First, these recent satellite images off the northeastern tip of Cuba that some of you may or may not have seen:
http://www.satellitediscoveries.com/discov/patterns/pattern_2.html

The lost island of Antillia.

Another Atlantic mystery.

Although Atlantis is by far the best known example of a lost Atlantic island it is by no means the only one. Top of the list of these other islands is Antillia.

The island of Antillia.

Although Atlantis is by far the most famous instance of a lost Atlantic Island it is by no means the only one. In fact great mystery surrounds the fate of yet another lost island known as Antillia.

More recent sinking.

Like Atlantis Antillia, developed a substantial wealth of claim and counter claim. Surprisingly, the documentary evidence appears to indicate that Antillia’s disappearance was a much more recent happening. In fact even as recently as Columbus’s day its existence was more or less taken for granted. In his Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries, author Kenneth Nebenzahl, claims that Columbus had found mention of these islands while visiting Portugal. He quotes Columbus’s son Fernando as being especially impressed with these references “particularly about that island called Antillia which lies 200 leagues westward of the Canaries and Azores”. 

Portuguese legend.

This last reference to the Azores is especially interesting because it specifically implies that Antillia and the Azores are two different places. Author Kenneth Nebenzahl makes the comparison sound even more mysterious by writing: “An old and persistent Portuguese legend was of the ‘seven cities’ (Antillia) founded in the eighth century by a bishop from Oporto.”

Seven cities.

The confusion here is that although we have established that the Azores and Antillia are two separate places, the name “seven cities”, is one used in the Azores to describe the sunken lake of Sao Miguel. Local legend says that below the tranquil waters of what are actually twin lakes - with blue and green water - lie the remains of submerged cities and the ruins of Atlantis.

Shown on maps.

The fact is that whichever way you interpret the dilemma of the “seven cities” Antillia was part of accepted history until at least the 8th century. It even appears on the earliest sea maps of the area. One example of this is the Pizzigano portolan map thought to have been painted around 1424. This was very nearly 70 years before Columbus attempted his epic voyage, and yet at quite some distance - at least 600 miles westwards of Spain, we find on it the island of Antillia. Even further mystery arises when we find that directly north from this position is another unknown group of islands clearly marked as Santangel.

The Bennicasa Map.

The location of Antillia is also shown on a portion of the Bennicasa map of 1482. This shows a sailing ship bearing northwards with the outline of the Iberian in the upper portion and Antillia immediately opposite.

What happened to them?

But just where are these islands now? Today there is nothing there, the location marked by just a wide expanse of unbroken ocean. And it isn’t as if these were uncharted waters. They lie well within the sailing limits of the vessels of that era.

Greater Antilles.

It means that according to the navigators of those days there existed at least two island groups that  are no longer there. In fact Columbus had made firm plans to take aboard water at Antillia and was no doubt puzzled when he failed to arrive at the island. Later, when it became apparent that no such island existed the location of Antillia was given to one of several Caribbean islands, and is still the name given to the areas major chain of islands, the Greater Antilles.

But just what happened to the Antillia that lay closer to Portugal? Did this ever exist or was it just a baseless legend?

Portuguese settlement.

Here we must remember the very definite claims that a Portuguese settlement did once exist on Antillia. Refugees are said to have sailed here, after fleeing from the Arab invasion of the Iberian peninsula. More refugees followed later and contributed to establishing what seems to have been a thriving community. It would seem then that based on this evidence, Antillia has if anything an even greater claim to historical existence than Atlantis itself. Yet the island is no longer there.

Seismic activity.

Perhaps the answer is that like Atlantis, Antillia had long since started to crumble. The area is well known for its seismic activity. An example of how devastating this can be is the 1755 Earthquake that destroyed much of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. This was a fearful disaster. First the city was torn apart by fierce tremors that sent thousands of its citizens running to the waterfront for safety. Unfortunately they walked straight into a monumental catastrophe. Without warning an enormous tidal wave engulfed the thronging promenade, drowning thousands of people, as well as devastating large areas of the city.

Successive earthquakes.

Seismic activity of this kind would inevitably bring complete devastation to any low lying island. It means that if Antillia was already deeply fragmented by the Atlantis disaster, successive earthquakes and volcanic activity would have exacted a heavy toll, to the point of destroying it completely.

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Cuba's Great Plain

The description of an island plain surrounded to the east, north and west by 'mountain ranges', matches Cuba's western plain that stretches from Havana westwards to Pinar del Río, and is enclosed on its northern and western extremes by the Cord de Guaniguanico mountain range. We also know that until around 9,000 years ago the plain extended southwards, across what is today the Bay of Batabanó, to the Isle of Youth. Here then is evidence of a vast plain, originally 540 by 160 kilometres in extent, drowned, in part at least, during the time-frame suggested by Plato.

Cuba's Cord de Guaniguanico might also be compared with the 'mountain ranges' that Plato tells us shielded Atlantis' great plain from `cold northerly winds'. Between November and February each year, Cuba is subject to bitterly cold winds, known as los nortes, or 'northers', that blow in blizzards from the eastern United States. Although these cold fronts reach exposed regions of the Cuban landmass, the Cord de Guaniguanico completely shields the western plain from the harsh winds, which would otherwise damage winter crops.

