Did Atlantis lay in England?
By E.J. de Meester.
Not only a part of the Odyssey could be moved to the British isles; legendary Atlantis may have existed there too. Countless theories have been invented about Atlantis. Most popular is perhaps the theory that Atlantis was the little volcanic island of Thera or Santorini, which perished during the reign of queen Hatshepsut (?) in a great catastrophe. The weak point of the theory is that Thera is not outside the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar). According to the supporters of this theory, Atlantis did not perish 9000 but 900 years ago, counting from the time of Solon (600 BC). It is very likely that all numbers in Plato's Atlantis story are ten times too high.
Plato tells about Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. Atlantis was situated on a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, apparently not very far from Europe. How many islands like this are there? I can find only two: Britain and Ireland. The capital was on the south coast and had a harbour. If Atlantis was in England, than it must have been near Portsmouth or perhaps near Exeter, Poole, Brighton of Hastings. Plato writes in Critias: 'The area as a whole was high and the coast was precipitous, but around the city itself there was a plain (...)' This refers clearly to the famous white cliffs of Dover, the first thing visitors see when they come to England, and to the South-English plain.
Atlantis lay in a fertile plain, surrounded by mountains. That is also correct. The plain is said to measure 370 by 550 km - far too large. But one tenth of that, 37 by 55 km, corresponds approximately with a rectangle between Salisbury and Chichester. The plain was divided into 60,000 (6000?) square fields, probably so-called Celtic fields, although the Celts came much later to England (from 550 BC). The city is said to have been round with a diameter of 24 km (2,4 km). The last number corresponds with the dimensions of the inner city of Amsterdam (without the Plantage quarter). The centre would be about as large as the area around the Dam Square.
North of Poole, on the river Avon (derived from 'Atlantis'?), is the famous monument of Stonehenge. It is very strange that nobody connects Stonehenge with Atlantis. Both exert an enormous attraction to all sorts of mystics, hippies, romantics etceteras. There are some theories that identify the Atlantic civilisation with the megalithic civilisation that existed along the Atlantic coast. If Atlantis really existed and was not the Minoan civilisation on Crete, then this is the only possibility.
A round city
An important clue is that Atlantis was a round city with canals, not unlike the inner city of Amsterdam. The Egyptians made everything square. So did the Greeks, although they sometimes built round temples. If Plato had imagined an ideal city, he would probably have designed a rectangular city. But Stonehenge is round and other monuments, like Avebury, are also round; quite different from Greek or Egyptian monuments. A symbol consisting of three concentric circles is often found on megaliths; it could represent Atlantis. Or perhaps Atlantis was built in the shape of this symbol, whatever it means.
Gold has been found in tombs near Stonehenge; that also fits. In Atlantis there is said to have been a race course that could be made long or short. Near Stonehenge two race courses have been found, a long one and a short one (the Stonehenge Cursus, in the middle, and the Lesser Cursus, top left), possibly for chariot races. Even in the Roman era the ancient Britons fought in chariots. Also there were hot and cold sources (like those near Troy, according to Homer); that reminds one of Bath. The round dots on the map are tumuli; the rectangular fields mentioned by Plato are also visible. The Avenue runs from Stonehenge (centre) to the river Avon (bottom right) and perhaps to Atlantis?
There were buildings made of white, black and red stone, hewn from Clito's hill in the middle of the city. Several differently coloured stones are found on the Isle of Wight. Was the Isle of Wight Clito's hill? If Clito's hill was not in the centre of the city, it may be Silbury Hill, an artificial hill, almost 40 m high, to the south of Avebury. Perhaps Avebury itself might be Atlantis, because it also has three rings; but then Plato must have been very fanciful indeed. We may assume that the stories about Atlantis are somewhat inaccurate, but not too much.
