In the Americas, this mysterious cave also becomes the Chicomoztoc of the Aztecs and the Tollán Zuivá of the Mayas. These names both mean Siete Cuevas in Spanish and “Seven Tombs (or Caves)”, in English. The Greek philosopher Pherecydes referred to them as Heptamykoi, again meaning the same thing.
The passage of the tradition to the Americas could only have occurred via Beringia, during the Ice Age itself or shortly after. Otherwise, how can we account for its presence in the pre-Columbian religious traditions of both New World and Old World peoples: Amerindians, Hindus, Jews, Greeks, Muslims, Christians, Australians, and so forth?
Is it not arrogance on our part to doubt the concordant traditions of essentially all the ancient peoples on earth? Why should they all be deemed ignorant primitives, when it is now apparent that it is we, rather than they, that in fact ignore our prehistoric past and even up to now ignore the scientific reality of global geological cataclysms such as the ones of the Universal Flood and Conflagration?
This sacred esoteric doctrine on the yugas (or eras of mankind) was so long and so often persecuted that it is now utterly lost to most if not all people on earth, with the possible exception of the so-called “primitives”: the American Indians, the Australian Aboriginals, the Melanesians and Polynesians, the Africans, and so forth.
Those Westerners in the know are afraid to believe these traditions, for fear of persecution and ostracism. Only the so-called “primitive” dare to preserve and to cherish their sacred traditions which we Westerners have relegated to the never-never realm of purely spiritual realities. But this situation is fortunately starting to change, now that people are again headed for loftier values.
The Pishon, the Nile and the Ganges
The view that the Pishon (or Pison or Phison) passes under the earth to become the Nile in Egypt was current in antiquity. Josephus, the Jewish historian, affirms this in his Jewish Antiquities.
So does Cosmas Indicopleustes who portrays this river doing just this in his famous map of the world before the Flood which we comment in some detail in our figures section (Part II of the present book).
This widespread notion ultimately derives from the identification of the Nile with its celestial counterpart in the Egyptian and other traditions. This confusion basically results from the fact that there are two different Niles, one running in Paradise and the other one in Egypt.
The Pishon River of Paradise is actually the same as the River of Milk. This river is also the same as the Celestial Nile which once flowed in Atlantis-Eden.
Now, the expert view of the above quoted rabbis expressed that “the difficulty of finding the courses of the rivers [of Paradise] by supposing that since the Deluge these rivers have ceased to exist, entirely or in part, or have found subterranean outlets” is also extremely interesting.
We have been able to locate these four rivers of Paradise precisely at the site where we have also located the lost continent of Atlantis: in Indonesia and its seas.
All these four rivers were in fact submerged by the Flood. But their beds remain essentially intact on the sea bed, where we have been able to locate them and to trace them in detail in the maps of the seafloor of the region obtained by NOAA and other institutions such as NASA, which we already commented further above.
And, guess what? These rivers are all four located exactly over the Line of the Equator, just as the rabbis just cited specifically affirm. This coincidence is of course too uncanny to be idly dismissed as accidental by
anyone not prepared to prove this allegation with fact, rather than sheer opinion, as is usually the case in such matters.
As Plato recommends, mere opinions should never be accepted as a refutation of proven empirical or traditional facts. The opinion expressed by rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro, quoted further above, that “the well-known and famous Gan Eden is situated… southeast of Assyria” is also in accordance with the ancient traditions.
For instance, the tradition on subterranean rivers feeding the paradisial ones of Taprobane is supported by the Tale of Sindbad the Sailor. And it is also reported by Plato in his Phaedo, where the four rivers of Hades are described in great detail.
The ancient Mesopotamian traditions placed Dilmun – their version of the Garden of Eden – in the South Seas, to the southeast of Mesopotamia. When one consults a world map, for instance, the one discussed in Part III above, it is easy to see that the site of Indonesia in fact lies directly to the southeast of Mesopotamia, just as rabbi Obadiah affirmed.
