Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found
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These Tocharians (or Eastern Ethiopians) in turn correspond to the Atlanteans themselves, the Pious Ethiopians of whom Homer and others spoke. And, as Plato related, these Pious Ethiopians later decayed and turned into nomadic barbarians (Berbers) instead of settled agricultors, like their noble ancestors.
All in all, the whole geography expounded in these extremely ancient maps closely corresponds to an idealized picture of the world having to do with Atlantis and its reality.
The Map of Eratosthenes
The figure below reproduces the map of Eratosthenes (fl. 3rd. cent. BC). Eratosthenes is the reputed Greek geographer and head librarian at Alexandria who is said to have first measured earth’s circumference. Eratosthenes is, roughly speaking, a contemporary of Plato, who lived about a century earlier, but shared the same cultural ambience of Classical Greece.
Eratosthenes’ map shows the earth (Eurasia and Africa) as a disk of land fully encircled by the Ocean. If we discount the distortions due to the stylized projection shown, this map is a rather accurate depiction of the Greek oecumene, the Old World shown in the globe of Crates of Mallus just discussed.
At the far left we have the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mare Internum (the Mediterranean) separating Europe and Africa (Libya). Africa is foreshortened, and ends just below the Arabian Peninsula. Asia extends to India and Taprobane, and then turns up towards the land of the Seres (Chinese), beyond the Ganges river. At India’s tip live the Coniaci, perhaps a metathesis or a scribal error for the Concani, even today the people of South India.
But what really interests us here is the Outer Ocean. This ocean is here called Atlantic in its southern portion, and extends all the way to Taprobane and beyond. In other versions of his map, the Atlantic Ocean is separated in two halves: the Mare Atlanticum Occidentale and the Mare Atlanticum Orientale. These two moieties correspond to what we nowadays separate into Atlantic Ocean (proper) and Pacific Ocean.
It is hence quite clear from this map that Taprobane – which we have specifically identified as the site of sunken Atlantis, in Indonesia – was located, for all practical purposes, in the “Atlantic Ocean” of the ancients, at least in the view of the Classical Greeks such as Plato himself, Crates and Eratosthenes.
Strabo too shared the same views, and mapped the world very much in the way that Eratosthenes had previously done. Therefore, it is foolish to limit the quest of Atlantis to the ocean now so named, since the ancient Greeks understood an entirely different thing by that name. To wit, they dubbed “Ocean” or “Atlantic Ocean” the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, all three taken together, as one really should, since all three oceans are really coterminous.
The idea here is that the Ocean (or “Atlantic Ocean” or “Ocean of Atlantis”) of the ancients is the sea which surrounds the whole earth (the Old World or Oecumene) rather than the present-day Atlantic Ocean. And we again emphasize the fact that the Outer Ocean was also called “Atlantic Ocean” all the way to the Far East, the island of Taprobane (Sumatra) included.
This belief prevailed down to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, until the time when Amerigo Vespucci realized the fact that the Americas were in fact a new continent, something wholly unsuspected thus far, and that it effectively separated the two oceans which had been deemed coterminous down to these times.
Strabo lived a few centuries later than Plato, but his map too embodies names and concepts which date back to the times of Eratosthenes and Plato, and even earlier. As also does the map of Herodotus (5th. cent. BC), who might be considered a contemporary of Plato for the present purposes.
All in all, we conclude that when the ancients spoke of the “Atlantic Ocean”, they really meant the “Ocean of Atlantis”, the one called Pacific Ocean nowadays. This ocean comprised both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean of modern days.
We may also conclude that the ancients believed, much as did Columbus and his many predecessors, that the present Atlantic Ocean extended all the way to the East Indies. Conversely, they also believed that the Pacific Ocean – which they well knew from the Far East since the earliest epochs – also extended eastwards all the way to Europe and Africa, where the Greeks resided.
But the ancients never dared to cross that vast expanse of water, which they deemed deadly. And hence they never discovered America, as Columbus and Vespucci would later do. In terms of Atlantis – which, as Plato affirmed, was located in the “Atlantic Ocean” of the ancients – we again repeat that this ocean should never be confused with the water body now improperly so named.
The ancients did not ignore, as we now do, that the “Atlantic Islands” were the remains of sunken Atlantis and were hence located in the “Ocean of Atlantis”. This ocean is the very one bathing the coasts of Taprobane and the East Indies.
The confusion only arose later, when people finally realized that the Americas effectively separated the Ocean in two moieties, one eastern, one western. With this, the Pacific Ocean, the “Ocean of Atlantis” – so named because Atlantis was known to be located there – got an entirely new name given it by the Spaniards.
And the ancient name got stuck with the Atlantic Ocean we so know today, where Atlantis never was. This type of thing often happens with geographical names. It is for this reason that names such as the ones of Gades and Tartessos, Calpe and Habila, etc., are highly unreliable, and should never be trusted as reference points.
The old name is given to a new location, perhaps a colony of the former city, and then the old one dies out, and becomes utterly forgotten in the course of time. As an example, consider the name of America. This name was originally given Brazil, early explored by Amerigo Vespucci, and was later extended to the whole of South America.