St. Michael's Mount and Mont St. Michel
If there really was a central hill of stone in the middle of Atlantis, it may have been St. Michael's Mount near Penzance in Cornwall. This is not located in a large plain, but it is possible that it used to be on dry land. Today it lies on the beach. Two things speak in favour of this location. In the first place, there used to be tin mines in Cornwall. Apparently the tin was loaded into ships near St. Michael's Mount. Secondly, there is a legend in Cornwall about a sunken city. It is supposed to have been near the Scilly Islands, but it is quite possible that it really was near St. Michael's Mount. In France there is a similar legend about a sunken city named Ys (=Atlantis?), not far from Mont St. Michel. The two rocks are very similar; it is quite possible that they were confused and that this legend came from Cornwall. Perhaps the rock was surrounded with defensive walls to protect the costly tin from plunderers. A temple for the sea god on the rock is not unlikely. The whole complex may also have been a gigantic lingam (phallus symbol).
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Mystics believe that St. Michael's Mount is connected with Stonehenge, Avebury and other monuments by means of 'ley lines', a kind of invisible power lines. The Michael line is supposed to run from St. Michael's Mount (bottom left) through Avebury to the north-east. On the line there are said to be 63 Christian monuments, all dedicated to St. Michael or Mary. I found this in a little Dutch book about crop circles. I don't believe in this New Age stuff myself, but for those who do, it ought to be fascinating. |
A problem with St. Michael's Mount is that the plain of Atlantis, which should have been about 37 by 55 km wide, cannot have been there. The sea is also too deep; there is no shallow area which may be a submerged plain. And there are no great mountains to protect the plain against the north and west wind. In these respects the Lyme Bay near Torquay and Lyme Regis is a better choice. The bay is to the east of the high mountains of Dartmoor (the dark spot on the map). To the north of it are also mountains. In Dartmoor there are many ancient remains, probably dating from the early Bronze Age. At Grimspound and Legis Tor there are circular enclosures containing stone hut-circles. Other ancient monuments can be seen at Merrivale, Trowlesworthy Warren, Ditsworthy Warren, Erme Valley and Shovel Down. Near the coast they have probably disappeared long ago.
According to Plato the site of Atlantis is now muddy and difficult to pass for ships. The only spot on the south coast to which this applies is the estuary near Portsmouth, which is also not far from Stonehenge. So that is still the most likely spot.
Elephants or walruses?
The greatest problem is that there are said to have been elephants. In England bones of elephants, tigers, hyenas etc. have been found. In Russia it has been discovered that a small kind of mammoth was still living on Wrangel island until 3700 years ago; elsewere mammoths already died out 11,000 years ago. Were there perhaps still mammoths in Scotland, or were there still memories of the mammoths of the past? The Scottish Highland cattle still look a bit like mammoths! Another possibility is that walruses used to live on the British coasts. Walrus ivory can also be used to make ornamental objects. Such objects have been found in Skara Brae in Scotland. The ceiling of the great temple of Poseidon in Atlantis was covered with ivory. In Skara Brae whale bones were used to build roofs in stead of wood. It would have been very appropriate for a temple of Poseidon to have a roof made of whale bones. A visitor may have mistaken these for elephant tusks.
Another mystery is a metal that was found in Atlantis, called orichalcos (literally 'mountain copper'). Perhaps it is a memory from the time when the trade in tin made the Atlantians rich, although it is described as a red metal. It could also be referring to amber, although amber is not a metal (but fossilized resin) and usually comes from the Baltic Sea. It does not come from the mountains. I can't see any other possibility.
The destruction
So far almost everything fits beautifully. But how about the sudden destruction of Atlantis, which fascinates most Atlantis-seekers so much? England still exists. But it may be that not the whole island was destroyed, but only the capital and perhaps other seaports along the Atlantic coast. The south of England has been slowly sinking down since the last Ice Age; the same is true for the Netherlands. The great flood disaster in Holland in l953 shows only too clearly what can happen. Perhaps Atlantis was destroyed by a combination of very high tide and storm. Another possibility is a tsunami, a tidal wave from an undersea earthquake, perhaps coming from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. A great volcanic eruption on Iceland may also have caused major damage. So there are several possibilities for great disasters, without resorting to nonsense theories. Plato mentions an earthquake, although there are few or no earthquakes in England, but that is understandable because he was a Greek who had never seen the ocean during a violent storm. In Greece, high and low tides are unknown, while earthquakes are only too common.
