlantis elsewhere. In despair, some appealed to the Sargassos Seas, even today a favorite theme of Atlantologists unaware of the recent advances of Oceanography and of Mythological Exegesis. Indeed, the Sargassos Sea got its name due to a mistake of Columbus.

Columbus believed — to the day of his death — that he was heading to the fabulous Indies. The Indies are the true site of the Eldorado and of Paradise, as any seasoned mariner well knows. Hence, when the great explorer saw the Sargassos and flotsam of these seas, he immediately thought he had reached the Indies and its fabled Sargassos Seas which are indeed shallow and treacherous, just as Plato claimed. Columbus, thus, wrongly baptized the seas he discovered with the hopeful but unfortunate name that persists even today.

In reality the true Sargassos Sea is the one the Hindus call Nalanala, meaning the same in Sanskrit. The Indian "Sea of Sargassos" is indeed the South China Sea. This sea is the one of the Indonesian region, which is no other than that of sunken Atlantis. These seas are indeed shallow and full of reeds, sargassos, kelp, sandbars and coral reefs which render its navigation next to impossible, except to the extremely skilled local pilots.

What is more, the Indonesian Seas are prone to a very peculiar event that is indeed linked with the Atlantean cataclysm, just in the manner disclosed by Plato. When the Krakatoa volcano erupted explosively, back in 1883, it caused one of the worst catastrophes ever recorded by men. The explosion originated an immense tidal wave that killed some 40,000 people instantly. Far more persons died of famine, later on. But the most curious feature of its explosion was the liberation of immense floating banks of pumice stone. These endured for months, impeding navigation in the region and causing the death of a large number of fishes and other marine organisms.

We can now understand the true meaning of Plato's words. The "mud" in question is what Plato calls pelos, a Greek word meaning "slime", "clay", "mud", "muck", "silt", "ooze", "sediment". In other words, this "mud" is the pumice stone and the fly ash erupted by the giant volcanic explosion — possibly one thousand times larger than the Krakatoa eruption of 1883. This mass covered the local seas with sediments and floating banks of volcanic ejecta. This impeded navigation for perhaps centuries on end. And still does, in a large way. Even today, these seas are, to a large extent, "innavigable" in a rather literal sense.

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10) Sunken Continent

One of the most stringent clues on Plato's Atlantis is that of a sunken continent "greater than Libya [North Africa] and Asia [Minor] put together". In other words, Plato is speaking of something like 5 to 10 million square kilometers, about the size of Brazil or the USA. Now that is an enormous piece of real-estate, the size of a continent, one that cannot be easily hidden away anywhere.

Where can this continental-sized region be hiding even today? Certainly not in the Atlantic Ocean, that has been scrutinized (for military purposes) down to the metric scale by both the American and the Russian oceanographic ships. The same is true of the Pacific and the Indian Oceans which have also been thoroughly scanned. Hence, an Atlantic Atlantis is an illusion that is to be found nowhere. So, is it truly exists, it must be sought elsewhere.

It is an extremely interesting fact that Atlantologists — and apparently the oceanographers as well — have been minutiously searching the world's ocean so thoroughly that they forgot to seek in the exact spot where Atlantis actually lies: the South China Sea. Strictly speaking, the South China Sea — that of Indonesia, to be sure — lies between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. But it belongs to neither, and actually forms their divide.

This is the reason why Indonesia was called Ultima Thule (that is, "Ultimate Divide") by the ancients. Thule was considered "the Divide of the World" in antiquity, as it separated the Old from the New World. As the world is spherical, and closes upon itelf, its extremes touch each other. So, the Extremes of the World (Orient and Occident) are indeed coterminous, and are also at the center, the Center of the World. This is how the paradox of Thule and the Pillars of Hercules being both the ultimate extremity of the world and, simultaneously, its Center or Navel (Omphalos) should be ultimately understood. It is also thus that we must understand the paradox of Paradise lying both at the Extreme Occident and the Extreme Orient. For, beyond the Orient (the Far East) lies the Far Occident, the New World. The whole thing is rather obvious, a posteriori, when we pause to think it over.

The South China averages only about 50-60 meters in depth. It is, hence, extremely shallow and dangerously filled with sandbars and coral reefs that render navigation there extremely perilous, just as Plato affirmed (see item 9 above). Thus, it is possible to understand precisely what happened according to Plato. Geology has recent independently uncovered this type of evidence as well.