Moreover, Cuba has been identified by leading geographers as a mysterious island paradise known as Antillia, or the island of the Seven Cities, said to have laid in the outer ocean according to Moorish, and later Portuguese medieval tradition (and unquestionably borrowed from much earlier Phoenician and Carthaginian sources). More than this, the name Antillia can be shown to derive from the Semitic word root ATL, 'to elevate', which was also the root behind the name Atlas, from which we derive the name Atlantis, 'daughter of Atlas', the term used for an Atlantic island (Atlantides, 'daughters of Atlas', was the plural used in ancient times to denote Atlantic islands in general). In other words, if Antillia was merely a medieval form of Atlantis, then it further confirms Cuba's association with Plato's Atlantic paradise.

The Seven Caves

For more evidence of the part Cuba played in the foundation of the Atlantis myth, we turn our attentions to the creation myths of the Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Aztec, Toltec and Maya. They spoke variously of their earliest ancestors coming from an island paradise located in the east, known variously as Aztlan or Tulan, following a period of darkness when the sun would not appear. On this island the first humans are said to have emerged from somewhere called Chichomoztoc, the Seven Caves. From these individuals came seven tribes, or clans, and by their hands rose Seven Cities. I believe that some semblance of knowledge regarding the creation of the seven cities in Mesoamerican myth led to Antillia, or Cuba, becoming known as the Island of the Seven Cities. Furthermore, just ten years after Christopher Columbus's famous landfall in the Bahamas in 1492, the main islands of the Caribbean - Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba - were named on maps as 'the Isles of Antillia of the King of Aragon', showing how the early Spanish explorers likewise came to identify them with ancient Antillia and its accompanying islands.

The only site in the whole of the Caribbean which bears any resemblance to Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, is the ***** del Este cave complex at the extreme eastern end of a peninsular on the Isla de Juventud (Isle of Youth), divided from the southern coast of the Cuban mainland by the Bay of Batabano. Ceuva # Uno (Cave No. 1) has been described as a veritable Sistine chapel of the prehistoric world, and is filled with beautiful petroglyphs of concentric circles, rectilinear shapes and other abstract forms many thousands of years old. I interpreted the symbolism of these designs as perhaps embodying the memory of some kind of comet impact suffered by the Caribbean in a distant epoch. Such thoughts came entirely from intuitive feelings experienced during a personal visit to the cave in September 1998 - feelings that led me to explore the possibility of a comet impact having devastated the region. More curiously, Paulina Zelitsky, the director of the ADC team working out of Cuba, visited the ***** del Este caves for the first time only shortly before the discovery of the Guanahacabibes site, off the west coast of Cuba in July 2002. She has since claimed that an unconfirmed carving of a cross detected on a large, roughly rectangular block videoed at the underwater site, bears some similarity to an abstract cross design found inside ***** del Este's Ceuva # Uno.

The 1951 ECOS Article

Yet it now appears that as early as 1951, a decade before the advent of Communist rule on the island, Cuban archaeologists were working on the theory that the petroglyphs in ***** del Este's Ceuva # Uno's reflected some kind of cosmic catastrophe which devastated Atlantis.

A two-page article appeared in the February 1952 edition of the magazine ECOS entitled 'Formó Cuba Parte de la Atlándida?'. Written by Francisco Garcia-Juarez, the press secretary of the Instituto Cubano de Arqueologia (Institute of Cuban Archaeology, or ICA) it posed the question: did Cuba once form part of Atlantis? He explained how members of the Institute were investigating the idea that traces of an Atlantean culture might be found in Cuba and Hispaniola, a view offered to them by Egerton Sykes, then a world renowned authority on Atlantis. In 1949 he had written an introduction for a revised edition of ATLANTIS: THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD, the all-time classic on the subject, written by former US congressman Ignatius Donnelly and published for the first time in 1882 (and still available as a re-print by Dover Publications). Sykes was also the editor of a journal propounding Hans Hoerbinger's Cosmic Ice theory entitled, simply, ATLANTIS, in which appeared a partial translation of the above-mentioned ECOS article.

According to Syke's translation, the ICA concluded that the most likely location where traces of the Atlantean culture might be found on Cuba was the ***** del Este cave complex. In one cave was found steps that led up to an alcove which might possibly have been used by priests to observe the movement of the stars. Moreover, petroglyphs inside the caves (presumably those in Cueva # Uno) displayed astronomical information which linked them with the origins of the Maya calendrical system, thus the possibility that Cuba had been a 'staging post' for the migrations of the Maya into Central America should not be overlooked. More than this, the translation stated:

On the South coast of Cuba, at Camaguey, there are many partially submerged mounds called "caneyes", which may have been places of refuge for primitive man. There are numerous artifacts here which have never been adequately investigated. Numerous skeleton remains found here give evidence of a sudden and violent death due to some catastrophe. The artifacts include stone balls, spherical stones, elongated stones, and rods with forked ends resembling snakes. The absence of large monuments may merely mean they have not yet been seriously looked for.

