Antarctica = Atlantis?

[Imperial_Call]

Wasn't there a theory floated a few years ago that Antartica is really Atlantis? Something about a map of Atlantis looking very like a map of Antartica ... Atlantis having "moved" there after a polar shift thingy

 

[FraterLibre]

Blueprint

The Atlantis Blueprint by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath cited that one I believe.

 

[Imperial_Call]

Dunno about them two Fraterlibre, I think the map I heard of was supposed to have been drawn by Plato. And wasn't there something about there being coal/oil beneath the ice cap?

 

[FraterLibre]

No Map

There is no map drawn by Plato, no.

There is an entire continent, the second largest I believe, under the Antarctic ice-cap so I suppose there would indeed be all sorts of mineral wealth. Not sure any's actually been confirmed, though.

 

[Anonymous]

i am reading a very good book called"the atlantis blueprint".
it puts forward a good claim that atlantis is in fact antarctica:eek!!!!:
does anyone have any other info/opinions on this

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

markc101: This has come up a time or 2 before:

--------
Specific Antlantis/Antarctica stuff:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/flooded-kingdoms.2261/

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/strange-object-found-under-antartic-ice.3958/

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/antartica-without-the-ice.3382/

---------
More General Atlantis discussion:

*****************************

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Fancy telling us how you like the book and what you found interesting about?

Emps

EDIT: Updated external links to current versions. Disabled links for threads that no longer exist separately.

 

[Anonymous]

the facts that the book puts fowards just seem to be solid.

 

[Mythopoeika]

the facts that the book puts fowards just seem to be solid.

Facts?

 

[Timble2]

Evidence....

If it's the Rand Flem-ath book IMO it seemed a bit of pick'n'mix of a lot of alternative archeology theories of the Charles Bertlitz and Eric von D, kind - not convinced myself.

If there was anything behind the Atlantis story, IMO it's an oral tradition of something like the eruption of Thera/Santorini or some other town that disappeared catastrophically in say an earthquake

Trying to check the spelling of the name found RF-a's got a website that might be of interest:

http://www.flem-ath.com

 

[Jerry_B]

Re: Evidence....

If there was anything behind the Atlantis story, IMO it's an oral tradition of something like the eruption of Thera/Santorini or some other town that disappeared catastrophically in say an earthquake

I agree - Santorini is the best candidate for being Atlantis, IMHO.

 

[Anonymous]

Santorini does seem the best bet, but are there any reasons given by those with other views, as to why Santorini isn't the right place?

 

[Jerry_B]

I think most objections to Atlantis a being Santorini are ones to do with the given size of the island - but the size of Atlantis has been greatly exaggerated. A classic example of one writer simply copying the work of a previous writer without actaully looking anything up themselves.

Issue 46 of the now sadly defunct 3rd Stone magazine has a good article that argues a cohesive case for Atlantis being Santorini.

 

[Breakfastologist]

I thought the other argument against Santorini was that Plato, the only documentary source for Atlantis (and he was using it to make a philosophical point, so he most probably he made the whole thing up) explicitly states that it is beyond the straits of gibraltar - although I don't think he uses that name on account of there not being a gibraltar then.

I seem to recall a BBC story, which I probably linked in one of the above threads, where they had found evidence for a land mass in that location that was flooded at the end of the last ice age.

Another suggestion was that it was based on the Turkish city of Tantalis, but I think most of the evidence for that was to do with the names being a bit similar.

 

[Anonymous]

The actual term he is commonly ascribed with is 'beyond the Pillars of Hercules', meaning of course the rocks of Gibraltar and Morocco(?)

[end pedantry]

 

[Anonymous]

I would say that the main argument against Antarctica being Atlantis is that Antarctica has been covered in ice for at least two million years,
and Humans were still in the species Homo rudolfensis that far back-
barely able to wield a handaxe.

 

[Breakfastologist]

That depends on whether you subscribe to the theory put forward by ?someone? but repeated by Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods where he talks about the earth's crust being destabilised by a weight of ice and slipping across the magma, shifting the whole world around a bit. Thus the north american/european ice age was not the ice running south but the world being tilted differently so that north america and northern europe were under the ice cap. The shift and consequent sploshing about of oceans are the root of the global flood myths and the escapees from the Atlantis incident became the ancient egyptians, Quetzalcoatl and so on.

It's quite an interesting idea and makes for a cracking read.