During the Pleistocene Ice Age — or, more exactly, during the last Glacial Period — so much water was retained in the continental glaciers that sea level was lower by some 100-150 meters. Hence, the shallow bottom of the South China Sea was completely exposed, forming a vast expanse of continental dimensions.

It was this vast expanse that the Greeks called Elysian Fields and the Egyptians named Sekhet Aaru (or "Field of Reeds"). This marshy country is the one which later became the primordial Sargasso Sea of the Indonesian region (9).

So, while it is true that "continents cannot sink", it is also true that sea level can rise and flood entire continents, as it did in the South China Sea. It is there that we must seek Atlantis and Eden, as well as the Elysian Fields and the Isles of the Blest. It was also there that once lay the felicitous Paradise, the very cradle of Mankind and of Civilization. Atlantis has not been found before because it has been sought in the wrong side of the world, perhaps as the result of ethnocentric biases and white suprematist preconceptions.

When we look at a map of the region during the Ice Age (Fig. 1) we can see that, indeed, the region formed a vast expanse of continental size, precisely as Plato and others postulated, and just as we argued above. Plato speaks of a sudden cataclysm, taking place "in a single day and a night of sorrow". In contrast, geologists unanimously affirm that the rise in sea level was slow and gradual, and that the process lasted perhaps a millennium, while the glaciers slowly melted away, their meltwaters gradually filling the seas.

Fig. 1 - Map of Atlantis During the Ice Age
Can these two points of view, so opposite in scope be factually reconciled? Actually both are somewhat right, once they are properly understood. What indeed happened was that the giant explosive eruption of the Krakatoa volcano caused a colossal tsunami — improperly called "tidal wave" — which swept over Atlantis' lowlands and rivers valleys, killing and destroying all things in its wake.

And this colossal explosion also caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age. this event occurred because the giant explosion covered the world's glaciers with a fine layer of soot. This soot increased their absorption of the sun's heat, causing their consequent melting. The meltwaters of the continental glaciers flowed to the seas, rising their level. The extra weight of that water created huge stresses between the overloaded seabeds and the alleviated continental lands. These stresses, in turn, led to further paroxysms of volcanism and earthquakes of a hitherto unprecedented scale.

So, the process of termination of the Pleistocene Ice Age was perhaps more or less uniform along an entire millennium. But it was punctuated from the start by a series of cataclysms caused by the volcanisms, the seaquakes and the earthquakes caused by the very process in action.

In other words the end of the Pleistocene was triggered by the very cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis. This triggering resulted in a further castigation of the doomed region. Already almost fully destroyed by the conflagration and the giant tsunami that we call the Flood, Atlantis saw its vast territory gradually disappear under the seas that kept rising gradually, while a series of volcanic eruptions and giant seaquakes marked the cadence of a further series of violent cataclysms.

All this violence started exactly at the date given by Plato, that of 11,600 BP. This date is the actual one of the end of the Pleistocene according to the geologic record. The terrible event also caused the extensive mass extinctions that attended the transition from the Pleistocene into the present geological era, the Holocene. Interestingly enough, recent studies of the geological record have shown that the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age (and that of the other geological eras as well) was attended by a paroxysmic increase of volcanic and seismic activity of unprecedented proportions.

The reason for this is easy to understand. As the glaciers melted away, their meltwaters flowed into the ocean, causing sea level to rise by 100-150 meters. The alleviated continental plates rose isostatically (isostatic rebound), while the overburdened seabottoms, subjected to the tremendous pressure of the extra water, tended to sink even further. This strain caused tremendous stresses in the crust of the earth, which cracked and quaked at the weak spots, engendering the paroxysm in question. The process is self-sustaining, once started, due to positive feedback, for the increased volcanism and seismic activity further accelerates glacier melting, as described above.

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11) Megalithic Constructions

We consider megalithic constructions — particularly the ones made of hewn stones such as those of Egypt and Peru — to be the very "signature" of the Atlanteans. The reason is easy to see. In order to work hard stones such as granite and basalt, nothing short of steel or, at the very minimum, bronze, will ever do. Stone — even as hard as dolerite and granite — soon chip and crack, becoming unusable.

