— Outer Continent = the Americas.
As is clear, nothing but the Americas themselves fits the bill here. As a matter of fact, we actually have the Azores Islands on the way to the
Americas. But these tiny islands could never be described as “many”. And its neighboring seas are too perilous to make them serve as entrepots for provisioning ships, as more than one explorer actually found out. Columbus, who was familiar with these reports, carefully avoided these islands on his way to America.
Even if we ignore the presence of the interposed Americas, as the ancients normally did, the actual geography of the region of Gibraltar is inadequate to assign a viable meaning to Plato’s detailed description. Besides, one would then be hard put to provide an adequate “outer continent”, since Asia was not considered a continent by Plato and others, but merely an “island”.
We already demonstrated that Plato’s text can be interpreted as meaning either “in front of, facing” or, conversely, “antipodal to”. Taking the antipodal alternative, we also concluded that this strait was Sunda Strait, the true “Pillars of Hercules”. Consider now the situation which obtains when we consider Sunda Strait as the true “Pillars of Hercules” which Plato had in mind. The situation now becomes:
0
— Narrow strait leading from the Ocean (Indian) to now half-sunken Indonesia, but formerly a huge continent.
— Huge half sunken islands of Indonesia forming impassable shoals.
— Many paradisial islands on the way (Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia) to render the long trip pleasant.
— Outer Continent beyond (America).
As shown by a comparison with Plato’s discourse just quoted, the fit is now perfect. Indonesia is truly the remains of a huge sunken land, as we already showed. And such is the reason why Plato called Atlantis an “island” (nêsos), such being one of the etymons of the Greek word in question here.
And this is particularly the case when we consider the situation prevailing soon after the cataclysm, when the Atlantean seas were still covered with fiery pumice stone, a fact that closely evokes the perilous Symplegades met by both Ulysses and the Argonauts or, even more, the “mud” covered seas and shoals described by Plato.
Oceania’s islands just mentioned are really myriad (literally). They not only provided passing ships with food and water but, above all, with the lovely native girls, who made the hearts of the tired sailors beat faster and set their minds to dream of Paradise.
And this time, the “Outer Continent” also comes out right: the Americas. So does the narrow strait in question, Sunda Strait, really opened by a giant eruption of the Krakatoa supervolcano. This event is the one really connected with the story of Hercules (a personification of the volcano itself) opening up a passage there, during his tenth labor, the rustling of Geryon’s cattle.
Moreover, the two “Pillars of Hercules” correspond to the two volcanoes flanking Sunda Strait, the Krakatoa and the Dempo. One is a lofty mountain, and the other one a giant volcanic caldera, precisely corresponding to features such as Scylla and Charybdis or to Avienus’ Calpe and Habila.
Though hard to believe, these coincidences are too exact and too inescapable to be attributable to mere chance. It is hence clear that Plato somehow heard ancient traditions from the South Seas which had been devised in connection with Taprobane and the demise of the once paradisial region.
Actually, such traditions abound in that distant region. And they date from remotest antiquity, having passed into the sacred traditions of a great many ancient nations.
For instance, these traditions reached Greece quite early in time. They actually figure in both the Odyssey and in the Argonautica, two of the earliest sagas of ancient Greece. These “Greek” navigations actually took place in the South Seas, as we already showed.
In fact, these two Greek epics – and several others such – ultimately derive from sacred Hindu-Buddhist traditions like the ones recorded in the Jatakas. They also figure in more profane texts such as the navigations of Sindbad the Sailor or in the even older Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor of the ancient Egyptian traditions.
Even the famed Mesopotamian text of the Epic of Gilgamesh does so, particularly where the hero and his friend Enkidu sail to the Forest of Cedars or to Paradise (Dilmun), where he went questing the Elixir, very much as Alexander and other heroes would do later.
These tall tales are still current in the South Seas, whence the early sailors probably brought them to their own homelands in Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Israel and so on.