'A new Atlantis in the making' - this headline was written above an article about New Orleans, which is also threatened by inundations from the Mississippi and the sea. Here, too, the ground is sinking and the dikes along the river prevent the spreading of silt from the river which used to compensate the sinking in Mark Twain's time. In 70 years the ground level has dropped by 1.80 m. Drilling for gas and oil (which did not exist in Atlantis, of course) makes it worse and hurricanes increase the danger. In Alexandria in Egypte the ground has also been sinking for centuries. The remains of Cleopatra's palace are now many metres deep under water.
Simon Day of the University College in London has issued a warning that the coasts of Florida and the Caribbean could be hit by a high tsunami if the volcanic island of La Palma collapses. Something like this could have happened in Atlantis. There are many submarine volcanoes and volcanic islands in the Atlantis Ocean. If a big landslide hits the sea, a super-tsunami hundreds of metres high can be caused. A normal tsunami, caused by a submarine earthquake, is no more than 10 m high and even that can cause disaster, like in l946, when a city on Hawaii was hit by one and more than a hundred people were killed. (There is a tsunami in one of the Pokémon cartoons.) The effect of a super-tsunami is far worse. The BBC programme Horizon of October the 12th 2000 was devoted to this phenomenon. A super-tsunami caused by a landslide on the northern coast of one of the Azores may have hit the coasts of Britain, France, Spain and Portugal and wiped out the Atlantic megalithic culture in one blow.
The stones of Carnac
The famous stones of Carnac in France must be the remains of an important centre of the same culture to which Stonehenge belonged. In the Bay of Morbihan near Carnac there are two stone circles of which one is completely, the other partially under water. Apparently the land here was also flooded by the sea. Carnac is especially famous for the long rows of stones which run towards the sea, parallel to each other. Nobody knows for what purpose they were built.
In a Belgian book about Atlantis which at first sight contained only nonsense I found an interesting suggestion: that the rows of stones served for the storage of ships. It seems that such row exist elsewhere and are always located near water. Perhaps walls of mud or small stones were built between the big stones. I think there must have been walls between the so-called trilithons in Stonehenge too, so that the light entered only through the narrow gaps between the stones. I also think there must have been a roof on top.
One of the more recent theories is the one of the historian and archaeologist Peter James, who will be mentioned on another page in connection with the 'Dark Age'. In his book The Sunken Kingdom, The Atlantis Mystery Solved he claims that Atlantis was a city on the south coast of Turkey that was devastated by an earthquake and submerged beneath a lake. The city was called Tantalis after king Tantalos, who was similar to Atlas. It is a clever theory, but it has drawbacks: a) not on an island, b) not outside the Pillars of Hercules, c) too close to Greece (James raises this objection against the Santorini theory) and d) not a round city (?). I stick to my own theory. James's Atlantis theory is also mentioned on another page in connection with the Trojan War.
Noah's flood and the Black Sea
On the bottom of the Black Sea, north of Sinop, remains of a city that was drowned about 7500 years ago have been found by Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. These remains have not been associated with Atlantis - although that would be possible - but with the Flood. According to a theory of Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman the real Flood was the filling of the Black Sea, which used to be a small lake, around 5500 BC. Well-preserved pieces of wood have been found. They had not rotted away, because the water here contains very little oxygen and much sulphur hydrate, so that organic life is impossible. That Noah's Ark will be found is extremely unlikely, if only because Noah would have sailed to dry land and the Ark would have rotted away on the shore.
The Great Sphinx
Atlantis is sometimes associated with the Great Sphinx in Egypt, which is said to be much older than the pyramids. The Sphinx has been badly eroded by rain, say John West and others. In the book and TV series Egypt by Vivian Davies and Renée Friedman it is said that the area in which the Sphinx lies was quite moist between 8000 and 4000 BC. The pyramids were built around 2500 BC. If the Sphinx dates from 8000 BC or earlier, it may well have been eroded by rain. Perhaps there were temples or stone circles like Stonehenge (these have been found in the Sahara!) on the sites of the pyramids.