Sykes had told the ICA that if Cuba did form part of Atlantis then its archaeologists would find evidence on the island of artificial deformation of the cranium among its ancient inhabitants, as well as step monuments or ziggurats and methods of cutting and orientating large rocks. Why exactly he felt they would find these things is not made clear, although I suspect that his theories were based on Donnelly's concept of a diffusion of shared ideas among ancient cultures on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, due to the suggested migration of peoples from Atlantis following its destruction. Whatever the reasons, the archaeologists confirmed that all of these things had been found on Cuba, but, as the article stated, there would have to be a revolution of the established ways of thinking before their presence would be seen as evidence for the existence of Atlantis.

What was infinitely more important, however, were the interpretations of the petroglyphs found in the ***** del Este caves (again, seemingly those in Cueva # Uno) by Cuban archaeologists back in 1951. Captions accompanying two examples shown as line illustrations, explained that the symbols showed a comet with a tail hitting an astral, or celestial, body, and breaking up, confirming my own theory that the petroglyphs of Cueva # Uno embodied a memory of a catastrophe caused by the fragmentation of a comet during some former age. Yet what evidence might we find that the former Bahaman landmass might once have been home to the same Atlantean culture?

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Mysterious stones off Cuba could be lost city of Atlantis
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HAVANNA, Cuba (October 17, 2002) - The images appear slowly on the video screen, like ghosts from the ocean floor. The videotape, made by an unmanned submarine, shows massive stones in oddly symmetrical square and pyramid shapes in the deep-sea darkness.

Sonar images taken from a research ship 2,000 feet above are even more puzzling. They show that the smooth, white stones are laid out in a geometric pattern. The images look like fragments of a city, in a place where nothing man-made should exist, spanning nearly eight square miles of a deep-ocean plain off Cuba's western tip.

"What we have here is a mystery," said Paul Weinzweig, of Advanced Digital Communications, a Canadian company that is mapping the ocean bottom of Cuba's territorial waters under contract with the government of President Fidel Castro.

"Nature couldn't have built anything so symmetrical," Weinzweig said, running his finger over sonar printouts aboard his ship, tied up at a wharf in Havana harbor. "This isn't natural, but we don't know what it is."

The company's main mission is to hunt for shipwrecks filled with gold and jewels, and to locate potentially lucrative oil and natural gas reserves in deep water that Cuba does not have the means to explore.

Treasure hunting has become a growth industry in recent years as technology has improved, allowing more precise exploration and easier recovery from deeper ocean sites. Advanced Digital operates from the Ulises, a 260-foot trawler that was converted to a research vessel for Castro's government by the late French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.

Since they began exploration three years ago with sophisticated side-scan sonar and computerized global-positioning equipment, Weinzweig said they have mapped several large oil and gas deposits and about 20 shipwrecks sitting beneath ancient shipping lanes where hundreds of old wrecks are believed to be resting. The most historically important so far has been the U.S. battleship Maine, which exploded and sank in Havana harbor in 1898, an event that ignited the Spanish-American War.

In 1912, the ship was raised from the harbor floor by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and towed out into deeper water four miles from the Cuban shore, where it was scuttled. Strong currents carried the Maine away from the site, and its precise location remained unknown until Ulises' sonar spotted it two years ago.

Then, by sheer serendipity, on a summer day in 2000, as the Ulises was towing its sonar back and forth across the ocean like someone mowing a lawn, the unexpected rock formations appeared on the sonar readouts. That startled Weinzweig and his partner and wife, Paulina Zelitsky, a Russian-born engineer who has designed submarine bases for the Soviet military.

"We have looked at enormous amounts of ocean bottom, and we have never seen anything like this," Weinzweig said.

The discovery immediately sparked speculation about Atlantis, the fabled lost city first described by Plato in 360 B.C. Weinzweig and Zelitsky were careful not to use the A-word and said that much more study was needed before such a conclusion could be reached.

But that has not stopped a boomlet of speculation, most of it on the Internet.  Atlantis-hunters have long argued their competing theories that the lost city was off Cuba, off the Greek island of Crete, off Gibraltar or elsewhere. Several web sites have touted the images as a possible first sighting.

Among those who suspect the site may be Atlantis is George Erikson, a California anthropologist who co-authored a book in which he predicted that the lost city would be found offshore in the tropical Americas.

"I have always disagreed with all the archaeologists who dismiss myth," said Erikson, who said he had been shunned by many scientists since publishing his book about Atlantis.  He said the story has too many historical roots to be dismissed as sheer fantasy and that if the Cuban site proves to be Atlantis, he hopes "to be the first to say, 'I told you so.' "

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The Medici family prepared a translation of a Critias manuscript in the 1460's. Presumably that is the source from which Columbus first heard of Antilles.

Antillia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Antillia or the Isle of Seven Cities was a phantom island said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean far to the west of Spain.

A legend tells how the island was settled by the Archbishop of Porto, six Spanish bishops and their followers in either 714 or 734 in the face of the Moorish conquest of Iberia. The archbishop and bishops each founded a city, known as Aira, Anhuib, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con.

The island is first known to have appeared on a map in 1424. It was later claimed that it had been sighted by a Spanish ship in 1414, while a Portuguese crew claimed to have landed on Antillia in the 1430s. Many expeditions were launched in an attempt to find the island, and in 1492 Christopher Columbus planned to stop there on his journey to Asia.

