Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found

by Arysio Santos

  All in all, it is now apparent that the Greeks – like the other white peoples of Europe and the Near East, the Ethiopians inclusive – originated there, in Indonesia. Thence they later moved out to the Mediterranean region when their own homeland got destroyed and sunk by the Flood, very much as affirmed by Plato and other ancient authorities, Diodorus Siculus among them.

  It is this early invasion of the Mediterranean region by the Ethiopians from the Far East that corresponds to the early one reported by Diodorus Siculus.

  And it is also this pristine invasion, rather than the later ones by the

  Sea Peoples (13th–12th century BC) that corresponds to the one reported by Plato as due to the Atlanteans or that reported by Theopompos concerning the invasion of the bellicose Makhimos (“Warlike”) who also came from beyond the Ocean.

  Said otherwise, it seems that Plato too, like Diodorus and others, is here identifying the Atlanteans with the White Ethiopians. These White Ethiopians – who comprised the other “red peoples” such as the Libyans, the Phoenicians, the Berbers, the Guanches, the Celts, etc. – probably moved to the Mediterranean region far earlier in time.

  But they later again joined forces with the Sea Peoples when these attempted their unsuccessful conquest of Egypt after having conquered most of the Mediterranean region and destroyed the formerly mighty Hittite empire along with the ones of Minoan Crete, Mycenian Greece, and so forth. ↑155

  The problem of when the early Ethiopic invasion from the Far East actually occurred is moot. Its date is lost in the mist of time, and is only told in myths such as the one of Atlantis. The event apparently corresponds to Hercules’ tenth labor, the “red kine” of Geryon being no other than the hordes of the red races led into the region by the hero, from the distant Far Orient.

  The archaeology of the region is rather tenuous, and has little to contribute, except by providing a terminus post quem (lower limit) for the Ethiopic (Berber) presence in North Africa. This date is now minimally set at about 3,000 BC or so.

  This date is when the great civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mycenian Greece and Minoan Crete first appeared in the Mediterranean region. But it now seems that these “White Ethiopians” originally came into the Mediterranean region from the east no later than 5,000–7,000 BC, apparently starting the Neolithic Revolution and the introduction of agriculture in the region.

  The Celts and the “Pious Ethiopians” of Taprobane

  Exactly the same information is also found in the sacred traditions of the Celtic peoples. These nations repeatedly affirm that the Celts – or rather, their legendary ancestors such as the Fomoré and the Tuatha Dé Danaan – came from beyond the ocean, which they crossed in ships.

  It is the same with most Greek Classical authorities on the White Ethiopians, beginning with Homer and Hesiod, and continuing through Pindar, Mimnermus, Diodorus, Pliny, Apollodorus, and many others, as we shall be commenting next.

  In this endeavor, we quote several passages of these authors confirming beyond doubt that the Garden of the Hesperides – and hence the Isles of the Blest, the site of Troy and the one of Atlantis – all lay beyond the Ocean, that is, in the East Indies themselves.

  The dear readers who follow our argument closely will no doubt be convinced of this fact, much as we were ourselves after a protracted study of these remarkable ancient texts. And this argument is essential for our case on the Far Eastern location of Atlantis.

  Some Celtic accounts (the Mabinogion, etc.) even specify that the Celts came from the region of Defrobani, which all experts agree to be a misspelling for Taprobane. Far more likely, the Celts and the Germans came in several waves, some by land, via the east, and some by sea, via the west.

  But in all cases these early invasions are apparently connected with the White Ethiopians such as the Berbers and the Libyans, their close of kin.

  As we shall be commenting next, Diodorus also specifically identifies the Atlanteans with the Ethiopians. These “Greeks” (or Whites or Yavanas) of the Far East are also the same as the Pious Ethiopians of Homer and the Long-lived Ethiopians of Herodotus, Pliny, Solinus, Strabo, etc..

  These authors invariably describe these White Ethiopians as tall, blond and blue-eyed, and as residing in Taprobane and/or Serica. These names respectively mean Indonesia and China, the modern names of the two Far Eastern places.

