I suggest you read the rest of this thread.

The hypothesis makes no sense at all in light of the facts.

If Bob is "correct" then you have to place Atlantis about 5 million years ago. No alternative.

At least he does not have dinosaurs inhabiting hollow earth. BUT he is just as wrong in his conclusions.

Look above. Bob says the Gib dam is crucial to his hypothesis. End of argument.

Thanks for reminding me to go send a review.

I gave it one star because there is no zero option. IMHO Bob cannot believe that "stuff" about 5 million year ago Atlantis and it is just IMHO a money spinner. I am open to being convinced otherwise but, so far, you seem to have agreed with my argument.

Bob wrote that the Gib dam was crucial to his argument. The Gib dam was about 5 million years ago. I rest my case.

"notwithstanding your erroneous assertations about the timetable of the Gibralter dam"

Bob came here (just like Zia) and broke the rule about commercial advertising. He failed to defend his hypothesis. I bought his book (thus rewarding him) to obtain "further and better particulars" to prosecute my case. My opinion is that the book, however well written, fails to convince. My review reflects this. It is only my opinion but, I believe, it will be the opinion of anyone who studies Bob's lack of response here.

I said I would limit my rebuttal to the Gib dam - which Bob says is CRUCIAL.

As soon as you widen the topic you meet fatal flaws. For example, Plato said that the people of Atlantis (from outside the pillars of Hercules) conquered what is now North Africa and Europe as far as coastal Italy (in modern terms). How did they do this from Cyprus BUT not further east than Italy? Makes no sense.

"The best book on the topic is by Kenneth Hsu, called "The Mediterranean Was a Desert," published by Princeton University Press. The info is relatively new and much more investigation needs to take place, but for now they estimate that this destruction of the Gibraltar took place roughly five million years ago. However, what they fail to realize is that we have records from ancient geogrophers (sic) stating that the Gibraltar did indeed break, giving way to the Atlantic. So the question is, if it happened so long ago, then how could we have records of the event by ancient peoples?"

So where are these records from "ancient geographers" and how do we know (if they exist) that they applied to Gib? How are they distinguished from ubiquitous flood legends? Are they any reason to question the (approx) proven 5 million year figure?

According to Bob "The best ..." quotes 5 million years (approx). Why question it with a legend?

http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:55TgpgdkLSIJ:www.geo.uu.nl/~forth/publications/Related_pubs/Krijgsman99news%26views.pdf+gibraltar+record+%22million+years+ago%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

With Regards...

Without "the botheration" of facts, why not site Atlantis in New York City or on the Moon?

Bob wrote (page 100) " ... Bellamy noted how ancient geographers 'testified that originally .... (Strait of Gibraltar) did not exist, but the rock was eventually broken through in a cataclysm.'"

So where did Bellamy get this 'information'? Why put hearsay over scientific fact? Anyone got "The Atlantis Myth"? Is this another "ancient map" concept being invented to sell books? Or are we getting into Volitzer territory?

Time to find out more about Bellamy:

"Bellamy's work examines the mythologies of cultures from across the world. His conclusion is that all of the legends point to a time in human memory when there was no Moon orbiting Earth!"

Just Google "atlantis myth" bellamy

"I knew that Newton was wrong and that the force of gravity stops at three times the distance to Neptune," he concluded. This was the starting point for his Cosmic Ice Theory."

Read up volitzer - sounds just up your street.

"Mythology, Bellamy tells us, forms a "science of pre-Lunar culture."
As the Cenozoic Moon spiraled in, it pulled up the Earth's oceans into
a "girdle tide," while the rest of the Earth sank into an ice age. The
people were forced into mountainous highlands in such places as Tibet
and the Andes. The gigantic Moon, pitted and scaly, soon revolved
around the Earth six times a day, causing an equal number of eclipses
of the Sun and itself. It inspired legends of dragons, battles of gods
in the sky, and the Devil. These final days are recorded in the Book
of Revelation in the Bible and inspired the idea of
_Goetterdaemmerung_, the twilight of the gods."