But the big question is: were there people who could build large stone structures at that time, or only primitive nomads? It so happens that Kathleen Kenyon found a tower from around 8000 BC in Jericho. In Çatal Höyük in Turkey a Neolithic city from about 7000-6000 BC has been found. Recently the archaeologist H.G. Gebel found a 9000 years old stone village near Petra in Jordan. If people could already build stone towers and staircases at that time, then perhaps they could also carve out the Sphinx, although that was an enormous undertaking.
On the other hand, it is doubtful whether the evidence for an older sphinx is really as strong as John West and others suggest. According to Zahi Hawass, under who supervision the sphinx is being restored, the lower layers of rock are so soft that they crumble easily and there were great fissures in it even before the sphinx was carved. It seems that even today rain falls on the sphinx from time to time. A tomb of the 4th Dynasty, with which Schoch and West compare the sphinx, is situated on a much higher and drier point and has been carved out of a different kind of rock. The oldest high culture in Egypt probably came from Mesopotamia. If we are looking for the origin of civilisation, we should look in Mesopotamia rather than Egypt.
Or was Atlantis situated in America, as some people think? There are many theories about people crossing the Atlantic Ocean long before Columbus. Andrew Collins writes about this in his new book Gateway to Atlantis, with a long Introduction by David Rohl. Collins has studied about a hundred books about Atlantis and thinks that most of them fall into three categories:
All these theories do not tackle the main issues in Plato's text, according to Collins (and me). In his opinion there is persuasive evidence that Phoenician ships from Iberia crossed the Atlantic Ocean around 1000 BC or earlier. That may be true, but in my opinion there is much more evidence for contacts between America and Asia. Collins thinks that Cuba was Atlantis; some other people think it was Hispaniola (Haiti-Dominican Republic). He also thinks that Plato invented the Egyptian connection because he really had the information from the Phoenicians, but in his time Athens had just been at war with the Phoenicians, so he had to use some other story. That is quite possible, also in connection with my own theory. When Solon visited Egypt (if he did so) the Egyptians employed both Greek and Phoenician sailors, so it may be true that Solon heard about Atlantis in Saïs, not from the Egyptians but from the Phoenicians.
It has been suggested that Carthage was built in the shape of Atlantis. That is not true for the whole city, but it makes sense as far as the military harbour is concerned. The harbour of Carthage was more or less laid out in the shape of a keyhole; the straight (outer) part was for commercial ships, the round (inner) part was for warships. In the middle of the military harbour was a round island with docks for warships. It is not impossible that Plato's description of the central island of Atlantis was in fact inspired by Carthage. It seems that the name 'Atlantis' means 'huge, large, extensive, vast, endless' in Phoenician and 'giant, majestic' in Arabic.
The American geologist and fossil hunter Mark McMenamin claims to have found a world map on Carthagian coins from 350-320 BC. (See a page on the website Phoenicia.org.) The coin shows a horse; under the feet of the horse is a design that was first interpreted as writing, but which is a map according to McMenamin. In the middle is the Mediterranean Sea with Spain. On the left there is a blob which McMenamin interprets as America, but which looks more like Britain and Ireland in my opinion. Still a very interesting discovery! That Britain is depicted too far south is probably due to the fact that the Phoenicians used maps on rolls of papyrus. There was no space to draw Britain in the right place (compare the Roman Peutinger map). Britain is shown just where Plato said that Atlantis was situated: outside the Pillars of Hercules! The two dots above Spain that McMenamin interprets as Ireland and Britain may represent Normandy and Britanny. Tacitus (Agricola 11) writes that Britain is 'opposite Spain'; some of its inhabitants have dark, curly hair and may have come from Spain.
It is quite certain that the Phoenicians sailed to England. Whether they sailed to Cuba or Hispaniola is another matter. In a very curious passage Plato writes that you could sail from Atlantic via other islands to the opposite continent. Which continent? America? If so, the islands might be Ireland and Iceland. But Norway is more likely. In that case the islands would be Orkney and Shetland.