 

[Anonymous]

just a thought but if australia used to be the south pole in the past it would be a very flat featureless country

since this is the case ,and it wasnt the south pole in the past,what geological process produced such a flat country?

 

[Anonymous]

That depends on whether you subscribe to the theory put forward by ?someone? but repeated by Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods where he talks about the earth's crust being destabilised by a weight of ice and slipping across the magma, shifting the whole world around a bit. Thus the north american/european ice age was not the ice running south but the world being tilted differently so that north america and northern europe were under the ice cap. The shift and consequent sploshing about of oceans are the root of the global flood myths and the escapees from the Atlantis incident became the ancient egyptians, Quetzalcoatl and so on.

It's quite an interesting idea and makes for a cracking read.

Charles Hapgood's 'Earth Crust Displacement' theory - for which there is absolutely no geological evidence in support of, and a wealth against.

For example, the Hawaiian Island chain - which forms a straight line of successive volcanos that have formed above a hot spot as the Pacific plate moved slowly northeastwards. Yes there is a dog-leg in them, but it dates to around 45 mya. Clear evidence no ECD had occurred since at least then.

 

[Anonymous]

just a thought but if australia used to be the south pole in the past it would be a very flat featureless country

since this is the case ,and it wasnt the south pole in the past,what geological process produced such a flat country?

Several 100 million years of natural erosion.

Apart from the east coast where there are relatively new mountain ranges, most of Australia has avoided the orogenic (mountain building) processes that constantly change the surface of the Earth.

If nothing happens to build new mountains, then those that exist will eventually be worn down and we end with the relatively featureless landcape of Australia.

 

[Breakfastologist]

I thought it probably didn't work as a theory, but it still makes for a cracking read.

How does the existence of a dog-leg disprove the possibility that all the plates moved together?

 

[Anonymous]

I thought it probably didn't work as a theory, but it still makes for a cracking read.

How does the existence of a dog-leg disprove the possibility that all the plates moved together?

I haven't read the Atlantis Blueprint - but I thoroughly enjoyed When The Sky Fell, Flem-Ath's previous book

The dog-leg simply suggests we may not yet know everything about plate tectonics - the direction the Pacific Plate moves has changed, but we don't really know why.

 

[Anonymous]

I still reckon crustal displacement is the best explanation for many things:

The global 'memory' of the flood or inundation.
Lost islands, continents, civilisations.
Apparent pre-historic trading between Africa & South America.
The Piri Ries maps.
Flash frozen mammoths.

It forms a frame for all the jigsaw pieces IMO, plus Einstein considered the theory as 'electrifying' and quite plausible.

It'll do for me until the real answer is found.

 

[Breakfastologist]

The thing about the global flood memory is that from time to time there are floods pretty much everywhere- there is nothing to suggest that, once you get back into the dreamtime of mythological origins, the floods different cultures describe happened at the same time.

I also can't see how the pre-historic trade between africa and south america relates to crust displacement - I don't disagree that such trade existed (and I don't agree with the current convention which suggests all human civilisation has been a steady development towards our current state) but I'm not sure I see how it relates to crustal displacement.

Again, lost civilisations could as easily be caught by events like the Santorini eruption or simply crushed by neighbouring tribes as happened to so many of the great historical civilisations - crustal displacement is not a necessary cause of their demise.

The maps are the real killer for this subject, though, and they are truly intriguing. Are they actually kept in any museum where they are publically viewable?

I don't really know much about the mammoths, but they do present another interesting challenge to traditional science.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

How does the existence of a dog-leg disprove the possibility that all the plates moved together?

And to expand on Prospect's reply - mantle plumes like the one under Hawaii originate deep in the mantle (probably at the mantle/core boundary) and demonstrate that the crust hasn't moved dramatically in relation to the rest of the planet. The Emperor Seamount chain can be visualised as i you were slowly drawing a piece of paper over the lighter.

Also a basic understaning of geology would also disprove this as the crust doesn't just sit like the skin on a bowl of custard but it is closely integrated with mantle in areas where the plates dive down into the mantle in subduction zones.

The earth id also not a perfect sphere (it bulges around the middle) and you couldn't just move the crust around.

I believe Hancock is no longer in favour of this theory - is that right?

Lets look at Quicklsilver's list:

The global 'memory' of the flood or inundation.

This could easily be explained by the rising sea levels at the end of the last glaciation.

Lost islands, continents, civilisations.

Like? And anyway wouldn't a more straightfoward explanation be the same as the above.

Apparent pre-historic trading between Africa & South America.

I can't see the link.