[This message has been edited by Catastrophe (edited 12-03-2003).]

After all your dissemination sounds like you stuck on one point.

So where is it? and if its there can you match 98% of Platos clues as accurately like what Bob has done.

Somehow I think youre a minority on this one. Youre not trying save youre own theory from sinking are you?

I don't have a theory to save Bob.

I just pick false ones apart. Ask Brig.

"Hi Georgoes:
I kind of expected that kind of reaction, given the fact that you rely so heavily on names and places. I don't want to be the rain on your parade. However, I stand by what I wrote earlier.

Please continue with your research. I wish you the best.

In the meantime, here's an image of what we believe to be the Acropolis Hill area. Been staring at this for years now, it's time for the public to see: http://www.starcomone.com/atlantis_eden1.htm

Robert"

Notice anything?

" East or West?"

20 Why do you believe that Atlantis was in the eastern Mediterranean when Plato wrote that it was in the Atlantic?

Before attempting to understand the dilemma regarding the location of Atlantis, one must first decide whether or not the island was indeed the place where civilization began. Study of ancient history and world mythology would affirm this proposition. Certainly, that is what the Egyptian priests recounted and what Plato clearly wrote in the Critias. Those who prefer to interpret something else from the description have already paved a different path that does not concur with Plato’s writings or world mythology. For our purposes here, the foundation of the research rests on the fact that Atlantis was indeed a land where the arts of civilization took origin, precisely as it was remembered throughout the ancient world.

When one wants to solve a puzzle as complex as that of Atlantis, one must dig deeper than a surface read of Plato’s Critias. The most important thing to keep in mind is that Plato is not the author of Atlantis’s legend; he was only one link in a long chain that extends back to prehistoric times. The Egyptian priests had told Solon that the original story predated their own ancient civilization, and that their distant ancestors had translated the description of Atlantis from an even older language. We are not told what that language was.

The key to cracking the code about the location of Atlantis relies on the ability to keep one’s eyes on the ball. Who was it that actually saw Atlantis before it sunk, and wrote the information for future generations to remember? In other words, who were the original authors? Without going straight to the source of it all, confusion and error is inevitable and that is why so many people have been thrown off track. The real authors of the Atlantis legend were not Plato, Solon, or even the Egyptian priests, as they only relayed what they read in the records. The original authors simply must have lived in prehistoric times in order to see the island with their own eyes, period.

This crucial fact is nearly always overlooked, and is usually the cause for all the confusion. Failure to keep this fact in mind will inevitably lead the researcher away from the land that must have given birth to the legend. If the Egyptians translated the legend from an even older language, then the question becomes: Who had a language older than the Egyptians? There is only one written language that predates Egyptian hieroglyphics and that is cuneiform. Since the legend of the paradisiacal island (not always called Atlantis) was indeed center stage in many of the oldest cuneiform tablets unearthed, it would not be a stretch to say that the Egyptians got the story from the Sumerians or some other ancient race in their relative proximity. After all, the ancient world’s cultures virtually revolved around this legend, which they considered sacred.

It’s important to remember that there were no written languages in Europe at the time that Atlantis supposedly existed. The oldest alphabets sprang from the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. I will clarify what this point means to solving the puzzle by asking certain questions that will help us to put things in perspective:

If Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, then why is there no trace of ancient written texts in Western Europe? After all, culture and civilization spreads from a central point; it doesn’t jump and displace itself by thousands of miles.

If Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, how was its description perpetuated by the primitive hunters and gatherers in Western Europe? Surely, they did not spread such a descriptive tale through cave paintings! It’s vital to keep in mind that at that time, there was absolutely no communication between lands as far apart as Egypt and Western Europe, and any news that originated near the Strait of Gibraltar would have died in the region unless it was written down and relayed to the East. Unless one believes that there was intercontinental traveling some ten thousand years ago, and that cavemen could read and write, then one has to wonder.