On maps, Antillia was typically shown as being almost the size of Portugal, lying around two hundred miles west of the Azores. It was an almost perfect rectangle, its long axis running north-south, but with seven or eight trefoil bays shared between the east and west coasts. Each city lay on a bay. The similar islnd of Saluaga was shown north of Antillia, while Taumar and Ymana (or Roillo) lay nearby.

Some, the first being Peter Martyr d'Anghlera in 1493, believe that Antillia represented a previous discovery of the West Indies, and as a result the Caribbean islands became known as the Antillies. A less popular theory identifies the island with Sao Miguel in the Azores, where seven villages around twin lakes are known as Sete Cidades. Either way, this and the improving knowledge of the Atlantic led to Antillia shrinking on maps and disappearing entirely after 1587.

Proteus, there's very little information here on the Cuban megaliths with good reason, we never seem to find out anything new on them! I note that George Erickson comes to this website from time to time and he seems to be more involved than the rest of us. Of course you already know Andrew Collins is one of the few other experts.

But Georgeos has claimed that no copy of Critias was available in the languages of western Europe, until the 1460's when Ficino translated a manuscript of Plato's Critas for the Medici family.

Perhaps Maria will jump in and correct any comments I make. But it seems to me that Europeans considered their "newly obtained" (1460's) info in Critias as a confirmation that Antillia/Atlantis really existed.

I, too have heard of the reference to Aristotle or "psuedo-Aristotle referring to Antillia at a much earlier date, but there isn't much information on it.

Here is what Andrew Collins has to say on the subject:

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In the eighteenth century Friar Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar, canon of the cathedral town of Ciudad-Réal in Chiapas, told the odyssey of a Central American culture hero named Votan who came out of the east from a land called Valum Chivim and settled on an island named Valum Votan, identified as Cuba, before journeying on to the Yucatán. Andrew Collins demonstrates how Votan is the memory of a Bronze Age Iberic Phoenician seafarer who made transatlantic voyages as early as 2000 BC. A knowledge of Valum Votan's, or Cuba's, topography and catastrophe legends thus entered the classical world prior to the age of Plato. It was from such knowledge, particularly a description of Cuba's western plain, its fertility, its occupation by Iberic Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and the memory of a former great cataclysm which divided the Caribbean into individual islands, that Plato constructed his Atlantis account. A near contemporary writer known as pseudo-Aristotle also wrote about a similar island paradise in his work entitled On Marvellous Things Heard. C. 300 BC.

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I've been looking to see if this book is on the Internet like some of the other classics, but with little success so far. It would be interesting to see the exact context Antillia is mentioned before we draw any final conclusions about it.

On the other hand, if it is mentioned as Collins says (and I've always found him to be at the least a thorough researcher),then some things should be clear.

-Antillia must be distinctive from Atlantis. We all know Aristotle didn't even believe in Atlantis. It wouldn't make sense for him to write about it. Even if this was "pseudo-Aristotle," it wouldn't make sense to write something so contrary to Aristotle's beliefs.

-At 300 b.c., Antillia appears at a much earlier date than the eighth century appearance concerning the Spanish monks that it is usually given credit for.

In addition, the descriptions I've seen of the island seem to match a larger Cuba. This makes a decent case for Cuba as Antillia, I'm not so sure about Cuba as Atlantis.

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Now Solon, having begun the great work in verse, the history or fable of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men in Sais, and thought convenient for the Athenians to know, abandoned it; not, as Plato says, by reason of want of time, but because of his age, and being discouraged at the greatness of the task; for that he had leisure enough, such verses testify, as-

"Each day grow older, and learn something new;" and again-

"But now the Powers, of Beauty, Song, and Wine,
Which are most men's delights, are also mine." Plato, willing to improve the story of the Atlantic Island, as if it were a fair estate that wanted an heir and came with some title to him, formed, indeed, stately entrances, noble enclosures, large courts, such as never yet introduced any story, fable, or poetic fiction; but, beginning it late, ended his life before his work; and the reader's regret for the unfinished part is the greater, as the satisfaction he takes in that which is complete is extraordinary. For as the city of Athens left only the temple of Jupiter Olympius unfinished, so Plato, amongst all his excellent works, left this only piece about the Atlantic Island imperfect. Solon lived after Pisistratus seized the government, as Heraclides Ponticus asserts, a long time; but Phanias the Eresian says not two full years; for Pisistratus began his tyranny when Comias was archon, and Phanias says Solon died under Hegestratus, who succeeded Comias. The story that his ashes were scattered about the island Salamis is too strange to be easily believed, or be thought anything but a mere fable; and yet it is given, amongst other good authors, by Aristotle, the philosopher.

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* Solon's trip to Egypt was real, as well as the fact that the priests of Sais did tell him of Atlantis, likely also the war between Athens and Atlantis.

* Both Plato and Solon began their accounts of Atlantis later in life, each perhaps dying before they could finish them. In fact, Plutarch clearly contradicts Plato by saying that it was not lack of time but his age that prevented him from finishing it. Plutarch seems to say that the Atlantis work was the very last work of Plato's life and that he actually did die before finishing it.

