This whirlwind trawl through local history had revealed sufficient fascinating facts and a good many hints to justify my thinking the area certainly had a hidden, forgotten past. It was clear that I now had to sharpen the focus of my quest. I needed to start examining Plato’s detailed pointers to the exact position of Atlantis.
That meant confronting the most awkward clues first, which coincidentally were also the most important and had already been the subject of much debate and argument in recent years.
Was Atlantis inside or outside the Mediterranean?
Was it really a huge island?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Inside or Outside the Mediterranean?
This was the first and most important question. If the answer went against me, then all my theories about Atlantis being in the Algarve and neighboring Spain were wrong. I would have to give up my quest—or pursue a new quest elsewhere. For two thousand years, it has been generally assumed that Plato was referring to a region outside the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic—and the weight of evidence has always supported that supposition—but recent proponents of the Greek island of Santorini have sought alternative interpretations to back up their theory. Their quest has failed to reveal any fresh facts to substantiate their case. Plato actually wrote the following:
“… and there was an island situated in front of the straits … which by you are called the Pillars of Hercules” (clues 4 and 5).
To support the Santorini theory—and others—for Atlantis to have existed in various parts of the Mediterranean or Aegean Seas, it was suggested that the ancient Greeks referred to several different locations as “The Pillars of Hercules.” The Straits of Gibraltar, at the entrance to the Mediterranean, was but one of them, and Solon was confused about which location the Egyptian priest was referring to. I have already laid out comprehensive arguments against this in Chapter Three. Analysis of the other clues bequeathed to us by Plato clarifies beyond doubt that he was referring to the Straits of Gibraltar. (SEE IMAGE 7 IN THE PHOTO INSERT AND 8 BELOW)
(IMAGE 8) Southwest Iberia and the Straits of Gibraltar.
In Timaeus, when talking about the invasion by the Atlanteans that was repulsed by the brave Hellenes, Plato wrote:
“This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean” (clue 2).
Unambiguous. Specific.
He also mentions a true sea (the Atlantic), that the Mediterranean was but “a little harbor” in comparison, and that there were islands in this sea, enabling the seafaring Atlanteans to “island-hop” to a vast continent on the other side. There is little doubt that the vast continent was America; it could be no other (clues 7, 8, and 9).
It was an astonishing statement for that era, suggesting that the Atlantis inhabitants knew the New World well, voyaged to it, and most likely had colonies there. Greeks of Plato’s era, as far as historic records show, were certainly not aware of the existence of America, so this incredible comment—unique in its time—lends credence to the rest of the philosopher’s accounts. He was not making it up, as others have suggested.
Andrew Collins, in Gateway to Atlantis, sets out to prove that the Phoenicians, from their Iberian port bases outside the Mediterranean—Cádiz, for example—had regular contact with America via the Atlantic islands, Cuba in particular.31 His case is built around various archaeological finds and innumerable myths and legends, but little if anything from the Phoenicians themselves. As is usual with Collins, he has carried out exhaustive research. He cites odd items discovered in the New World, including Phoenician coins, amphorae, and stone carvings of heads with beards (indigenous South Americans cannot grow so much facial hair) and features that appear more Semitic than South American. These had already been brought to general attention by other authors but do back up the theory that contact had taken place. It was thought, however, that there was no evidence that this was part of any regular trade pattern by the Phoenicians or, later, the Carthaginians. It has been assumed more likely to have been the odd merchant or adventurer blown off course. Crucially, evidence has recently come to light showing that some of them probably made it back to Europe. Traces of tobacco and cocaine were found in recently examined Egyptian mummies, spawning a television documentary, The Cocaine Mummies. With the exception of a different wild strain of African tobacco, both were only available from South America.
This puzzling discovery could be explained if Collins is correct and the Phoenicians had known of America and the Atlantic islands, especially the western ones like Cuba and Hispaniola; but it would have been against their policy and instincts to divulge the knowledge to any other race—and the Greeks were the last people they would have gossiped to. Plato would certainly not have discovered anything from them. The Phoenicians were renowned for keeping maritime information secret in order to benefit from it, at the same time spreading the most outrageous and fearsome stories about what lay beyond Cape St. Vincent, at the southwesterly end of the Algarve. Anyone who passed on cartographic information to another race did so at the risk of death. Later, the Carthaginians were equally ruthless in this respect. Plato’s knowledge could only have come from an alternative source with earlier privileged access to it—and that was almost certainly the Egyptians.
But the most crucial clue indicating the Straits of Gibraltar is the one referring to “Gades.” Plato says, without any scope for misinterpretation, that the extremity of Atlantis reached as far as, or close to, Gades (clue 34). He did not specifically say it was the eastern extremity, but it is obvious that that is what he meant. If Atlantis was in the Atlantic, it had to be the eastern end. Historians unanimously agree that Gades is today’s Cádiz, the large Spanish city sitting at the mouth of the Guadalete River, not far outside the Straits of Gibraltar. It is Plato’s marker beacon for Atlantis and “black box” combined.