If the only written language predating hieroglyphics is cuneiform, meaning that the original legend was passed down by people in the Near and Middle East, then how could these people have know about the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar ten thousand years ago? Were they psychic? In those days people barely knew what lay beyond their own tiny borders, much less the other side of the Mediterranean. To say that these people, living more than 11,000 years ago in the Near East, knew about the Atlantic Ocean and the Gibraltar is absurd.

Did the original text say “Atlantic Ocean” and “Strait of Gibraltar?” No, these names did not exist until relatively modern times. We don’t really know what the original names were because they have been translated numerous times and the names have changed with these translations. The Egyptians certainly had no idea where the island was, and neither did Plato. So when we read about how the muddied mountaintops of Atlantis make things difficult for sailors we have to remember that this was written by prehistoric men who knew where the island was, not by Plato. Its location was already a total mystery by 2,600 BC. In short, to say that people living ten thousand years ago in the Near East not only knew about the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar but had names for them, and used them as common points of reference, is utter nonsense.

If Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, then how could it sink at the same time as the fighting armies of the Athenians and the Atlanteans were “swallowed up by the earth” in the vicinity of the eastern Mediterranean? Could one disaster affect an island in the Atlantic Ocean and at the same time, rock the eastern Mediterranean world thousands of miles away? The answer is, simply, no. Take note that the ONLY solid reference in the Critias about the location for the disaster points to the eastern Mediterranean where the war broke out.

If Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, and it sank at the same time as the sinking of the eastern Mediterranean basin, how was this fact known? Today we’re used to seeing the globe in our mind’s eye and sending information to the other side of the world with the push of a button, but such was certainly not the case ten thousand years ago. How exactly did people know that two events separated by thousands of miles happened simultaneously? Did they perhaps send smoke signals from Western Europe? If people in the western tip of Europe saw Atlantis sinking, it would have been impossible for them to relay this information to the East much less know about the events transpiring in the eastern Mediterranean – especially since they didn’t read or write! There were certainly no ships capable of making such voyages ten thousand years ago, or even three thousand years ago, so how could they have known? Researchers are encouraged to study the earliest Sumerian cuneiform cylinder seals from 3,000 BC to get a better sense of marine travel in those days. Unless one believes that they sailed over 2,500 miles to reach the western Mediterranean by swimming on top of bundles reeds, or sailing on their primitive, makeshift boats, then it’s self-evident that they had absolutely no clue where the Strait of Gibraltar was at 3,000 BC, much less at 9,000 BC.

If Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, then why did civilization originate in the Near East? We consider the beginnings of civilization to consist of reading, writing, education, agriculture, architecture, religion, weaving, the domestication of animals, government, social laws etc. Did a single one of these arts have its beginnings in western Europe, or even eastern Europe? The answer is, again, no. The first written texts were in the Near East, and they predated hieroglyphics, spoke extensively about the “garden,” and passed legends and myths to the Egyptians. The first alphabet happens to have been found in Ugarit, just off the coast of modern Syria. The first schools and libraries were in Mesopotamia. The cultivation of grain and the reversion from hunting and gathering to agriculture is known to have originated in the Near and Middle East. Architecture was founded in the Near and Middle East. The earliest signs of religion were certainly a product of the East, as were the arts of weaving and the domestication of animals. The first governments and social laws were in Mesopotamia. Therefore, to say that Atlantis was the origins of civilization and simultaneously believe that it was located in the Atlantic, thousands of miles away from the proven cradle of civilization in the Near East, is extremely problematic. We haven’t a trace of any kind of real civilization in Western Europe until relatively recent times.
Contradictions and inherent inconsistencies have naturally crept into the legend of Atlantis. Therefore, a surface read of the material in the Critias and the literal acceptance of names like Atlantic Ocean, even when we know that the name have all been changed numerous times, is a catastrophic mistake. Simply put, there was nothing noteworthy going on in Western Europe in prehistoric times, and nothing that would lead us to believe that it gave birth to civilization.