The pyramids of the Aztecs (who claimed to have come from the land of Azlan!) are often compared with the pyramids of Egypt, but in fact they are not very similar at all. They are much more similar to the ziggurats (stepped pyramids with temples on top) in Mesopotamia and the similarities between Maya temples and temples in Cambodia are simply astounding! Racially the Mayas are clearly Asiatic; they are quite unlike the Egyptians. Some people think that the Olmecs were black people from Africa, but in my opinion they looked rather like some Asian races or Australian aboriginals. Many precolumbian ornaments have obviously been influenced by Asian prototypes.
I find it hard to believe that building pyramids is a kind of universal human trait, like building houses. Ziggurats are found in many countries, but by no means in all countries. One might equally well claim that the obelisk in Washington has nothing to do with Egyptian obelisks, because it dates from a much later period, and that the dome of the Capitol only accidentally looks like European domes, because a dome happens to be a practical way of roofing spaces. It may well be that some people came to Middle America from Asia to teach (or force) the local population to build pyramids and to make gruesome human sacrifices.
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Yet America is much more difficult to reach from Asia than from Europe; that is, if one is able to cross oceans. But that was probably not possible before the time of the Vikings. One can sail from Japan to Mexico by following the islands and the coast, although one has to sail against the current sometimes. On a orthographic projection of the world with the North Pole as centre it can be seen that a voyage past Alaska is not really as far as it appears on a world map in Mercator projection. In the Mercator projection the regions near the North and South Pole are stretched. 1 - the voyage of Columbus in 1492; 2 - the voyages of the Vikings Eric the Red and Leif Eriksson around 1000; 3 - a voyage from Asia to America through the northern Pacific Ocean. |
Kennewick Man
Recently there was a sensation among scholars in Brazil because a scull found in 1975 turned out to be 11.500 years old and showed Australian traits. According to current theory, the oldest inhabitants of America came from Asia 10,000 years ago across the frozen Bering Strait. But now it is thought in Brazil that Australian aboriginals already came to America by boat 15,000 years ago. In the United States a 9000 years old skeleton has been found, Kennewick Man, which is not of an Indian but of a white man according to some people. According to others its is more like those of the Ainus (the original inhabitants of Japan) or the Polynesians. Again Orientals, therefore. Kennewick is in the west of the United States, near the Pacific Ocean, not near the Atllantic Ocean.
Unfortunately a law has been passed in the US which makes it possible for fundamentalist Indians (sorry - native Americans!) to bury and so destroy objects like the Kennewick Man skeleton. This is similar to the burning of almost all Aztec books by the conquistadors. In the Westfrisian Museum in my home town Hoorn there is a mummy of an Eskimo that was brought back by 17th-century whalers; there is a request that this mummy, too, should be taken back to Greenland. Although this mummy probably has little scientific value, it seems to me that returning it would give a bad example.
In 1999 Discovery Channel broadcast a three-part series called Quest for the lost Civilisation. In it Graham Hancock stated that the pyramids, Angkor Vat, Stonehenge, the stones of Carnac, the Nazca lines, temples in Mexico and the statues of Easter Island were all part of an ancient global civilisation of seafarers who were apparently obsessed by astrology. The temples of Angkor Vat (in Cambodia) were said to be built in the shape of the zodiac sign Draco, the pyramids of Gizeh in the shape of Sirius; the Sphinx is supposed to be looking at the sign of Leo. It's all rather vague. Hard to say whether it's nonsense or not. More information can be found in Hancocks books, like Fingerprints of the Gods (Heinemann) and Heaven's Mirror (Penguin Books). Hancock also has a theory about the Ark of the Covenant; I'll return to that later.
Not long after this, the BBC hit back with two episodes of Horizon, in which Atlantis believers were even compared with Nazis! Part 2 was focussed on Hancocks ideas, at least on some of them. The corrosion of the sphinx was said to be caused by salt. The placing of the pyramids was determined by the building site and not by the stars, according to Kate Spence. That the temples of Angkor Vat were built in the shape of the zodiac sign Draco is also untrue, according to E. Mannikka; also there are more than 60 temples and Hancock chose only 10 out of them. Indeed it is not a convincing theory at all.