Archaeologists generally claim that the Egyptians and the Peruvian Indians who built the colossal structures we can observe even today in England (Stonehenge), in Giza (the Great Pyramid) and in Peru and Bolivia (Tiahuanaco) did it with tools fashioned from copper or from stones such as dolerite. This fact shows that they actually never attempted to do it in reality or even to theoretically demonstrate how this can be done in practice. The reason for that is simple to see, as the feat is completely impossible in actuality.

The true secret of megalithic construction is the possession of steel and bronze tools and of the metallurgical techniques to produce them. This technology existed in the Far East several millennia before the recognized date of their introduction in the West. It is clear that this technique came from elsewhere, and was indeed practiced by foreigners or invaders that kept such secrets for themselves.

Such was precisely the case in both Egypt and Peru, the two greatest early exponents of megalithic technology outside the Far East. Incan and Egyptian traditions both tell how personages associated with the construction of megaliths and pyramids came from the distant Orient, bringing along their steel weapons. These they later smithed into the tools they used in order to erect their magnificent megalithic constructions. In Egypt, a steel tool was found inside the Great Pyramid by Cel. Vyse, who swore in writing that it could in no case be intrusive and, hence, of later date. But the Great Pyramid was built in 2,600 BC, almost 2 millennia before iron was officially introduced in Egypt. Furthermore, the builders (Free-Masons?) to whom such megalithic constructions are ascribed — personages such as Khufu, Imhotep and Thoth — are unanimously said to have come from the Orient, from the site of Paradise (Punt). Punt (Indonesia)is precisely the site of the Paradise we believe to be the same as Atlantis.

The same thing also happened in Peru. There the Incas attributed the construction of Tiahuanaco's magnificent pyramids and precision megalithic structures to the Chimus (or Chams), whom they described as white, blond, blue-eyed giants. This is the standard phenotype of the Atlanteans everywhere. These Indians also claim that, when these invaders came from beyond the Ocean (Pacific), they brought along the iron and the bronze with which they fashioned their tools and weapons. Even the name the Peruvians used for steel (quillay) is of Dravidian derivation, and clearly came from the Far Orient.

When we turn to places such as Greece (legends on the construction of Troy); to England (Stonehenge), France (Carnac) and the Far East itself (Angkor, Java, South India) we always find the legends claiming that these monuments were built by blond giants and dark dwarfs working jointly and using magical means in order to erect their megaliths.

Are these, perhaps, reflections of Atlantis and its two races of giants (Nagas) and dwarfs (Kinnaras, or what? How else can we reasonably explain otherwise the mystery of the construction of the spectacular monuments such as the Great Pyramid, Zozer's pyramidal complex, the megaliths of Tiahuanaco or even the rougher constructions of France (Carnac) and England (Stonehenge)? These were all constructed of gigantic hard-stones shaped to exacting tolerances by means of a technique that we are barely able to reproduce today. Moreover, how but through Atlantis can we explain the fact that all such monuments were built to serve a common purpose as a replica of Atlantis? Besides, why are they all ascribed to semi-divine personages of Atlantean origin who used superior, seemingly magical techniques for the purpose?

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12) Horses and War Chariots

Plato relates in detail how Atlantis had an immense army for the time, totaling about 1.2 million armed men. This vast army had a sum of 10,000 chariots, something portentous for the epoch. Now, war chariots require horses, which is to say that the horse was first domesticated in Atlantis some 12 thousand years ago or even more. This fact apparently rules out the Americas from our list, as they did not posses the animal except under non-conformal sizes and dates.

The same conclusion also applies to Europe and the Near East. There, the horse was only introduced far later by way of Egypt and the Hyksos, at about 1,670 AC or so. All in all, it seems that if Plato's disclosures on the intensive use of domesticated horses in Atlantis is indeed true, only an Oriental location for the Lost Continent is indeed consonant with actual fact.

The origin and the domestication of the horse is wrapped in mystery, as is usually the case with all things Atlantean. The magnificent animal apparently arose in Asia at about 38 million years ago. From there it later spread to the Americas, and became extinct there afterwards, but not before returning to Eurasia. Experts believe that the horse was domesticated in Central Asia at about the third millennium BC. From there, via Egypt and the Hyksos, the horse's use spread to Europe and the Near East and, perhaps, from this, back to the Far Orient, where its use had been utterly lost and forgotten.