Eventually, all three continents became thus named, by extension. But nowadays, the name “America” has become firmly attached to the United States, in North America, and very few people ever recall that it originally applied to Brazil or even South America. It was precisely this that happened to Atlantis, mythically transferred to the Gibraltar region by virtue of a similar process of false naming.
The World Conception of Cosmas Indicopleustes
This early world map is due to Cosmas Indicopleustes, the famous author of the Topographia Christiana. Cosmas was an Egyptian monk from Alexandria who had been an international merchant in his earlier days. Charged by the Pope, Cosmas set out to discover the true site of Paradise, which he correctly sought in the East Indies.
Cosmas’ surname is really an epithet meaning “sailor of the Indian Ocean”, since he had become highly familiar with the region in his merchant days. The geographer firmly believed in the reality of Atlantis, and affirms in his book that Plato’s story of the sunken continent is a garbled account of the Universal Flood, which the philosopher somehow cribbed from the Bible.
In his map, Cosmas shows the world (oecumene) surrounded by the uncrossable ocean, outside which there is another earth which he calls Ge peran tou Okeanou (“Earth beyond the Ocean”), adding that this was the Paradise which Man inhabited before the Flood.
The earth is irrigated by four rivers whose four headwaters are in Paradise, just as shown in the map. One of these four rivers is the Nile, here identified with the Geon and shown crossing the ocean subterraneously, in the south. The other three rivers are also shown doing the same, and are identified with the Phison, the Tigris and the Euphrates. From the map, it seems that the Phison is the river identified with the Ganges.
This accords with Flavius Josephus, who also affirms the same. This strange world conception is connected with the ancient traditions on the Terrestrial Nile and the Terrestrial Ganges, etc. having their Celestial counterparts. And what this means is that the terrestrial rivers are really the “mirror images” of the Celestial ones of Paradise, their true archetypes.
The fact that the rivers are said to run under the ocean apparently suggests that the four Celestial rivers are now submerged, just as we have discovered to be the case in Atlantis-Eden.
To sum it up, the world picture presented by Cosmas closely resembles that of Plato and other ancients. Paradise is the “land of many waters” where the Four Rivers of Paradise are born. It is surrounded by a wall or fence, also a widespread tradition.
Though radically against the notion of “antipodes”, Cosmas’ world vision closely corresponds to the Greek, with Paradise being a sort of Land Antipodal (Antichthon). Actually, Cosmas objected to the existence of antipodes on religious reasons rather than geographical grounds.
The Map of Grazioso Benincasa
The following quaint early Italian map shows the mythical islands of the Atlantic Ocean: Antilia, Salvaggia, Satanaxio, San Brandan, Fortunata, Cipango, and so on. It is said that Columbus possessed a copy of this map, and took it on board on his trip to America, along with several others which he had collected over the years, mainly during his stay in Portugal.
The names of these islands derive not from the ocean itself but from their connection with Atlantis. In fact, it is this ocean that derives its name from the ones of Atlas and Atlantis. The Medieval, and later the Renaissance explorers and geographers eagerly strove to discover these mythical islands, long associated with the remains of sunken Atlantis.
Columbus was no exception to the rule, and avidly hoped to discover Cipango, “the land where gold is born”. Columbus had learnt of this fabulous golden realm from the famous writings of Marco Polo. In his book, Polo describes the fabulous island of Cipango in great detail, and places it just off the coast of China and the East Indies, describing it as a sort of Eldorado, where gold and gemstones abound.
Columbus had also learnt of golden Cipango from other sources such as Toscanelli, Behaim, Pierre d’Ailly and even Plato and other ancient mythographers. He used this knowledge to impress the monarchs of Spain and the ambitious financers of his expedition, avid for the immense gains to be made in the East Indies.
Like most, if not all, of his contemporaries, Columbus firmly believed that the Atlantic Ocean (now so named) extended all the way to the East Indies, being coterminous with the Pacific Ocean. So did the ancient explorers and geographers who also believed the same and hence thought that the islands they discovered in the mid-Atlantic were all part of the remains of sunken Atlantis turned into islands when sea level rose by an enormous amount after the end of the Ice Age.
Since most people in the region died in the terrible cataclysm, these islands became known as the Isles of the Blest (or Elysium, Taprobane, Paradise, Hades, and so forth). “Blest” is really an euphemism for “dead”, so that this region is really the “Realm of the Dead”. But these islands were also explicitly called Land of the Dead, or Hades, or Hell, Tartarus and so on. In fact, the ancients believed, like the modern-day Hindus and the American natives, etc., that the site of Paradise encompassed all three realms of space: Heaven, Hell, and Hades.
These three realms coexisted one inside the other, in parallel dimensions. Taprobane also corresponds to the site of Mt. Meru, the Whirling Mountain at the center of the world. Around it the whole world whirls, as if around the pole. And this axis mundi is also the same as Mt. Atlas and other such Holy Mountains everywhere.
The Whirling Mountain is also the same as the Mountain of Sunrise and Sunset, whose myth we have already commented upon above. And this twin mountain (split) further corresponds to Mt. Atlas or Meru, and to the Pillars of Atlas and/or Hercules.