Actually, rabbi Obadiah did not say how far to southeast the Garden of Eden actually lay. And he actually meant a whole lot. All the way around the Indian Ocean and then across it to Indonesia. But this enormous distance could easily be sailed – and in fact was – from deepest antiquity.
This fact is now fast getting accepted by all specialists, after heroic researchers and adventurers such as Thor Heyerdahl proved its feasibility in actual practice. As is clear, all the manifold data given in the above quotation of the Jewish Encyclopedia exactly fit our location of Atlantis-Eden to an uncanny accuracy.
So, how can one doubt the reality of Paradise any further, now that we know that, just as stated in the Midrash ha-Gadol: “Eden is a certain place on earth, but no creature knows where it is.”
Well, this assertion used to be true up to now. No one knew Eden’s true location up to now. But we now know its location for sure, don’t we? In Indonesia, where else? Or, more exactly, in Taprobane, exactly where the most ancient traditions always placed it.
Chapter 16 - The Case of Taprobane and Sunda Strait
There is a place where a stone god rose from the sea and a mountain opened up in the sky; and as the world heaved and compressed, there occurred sights and sounds of which today’s foremost nuclear weapons designers scarcely dream. I know of a world which saw waves as high as skyscrapers. I know of a cloud that spread, globular and huge, and where it touched the earth and the sea, it converted men into gas.
Charles Pellegrino, Unearthing Atlantis
Introduction
As we already warned the dear reader, we left the tabular comparison of our proposed site of Atlantis with Plato’s text for the end for a series of good reasons. The main one is that we hope that by now, the reader will have realized the impressive power of this comparison method, despite its unbelievable simplicity.
Moreover, we also hope that by now the readers will have realized the fallacies of the sites so far proposed by other researchers of Atlantis, as well as become familiarized with the main geographical features of Plato’s Lost Continent and its vicinal regions and, moreover, with the exquisite subtleties used by the ancient mythographers such as Plato and Diodorus, and others as well.
Above all, we expect that the readers will finish reading this book with a sweet taste in their mouth, considering our proposal as some sort of dessert which, we hope, they will hopefully find delicious.
No discovery, either modern or ancient, is as important as the realization that Paradise once existed on a certain place on earth where Civilization and Agriculture first developed. For, if Paradise was once a reality, this means that we humans were able to do it, and to live in peace and harmony. And if so, we can do it again, and again and again…
Pindar, Plato and the Pillars of Hercules
Many people think that Plato was the first author to report the innavigability of the Atlantic Ocean in the region of Gibraltar. This belief is erroneous. Pindar (518–438 BC), the great Greek poet, wrote in his Nemean Odes (4:65), almost a full century before Plato ever spoke of Atlantis that: “Beyond Gadeira, into the western darkness, there is no passage. Turn back and go no further...”
If one takes Gadeira to mean the neighborhood of Cadiz, in Spain, Pindar could only be speaking of the region of Gibraltar. The same is of course true of Plato, who affirms more or less the same thing. This belief is traditional, and dates from the remotest epochs.
Aristotle affirms the same thing in his Meteorologica (II:354a): “O
utside the Pillars of Hercules, the sea is shallow, owing to the mud, but calm, for it lies in a hollow.” Now, Aristotle, though a disciple of Plato, was a “no-nonsense” Classical authority, who did not believe in the traditions of Atlantis and even poked fun at Plato for having proposed something that could not be found anymore, a non-existent reality which could neither be refuted nor confirmed.
One thing is obvious. If these authors were talking of the region of Gibraltar, they were utterly wrong, as this type of thing never existed there. Gibraltar is a wide, deep strait. There are no shoals there or beyond it and, even less, sunken islands of any considerable size, let alone of the continental proportions stated by Plato.