It has been flashing away in his narrative for more than two thousand years, directing us straight to the site with all the other critical identifying clues stored in his writings.
In Plato’s time, the city’s position would appear to have been farther south to southwest, as the sea has steadily encroached over the intervening centuries and there is the distinct possibility of land subsidence. Some years ago, archaeologists confirmed this when they discovered other submerged remains just out to sea. Inevitably, familiar cries of “the Atlantis citadel” were heard, but they could hardly be relevant when Plato said the capital was in the center of the kingdom, not in the extreme easterly corner.
When referring to his sons, Plato’s clues 32 and 33 read:
“the eldest who was the first king he named Atlas … and after him the whole island (Atlantis) and the ocean were called Atlantic.”
He was clearly referring to the sea around Atlantis. It is final proof, if any is needed, as it would hardly have been relevant if the kingdom was in the eastern Mediterranean.
To summarize:
• It is irrefutable. If what Plato said is analyzed, he was unambiguously referring to the area starting immediately outside the Straits of Gibraltar—in other words, the Atlantic.
• There was no evidence in his account to support any other location—and this is the only account we have. Those putting forward theories regarding other areas referred to by the Greeks as “Pillars of Hercules” completely ignore some of the other clues he and the Egyptian priest gave.
• The suitability of all of the other sites put forward over the years, such as the North Sea, southwest of Ireland and England, Antarctica, Santorini, Anatolia, or off Cyprus in the Mediterranean—even various sites in the Far East—is a fiction that Plato had no hand in.
After I had finished drafting this chapter, along with the rest of the book, I discovered a superb web site about Atlantis run by American R. Cedric Leonard.32 I was astonished; it mirrored much of my research, even including that mysterious alphabet. The site is by far the best and most comprehensive source of background information I have found, although he doesn’t agree with my conclusion about the actual Atlant
is site. Had he been living in the Algarve rather than operating from America, he probably would have. I said the site mirrored my own research but that is really an understatement. Cedric’s site is far more detailed and scholarly, apart from a few areas where I have the advantage of local knowledge. He has delved exhaustively into every possible area and one section, headed “Pre-Platonic Writings Pertinent to Atlantis,” provides further evidence that Atlantis was definitely in the Atlantic. Cedric has scoured manuscripts from many ancient writers to find several references to Atlantis that predate Plato. Many refer to the Atlantic Ocean or the Western Sea. One example is from the famous Greek Herodotus, known as “the father of history.” Cedric gives his own translation from a portion of Herodotus’s Clio, thought to date from around 450 B.C. It refers to the ocean in which Atlantis sank.
“… but the sea navigated by all the Greeks and the one outside the Pillars called the Atlantis sea and Erythraean are called one and the same.”
The Greeks knew of an island in the far west known as Erythraea, the name deriving from the color of the setting sun. The quote is crucial, as it not only refers to Atlantis itself but clearly positions it outside the Mediterranean.
Among other examples, Cedric draws attention to something noted in 1946 by the Cambridge scholar and explorer Harold T. Wilkins.33 On column 8 of the great hall of the temple of Rameses at Karnak in Egypt was displayed a text referring to “the loss of a drowned continent in the Western Ocean.” The Egyptians identified the Western Ocean with the Atlantic.
My developing theory that Plato was referring to a now-sunken portion of southwest Iberia was massively reinforced. There was, though, still one substantial question mark. Plato referred specifically to an island, and a huge one at that.
Or did he?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Was Atlantis a Huge Island?
Hollywood blockbusters and common knowledge all hold that Atlantis was a mystical, mythical island. Dozens of historians have taken the same view. But what if everyone was wrong? I had to forensically re-examine exactly what Plato wrote.
According to the translation from his Dialogues, there was an island in front of the straits, and it was huge: larger than Libya and Asia combined. This island had rule over a great empire that included other islands in the open sea and parts of the continent on the other side of the ocean. It also held sway inside the straits as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. It disappeared under the sea in a day and night, after a period of violent earthquakes and floods (clues 4–8 and 15).
Ever since I had considered including Atlantis in my hypothesis, this island business had niggled away at the back of my mind. So far, I had unearthed no evidence to prove that a large island starting immediately outside the Straits of Gibraltar had ever existed, although there had once been a scattering of small islands. Indeed, if this large island was anything like the size Plato appeared to indicate, it would hardly have fit in between Portugal and America—and certainly not between southwest Iberia and the north coast of Africa. Many researchers had come to the conclusion that either Solon or Plato was simply confused about the size. With so many other clues pointing to southwest Iberia—the one about Cádiz, for example—it is not surprising that so many people have been baffled.
