An isolated fact, separated from all those to which it is related, may seem strange, bizarre, incredible. Just as a fragment of a child’s puzzle, lifted from the table, unrelated to any surroundings, shows curious outline, unintelligible form, but dropped into its proper place in the puzzle completes the whole, which is seen to be natural and significant, so the great happenings in the history of the world, looked at divorced from all else, seem unintelligible, impossible; but when they come in a regular sequence, when they are recognized as part of a perfect whole, then that which was strange becomes natural; that which was incredible becomes believable; and we realize that, however strange it may have appeared, torn away from its place in history, there is nothing in it incredible or even strange when we see it in its rightful place.
Everyman knows that Atlantis is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
There can be no argument that this fact is know to everyman today but during the period from the first literature until and including the time of Plato would everyman have agreed.
The text of Critias first uses the language PELAGOS … which is generally taken to be the Atlantic Ocean.
In the opening paragraph we observe the statement
“It was stated that this city of ours was in command of the one side and fought through the whole of the war, and in command of the other side were the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes and has created a barrier of impassable mud which prevents those who are sailing out from here to the PELAGOS [πέλαγος] beyond from proceeding further.”
and later
“114a …his mother’s dwelling and the allotment surrounding it, which was the largest and best; and him he appointed to be king over the rest, and the others to be rulers, granting to each the rule over many men and a large tract of country. And to all of them he gave names, giving to him that was eldest and king the name after which the whole island was called and the PELAGOS spoken of as Atlantikon, because the first king who then reigned had the name of Atlas… “
Is everymans general impression regarding the pelagos of Atlas being the briny deep of the ocean we know consistent with what they thought in Plato’s day?
From Herodotus in his Histories.
“3.117…the king has blocked the mountain passes, and closed each passage with a gate; with the water barred from outlet, the plain within the mountains becomes a PELAGOS, seeing that the river pours into it and finds no way out. “
and
“2.97… When the Nile overflows the land, only the towns are seen high and dry above the water, very like the islands in the Aegean sea. These alone stand out, the rest of Egypt being a PELAGOS. So when this happens, folk are not ferried, as usual, in the course of the stream, but clean over the plain.”
So we may conclude that everyman once thought a PELAGOS was a body of water that is created by the flooding of a river being understood as a lake or freshwater sea. This is not the Atlantic Ocean we know today.
The Pillars of Hercules are at Gibraltar and always have been.
The Pillars of Hercules known generally by everyman to be at Gibraltar. The landmark occurs in Critias
“114a … the first king who then reigned had the name of Atlas. And the name of his younger twin-brother, who had for his portion the extremity of the nesos near the PILLARS OF HERCULES up to the part of the country now called Gadeira after the name of that region, was Eumelus in Greek, but in the native tongue Gadeirus,—which fact may have given its title to the country.”
We are fortunate again to have Herodotus in his Histories telling us that
“4.8 … This is what the Scythians say about themselves and the country north of them. But the story told by the Greeks who live in Pontus is as follows. Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryones, came to this land, which was then desolate, but is now inhabited by the Scythians. Geryones lived west of the Pontus, settled in the island called by the Greeks Erythea, on the shore of Okeanos near Gadira, outside the PILLARS OF HERCULES.”
From this we may conclude that the Pillars of Hercules are on Okeanos. May we conclude that the Pelagos of Atlas is also called Okeanos and we may find Atlantis there?
Diodorus Siculus says
“Bibliotheca Historica, Book 3, 54 … Setting out from the city of Cherronesus, the account continues, the Amazons embarked upon great ventures, a longing having come over them to invade many part of the inhabited world. The first people against whom they advanced, according to the tale, was the Atlantians, the most civilized men among the inhabitants of those regions, who dwelt in a prosperous country and possessed great cities; it was among them, we are told, that mythology places the birth of the gods, in the regions which lie along the shore of the okeanos.”
and Aelian
“On Animals, XV … Those who live on the shores of Okeanos tell a fable of how the ancient kings of Atlantis, sprung from the seed of Poseidon, wore upon their head the bands from the male Ram-fish, as an emblem of their authority, while their wives, the queens, wore the curls of the females as a proof of theirs.”