  The idea of “blond Chinese” might seem ludicrous at first, but it is now too well established to be denied anymore by anyone in the know. For instance, the ancient Greek vase commented above illustrates Eos (Dawn) picking up the dead body of her valiant son Memnon, killed by Achilles during the War of Troy.

  Here, both Ethiopian personages are portrayed as white and tall, looking Aryan rather than Negroid or otherwise. The Ethiopians are also depicted as whites in the ancient Greek vases such as the charming ones illustrated in the Perseus Project and reproduced later below in the present book.

  As is clear, these White Ethiopians, like the Trojans, their allies, had close contacts with the early Greeks. Actually, the War of Troy is just another allegory of the Great War of Atlantis. Unlike the Homeric one, however, Plato reported this war as real, rather than purely mythical.

  It is perhaps worth mentioning that both the War of the Gods and the Titans as well as the one of Troy are said to have lasted for ten years. And ten is a number often associated with Atlantis and its ten princes, as reported by Plato.

  This coincidence again tends to show that these White Ethiopians were in fact aliases (and allies) of the Atlanteans. And Troy was – in contrast to what most experts erroneously think – placed on the far side of the Ocean, which the Greeks had to cross, in order to get there.

  Eos or Dawn (also called Aurora, in Latin) is, by the way, herself a white woman. Her name is also synonymous with “Easterner” or “Oriental”, and was often applied to designate Indonesia (Eoos, in Greek, Eous in Latin). Now, this epithet really refers to the fact that Indonesia was the site of Paradise where humanity and civilization first dawned on the world, at the start of the present era.

  As we just affirmed, Indonesia, the Eastern Ethiopia, was usually called Eoos in Greek and Eous in Latin, names which derived directly from the one of Eos (Dawn). This, in contrast to Western Ethiopia, in Morocco, its occidental dual and antipodal.

  This fact alone should suffice to prove the fact that the War of Troy was conducted in the Far East, in the “Land of Dawn”, alias Taprobane or Indonesia or, yet, Atlantis, its alias.

  The Turkish counterpart of Troy, discovered by the amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in Hissarlik is, of course, no more than just an illusion. At best, Schliemann’s Troy is only a shabby replica of its majestic Oriental archetype, as several competent experts such as M. I. Finley have denounced.

  As Finley pointed out, nothing fits the Homeric description in the pitiful Turkish counterpart. And it is precisely there – in this Far Eastern Ethiopia beyond the Ocean – that the great heroes and adventurers such as Perseus, Hercules, Ulysses, Achilles, Jason and so forth went questing their prizes: Andromeda, the Golden Apples, the Golden Fleece, Geryon’s cattle, the palladium, and so forth.

  Now, why would these Greek heroes and adventurers all go so far away if this distant land were actually unconnected with pristine Greece, as most experts currently think?

  In actual terms, these “blue-eyed Chinese” of Far Eastern Ethiopia are the Tocharians (or Yüeh-chi or Hephthalites or White Huns) of the Tarim Basin region of Western China, whose reality is now too well established to be denied by any but the most die-hard of academic specialists.

  Some researchers stubbornly maintain, despite the massive evidence that I and others have long been presenting, that the Tocharians are Europeans who somehow penetrated all the way to China in antiquity. But the facts are now too unequivocal to be interpreted in this way anymore.

  Among other things, their existence there far predates their presence in Europe and North Asia. So, this alternative may safely be disc
arded as unscientific since it is contrary to the recent empirical evidence. The geographer Strabo (Geogr. 1:2:24-28) comments the two Ethiopias of Homer (Od. I:22) in considerable detail. He quotes Homer as interpreted by Crates of Mallus and by Aristarchus thus: ↑156

  “The Ethiopians that are sundered in twain, the farthermost of men.” About the next verse there is a difference of opinion, Aristarchus writing: “Abiding some where Hyperion sets, and some where he rises”; but Crates: “abiding both where Hyperion sets and where he rises”. (Aithiopas toi dichtha dedaiatai, eschatoi andrôn, hoi men dusomenou Huperionos hoi d’ aniontos). ↑157