The Piri Ries maps.

These are still the source of a great deal of debate.

Flash frozen mammoths.

Mammoths lived in cold climates so it shouldn't be much suprise that we find them frozen. I'm not sure what you mean by flash frozen but a dead animal could be frozen quite rapidly in northern latitudes.

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

Well - this is one of those things that will always be open to debate and discussion - I merely point out that the theory of crustal displacement covers a lot of stuff, but to answer a few points:

Global memory of flood: 'ordinary' floods may be prevalent in a society's memory for some generations, but we are talking about Uber-floods that are colossal enough to remain engraved in the general conciousness for many thousands of years.

Lost Island etc: Atlantis, Ur, Mur, Lemuria these are few off the top of my head - these lost places also figure highly in global memory - I agree that Santorini could also be a good candidate for this.

Trading: if, say the Antartic landmass was ancient Atlantis, home to an advanced seafaring race, then trade between the continents would have been easy - artifacts like the copper plate showing steep 'Egyptian' pyramids surrounded by elephants, lions and giraffes found in a South American ziggurat hints that movement between the continents is a fact.

Map: yes, we'll all agree that they are odd in some way or another.

Mammoths: green vegetation found in the stomachs of thawed animals show that the freezing happened before the food could be digested or, if the animal died before that, it didn't have a chance to rot. That's some rate of freezing.

Yes, I know it's far fetched, but if true it would make sense, at least to me.

Discuss.

 

[rynner2]

Flash frozen mammoths.

Mammoths lived in cold climates so it shouldn't be much suprise that we find them frozen. I'm not sure what you mean by flash frozen but a dead animal could be frozen quite rapidly in northern latitudes.

Not sure if this is true. This may be an assumption which is made because the remains we find are often in what are now cold climates.

But Mammoths are large herbivores, and like their modern relatives the elephants, require large amounts of vegetation to keep them going. This would imply a temperate climate if not a tropical one, but summer migrations to regions further north may have occurred. Perhaps some were caught in unexpectedly early winter blasts while there...


Or maybe the Earth turned upside down, inside out, hit an asteroid, or was hit by a solar storm... :eek!!!!: :madeyes:

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

rynner:

Not sure if this is true. This may be an assumption which is made because the remains we find are often in what are now cold climates.

But Mammoths are large herbivores, and like their modern relatives the elephants, require large amounts of vegetation to keep them going.

If these were the only mammoth remains we had then that might be right but we have mammoth remains dating back hundreds of thousands of years and they tend to be found in the cold steppe environment. This can be seen on the great planes in the States and a more dramatic example is with the Gravettian (20-26 thousand years old) mammoth bone huts found on the Northern European Plane from central Europe through to Russia (all environmental indicators suggest it was distinctly cold at this time). We have numerous examples of mammoth bones being found in soils that show evidence of the cold and places where large accumulations of mamoth bones have been preserved in articualted form because they were covered in loess.

Its worth bearing in mind that during glacial periods northerly latitudes weren't like they are now they tended to be drier as a lot more water was locked up in the ice sheets.

See:

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1591.html

http://www.nrm.se/virtexhi/mammsaga/welcome.html.en

Large herbivores can easily find enough vegetation in these environments - look at the reindeers in Finland which probably occupy an ecological zone slightly more northerly than the mammoth.

In these conditions it wouldn't be suprising if a worsening of the weather resulted in some mammoths being preserved.

Quicksilver:

Global memories of floods: At the end of the last Ice Age the sea level rose by 50-100 metres flooding vast areas.

Lost islands: Now thats an interesting one - we don't actually know that any of these lost islands ever actually existed and so they can't really be used to support another theory.

Trade: More assumptions about Atlantis.

Maps: Yes but what they show, etc. isn't clear.

Mammoths: See above.

You can't really support ECD on the basis of something that may not even exist (or things that have a simpler explanation).

This kind of thing has been covered many times online (and I'm a little ring rusty and don't have all the facts to hand) so I'll refer you to:

http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/wildside.shtml

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/atlantis.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/oronteus.html

As these pick over the various claims and examine the evidence, etc.

Emps

 

[MrRING]

I thought the writings of noted fortean Donovan would be helpful at this point to get a clear idea about Atlantis:

The continent of Atlantis was an island which lay before the great flood in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.

So great an area of land, that from her western shores
those beautiful sailors journeyed to the South and the North Americas with ease, in their ships with painted sails.