I discovered that the English translations had not been made from the original, and some were from translations already made into Latin. Could there have been errors? I soon ascertained that in recent years, scholars had indeed begun to question the standard English text—on several important points.
The key to answering the island conundrum revolves around the original Greek word used by Plato to describe what Atlantis was.
That word was nesos.
The first English translation assumed nesos meant “island.” In recent decades, it has been pointed out that, at the time Plato used it, nesos had three alternative interpretations. The standard reference work for ancient Greek, The Greek Lexicon by Liddell and Scott, for example, gives three distinctly different meanings:
One was “island”; another, “the mouth of a river with mud shoals.”
Critically, the third meaning was “peninsula.”34
There does not seem to be any reason why “island” was the preferred initial translation, but all subsequent translators have followed suit—despite other specific facts given by Plato that do not justify its use.
For instance, he only ever mentioned one coast—the south. In clue 23 he explains there was a vast productive plain facing the sea and expands on that in clues 84 to 88, intimating that it faced south with a high coast overlooking the sea. It was sheltered to the north by mountains “celebrated for their number, size and beauty.” Significantly, no reference was made to the north, east, or west coasts. If an island was being described, surely these would have warranted at least a passing mention? Look at clue 84 again: “The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea.” Note that it refers to the whole country and the “side” facing the sea. An island has all sides facing the sea, not just one of them.
Clue 4 includes another subtle misinterpretation. In ancient Greek, Plato did not write “an island situated in front of the straits,” as in the accepted translation by Benjamin Jowett, but “because there was an island/peninsula in the mouth or lobby of the Gulf, that you consider the columns of Hercules.”35 The clear implication is that the Straits of Gibraltar formed the throat, and the area outside the Atlantic where the sea broadened out was the mouth (that is, the area outside the straits that was still confined on the north by the southern coast of Iberia and on the south by the North African coast). A lobby is clearly the area of sea you pass through before entry through the straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean.
In clue 35, Plato wrote that the Atlanteans were also the inhabitants and rulers of diverse islands in the open sea, clearly somewhere different from where the homeland was. He would appear here to be referring to the Atlantic Ocean beyond any such land as Portugal, Spain, and Morocco, consequently reinforcing the descriptions of Atlantis being in the mouth of the Gulf before the Straits of Gibraltar, therefore not in the open sea.
Previously, a popular assumption has been that Atlantis was situated way out in the Atlantic; but the middle of that vast ocean can hardly be described as being “in the gulf outside the Straits of Gibraltar.” If so, it could equally well be claimed, for example, that New York is too; a ludicrous theory—even the original translation of it, to be “in front of,” implies proximity.
It now appeared that the original translation of nesos as “island” was what had bedeviled, impeded, and misdirected the centuries-long search for Atlantis. Until recently, everyone had taken that description for granted and looked for a large sunken island, big enough to have been a continent; yet it is apparent that Plato may not have wished to convey that meaning at all.
Others have noted that the ancient Greeks even used nesos to describe the Peloponnese Peninsula. In fact, that very name is a combination of two words. The first, Pelopos, is the ancient name of a Greek mythological hero who supposedly conquered the whole region. The other is nesos, giving the original Greek spelling “Peloponnesos.”36 Although technically now an island, since the construction of the Corinth canal, it was a peninsula connected to mainland Greece by a nine-kilometer-wide strip of land when it was named. This confirms that the Greeks tended to lump islands and peninsulas together under the same word.
Reginald Fessenden, once head chemist to Thomas Edison and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, had papers published by the Massachusetts Bible Society in 1924 and 1927.37 He had made an intense study of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The papers were titled “The deluged civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus.” In order to complete the works, he closely studied ancient terminology, including Greek. He categorically stated that nesos was never regarded by the early Greeks to mean solely “island.” Instead, it was often a more encompassing term meaning “land.” He quotes such examples as “Nes
os Arabia” and “Nesos Mesopotamia.”
In the light of the other clues Plato gave, the inescapable conclusion is that he meant the area of land immediately outside the straits, the Iberian Peninsula.
He was probably referring only to the southern part of Iberia, west of Gibraltar, which would have been familiar to visiting mariners from the Mediterranean. The northern area had been affected by the Ice Age, and the chances of any significant civilizations developing over a long period of time in those conditions would have been remote. Nor would that region have fit the clues Plato provided regarding climate, crops, flora, and fauna. This also partly explains why he fails to mention other coasts, or anything beyond the mountains. In time, however, the civilization would almost certainly have stretched up the west coast, at least as far as Lisbon.
The continuous southern coasts of Andalucía and Portugal’s Algarve curve around, protruding southwest into the Atlantic at Cape St. Vincent as a peninsula in its own right. If this was the area Plato was referring to, it must mean that the major civilized area, principally the great southern plain he mentioned, was the part that sank 11,600 years ago. Before this disaster, the peninsula would have protruded much more, with more dry land also right up to and around the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar.
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