Experts also generally agree that the domestic horse does not derive from American stocks but, instead from Asian ones. Hence, the very archaeology of the horse points to Asia as the land of origin of the domesticated horse. This suggests a connection between Atlantis and the Orient if Plato is right in his assertion that the domestic horse originated in Atlantis far earlier than the experts would have it.

Plato also tells how the royal capital city of Atlantis had extensive hippodromes for horse racing. Plato is probably alluding to chariot racing, though it is not impossible that there were also mounted contests. The large width of the racing course (200 meters) suggests chariot contests, a sport highly cherished in antiquity.

The Horse Sacrifice of the Hindus (Ashvamedha) is indeed a ritual enactment of the death of Paradise (Atlantis). The horse is there commemorated as the animal that represents the Cosmos (Paradise). So, this strange Vedic ritual again establishes a link with Atlantis as the homeland of the domesticated horse, one of the finest of all conquests of man. The legend of the Trojan Horse also brings to mind a connection between Atlantis and horses, for the true Troy is no other than Atlantis.

As the horse and combat chariots inexisted in the Near East before their introduction by the Hyksos, we can be sure that Schliemann's Troy is not the real one, as archaeologists presently believe. The war chariots described in detail by Plato are of the Hindu type rather than of the one used throughout the ancient Near East.

The war chariots of Atlantis, like the ones of India, had two charioteers and a pair of draft horses. One of the riders drove, while the other charioteer shot arrows at the enemies with the help of his bow. The celebrated passage of the Bhagavad Gita on Krishna and Arjuna as the charioteers of victory describes in detail the classical battles fought during the Bronze Age and, in all probability, in Atlantis as well.

We cannot end this section without repeating that, from all the gifts man has inherited from Atlantis, the domesticated horse was certainly one of the noblest of all. Though classically used in combats and disputes of all sorts, the horse also served as a means of transportation, of drafting loads and implements and, above all, for riding, along all the millennia that preceded the epoch-making invention of the automobile.

When one admires horses on the loose, one is usually impressed with the great speed and the gracefulness of the superb animal. But one is also struck with the wide extensions that these magnificent creatures require both for roaming and for feeding. One is also led to dream of paradisial grassy plains of enormous extension, abounding in fat grass and in water sources flashing under the warm sunlight of the tropical regions.

What other plains are as fit as the Elysian Plains for the birthplace of the horse and for that of the wise ancestors who first dreamed of turning the horse in an everyday companion and friend? The very fact that the ancestor of the domesticated horse cannot be traced with security suggests a lost site of origin like the one of Atlantis. Atlantis, we recall, was the very site of the Elysian Plains, the immense grassy pampas where the horse is most likely to have originated.

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13) Elephants in Atlantis

Plato is very specific on the presence of elephants in Atlantis. In his Critias, the philosopher writes:
 

"There were a great number of elephants in the island, for there was ample provision of food for all sorts of animals... including for the animal which is the largest and the most voracious of all."
The question of elephants is very important, for it sheds a lot of light on the issue of Atlantis. The date given by Plato for the end of Atlantis — that of 11,600 BP — is a divisor of waters. It corresponds precisely with that of the drastic end of the Pleistocene. This is the epoch when the mammoth and the mastodon became extinct throughout the world, along with a myriad species of other plants and animals. Plato would certainly call these two elephantoids by the name of "elephant", an animal they closely resemble in both shape and size.

So, if we consider the date given by Plato to be real, we could place Atlantis everywhere these great mammals existed. In contrast, if we accept later dates, as do the proponents of an American or a Theran Atlantis, we must disregard the mammoth and the mastodon, for they were already extinct. To be sure, there are some later RC dates for the mammoth in North America, well after the end of the Pleistocene. But these should be considered pending confirmation, as they seem to be spurious, pehaps as the result of contamination by extraneous material.

In other words, elephants proper are only found in Africa and in South Asia. So, the exigency of their presence by Plato excludes the Americas and the Mediterranean Basin, with the exception of North African countries. The elephant existed in North Africa, and was utilized by Hannibal of Carthage, in his war against Rome. Some ancient traditions report the presence of wild elephants in Syria, where it was ritually hunted by kings and pharaohs. But these traditions probably refer to the pristine "Syria", the Island of the Sun (Surya, in Sanskrit), which is no other than Atlantis itelf. However, the unlikely presence of the elephant in ancient Palestine would hardly invalidate any of our conclusions, for this semi-desertic region of the globe can hardly have been the actual site of luscious, tropical Atlantis.