  Both interpretations are valid, exactly as Strabo affirms. And they both mean precisely one and the same thing. The “farthermost of men” (eschatoi andrôn) means that the Ethiopians inhabited the two extremities of the world, one in the east, the other one in the west. The western extremity is the region of Gibraltar, properly called Hesperia (“Occidental”). The eastern extremity is Indonesia, the other Ethiopia. This identity is affirmed by Herodotus (Hist. 3.106), who uses the same word to describe East India. ↑158

  And this is Indonesia, formerly a part India itself. Herodotus also mentions the African Ethiopia, in the extreme occident, where live the White Ethiopians: “taller, handsomer and longer-lived than any other humans” (Hist. 3:114). Hesiod (Theog.731) likewise uses the same word to designate Tartarus as located in the “outermost fringe of the earth” (eschata gaiês), where the Titans were confined by Zeus. ↑159

  The Connections With Atlantis

  If one carefully collates all these (and other) passages, the inescapable result is that the Titans are the same as the White Ethiopians, perhaps in their decayed state. In fact, there were two types of White Ethiopians, one moiety being pious and long-lived, the other one bellicose and short-lived.

  Theopompos (Var. Hist. III:18) refers to them as Eusebes (“pious”) and Makhimos (“warlike”). As we already mentioned, this contemporary of Plato even refers to the invasion of Europe by these White Ethiopians – whom he describes as “twice the size and twice as long-lived as the ordinary mortals”. This early invasion is perhaps the one which Plato connected with the Atlantean invasion.

  Theopompos also refers to the gloomy region in that outer continent which was inhabited by the Meropes. This darkness he attributes to a red haze suspended in the atmosphere, probably by a giant volcanism. The Meropes – a Greek word meaning “mortals” and, perhaps, “dead ones” – are in all probability the same as the Titans, the dead heroes whom Hesiod names “the blest”.

  The famous author also mentions the Elixir of Youth encountered in this gloomy land beyond the ocean. As is clear, this island or continent comprised two sections: one blissful and paradisial, the other one doomed and infernal. And such was precisely the case with Taprobane in Hindu traditions.

  Collation with other Classical authorities shows that this continental-sized region is the same as the Isles of the Blest of the Homeric and other traditions and that the dark section corresponds to Tartarus itself as described by Hesiod, Virgil and others.

  For instance, the Alexander Romances, so popular in the Middle Ages, tell the story of Alexander the Great’s quest for the Elixir in the East Indies. There the hero also meets this terrible darkness, but fails in his attempt to obtain the Elixir, betrayed as he was by Andreas, his cook.

  Once more we see that Tartarus (or Hades) is visibly located in the East Indies and, even more exactly, in its far eastern extremity, Indonesia or Taprobane, the site where the Titans lived. And this fact is confirmed by Pliny and Solinus, who also place the Pious Ethiopians precisely there.

  In the passage just linked, Hesiod also places Atlas holding up the sky pillar in the region of Tartarus. And he adds that there the day changes over, with Day and Night crossing each other.

  Tartarus is somber and permanently covered by dark clouds of smoke. And this permanent darkness can only be the result of a giant volcanism like the one of the Krakatoa volcano which we already commented. No other geological mechanism results in the permanent darkening of extensive regions of the earth, except giant meteoritic falls, which are, however, orders of magnitude less frequent.

  This giant volcanism also covered the local seas with floating pumice stone, rendering them “innavigable”, just as described by Plato and others. It is only thus that one may logically unravel the frequent allusions to the somber, innavigable “Atlantic Ocean” of the ancients.

  It is perhaps more than a coincidence that Hesiod places this frightening description of Tartarus just after his description of the Titanomachia, the great war of the Gods and the Titans. Plato specifically identifies this terrible battle with the War of Atlantis. And this war, he says, ended in disaster for the two sides, with both contending armies swallowed up by the earth.

  A close reading of Hesiod’s description of the Titanomachia also reveals that it is indeed a personification of a supervolcanic eruption followed by caldera formation. In reality, we had two parallel events here mythically identified: the real battle of the two Atlantean moieties and its cosmic counterpart, the war of the twin volcanoes of the region, the Dempo and the Krakatoa.

