20.50
15,000 BCE-8,000 - Atlantis- The 'perfect' city
 
  Perhaps one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our time is the site of the lost island /city/continent of Atlantis. The reason for interest in Atlantis is the very old age that the story is said to be- pre-dating the early Egyptian and Sumerian cultures.  
  The history of the Island of Atlantis was written by the Greek philosopher Plato around 380 BC. Plato in his book Critias and Timaeus said that the island of Atlantis was a continent as large as Asia (Indian Peninsula) and Lybia combined, but, in a single day and night of disastrous rain followed by earthquakes and floods, the island of Atlantis sank into the sea and disappeared.  
  Apparently the island was situated in the Atlantic Ocean in front of the straits called by the Greeks the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) and here we have the root of the problem, for in accordance with our modern geological science it is said to be not possible for a whole continent to sink and disappear in the space of a single day; no one has ever found any remains of a civilization or continent sunk in the Atlantic and many people, especially archeologists don't believe in the truth of Plato's story.  
  However, a strange thing occurs when one puts Plato's description of Asia and Lybia together. One immediately identifies the continent of Sth America, which indeed is outside the Pillars of Hercules.  
  To begin with, the word Atlantis consists of two native South American words, Atl which means "water" in the native tongue and "Antis" which means "copper", origin of the name of the Andes mountains and the name of the tribe which still lives today in a part of Peru.  
  For the Incas, their empire was called "Tahuantinsuyo"- land of four quarters- and one of these quarters was "Antisuyo", home of the Antis indians.  
  The native Aztecs claimed to have come from an island originally called "Aztlan": their own language was called Nahuatl, they had many words such as Tamatl (tomato), Chocolatl (chocolate) and Quetzalcoatl their principle god. Also in Mexico there are many sites with names such as Cuitatlan, Miahuatlan and Mazatln.  
  The key to the mystery is the description given by Plato of a plain which existed in the centre of the continent. This plain was in the centre of the continent, but at the same time it was next to the ocean, further it was in the centre of the longest side of the continent, the plain was very smooth and level, it was surrounded by mountains on all sides, it was in a region very high above the level of the ocean and the plain has the form of a "quadrangle, rectilinear for the most part and elongated".  
  We can also be certain that this is also a perfect description of the Bolivian Altplano, the largest perfectly level plain in the world and which also contains the two island seas of Lake Titicaca and Lake Poopo. But the part which is interesting is the part surrounding Lake Poopo because this is the part which has the unique rectangular shape and the presence of the island sea is the second key to the mystery.  
  Plato said that on the plain there was a city which was also an island and has the name of Atlantis. It was built on the remains of an extinct volcano and consistent of a central island surrounded by alternate rings of water and land. Now Plato always maintained that the story of Atlantis was not an invention of his own but came originally from the priests of the Egyptian temples.  
  Now suppose that in the translation there should be an error so fundamental and simple as this: it was not the island continent of Atlantis which sank into the sea in a single day but only the island city of Atlantis which disappeared under the huge inland sea of Lake Poopo.  
  Plato himself did not know anything of the Bolivian Altiplano or of the continents of the "Americas" and thought that the sunken continent was exactly in front of the entrance to the Mediterranean because he said that the ocean in those parts was no longer navigable "on account of the barrier of shallow mud which the island threw up as it settled down" and which "prevents those who are sailing out from here to the ocean beyond from proceeding further." In truth, it is not the Atlantic Ocean which is no longer navigable but only the shallow Lake Poopo which only reaches a depth of a few feet and in the dry season has been known to dry up altogether leaving behind brilliant white salt deposits.  
  The third key to the mystery is that we should note the island disappeared in a single day and night of rain, which resulted in earthquakes and floods. This region is in the centre of the Avenue of Volcanoes, it is a region where there are always earthquakes and floods- the plain is like a closed basin and should there be a period of torrential rain there would be no possibility of exit for the water from the plain. In fact thousands of years ago, the entire Altiplano was the bed of a gigantic inland sea, known as Lake Minchin for the period between 38,000 and 23,000 BC and renamed Lake Tauca for the period when it re-appeared between 9,000 and 8,000 BC  