Once again, these uncanny coincidences are too close to be attributable to chance: floating islands, serpent kings, monstrous sea serpents and whales, perilous seas and maelstroms such as Charybdis and the Vadavamukha, and so on. And all of these are features which physically belong to Taprobane and nowhere else.
Actually, these traditions are so ancient and so widespread that they apparently date from Atlantis itself, when the memories of the cataclysm were still vivid in the minds of its scant survivors of the cataclysm. If so, it is even possible that the Greeks originally brought these sacred traditions along from Indonesia, when they moved out from the destroyed region of Taprobane into the Mediterranean one.
Moreover, Plato’s report being based on the traditions of the Mysteries, it seems that they ultimately derived from these secret sources. Of course, Plato would never disclose their true origin. This would constitute a grievous crime in ancient Greece, one punishable with death.
So, the wise philosopher invented a plausible alternative, a romantic explanation in the figure of Solon and his visit to Egypt. This invention provided not only a believable source, but also a believable date which could not be checked in any direct way anymore, since Solon was long dead by the time Plato introduced this idea in his two dialogues on Atlantis.
Hardly would an Egyptian priest – at least one high enough in rank to be given knowledge of this most secret of Mystery traditions – confide them to a foreigner, a Greek stranger like Solon. In Egypt, as in Greece, this profanation of the Mysteries was forbidden by an oath which was never really broken by anyone. A further reason was the death penalty which ensued if anyone actually broke the sacred vow.
It is certainly for this very reason that Plato, like all others, never speaks openly of the true locations and the true traditions, entrusted only to the innermost disciples, sworn to perpetual secrecy.
Again, the fact that Plato does not speak in conformity to the geographical knowledge of his time, but in terms which are only true in the region of Sunda Strait is telltale of the fact that his true source were the traditional Mystery channels which actually date from the times of Atlantis itself.
It is foolish to suppose that the great sage would invent a lie which would fit the actual reality we are now disclosing, perhaps for the first time ever. Chancy coincidences are in reality a measure of our ignorance. The more “coincidences” we have, the more likely is a cause-and-effect relationship.
And when these coincidences start to pile up, as here, the astute investigator is obliged to stop and to start to look for this type of connection, just as we are doing here.
The Perfect Fit of the Indonesian Site
Observe, in Table IV.1 below how well the situation of Indonesia and Sunda Strait perfectly fits the one described by the prince of philosophers for Atlantis summarized in Table III.1 below.
Table IV.1 - Results for the Region of Indonesia and
Sunda Strait
Narrow
Mouthed
Strait
(Sunda)
Huge Island
Right in
Front (Larger
Than Libya and Asia)
(Indonesian
Atlantis)
Many Islands
Ahead
(Melanesia,
Micronesia,
Polynesia) in
True Ocean (Pacific)
Outer
Contin
ent
Beyond the
True Ocean
(America)
Please note that Plato’s use of the word “island” (nêsos) here refers more to a sunken land of continental proportions than to a smallish piece of ground fully surrounded by water, the modern sense of the word, but not the ancient Greek one.
And this brings the match even closer than a simple island ever would, sunken or not. Consider now the situation that really obtains at Gibraltar, and which can be observed in a map of the region, such as the ones already presented in Part II further above.
Table IV.2 - Results for the Region of Gibraltar
Narrow
Mouthed
Strait
(Gibraltar)
Huge Island in Front
(Larger than
Africa and
Asia
???????
Many Islands
Ahead
???????
Outer
Continent Ahead
(America)
It is clear that, if indeed Plato’s description refers to reality, the situation around Gibraltar Strait – summarized in Table IV.2 above – offers no consistent solution.
Our proposed solution, instead, affords a most perfect fit to Plato’s puzzling text. Were this the only evidence we have on the matter, we agree that the intelligent reader might remain skeptical. But there are further myriad proofs which we have uncovered, and which leave no room for doubting our solution of the so far unsolved riddle.