The answer would seem to be yes but we must digress. Who put the Pillars of Hercules into literature first.
“Pindar Olympian 3. For Theron of Acragas Chariot Race 476 B.C. I pray that I may be pleasing to the hospitable sons of Tyndareus and to Helen of the beautiful hair while I honor renowned Acragas by raising my song in praise of Theron’s victory at Olympia, won by the choicest of horses with untiring feet. With this in view the Muse stood beside me when I found a shining new manner of fitting the splendid voice of the victory procession to the Dorian sandal. For the garlands twined around his hair exact from me this sacred debt, to blend harmoniously for the son of Aenesidamus the embroidered song of the lyre and the cry of the flutes with the arrangement of words, and Pisa bids me to raise my voice—Pisa, from which god-fated songs come often to men, for anyone over whose brow the strict Aetolian judge of the Greeks tosses up around his hair the gray-green adornment of olive leaves, fulfilling the ancient behests of Hurcules; the olive which once the son of Amphitryon brought from the shady SPRINGS OF ISTER, to be the most beautiful memorial of the Olympian contests, when he had persuaded the Hyperborean people, the servants of Apollo, with speech. With trustworthy intentions he was entreating them for a shady plant, to be shared by all men and to be a garland of excellence in the grove of Zeus which is hospitable to all. For already the altars had been consecrated to his father, and in mid-month the full evening’s eye shone brightly, the Moon on her golden chariot, and he had established the consecrated trial of the great games along with the four years’ festival beside the sacred banks of the Alpheus. But Pelops’ sacred ground was not flourishing with beautiful trees in the valleys below the hill of Cronus. He saw that this garden, bare of trees, was exposed to the piercing rays of the sun. And so his spirit prompted him to travel to the land of the ISTER, where the horse-driving daughter of Leto had received him when he came from the mountain-glens and deep, winding valleys of Arcadia; through the commands of Eurystheus, compulsion from his father urged him on the quest of the doe with the golden horns, which once Taÿgete had inscribed as a sacred dedication to Artemis who sets things right. Pursuing that doe he had also seen that land beyond the cold blasts of Boreas; there he had stood and marvelled at the trees, and sweet desire for them possessed him, to plant them around the boundary-line of the horse-racing ground with its twelve courses. And now in his kindness he comes regularly to this festival of ours, together with the godlike twin sons of deep-waisted Leda. For Hercules, when he ascended to Olympus, assigned to them the ordering of the marvellous contest of men, the contest in excellence and in the driving of swift chariots. And so my spirit somehow urges me to say that glory has come to the Emmenidae and to Theron through the dispensation of the sons of Tyndareus with their fine horses, because that family comes to them with the most hospitable feasting-tables of any mortal men, observing the rites of the blessed gods with pious thoughts. If water is best and gold is the most honored of all possessions, so now Theron reaches the farthest point by his own native excellence; he touches the PILLARS OF HERCULES. Beyond that the wise cannot set foot; nor can the unskilled set foot beyond that. I will not pursue it; I would be a fool.”
Here we have the Pillars of Hercules placed at the Springs of Ister which Virgil tells us are at the junction of the present day Sava and Danube rivers near Belgrade. This is the very edge of Pindar’s Celtic world and a point beyond which a Greek probably did not want to venture.