  With this new hypothesis, it is clear that all the other details given by Plato being at this site in Sth America.  
  The walls and city and temples were covered with metals which we today consider rare and precious such as gold, silver, copper, tin and another mysterious metal called "orichalcum" which could be polished and "sparkled like red fire." Here we have the fourth key to the site of the city. All these metals are found not far from Lake Poopo.  
  The city of Ouro has the mining industry as its base. In Corocoro there are mines of gold and copper. Potosi was the mountain of solid silver which became the fountain of wealth for the Spanish empires and today is the mountain famous for its deposits of tin. Orichalcum was most probably an alloy of gold and copper and occurs as a natural alloy only in the Andes mountains. Plato mentioned that it was a natural alloy since it was mined in many places in the island (continent).  
  the tradition of covering the alls of cities and temples in gold and silver was continued by the Incas who also had a fabulous garden full of birds and animals all made of solid gold. other similarities- the Incas constructed baths where they used the natural springs of hot and cold water, they kept statues in solid gold in the images of their ancestors and said that the first inhabitants of the land were born in pairs just as Plato claimed for Atlantis.  
  One of the other interesting aspects of Plato's text is the description of a huge system of irrigation canals which the kings of Atlantis had constructed on the plain. One of today's problems is that for most of the year there is no rainfall and because of this the ground has reverted to desert. At other times in January, february and March there are floods and when the water later evaporates it leaves behind deposits of salt which contaminate the land.  
  According to Plato the kings of Atlantis has constructed a canal of such dimensions it seems incredible that it should be so large as the account states but we must report what we heard. its width was one stade (600ft) and this canal went round the perimeter of the entire plain, collecting the streams from the mountains and discharging them into the sea somewhere in the vicinity of the city. Additional canals of 100ft in width were cut across the plain at intervals of 100 stades, discharging into the large canal on the seward side of the plain and connected to each other by further transverse passages. It was in this manner it was said, they transported the timbers from the mountains to the city, also the fruits of the earth of which they harvested two crops per year, making use of the rains from Heaven in the winter and the waters that issue from the earth in summer, redistributed by means of the extensive canal system.  
  In the whole of the world, there exists no other plain so level, with this particular rectangular configuration and with the resources of water into the surrounding mountains including the immense reserve of fresh water in Lake Titicaca to the north. Additionally, if one follows for example the 12,000 ft elevation contour on a map of the Altiplano, one can see that it would be possible to construct a canal which would run around the perimeter plain making a circuit which returns to itself described by Plato.  
  In July 1995, satellite analysis revealed the remnants of a massive canal network that once existed across the entire plain itself. Incredibly in the north-west of Lake Poopo, the measurement of a significant length of remain canal is indeed 600ft from crest to crest!  
20.50.1 1220- 1186BC - the invasion of the sea peoples  
  It would make sense that the Minoans and their distinct and curiously original styles were from the island of Crete a colony of traders and people from Sth America, given the similarity of style and position given the decline of the city of Tiawanaka.  
  Around 1220 to 1186Bc there were huge invasions of Egypt by a people called "the Sea People's or "the people who came from the isles in the midst of the sea".  
  The invaders consisted of a confederation of nations. It is also interesting that, as one can see from the bas-reliefs on the walls of the temple of Medinet Habu in Egypt, their ships were sailing ships with out oars and in the narrow confines of the Nile Delta they were totally defeated by the powerful Rameses III. There is no question, the destruction of Crete and the Minoan cultures occurred around this time, hence the reflection back to Greece and the poetic understanding that the message comes to us via Greek, that the Greeks hail their sailing heritage as ancient and divine wisdom- the Phoenecian traders.  
  Thousands of the invaders were taken prisoner and later given their own lands to settle, such as the Philistines who were allowed to occupy the land which took their name and became Palestine.  
  Others entered into the service of the Egyptian king and it seems very likely that the true history of Atlantis, with so many precise details of a geographic nature originated with one of these.  
     
     
 
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