The wonderful creature also exists in the African savannas in relatively great numbers. But it is in the Indies — that is, in India, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula — that the elephant indeed thrives. There, the elephant has been domesticated as a beast both of burden and warfare use since remotest antiquity, as attested in the steatite seals of the Indus Valley Civilization.

The mammoth and the mastodon — in contrast to the elephant — were well adapted to cold weather, and ranged farther north, into the icy regions of Pleistocenic North America, Europe, and North Asia. So, if we include these creatures under the "elephants" mentioned by Plato, we must also include the regions just mentioned as possible sites for Atlantis. But we should keep in mind that this inclusion automatically requires that the date for Atlantis in these locations must be the one given by Plato for its demise, for these animals became extinct after the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago, the very date of Atlantis' foundering.

Turning to other points. As a matter of fact, the elephant was the totemic deity of the Nagas (or Aryans) of India. The Nagas (or Titans) were the people so closely connected with Atlantis and Atlantean legends there and elsewhere. Indeed, the word naga means both "elephant" and "serpent" (or "dragon") in Sanskrit. Such "dragons" or "elephants" are universally held to be the same as the Atlantean Sons of God, the engenderers of royal dynasties everywhere. Such was the case, for instance, of Alexander, the Great, of Buddha (the Elephant = a Naga), and of Arthur Pendragon ("Son of the Dragon").

Interestingly enough, the Mayas of Mexico worshipped the elephant as a totemic deity, and endlessly reproduced the animal's features in their temples and palaces. Mayan temples are often decorated with elephantine trunks in the so-called "elephant trunk" decorations. These are said to reproduce the elephant-faced god called Chaac. Chaac seems to be the exact counterpart of his Hindu alias, Ganesha, likewise elephant-headed. No one with an open mind can ever deny that the Mayan god Chaac — locally called Narigon ("Big Nose") — is anything other than an elephant god of the type the Hindus call Naga (a Sanskrit word meaning both "Elephant and "Serpent" or "Dragon").

The Nagas represent the anguipedal Titans and, in particular, the serpent (or elephant = Naga) god Shesha. Shesha is the true archetype of Atlas as the Pillar of the World. Similar elephantine temple decoration abound even today in the Indies. There the elephant (or serpent) god is, just as in Mayan America, endlessly reproduced in the form of pillars supporting the temples' roofings which represents the skies. In Incan Peru we also had the same thing. There too, the Serpent Amaru — the exact counterpart of Shesha — was held to support the world. Its dual was the Inti Bird, a sort of kite or falcon, also the archenemy of serpents. Both animals figured in the royal coat-of-arms, just as they did in Mexico.

The elephant or serpent gods of the Incas, the Mayas and the Hindus have a dual in the eagle god, called Garuda or Nagari ("Enemy of the Nagas") in the Indies. In Mexico, the duel of the Eagle and the Serpent has been adopted as the national emblem of Mexico, as it was central to Mayan religion. The motif is equally famous in the Indies, where Garuda is the Eagle, and the Nagas are the Serpents or Dragons.

Hence, either the Mayas got their notion of elephant gods from India, or we have to root their formidable civilization in ante-Diluvian, Pleistocenic times. Both perspectives are equally fascinating. They both spell Atlantis, for Pleistocenic civilizations or intimate trans-Pacific contacts between the Far East and the Americas both collide front on with "official" views of human prehistory.

Whereas the elephant or the extinct mammoths and mastodons may have existed in a now sunken Atlantic island, there is no confirmatory evidence for this, and the matter is pending. Scandinavia and Celtiberia present certain evidence of the presence of the mammoths, but none whatsoever of its domestication or of any great Pleistocenic civilization that might be equated with Atlantis. No traces of elephants have ever been found on Thera or Crete, except perhaps for certain imported ivory objects. The same holds for Antarctica. According to the archaeological issues discussed above we marked our Checklist as follows:

Positive (V): Plato, the Indies, North Africa, Libya and African Northwest.

Doubtful (?): Sunken Atlantic Island, Scandinavia