The very fact that this important myth diffused worldwide is proof of its hoary antiquity. In fact, its diffusion to the distant Americas proves that it dates from before the end of the Ice Age, or shortly after, before the sea level rose, closing Beringia and effectively separating the two worlds. As such, this tradition can only have had an Atlantean origin, before the dawn of the present era.
The Map Presented King Henry VII
This curious British map — dated at 1500 AD — is rather similar to several others originating in the times of Columbus and earlier. It was probably done by a British spy placed in the Spanish court, and embodies the widespread geographical conceptions concerning the Atlantic Ocean and its direct connection with the East Indies.
This map visibly predates the exploits of Amerigo Vespucci and his realization that America was an entirely new continent or world (Mundus Novus) which quite effectively separated the Pacific Ocean (long known from the east) from the Atlantic Ocean now so named.
The whole ocean was variously named Outer Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Cronius Mare, Mare Magnum, and so on. Cronus (or Kronos), called Saturn in Latin, was an alias of Hercules and/or Atlas, so that the name also expressed the identity of the modern Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean now so called.
We see that the present cartographer believed, like so many others, that the island of Atlantis was located somewhat before the Americas, more or less next to the Caribbean islands. But he and others, Columbus included, also believed that the ocean was open and unimpeded all the way to the East Indies, the island of Cipango (Japan?), China and India included, as actually shown in the map.
In fact, the lands of North America – Florida, Labrador, etc. – are shown attached to China and to India, and hence as parts of the Asiatic continent. This map thus portrays the western Atlantic Ocean as it was formerly conceived down to the times of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. And it was thus charted by earlier geographers such as Martin Behaim and Paolo Toscanelli to name just two of a great many such cartographers.
By then the Caribbean islands – discovered by Columbus in 1492 – were well known, and widely identified with Antilia and Atlantis by all sorts of early geographers and chronists, Father Las Casas included.
The Terra Antarctica (or Terra Australis) is also explicitly illustrated in the map. This fabulous Southern Land should not be mistaken with Antarctica proper and even less with Australia, as many experts currently believe. Here, its location and size suggest an identification with Brazil, discovered (but unnamed) in this very year by the Portuguese. South America is a southern continent, being mainly located below the line of the equator. Hence, it would well deserve the name of australis, which means exactly this in Latin.
This mysterious southern continent already figures in the famous map of Claudius Ptolemy, one of the earliest ancient maps to survive down to the present. In my opinion this southern land originally also corresponded to Atlantis, another southern continent. Atlantis was really located in the South Seas, where the Alexandrine geographer correctly placed it.
And the South Seas, also named Prasodum Mare, that is “Sea of Sargassos” is really no other than the South Pacific Ocean. In the Ice Age, Australia was more or less coterminous with the Indonesian Continent, forming a single huge land extension. It was probably in this connection that Australia too earned its name of “austral”, that is, “southerly”. But this is a difficult subject, whose discussion does not fit here.
Chapter 8 – The Many Pillars of Hercules
Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your liking.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)
Ptolemy’s Map of Taprobane
The above figure reproduces Ptolemy’s Map of Taprobane. This map dates from 150 AD or so, but is based on far earlier data available in Alexandria’s famous library. This particular version of the map, based on his, is due to Sebastian Münster (1522), in his edition of Ptolemy’s Geography.
The legend in this curious map of Taprobane reads (in Latin): “The island of Taprobane is nowadays called Sumatra. Four crown
ed kings rule over it at the same time. It exports elephants that are larger and nobler than
any found anywhere. Its yield of the long pepper – locally called Malaga pepper – is likewise richer, and is indeed wonderful in its abundance.”
This name of the long pepper is preserved even today, in certain languages, for instance, Portuguese. And it derives from Malacca, the name of the famous strait separating Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula in Indonesia. This alone would serve to indicate that Sebastian Munster, like so many other geographers, is right in identifying Taprobane to Sumatra, rather than to Sri Lanka.
Taprobane was often confused with Sri Lanka, a confusion that persists even today. But this is sheer exoterism, and Sri Lanka is merely a facsimile of minor importance, just as are several other places, Gibraltar included. True, Taprobane is also the same as Lanka, the golden city of the Ramayana, and the capital of Ravana’s worldwide empire.
Taprobane seems to be the same as the golden Cipango described by Marco Polo. Both the details and the location match. And so does the profusion of gold and gemstones, said to abound in both. Taprobane (Lanka) was also the site of the International Dateline of antiquity, a place which singled it out as “the land of sunrise”.
And such is precisely the meaning of the name of Cipango both in Dravida and in Japanese (Ci-pan-kuo). According to the Ramayana, Lanka was destroyed, fired and subsequently sunk under the ocean in the course of the great war waged by Rama and Hanumant against Ravana, its great king who had abducted Sita, Rama’s wife.
Several other features also confirm this identification: the equatorial location, the enormous size of the island, its shape, and so forth. But the ancients were reluctant to divulge in public the true location of Taprobane, and much preferred that the merchants went to the wrong island (Sri Lanka) and there bought the spices from the hands of the local Indian intermediaries, who thus realized an enormous profit with this ruse.