Does orthodox science suggest that there was indeed a pelagos filling the middle Danube basin twelve thousand years ago? The owners of a large part of it say this
THE LATEST PALEOGEOGRAPHICAL REALITIES OF THE PANNONIAN BASIN IN THE LATE QUATERNARY: THE RELICT PANNONIAN LAKE, ITS SUCCESSOR AND THE FINALIZATION OF THE DANUBE WAY IN THE UPPER HOLOCENE Ticleanu M., Nicolescu R., Gheuca I., Emil R., Ion A., Cociuba I. Geological Institute of Romania, 1 Caransebes street, Bucuresti 32, Romania, Scientific Annals, School of Geology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Proceedings of the XIX CBGA Congress, Thessaloniki, Greece Special volume 99 519-526 Thessaloniki 2010
9. Conclusions Placing in time the principal moments in the paleogeographcal evolution of the Pannonian area in the Late Quaternary, the following succession can be obtained: 1 – The strike through of the ridge connecting the Carpathians with the Balkans in a low saddle zone in the Danube Gorge may have taken place at the end of the Lower Pleistocene. 2 – The exact strike through point seems to be placed in the narrow part of the old Danube way (Greben zone). 3 – The strike through seems to have been facilitated by a strike-slip along an important fault oriented NW-SE. 4 – The Pannonian Lake seems to have survived at least till the end of the Lower Pleistocene and then followed a gradual process of retirement of its shores. 5 – This retirement seems to have been not smooth, but in steps so, in time, several successive shore alignments have maintained for some time, whose altitude can be established by the analysis of the glacis-terrace systems at the borders of the Pannonian Depression. 6 – The formation of actual Danube Gorge begun in the Greben zone and continued, through retrogressive erosion, to the west, by successive captures of the rivers tributary to a main stream, flowing to the Pannonian area. 7 – In the Upper Pleistocene a morphologic peculiarities of the already formed gorge would allow the existence of a lacustrine area in the southeastern part of this basin (the Relict Pannonian Lake with the shoreline at about +100 m elevation). 8 – The retirement of the shores of this lake could be due especially to the mega-floods, which made the shoreline to lower to the +85 m elevation. 9 – This shoreline seems to be characteristic of the paleogeography of the Lower Holocene. 10 – The finalization of the Danube way have taken place only in the Upper Holocene, conditioned by the gradual removal of the hindrances along important sectors of the Danube Gorge.
We may therefore conclude that Atlantis is on Okeanos and Okeanos as described did fill the middle Danube basin at the time in question.
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magic loess
vovadje sea
This may be a wonderful example of myth marrying fact. In the Odyssey we find this
All day long her sails were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of the river Okeanos, where lie the dêmos and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night.
and science tells us the Cimmerians were across Okeanos.
All this is a rehashing of what Dr Myres at the Royal Geographical Society taught us
Plato, Critias … Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Hercules and all that dwelt within them; which war we have now to relate in detail.
“For, beginning at the sea [θαλάττης], they bored a channel right through to the outermost circle, which was three plethra in breadth, one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stades in length; and thus they made the entrance to it from the sea [θαλάττης] like that to a harbor by opening out a mouth large enough for the greatest ships to sail through. Moreover, through the circles of land, which divided those of sea [θαλάττης], over against the bridges they opened out a channel leading from circle to circle, large enough to give passage to a single trireme; and this they roofed over above so that the sea-way was subterranean; for the lips of the landcircles were raised a sufficient height above the level of the sea [θαλάττης]. The greatest of the circles into which a boring was made for the sea [θάλαττα ] was three stades in breadth, and the circle of land next to it was of equal breadth; and of the second pair of circles that of water was two stades in breadth and that of dry land equal again to the preceding one of water; and the circle which ran round the central island itself was of a stade’s breadth. And this island, wherein stood the royal palace, was of five stades in diameter. “
In the text the terms stade and stadia are used. In Egyptian measurements there were two similar terms khet and khet. the small khet was used for short distances and the large khet if you were on a journey. We might be content to assume the measurement in the story is based on the 176 meter common stade but we should account for the possibility that the large khet of 1084 meters [1000 strides] is being used for the larger distances. This gives us a general range for the main features starting obviously with the outside ring of water at 27 stades in diameter. Using the small khet we arrive at a structure that is 4.8 kilometers in diameter. Using the large khet we arrive at a figure of 29.25 kilometers in diameter.
A structure with the larger diameter would encompass approximately 71364 usuable acres of dry land. My friend Sir Mortimer Wheeler suggests the land as managed by the Celts sustained populations nearing 100 souls per acre but I suggest no more than half of that.