* Plato did make some embellishments to the tale, most likely the details describing both ancient Athens and Atlantis. You'll note Plutarch still refers to it as an "island."

Hellanicus, a Greek writer who died in 410 b.c. had a writing entitled "Atlantis." Plato's account is frequently date to around 350 b.c. This would be the first reference to Atlantis in history. This work survives only in fragments and primarily describes Atlas and his daughters (the reference comes from the Andrew Collins book "Gateway to Atlantis.") Collins places little importance on it, but since, as I said, the work is only a fragment, how can we say what exactly was in this account? It mentions Atlas, his seven daughters (taken to be seven islands) and it mentions Poseidon.

Has Hellanicus ever been discussed prior to this on the forum? If not, perhaps he should be.

1. Stories about Atlantis

Plato

1. Timaeus and Critias, two of Plato's dialogues, are the most prominent ancient records which specifically refer to Atlantis. Plato wrote several dialogues conversations between Socrates, Hermocrates, Timeaus, and Critias.

The story of Atlantis was conveyed to Solon by Egyptian priests. Solon passed the tale to Dropides, the great-grandfather of Critias. Critias learned of it from his grandfather also named Critias, son of Dropides.

2. The Oera Linda Book from Holland (Frysia) is said to be one of the oldest books ever found. It tells of the destruction of the large Atlantic island by earthquakes and tidal waves.

" During the whole summer, the sun hid itself behind the clouds, as if unwilling to shine upon the earth. In the middle of the quietude, the earth began to quake as if it was dying. The mountains opened up to vomit forth fire and flames. Some of them sunk under the earth while in other places mountains rose out of the plains... Atland disappeared, and the wild waves rose so high over the hills and dales that everything was buried under the seas. Many people were swallowed up by the earth, and others who had escaped the fire perished in the waters."

3. Ancient writings from the Aztecs and Mayans like the Chilam Balam, Dresden Codex, Popuhl Vuh, Codex Cortesianus, and Troano Manuscript were also translated into histories of the destruction of Atlantis and Lemuria.

4. Diodorus the ancient Greek historian wrote that thousands of years earlier Phoenicians had been to the immense Atlantic island (where Plato wrote Atlantis was.

5. Phoenician hieroglyphics have been found on numerous ruins in the South American jungles that are so ancient that the Indian tribes nearby lost memory of who built these ruins.

6. Ammianus Marcellinus the Greek historian wrote about the destruction of Atlantis.

7. Plutarch wrote about the lost continent in his book Lives.

8. Herodotus, regarded by some as the greatest historians of the ancients, wrote about the mysterious island civilization in the Atlantic.

9. Timagenusthe Greek historian wrote of the war between Atlantis and Europe and said tribes in ancient France said that was their original home.

10. Bright paintings in caves in France clearly show people wearing 20th century clothing: one painting led to an underground pyramid complex. French historian and archaeologist Robert Charroux dated them at 15,000 B.C.

11. Claudius Aelianus referred to Atlantis in his 3rd century work The Nature of Animals.

12. Theopompos - a Greek historian - wrote of the huge size of Atlantis and its cities of Machimum and Eusebius and a golden age free from disease and manual labor.

13. The tablet from Lhasa, Tibet and also from Easter Island make It is clear from ancient writings that belief in Atlantis was common and accepted in Greece, Egypt, and Mayax {Mayan and Aztec Empires) by historians.

14. The Basques of Spain, the Guals of France, the Celts of Scotland and Ireland, the tribes of the Canary and Azores islands, a tribe (Frysians) in Holland, and dozens of Indian tribes all speak of their origins in a large lost and sunken Atlantic land in which they all believe.

Through the ages and eras these stories about Atlantis became more and more a legend for most historians.

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The Codex Troano of the Mayas, translated by Augustus le Plongeon, the celebrated Mayanist, recounts the tragedy of Lemurian Atlantis, which sunk away in a terrible cataclysm. It tells that millions of people died in the cataclysm, and that the event took place "8,060 years before the writing of this book." Supposing that the codex was written at about 1,500 BC, the start of the pre-classic Era, when the Mayan (Olmec) civilization sprung, we get a date for the cataclysm of about 11,600 BP. This is in perfect agreement with the date given by Plato. As is known, the Mayas originally came to America from an overseas paradise called Aztlan which sunk away underseas. Aztlan in visibly no other thing than Plato's Atlantis. Except that Aztlan was located beyond the Pacific, rather than the Atlantic Ocean.

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I located the passage in Collins' book, I am surprised at just how little emphasis he places on it, he's usually so thorough...

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This week I talked with both Paulina Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig and learned that in addition to the sonar images, this late summer they were able to get some light and a videotape camera down to the underwater site in a Remote Operated Vehicle known as an ROV. Over the past several months, I have had an agreement with Mr. Weinzweig in which I can discuss their progress with the site, but will only report publicly when I have permission. The following is the portion of our most recent discussion on the record for broadcast that includes the surprise of Paulina Zelitsky joining the interview.
Interview
Paul Weinzweig, Partner, Advanced Digital Communications, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada:
"IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN SAY ON THE RECORD THIS MORNING THAT I CAN DO SOME KIND OF AN UPDATE?