Biblical scholars spend much time seeking to find original sources for the information contained therein, and rightly so. The legend of Atlantis is extremely old, even older than the Bible, and it has been translated and sometimes interpreted. By the time Christianity won Europe, church leaders rejected Plato’s Atlantis because they didn’t know that it was in reality the same as the Garden of Eden, which they knew was to be found in the Near and Middle East. At that time, the translations and interpretations of the Egyptian records of Atlantis had already mistaken the true location of the island and placed it to the west of the Gibraltar, and the church leaders were not foolish enough to look to that region for the beginnings of civilization.

>It’s important to remember that there were no written languages in Europe at the time that Atlantis supposedly existed.<

Does the author mean his self invented Atlantis, or the Atlantis Plato wrote about?

In Crit.119C is written about the pillar of orichalcum and the 10 first kings of Atlantis:
"...the law and the records inscribed by the first princes on a pillar of orichalcum, which was placed within the temple of Poseidon in the centre of the island;"
and in Crit 119E:
"And inscribed upon the pillar, besides the laws, was an oath which invoked mighty curses upon them that disobeyed."
Further in Crit.120C:
"And when they had given judgement, they wrote the judgements, when it was light, upon a golden tablet, and dedicated them together with their robes as memorials."
(Translation Bury)

Whatever the author claimes to have found, it was not Plato´s Atlantis!

You state that civilization was founded in the near and middle east. However, in the 13th C. BCE a Baylonian priest named Berossus wrote in Greek an acoount of his native Mesopotamian culture entitled "Babylonica." In it he ascribes all the arts and sciences to a primal being, Oannes, who "taught man everything there is to know...including the rules for the founding of cities and the construction of temples." According to Babylonian myth Oannes was one of seven founders to arrive from across the sea. (see Atlantis In America pp 167-68) Thoth in Egypt was also said to have arrived from "across the great sea" to found the arts and sciences. The route between Egypt and Mesopotamia is over land. Thus, we can determine that civilization was imported to the E. Mediterranean and Mesopotamia by navigators from a very distant land.

the oldest known examples of writing and script were found in Europe, in the region between Hungary and Macedonia. The American Scientist M.Gimbutas found about 1973 the so called Vinca culture which existed between 7000 and 3500 BC and it could be proved that they used writing after 5300 BC.
Examples for older cultures which used writing are possibly still waiting for their exploration.

George,

It is qite probable that the founders of the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia arrived by ship via the Persian Gulf. But from where did they come? Indus Valley (Harappa) or Indonesia, as respected rajesh suggests, or Middle America, as you are claiming? Has one of the possible countries of origin to do with Plato´s Atlantis?

regards

More links

See Babylonian tablet showing the Atlantis symbol next to cuneiform text

http://www.discoveryofatlantis.com/babylonian_tablet_atlantis.htm

regards

I hope the expedition is successful.

But look at the new animation model !!!
To me, it looks like Bob's location for the acropolis and city of Atlantis is directly in the glide path of recurring LAVA flows.

It would be hard to excavate through a covering layer of basalt bedrock.

"Once you get around Cats agrument concerning the channel through the straits; if you can get around it, Bobs theory takes on almost mythical proportions."

My objections will take SOME getting around"

There are further objectins in that the People of Atlantis conquered North Africa as far as Egypt and Southern Europe as far as Italy.

Ancient civilisations as a concept has some merit but, until there is some EVIDENCE it is just speculation. I understand that the evidence (if any) may be under water or buried but, sooner or later, IF it is there it may be discovered. Until then people like Bob will link 'reasonable' IDEAS with Atlantis to sell books for their personal gain and to the loss of the public buying such books. Bob's book, which I have bought, does not strike me as honest for the reasons I have given. You make up your own mind. To me, it is based on false suggestions.

A sunken civilisation MAYBE. But not Atlantis. That is the part I don't respect. Using the name to sell books.