Assuming approximately 1.2 million men under arms in Atlantis, a number which may be assumed to be at least 2/3 of the total male population excluding those over 50 and under 15 years of age, the total population nears 3.6 million souls which is a number appropriate to the larger diameter and 50 inhabitants per acre..
On the current appearance of Atlantis
To view a structure with a diameter of 30 kilometers necessitates an eye altitude of some 50 kilometers at least. An eye altitude of 10 kilometers would be acceptable for the lesser diameter of 4.8 kilometers.
Old streams or palaeochannels that have been silted up and may not be visible from the ground can retard crop ripening where the surrounding soils and bedrock are well drained, resulting in bands of darker crop. Conversely in rich, slowly drained soils such as those of the Fens in the east of England the plants growing on the course silted channels ripen faster than those on the surrounding soils producing distinctive lighter patches.
We might also note the language NESOS which is taken to be island but may be understood to mean an island which is attached by a spit of land to the mainland and in the Peloponnese NESOS.
On a soil map we might expect to see an occurance such as this
A unique soil body [lavinated] in a vast region of lacustrine deposits and its child forms showing the ravages of catastrophe.
Looking at this slow draining area on the eastern shore of Okeanos at 50 kilometers eye altitude we see a distinctive and familiar feature. Note the fashioning of the Romanian/Serbian border around the main body.
overlayed in such a fashion to exact scale
In black Australian grassland soils, under aboriginal fire management for thousands of years, up to 30% of the soil organic carbon (SOC) was present as BC, whereas adjacent forested soils that were not subjected to regular aboriginal burning were gray and contained little BC….. Max Planck Inst.
Needs must when the devil drives.
We cannot leave this endeavor at this juncture for the tale includes subordinate structures we must be able to detect which are easier to investigate on the whole while being equally as diagnostic as great circles. We must discover the Pen of Geryon located at Gadira searched for and lusted after by the Phoenicians and hithertofore located at Cadiz. We read in Critias
“114A … THE FIRST KING WHO THEN REIGNED HAD THE NAME OF ATLAS. AND THE NAME OF HIS YOUNGER TWIN-BROTHER, WHO HAD FOR HIS PORTION THE EXTREMITY OF THE NESOS NEAR THE PILLARS OF HERCULES UP TO THE PART OF THE COUNTRY NOW CALLED GADEIRA AFTER THE NAME OF THAT REGION, WAS EUMELUS IN GREEK, BUT IN THE NATIVE TONGUE GADEIRUS,—WHICH FACT MAY HAVE GIVEN ITS TITLE TO THE COUNTRY.”
But we remember that Herodotus in his Histories tells us that
“4.8 … THIS IS WHAT THE SCYTHIANS SAY ABOUT THEMSELVES AND THE COUNTRY NORTH OF THEM. BUT THE STORY TOLD BY THE GREEKS WHO LIVE IN PONTUS IS AS FOLLOWS. HERACLES, DRIVING THE CATTLE OF GERYONES, CAME TO THIS LAND, WHICH WAS THEN DESOLATE, BUT IS NOW INHABITED BY THE SCYTHIANS. GERYONES LIVED WEST OF THE PONTUS, SETTLED IN THE ISLAND CALLED BY THE GREEKS ERYTHEA, ON THE SHORE OF OKEANOS NEAR GADIRA, OUTSIDE THE PILLARS OF HERCULES.”
Hercules attacks Geryons Pen – Athienou Cyprus
Being at the other end of the island on high ground we might be tempted to search on the edge of the Deliblatska Pescara and there we find
a great enclosure perched between ancient drive lines leading from the brackish morass which survived the windy onslaught following the receding of the floods or was dug well into them as is oft suggested. Its size agreeably impressive being the size of a riding ground all around..
While these things are fantastic, these things are judged to be normal intelligent human responses to resource availability and the acts of mother nature. There is nothing in it incredible or even strange when we see it in its rightful place.
Sherlock Finds Atlantis 