For the record you can say that the Center for Marine Archaeology and Anthropology at the Cuban Academy of Sciences is currently analyzing video data which we have from the perimeter of the site from megalithic stones. They are working on inscriptions that they have detected on these stones and they are analyzing them at this time.

WHAT ARE THE ESTIMATED SIZES OF THESE STONES?

The estimated sizes of these stones - they are roughly about two by five meters. Very large stones. That's about six feet by fifteen or sixteen feet, something like that (six feet on each of four sides and sixteen feet high).

AND YOU MENTIONED POSSIBLY THE SAME KIND OF LOOK AS THE PERIMETER STONES AT STONEHENGE? THAT KIND OF RECTANGULAR LOOKING?

Yes, the same kind of stone that you see on Easter Island and in Stonehenge. Very large and smooth and light colored that bear no relationship to the surrounding ecology. And also there is evidence of smooth cut and fit, that is one on top of another, as if the basis of a pyramid or large building.

AND ON THOSE STONES, WHERE ARE THE POSSIBLE INSCRIPTIONS? YOU KNOW, LIKE TOP OR BOTTOM OR MIDDLE OR?

They are not anywhere specific on the stones, these inscriptions. They could be in the middle of the stones and various parts of the stones across. One thing we found, the anthropologist found, was an American cross. It's a Central American cross.
IS THAT WHERE TWO LINES ARE CROSSED PERPENDICULAR TO EACH OTHER WITH ANYTHING SPECIAL ON THE ENDS?

No. They are not two lines. They are two oval shapes crossing each other.

TWO LONG OVALS CROSSING EACH OTHER THE WAY A CROSS CROSSES?

Yes, The way a cross crosses, only the shape is not a single line. It is a flattened circle.

DO THESE SO FAR FROM WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN ON THE VIDEO SEEM TO BE INSCRIBED INTO THE STONE LIKE A QUARTER OF AN INCH OR HALF AN INCH?

Yes, we can't tell really the depth. There is limited lighting and limited perspective as well because of the - we had technical problems with the ROV.

IT IS REALLY DARK AT A HALF MILE DOWN, ISN'T IT?

Well, there is no light at all except for what we provide.

SO YOU ARE LIMITED IN ONLY WHAT YOU CAN GET IN THAT LIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU?

That's OK. We have good lighting now and we have a low light camera to add to our two or three other cameras we have there as well. To our zoom camera and we have several cameras that work down there and we have good lighting.

There was a lot of debris in the water at that time, created by a strong current, probably by plankton.

WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GO DOWN WITH ALL THE CAMERAS FUNCTIONING?

Well, hopefully, if we get all our systems back together within the next two months and we get a break in the weather.

AND THE MUSEUM THAT IS TRYING TO ANALYZE THESE CARVED INSCRIPTIONS YOU HAVE SEEN SO FAR, HAVE YOU HAD ANY INDICATION THAT THEY THINK IT MATCHES ANY KNOWN ANCIENT SCRIPT?

We don't have any conclusions yet. They are, the analysis is still in process.

HAVE THEY MADE ANY COMMENT ABOUT THEM, THE SYMBOLS OR CARVINGS?

Greek-like inscriptions.

GREEK LIKE?

Well, hieroglyphic-like inscriptions.

HIEROGLYPHIC LIKE EGYPT?

I said the lettering is Greek-like. Hold on just a minute. Why don't you talk to my boss.

OK, I WOULD LOVE TO.

Her name is Paulina Zelitsky.

Paulina Zelitsky: Hi, Linda.

HELLO. I'M SO HAPPY TO MEET YOU ON THE PHONE.

Yes, thank you. I was overhearing my husband and I don't want you to make any bad mistakes mixing Greek, because it is not Greek. It has the same tendency, but it is not Greek. We don't know what it is and scientists are trying to decipher it.

RIGHT. IT HAS SOME RESEMBLANCE IN LETTERING TO GREEK, BUT IS NOT GREEK. AND THERE ARE SOME LIKE PICTOGRAPHS THAT WOULD FALL INTO THE HIEROGLYPHIC CATEGORY AS WELL?

Yes, and symbols as well. There are different signs, more like American nature, like they have found in Central America. Pyramids. And strong delineation of the structures which suggest pyramidal type, American pyramidal type, not Egyptian pyramidal type.

OK, YOU MEAN BY THE GLYPH SYMBOLS THAT WOULD BE FOUND IN MESOAMERICAN PYRAMIDS?

Yes.

AND AN EXAMPLE IS THAT CROSS MADE OF OVALS CROSSING EACH OTHER?

That's an example. That's correct. And that type of cross is called an American cross. We find it in Cuba in a variety of caves and on the island. They are very ancient, pre-Columbian, probably thousands of years before Columbus. You know, Cuba has submerged three times in our information of the islands.

OK, SO CUBA HAS GONE UNDER THE WATER THREE TIMES?

Yes.

AND IN CAVES UNDERWATER AROUND THE ISLAND, THE AMERICAN CROSS HAS BEEN FOUND CARVED IN?

Yes, and other symbology, other cosmic type depictions. And you find this in Cuban caves around the island, not only in the south but in the north. And those caves are underwater caves. One cave I know of is on land and it has this type of symbology as well.