Moreover, the cataclysm reported by Plato is quite obviously of a volcanic nature as we have already showed. And there are no volcanoes at all in this entire region. So, one is hard put to understand in geological terms how this region could have become darkened or covered with floating debris (pumice) or silted up so much as to impede navigation, features typically volcanic in origin.
Curiously enough, the same story was earlier told of the Strait of Messina, the one between Sicily and Italy. Again, this strait is wide and deep, and far from perilous. But this time, we at least have a volcano at play, the Etna, placed there.
The Etna volcano is active even today, and has erupted with violence over both the historic and the prehistoric past. So, the Etna could well have caused the darkness reported by Pindar and others.
The Strait of Messina was traditionally connected with Ulysses’ navigation, as told in Homer’s charming Odyssey, the famous Greek saga. This strait was identified by the ancient Greeks and Romans with the site of Scylla and Charybdis, the two perils faced by the great sailor.
Messina Strait was also connected with the Symplegades (or Cyanean Rocks), themselves floating islands which can only be explained as formed by floating banks of pumice stone, which are in fact produced when the Etna volcano erupts with sufficient violence.
And the Etna volcano was, accordingly, identified with Mt. Atlas, as the “Pillar of Heaven” for the reasons therein commented. Messina’s strait was also identified with the two Pillars of Hercules, as attested, say, in Imbelloni’s map commented in our figures section (Part II).
The two perils of the Odyssey, Scylla and Charybdis were the exact counterparts of the two Pillars of Hercules. Charybdis was a giant maelstrom always ready to devour the passing ships with their crews. And Scylla was a lofty rock inhabited by a terrible man-eating dragon. And this dragon was in all probability a fire-spitting volcano, the usual allegory.
These two features also closely evoke Calpe and Habila, the two pillars of Gadeira described by Avienus in his Ora Maritima. Their shape, he says, correspond to a cap and a cup, just as do the ones of Calpe and Habila.
In Hindu terms, these two geographical features correspond: Charybdis to the terrible Vadavamukha and Scylla to Mt. Meru, the Pillar of Heaven. We might also say that they correspond to the two Merus, the Sumeru and the Kumeru, likewise shaped.
In antiquity, it was often said that Atlas supported the heavens from the top of Mt. Etna, whereas Hephaistos, his infernal counterpart, had his forges underneath this mountain, whose lava was interpreted as the slag due to his smelting of the metals used in his works.
As is clear, the legend of Atlas, of the impassable strait and of the innavigable seas somehow got transferred, already in Classical times, from Messina Strait to Gibraltar Strait. Earlier still, this legend was said to apply to the Bosporus Strait, between Greece and Turkey, or to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, at the exit of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, as reported by Pliny the Elder.
Imbelloni’s map just mentioned further lists several other straits early associated with Atlantis and the Pillars of Hercules (or Atlas). So, one sees that this tradition was transferred from one place to the other, as if to purposely confuse the profanes on the true location of Atlantis.
Once this fact is realized, it is easy to see that most, if not all sites thus far proposed for Atlantis and the Pillars of Hercules, its main geographical feature, are poor fits at best. For instance, Thera (and Crete) – an all-time favorite among Atlantologists due to its terrible volcano – has this prime feature but unfortunately lacks any viable strait nearby.
Its proponents had to force their hands and invent a would-be strait south of the Peloponnesus, considering Cape Malea as one of the Pillars of Hercules and Cape Tenaros as the other. But these two capes form no strait, but a wide bay, as a close inspection of a map of the proposed region will reveal. ↑185
So much so that J. V. Luce – the noted classicist and another proponent of Atlantis in Thera – does not support this claim, and in fact avoids this odd identification, explicitly recognizing that the Pillars of Hercules were really associated with Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean.
Moreover, the ever attentive Imbelloni fails to list these would-be “Pillars of Hercules” in the Peloponnesus, another fact that attests their non-historicity.
Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that anyone in antiquity would ever seriously consider this broad passage leading nowhere as the site of the all-important strait flanked by the Pillars of Hercules, the impassable bound or limit leading to the Ocean of Atlantis, be it the modern Atlantic Ocean or some other coterminous water body such as the Pacific Ocean.
When we consider other proposed sites for Atlantis, the fit is even poorer. For instance, Cyprus, recently proposed by Robert Sarmast, lacks both the volcano and the strait. Hence, it is an extremely poor conformity to Plato’s invaluable text. The same is also true of sites which have been repeatedly proposed over the centuries: Antarctica; Bolivia; Cuba, the Antilles and so forth.
These proponents often bend facts to make them agree with their pet theories, as in the case we just quoted. I, instead, decided to follow the counsel of Descartes, and attempt to frame a theory which best interprets the known facts and best agrees with the description of the ancient authorities: Pindar, Plato, Homer, Hesiod, Diodorus Siculus, and so on. This is the only scientifically acceptable strategy.
In my quest, I would tentatively adopt a site or propose an altogether new one, and then compare it to Plato’s text and others. One of my tests consisted in filling the schematic table used in the present chapter and observing the empirical fit. And I did this over and over again, year after year.
And guess what? I finally came up with what can only be the real solution to the riddle, which fits both the known geological reality and the very detailed picture of them provided by the experts just named as well as the many other sources which I used in order to support my conclusions.
Pindar makes several other references to the impassability of the Pillars of Hercules and its shoals in his famous poems. So do many other ancient authorities. In fact, this widespread tradition survived down to the Renaissance and the Age of Navigation, until Christopher Columbus and other explorers completely dispelled the taboo. 22
These dreary shoals or marshes are also mentioned in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes as the Tritonian Marshes, as well as in many similar passages of ancient authorities. And these traditions date from far before Plato’s account of Atlantis and its impassable seas.
Another detailed account of this region is given by Avienus in his Ora Maritima. Avienus’ description bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Spanish Gadeira or Tartessos, the region in question here.
Hence, it is again quite clear that these traditions referred not to the Atlantic Ocean now so named, but to the Ocean of Atlantis, whose true identity with the Pacific Ocean is obvious by now. Limitations of space do not allow us to pursue this fascinating subject here, and we leave this task for a fitter opportunity.
The actual region in question here is the East Indies (or Taprobane) , the sole geographical fit. And these marshy seas full of shoals and lagoons are located there, in Indonesia, being part of the Pacific Ocean, then generally believed to be coterminous with what we presently call the Atlantic O
cean.
There, in these perilous seas, we indeed have all sorts of extremely dangerous shoals and extensive marshes that can only be crossed by the skilled native pilots.
It is very easy to become trapped or wrecked in these lonely marshes and shoals and there to die from hunger and thirst. This dreary region was – and in fact still is – plagued by the terrible Malay pirates, always ready to prey and execute whoever dared to sail these forlorn seas.
The True “Pillars of Hercules”
If Gibraltar was not really the “Pillars of Hercules” that Plato had in mind, as we just showed, to what pillars was the philosopher really referring, then?
In our prolonged study of this difficult problem, we came to note an extremely curious feature of Plato’s text which would eventually lead us to the correct solution of the ancient riddle which no one had ever deciphered so far. Plato’s text, which we already analyzed above, somehow seems to be the “mirror image” of the reality we actually have in Gibraltar.
According to Plato’s text, we have:
— Narrow strait leading to the Ocean.
— Huge half sunken island of Atlantis forming impassable shoals in front of the strait and rendering the region “innavigable”.
— Many islands beyond it, on the way to the Outer Continent.
— Outer Continent beyond, apparently the Americas.
In the region of Gibraltar we actually have:
— Narrow strait leading to the Ocean.
— No shoals or island of any substantial size, sunken or not.
— No “many islands on the way” to serve as entrepots to ships on the way to the continent beyond.
Atlantis the Lost Continent Finally Found Page 36
