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Overview
A handbook of Atlantean information for general readers and specialists alike!
This is an invaluable, one-of-a-kind reference. Unlike most other books on the subject, The Atlantis Encyclopedia offers fewer theories and more facts. Although it does not set out to prove the sunken capital actually existed, The Atlantis Encyclopedia musters so much evidence on its behalf, even skeptics may conclude that there must be at least something factual behind such an enduring, indeed global legend.
You'll learn:
- What was Atlantis?
- Where was it located?
- How long ago did it flourish?
- How was it destroyed?
- What became of its survivors?
- Have any remains of Atlantis ever been found?
- Will Atlantis ever be found?
- Did Atlantis have any impact on America?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781632657916 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 08/08/2008 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 312 |
| File size: | 12 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
alu
Ancient Egyptian for "The Isle of Flame," descriptive of a large, volcanic island in the Distant West (the Atlantic Ocean). It physically matches Plato's Atlantis virtually detail for detail: mountainous, with canals, luxuriant crops, a palatial city surrounded by great walls decorated with precious metals, etc. Aalu's earliest known reference appears in The Destruction of Mankind, a New Kingdom history (1299 B.C.) discovered in the tomb of Pharaoh Seti-I, at Abydos. His city was the site of the Osireion, a subterranean monument to the Great Flood that destroyed a former age of greatness.
On the other side of the world from Egypt, the Apache Indians of the American Southwest claim their ancestors arrived after the Great Flood destroyed their homeland, still remembered as the "Isle of Flames," in the Atlantic Ocean.
Ablach
In Celtic and pre-Celtic myth, an Atlantic island whose name meant "rich in apple trees." It was ruled by the Irish version of Poseidon — the seagod, Manannan. Ablach is paralleled by the Garden of the Hesperides, a sacred grove of apple trees at the center of Atlas's island, tended by the Hesperides, who were Atlantises — "daughters of Atlas."
(See Garden of the Hesperides)
Abnakis
Algonquian tradition tells how the eponymous founding father, from whom this North American tribe derived its name, came "from the rising sun," the direction of the Abnakis ("our white ancestors"), after he was forewarned in a dream that the gods would sink their land beneath the sea. In haste, he built "a great reed raft" on which he sailed away with his family. Aboard were a number of animals that, in those days, could speak. The beasts grew impatient with the long voyage, ridiculed the Father of the Tribes, and were about to mutiny, when land was finally sighted. Everyone disembarked safely, but the formerly rebellious animals, as punishment for their onboard behavior, were deprived by the gods of their ability to converse with humans.
(See Noah)
Aclla Cuna
In Quechua, the language of the Incas, "The Chosen Women," or "The Little Mothers." They referred to the seven visible stars in the constellation of the Pleiades, associated with a great deluge, from which Con-Tiki-Viracocha ("White Man of the Sea Foam") arrived in South America to found Andean Civilization.
Aclla Cuna was also the name of the Incas' most sacred mystery cult composed exclusively of the most beautiful, virtuous, and intelligent women, who orally preserved the high wisdom and ancestral traditions of the red-haired Con-Tiki-Viracocha. They dressed in Atlantean colors (red, white, and black) and were provided magnificent estates at Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and the mountain citadel of Machu Picchu. The Chosen Women identified with the Pleiades, or "Atlantises," as they were known similarly in Greek myth.
Ad
A palatial island capital punished for the wickedness of its inhabitants by a terrible flood. The story of Ad is preserved in pre-Islamic traditions and mentioned in the Holy Koran, which condemned its inhabitants for building "high places for vain uses." The Adites were said to have "worshiped the sun from the tops of pyramids," a singularly un-Arabic practice more evocative of life in Atlantis. Ad was known as "the City of Pillars," or "the Land of Bronze." Plato similarly described the pillar cult of the Atlanteans, while their city was the pre-classical world's foremost clearinghouse for the bronze trade.