AND WHEN ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE STUDIED THE CARVINGS IN THE CAVES ON CUBA, HAVE THEY BEEN ABLE TO MATCH THOSE SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS TO ANY OTHER PRE-EXISTING KNOWN LANGUAGE?

They are trying to match it to Central American, but it is distinctive on its own. It's very difficult to say that ancient American symbology is identical to this. It is not identical. It's similar, but not identical."

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The pictures are also similar to those found on the lowest picture on this page, which depicts La Palma, one of the Canary Islands:
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/vhra/web/palmanorth.html

Both are perhaps the work of the Minoans...or, Atlantis..?

Proteus,

Both Indonesia and Australia show evidence of a settlement as early as 30,000 b.c. That in itself should show evidence of sea travel at a far earlier than archaeologists currently give civilization credit for.

New Underwater Finds Raise Questions About Flood Myths

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
May 28, 2002
Ancient stories of massive floods pass from generation to generation and in many places in the world are integral to a people's spoken history.

The tales differ by locale, but commonly feature torrential rains or a hugely destructive wall of water bursting into a valley, destroying everything in its path. In many cases, the flooding is an act of
retribution by displeased gods.

Many scientists, historians and archaeologists view these enduring tales
as short, dramatised versions of the memory of rising seas at the end of the Ice Age. Like all good stories, they are rich with local drama, religious legends, and moral principles.

While images of catastrophic floods are popular, many scholars argue that the real rising sea level slowly invaded the Stone Age hunting territories for thousands of years, and the stories compress this event into overnight floods, storms, and destruction.

Recent undersea findings may yield new clues to the study of human habitations that now lie beneath the waves.

Cuba's Sunken City

Deep in the waters of Cabo de San Antonio, off Cuba's coast, researchers are exploring unusual formations of smooth blocks, crests, and geometric shapes. The Canadian exploration company that discovered the formations, Advanced Digital Communications, has suggested that they could be the buildings and monuments of an early, unknown American civilization.

Many scientists are skeptical of any theory that might tempt people to draw a parallel with the fabled lost city of Atlantis. Geologist Manuel Iturralde, however, has stressed the need for an open mind while
investigations of the site continue.

"These are extremely peculiar structures, and they have captured our imagination," said Iturralde, who is director of research at Cuba's Natural History Museum. Iturralde has studied countless underwater formations over the years, but said, "If I had toexplain this geologically, I would have a hard time."

In his report on the formations, Iturralde noted that conclusive proof of man-made structures on the site could reinforce some oral traditions of the Maya and native Yucatecos. These people still retell ancient
stories of an island inhabited by their ancestors that vanished beneath the waves.

Iturralde makes it clear, however, that just because no natural explanation is immediately apparent, it doesn't rule one out. "Nature is able to create some really unimaginable structures," he said.

Further research is scheduled to take place over the summer. Data thus far has been collected using sonar scans and video. The structures are buried under 1,900 to 2,500 feet (600 to 750 meters) of water.

Collecting samples from the blocks and the sediment in which they are imbedded is the next step toward determining the origin of these curious structures.

Temples Beneath The Sea

Off the coast of Mahabalipuram, in Tamil Nadu, South India, the discovery of a complex of submerged ruins has sparked an investigation into their origin. Local lore has long held that the area once boasted
seven magnificent temples, but that six of these were swallowed by the sea. The seventh, and only remaining temple, still stands on the shore.

Stories passed from one generation to the next tell of a large, beautiful city that once occupied the area. The legends say the ancient metropolis was destroyed by the gods who were jealous of its beauty, and
sent a flood to bury it beneath the waves.

Best-selling author Graham Hancock spent several years cataloging and studying these myths. When he returned to the area as part of an expedition team jointly sponsored by Great Britain's Scientific Exploration Society (SES) and India's National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), the goal was to search beneath the sea and make a detailed survey that would confirm the existence of the temples, and investigate the date of their destruction.

Local fishermen raised on the legends were able to point the team to a dive site where the ruins were located. Expedition leader Monty Halls described the excitement the team felt on discovering the underwater structures.

"The initial feeling was one of disbelief," Halls recalled. "The sheer scale of the site was so impressive, and the fact that it was so close to shore. This gradually gave way to absolute elation."

Diving in challenging conditions, the team found the "foundation of walls, broken pillars, steps, and many scattered stone blocks," said Kamlesh Vora, a marine archaeologist with NIO.

Vora, Halls, and the rest of the team were quickly convinced that they had made a major discovery of man-made structures. "Here there would be no furrowed brows, no peering at reefs from different angles, no dusting for elusive archaeological fingerprints," said Halls. "Here man was everywhere."

Still, the Mahabalipuram expedition has created as many questions as it has answered.

"It is very rewarding that we have found something of such significance," Halls said. "However, the real questions still demand answers: How old is it? How extensive is it? What artifacts remain
hidden in the ruins? For these reasons we must return as soon as possible and give this wonderful site the scientific and disciplined inspection it deserves."

Vora agrees that much work remains to be done on the site, which spreads over an area of several square miles. "We will have to carry out extensive explorations beyond this area to find out if the man-made
structures observed underwater are indeed of the same temple complex," he said.