Plato and the Prehistoric Crossings to America
The vastness of the Pacific Ocean, pointed out by experts as impossible to cross in primitive embarkations in fact posed no insuperable barrier. As Thor Heyerdahl and several other enterprising adventurers demonstrated in practice, this ocean may be readily crossed in the giant sail-endowed rafts and proas of the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Seas region.
These ancient sailors were in no hurry whatsoever, and could hence enjoy the ride provided by the Equatorial Counter-Current which leads directly from Indonesia to Ecuador, in America. Plato, the great sage, explicitly avers that this crossing of the Ocean was a matter of routine even in Atlantean times. And he also reports that the Atlanteans had very advanced sail ships (triremes). ↑186
In other words, Plato is telling of the ancient voyages undertaken across the Pacific to the distant Americas by the enterprising Atlanteans and their close successors, the Polynesians. Both the ancient Hindus and the Chinese merchants also had several advanced ships fully able to cross the ocean, particularly when speed was not an issue.
The crossing of the Indian Ocean from India to Indonesia and Southeast Asia has been a matter of routine since remotest antiquity. These voyages were also undertaken by the Aztecs, as we comment in the Codex of Totonicapán, which tells of one such trip by their shamans.
The ancient Greeks seldom if ever sailed the Atlantic Ocean, which they deemed gloomy and damned, according to the many legends that survive from antiquity. These were mere lies spread by Phoenicians, who thus preempted competition in their commerce with the East Indies.
In fact this cunning people transferred the legends of the South Seas to the Mediterranean region in order to discourage the competition, as ferocious then as now. By contrast, the Phoenicians, like the Greeks and Romans and other Mediterranean peoples such as the Minoans and even the Jews (e. g. Solomon’s navy) currently navigated the Indian Ocean, which they usually accessed by way of the original Suez Canal, open since remotest epochs.
Such early navigations are also widely attested in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian records, and can hence be hardly questioned. They are also reported by Herodotus and other ancient authors. It is therefore far more logical to suppose that Plato was in fact speaking of the Indo-Pacific navigations, rather than of the far more unlikely Atlantic ones.
The Pillars of Hercules frequently figure in the Phoenician coins, for instance the ones shown in our Atlantis site and in this quaint illustration here. The second of the above illustrations of the Phoenician version of the Pillars of Hercules is highly interesting. The two pillars are shown in connection with a burning vessel and an olive tree. ↑187
The burning vessel (incense burner) is a vivid allegory of a volcano. In fact, it is the submarine volcano associated with the Vadavamukha and, even more exactly, the Krakatoa volcano, as we argue in detail further above. The olive tree is in turn an allegory of the Tree of Life. As such, it represents the volcanic “mushroom” of the subaerial volcano, the Dempo volcano of Taprobane.
The conch is the attribute of Triton, and is an indirect reference to Poseidon, the Flood, and the terrible War of Atlantis. This symbolism is too complex to gloss here, and the interested reader is referred to our works on this symbolism, some of which are available in our Atlantis site just linked above. The conch symbolizes a whirlpool or maelstrom, as we show in detail there.
This curious submarine feature was familiar to the Greeks since the times of Homer and Hesiod. It was called Charybdis, being the terrible whirlpool which sucked down Ulysses’ ship with all his crew. And this giant maelstrom is in fact the Vadavamukha, the submarine supervolcano of Taprobane, the ferocious Krakatoa.
In time, this legend got transferred to the Atlantic Ocean as the island of Man Satanaxio (“Hand of Satan”). This mythical island was the site where a giant devilish hand allegedly rose from the sea, dragging down the passing ships and their unlucky crews directly to Hell itself.
The burning pot and the olive tree are also associated with Poseidon (as the submarine volcano) and with Pallas Athena (as the subaerial volcano). The disputes of the two gods are actually an allegory of the Great War of Atlantis waged between the Atlanteans and the prehistoric Athenian Greeks. The burning pot of incense allegorizes the volcano and the olive tree the Tree of Life, that is the volcanic plume of the other one, its dual.
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