To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles. The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture. The antediluvian kings colonised the world. All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas in all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth. On board were the Twelve:

The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were - And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new; Hail Atlantis!

Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,
Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
I wanna see you some day
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,
My antediluvian baby,
My antediluvian baby, I love you, girl,
Girl, I wanna see you some day.
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah
I wanna see you some day, oh
My antediluvian baby.
My antediluvian baby, I wanna see you
My antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she gone
I wanna see you some day
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, oh yeah
Oh glub glub, down down, yeah
My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

Just something to keep in the back of the mind...

 

[Anonymous]

I just recently re-read Berlitz's 'groundbreaking' work on Atlantis. Was struck at a) how unintentionally hilarious it is and b) how much Hancock et al have rehashed the anomalies he put forward.

Berlitz is at his worst on Plato however, when he boldldy claims that the level of detail in his descriptions of the Island continent are too detailed to have been made up.

?

One has to wonder whether Berlitz is either unaware of the phenomenon of myth and literature, or is just making an assertion to back up his dogma (I suspect the latter). It is odd, how many of these 'radical' researchers are so prosaic and literalist in their interpretations (and do not recognise the amazing places a vivid imagination will take you), and yet in other aspects, let their imaginations carry them far beyond the data - as if the only people allowed to be imaginative are them. Plato was a prolific and skilled writer, and had an excellent imagination, and ability to put his ideas into fables (fabulous tales, in other words) to make his points. Had Berlitz bothered to consider Plato in the context of his life's work, he might have learned a few things that would have prevented these assertions. Here are just a few examples of Plato's imagination at work;

- the old shadows on the wall of the cave chestnut
- The tale of how the sexes of male and female came into being, told through Aristophanes
- His works come in the form of dramatised dialogues, which show a deft command of characters, wordplay and ideas throughout. The man virtually spoke through metaphors and stories. Almost everything he put into print was a shadow on the wall
-His most famous work (in modern times - see below) was the Republic, in which, Plato imagines, and describes in far greater detail, an ideal society ruled by philsophers, even giving the society its owen culture, festivals and founding myth

add to that, the fact that Plato was always one of these Athenians banging on about 'decline' of values and mankind - of moving into the darker shadows. He felt this way ever since his home town bumped off his teacher (and lover) Socrates. Atlantis is a tale of original sin, or greatness, collapsing into decadence. He had rich sources for this - the Deucalion myth, the ages of gods, titans and heroes - were all staples of Greek religion and theology that he wove into his work.

Now, this brings me to the last point, and an idea I've been forming as to why this Atlantis myth is so important today, and why so much of this ancient evidence seems to be inferred by western scholars post-plato that are actively, looking for corroborating legends. Plato uses the Atlantis myth twice, in Criteas and in Timaeus. For a long time, works such as the Republic were not widely available or known - the work for which Plato was best known was Timaeus. Most medieval scholars would read it in the Greek, it influenced the work of St Augustine (THE most influential theologian on original sin and the role of religion) Aquinas and others, and even appears, clutched in Plato's arm in Raphael's 'School of Athens' (alongside Aristotle, holding the other big book of Christendom, 'Ethics')

My straw man here (set it alight at your leisure) is that the prominence of Timaeus in the way people thought in these times has also pushed this idea of Atlantis forward along with it, as a beguiling myth of decline and fall. Catching the imagination as it did, scholars started to actually look for it (just as they looked for Eden) and in doing so, saw what they wanted to in the evidence, and turned a literary device into a secret history.

But what, you say, about the other myths? Lemuria, Mu, etc etc. Well, a problem I've always had is in finding evidence that confirms these ever existed independently (and anciently) of Atlantis (if anyone knows, and wants to share...)

My suspicion is that many scholars, monks etc, writing down ancient legends and fables from all over the world, identified an 'Atlantis pattern' in certain founding myths (such as Tir nan Og, for example) and shaped the account along the lines of this story to some sort of echo of Atlantis? Remember, many of these myths morphed over time, and often only found full written form in the middle ages - post Plato, and post Augustine. The 'tradition' of Atlantis was rooted in intellectual parlour games that trickled downwards during the middle ages, than any ancient tradition.

Of course, I would point out that I am not unsympathetic to the idea that our ancestors were much more sophisticated than people like (Berlitz, for example) give them credit for. I just think that Plato's sophistication is an important place to start before we start looking for pyramids under the ice...

 

[ArthurASCII]

Like Celia of the seals, I wear my love like heaven when I read those Donovan lyrics.

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Byyeeee