"All structures are made of granite stone which is locally available," Vora continued. "The archaeological and inscriptional evidence of sites on land near shore indicate a possible date of construction of these structures between 1,500 to 1,200 years before present. We now need to carry out detailed explorations and searches for datable antiquities and
inscriptional evidences on the finds."

If the Mahabalipuram ruins are found to be of the same temple complex as the shore temple, the discovery would lend credence to the local tales that outsiders have often disregarded as legend.

The National Geographic Society

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Andros

In June 2004, we returned to Andros with a production team with the National Geographic. The underwater Andros Platform, found in 2003, which we believe may have been a breakwater or building platform, was investigated. We found areas that we had not previously seen and filmed several areas of the Platform that looked like they had large stone slabs arranged as steps. In addition, a University of Leiden Physics Department specialist analyzed the toolmark we found at Andros in 2003. He found another toolmark on our video and we soon reviewed more of the film we had taken during several visits in 2003. Numerous other toolmarks were found all of which escaped our attention when making our DVD. The toolmarks match countless other toolmarks on giant stone formations in Peru and elsewhere. In addition, the existence of an ancient structure in central Andros, overlooking the deep water on Andros' east shore, was verified during the June 2004 trip. A cave was found under the site of this ancient structure. The cave descended about 12-feet straight down and led to a 40-foot long horizontal cave with human artifacts.

One of the things we considered doing at Andros was refinding (and documenting) the underwater petroglyphs Herb Sawinsky found in the early 1970s. At Andros our time was completely taken up with other tasks and after talking to Sawinski about the location of the petroglyphs, we decided that we needed more time and equipment for the task. The petroglyphs are located in a narrow, small cave that is accessed on the shoreline at South Andros. The narrow cave descends deeply into salt water. We hope Donato and Bader find these interesting carvings as it will prove (to all but the skeptics) that Andros was inhabited thousands of years ago. During our several visits to Andros we managed to speak to numerous divers and dive operators, but not one reported ever encountering any petroglyphs in any blue holes or caves. However, these divers tend to dive in areas that are visually appealing and wide so that safety of those diving is a major consideration. We believe that Sawinski's petroglyph discovery was legitimate and think that if Donato and Bader's efforts are successful, it will represent a major archaeological discovery.

The ARE's Search For Atlantis DVD documentary has been updated with 2004 information and is now available. The price has been significantly reduced and the video is now 72-minutes in length. Information can be accessed here.

Cerritos & Beachrock Constructions

In early August, we visited little-known Cerritos Island off the Yucatan. (See related article this issue.) The island was densly packed with Maya construction that was confirmed by extensive archaeological excavations in the 1980s. The island also has the remains of a now-underwater breakwater enclosing a harbor—the only one in existence that is definitely dated to the Maya circa 300 B.C. to mid-century A.D. It was formed from large slabs of beachrock that bear a genuine resemblance to both the Andros Platform and the Bimini Road. We also obtained extensive descriptions and photos of ancient Mediterranean breakwaters and harbors. These were nearly all constructed of beachrock.

In brief, many skeptics (usually geologists) have asserted that since the Bimini Road was beachrock, and that the stones seemed to have come from the same general location, that it proves the Bimini Road is natural. These gullible skeptics have avoided discussing Mediterranean harbors constructed from beachrock and the Cerritos constructions, also made from beachrock. While the skeptical assertion that the beachrock at Bimini is a natural formation is based on "evidence" that ignores actual archaeological finds, there is one truth to their arguments. That is, nothing of definite ancient origin has been found at the Bimini Road that is clearly manmade. That statement, however, does not appear to apply to the toolmarks on the Andros Platform.

Upcoming National Geographic Documentary & DVD Release

The documentary made by the National Geographic focuses on three areas where researchers are seeking evidence for Atlantis. Thera, Malta, and the Bahamas/Cuba are the three areas. That documentary is part of a new series called "Naked Science." It is scheduled to be aired in November or December 2004.

Film from the Cerritos trip, an update on Andros and the toolmark research, and other recent findings—including an interview with Andrew Collins—will be on a new DVD documentary we are currently producing. The major thrust of the documentary is on the Search for Cayce's Yucatan Hall of Records at Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Portions of these will be included in presentations at the ARE's October Ancient Mysteries Conference.

Cuba

After finishing their work with us at Andros, the National Geograhic film crew went to Cuba where they met the Canadian company ADC. They interviewed several people there and also obtained the underwater footage that ADC took of the formation about two years ago. ADC is contracted to find wrecks of Spanish ships in the hopes of recovering gold for the Cuban government. Although ADC has plans to refilm the formation soon, their plans have had a tendency to not materialze. We'll just have to wait. However, the NatG documentary, scheduled for a November or December, 2004 airing, will show ADC's earlier underwater footage that few people have seen.

2005 Bahamas/Yucatan Plans

In early 2005, the Bahamas research sponsored by the ARE will continue. Several areas will be extensively investigated using both dives as well as an underwater camera that will be mounted on a boat. A large section of the Gulf Stream as well as several other areas will be explored. In addition, more work at Piedras Negras is likely. We are currently in planning for all of these.

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