Robert Bauval's theory about the pyramids at Giza could be right because the three great pyramids can be seen at a glance and may well have something to do with stars. The criticism the north and south are reversed is not true: Orion is in the southern sky, so you would have to look at Giza from the north to the south, and then it is correct. But it could also be a coincidence. In Angkor a star pattern is not at all obvious from a plan, let alone from the ground. Much more intriguing, in my opinion, is the uncanny resemblance between e.g. the temple of Baksei Changkrong in Angkor and Maya temples. The building technique (corbelled vaults) is also the same. The big heads in Angkor Thom are also strongly reminiscent of the big heads of the Olmeks in Mexico: the same thick lips and flat noses.
Tiahuanaco near Lake Titicaca
The city of Tiahuanaco near Lake Titicaca in Peru is sometimes named as a possible site of Atlantis, in spite of the fact that nearly everything in the city is not round but square, even the eyes of the statues! In alternative circles Tiahuanaco is best known because of the writings of Arthur Posnansky, which Hancock heavily relies on. Posnansky died in 1948; after that, C-14 datings have proven (according to the BBC) that the first settlement on the site originated only 3500 years ago and that the first monuments were built only 2000 years ago. That is much to late for Atlantis, even if a city so far from Europe and so high above sea level could possibly be Atlantis. Hancock protests that C-14 dating can only be used on carbon and not on stones.
Recently a city was discovered on the bottom of Lake Titicaca, 15 m deep, probably built by the Tiahuanaco people. The level of the lake must have risen considerably since then; apparently the climate has changed. The leader of the expedition is the Italian archaeologist Lorenzo Epis. Other people have explored the lake before, e.g. Jacques Cousteau in 1976. So there is indeed a sunken city there. But I don't think it can be Atlantis.
It is a pity that Hancock rarely pays any attention to things that are certainly many thousands of years old according to orthodox archaeology (see above). Sometimes it seems as if he is only interested in beautiful pictures and places with a high Erich von Däniken content, like Easter Island and the pyramids. Those are always popular with the general public! Although I was interested at first, I became more and more disappointed watching Hancock's series and Horizon gave my interest the final blow. His theory about the Ark of the Covenant seems more interesting to me.
This does not mean that there are no mysteries left. For instance, traces of heroin and nicotin have been found in Egyptian mummies, although coca and tobacco used to grow only in America. Nobody has found a good explanation for this strange fact. Also, it seems that prehistoric symbols have been found in California which are similar to symbols found on the British Isles.
Recently I saw a film on the National Geographic Channel about the mysterious 'red paint people'. This turned out to be an ancient people that built megalithic graves near the sea on the Atlantic coasts of North America, especially Labrador. The graves contained red paint. Harpoons were also known. The culture is called 'Maritime Archaic'. It was obviously some seafaring people that lived 7500 years ago. On the Atlantic coasts of Europe similar monuments from the same period have been found. If it was a seafaring people, than can't there have been contacts across the Atlantic Ocean after all? After 4000 years the 'red paint people' disappeared without a trace.
Antarctica
There is also a theory that Antarctica, the land around the South Pole, was Atlantis. On certain old maps, like that of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis, Antarctica is shown as it looked before it was covered by ice. But drillings in the ice cap of Antarctica have shown that the land has been covered by ice for 400.000 years. Apparently Hancock does not believe in this theory any more. Those mysterious maps were not discussed in Horizon. I can't find any explanation myself.
In general, I think that the criticism in Horizon was sometimes unfair, but on the other hand I must say that Hancock and Bauval are often leaning dangerously towards soft New Age blah. I get the impression that many former adherents of pyramid theories are getting tired of it too. A cynic could compare Hancock to Jerry Springer, who started making serious programmes and then discovered that he could make much more money with a different kind of shows. Hancock started writing serious books about famine in Africa and now...