  Again, volcanoes are the only known mechanism – barring giant asteroidal and cometary falls – capable of accounting for the dreadful events there described by the great poet: fire, thunderstorms, rock-throwing, tephra covered seas, molten stone, somber darkness, earthquakes, etc..

  The presence of Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven, at the site provides a direct connection with Atlantis and its Holy Mountain, the volcano. This volcanic interpretation is apparently confirmed by Strabo’s description of Ethiopia, when he quotes Aeschylus’ now lost Prometheus Unbound thus:

  “The sacred flood of the Red Sea with its bed of scarlet sands, and the mere on the shore of Oceanus that dazzles with its gleam of brass and furnishes all nourishment to Ethiopians, where the Sun, who sees all things, gives rest to his tired steeds and refreshes his immortal body in warm outpourings of soft water.”

  The “Red Sea” in question here is the Erythraean (Indian Ocean). The “mere on the shore of Oceanus” is apparently the Tritonides Marsh, the place where Atlantis allegedly sank, its Great Plain turned into a mere or marsh, the present Java Sea. It was this Great Plain which formerly provided an abundance of food for the Atlanteans, according to Plato’s detailed description, in perfect correspondence to this text of Aeschylus.

  The mysterious “dazzling gleam of brass” which covers this mere is very probably the same as the “mud” or “scum” (pelos) which covered the sea of Atlantis, as reported by the supreme philosopher. This “scum” is in fact formed by the banks of floating pumice stone, still fiery here.

  The only difference between the two accounts is that in Aeschylus the pumice is still hot and flaming whereas it is already cold and petrified in Plato. Pumice is a very good heat insulator, so that, when ejected by a volcano, it remains in this fiery state for quite some time.

  This sea or marsh (mere) covered with white pumice stone also evokes the Ocean of Milk of Hindu traditions, where the allegory is very much the same. And it also recalls the fiery “Sea of Glass” of the Book of Revelation (4:6; 15:2) as well as the “Gravelly Sea” covered with floating stones featured in Sir John Mandeville’s curious Travels. ↑160

  Moreover, the reference to the Sun stopping to rest and bathe in that mere before resuming its daily trip indicates that this is the place of sunrise and sunset. Hence, this location is Lanka or Taprobane, the site of the ancient International Dateline according to Hindu sacred traditions.

  As is now clear, all these ancient traditions coincide and cohere, and start to make sense once properly interpreted. It is certainly no sheer coincidence that they all converge exactly in the region where we have located Atlantis-Eden, the former site of Paradise.

  Names such as “Ocean of Milk”, “Gravelly Sea”, “Sea of Glass” and “Brazen Sea” seem ridiculously childish and utterly impossible as a geological re
ality. But when their real nature is understood we see that this imagery is quite apt and, in fact, extremely precise.

  Even the curious “floating stones” used for the construction of Rama’s Bridge start to make sense, very much as do the “floating gravel” of Sir John Mandeville and the “scum” which covered the Ocean of Milk during its churning. Pumice stone is a sort of siliceous foam so light that it actually floats in water for years on end, forming the “floating islands” so often reported in the Indonesian seas.

  All in all, we see that most such traditions are coherent when properly interpreted. Hence, Plato was obviously inventing nothing in his re-

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  lation of Atlantis or even embellishing the fateful events which led to its destruction at the dawn of the present era, the Holocene.

  Moreover, it is difficult to believe that essentially all the ancient authors would convene on a lie of such an importance in order to create an illusion of reality for a sacred matter which is in fact the very foundation of most religions, the world over.

  Diodorus, Plato and the Two Hesperias of the Ancients

  Diodorus explicitly affirms that Atlantis was located on the far side of the “Atlantic Ocean” of the ancients which, as we already demonstrated, embodied the Pacific Ocean as well. The existence of the interposed Americas was widely ignored in antiquity, down to the times of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, when the New World was discovered.

  The only exception were the high initiates such as Plato and Diodorus, who knew better. For instance, Strabo, the famous Greek geographer, specifically affirms that the Atlantic Ocean was an empty waste stretching all the way from Europe to the East Indies.