In Arabic tradition, the Adites are portrayed as giants (the Atlantean Titans of Greek mythology), superior architects and builders who raised great stone monuments. Even today, rural tribes of Saudi Arabia refer to any ancient ruins of prodigious size as "buildings of the Adites," and apply the expression "as old as Ad" to anything of extreme age. In the 19th century, the royal monarch of the Mussulman tribes was Shedd-Ad-Ben-Ad, or "Descendant and Son of Ad." The progenitor of the Arab peoples was Ad, grandson of the biblical Ham.
The Adites are still regarded as the earliest inhabitants of Arabia. They were referred to as "red men," for the light color of their hair. Several accounts of Atlantis (Egyptian, Irish, Winnebago, etc.) depict the Atlanteans, at least in part, as redheads. The Adites had 10 kings ruling various parts of the world simultaneously — the same number and disposition described by Plato in his Atlantis account, Kritias. The Adites arrived in the country after Ad was annihilated by a colossal black cloud with the ferocity of a hurricane, an obvious reference to the volcanic eruption that accompanied the destruction of Atlantis.
"Ad" is still the name of a Semitic tribe in the province of Hadramut, Saudi Arabia, whose elders claimed descent from their eponymous ancestor, the great-grandson of Noah.
(See Adapa)
Adad
The Atlantean concept of Atlas imported into Sumer (after 3000 B.C.). Adad was a fire-god symbolized by an active volcano, its summit wreathed by the constellation of the Pleiades — the "Atlantises," or daughters of Atlas. Oppenheimer writes that the Sumerian version of the flood was "catastrophic. The storm came suddenly with a loud noise and darkening the sky and a raging wind from Adad ... One of the gods, Anzu, is described as tearing the sky with his talons." According to the Sumerian version of the Deluge, "No one could see anyone else. They could not be recognized in the catastrophe. The flood roared like a bull. Like a wild ass screaming, the winds howled. The darkness was total, and there was no sun."
Adapa
In Babylonian myth, Ea, the god of the seas, destroyed the great city of Ad with a catastrophic deluge, killing all its sinful inhabitants except his virtuous high priest, Adapa. This "Man from Ad" arrived in the Near East as a culture-bearer to pass on the arts and sciences, principles of government, and religion, from which all subsequent Mesopotamian civilizations traced their development. The Babylonian Ad is equivalent to the drowned capital preserved in Arabic traditions, and both are clear references to the same primeval civilization of Atlantis.
(See Ad)
Adena
Named after an Ohio mound group dating from ca. 1000B.C., Adena represents the earliest known civilization in the American Midwest and along the eastern seaboard. Its people built colossal ridge-top or linear burial mounds of stone, often longer than 100 feet, and great conical structures; the greatest, at 66 feet high, is West Virginia's Creek Grave Mound. The Adena people also laid out sprawling enclosures oriented to various celestial phenomena. Their prodigious feats of ceremonial construction imply high levels of labor management, astronomy, and surveying. They were able metalsmiths who worked copper on a large scale, and they demonstrated carving skills in surviving stone effigy-pipes.
Their sudden, unheralded appearance after the previous and primitive Archaic Period represented a major break with the immediate past. Such a transformation can only mean that the Adena were newcomers who brought their already evolved culture with them from outside the American Midwest. Their starting date coincides within two centuries of the final destruction of Atlantis and the abrupt closure of Michigan's Upper Peninsula copper mines, which had been consistently worked for the previous 1,800 years. Given these parallel events, it appears the Adena were former Atlantean copper miners, who settled throughout the Middle West to the East Coast, following the loss of their distant homeland and the abandonment of copper mining in the Upper Great Lakes.
A majority of the Adena monuments were dismantled and their stone used by early 19th-century settlers to build wells and fences. Only a few examples still survive, because they were naturally concealed by their obscure locations, such as those at the bottom of Rock Lake, in Wisconsin, and in the wooded areas of Heritage Park, Michigan.
(See Bronze Age, Rock Lake)
des
Sacred mountain where the Atlantean Navel of the World mystery cult originated. Ades was later known as "Hades" — the realm of the dead in Greek myth — but associated with the death-rebirth mystery cult of Atlantis in the story of Persephone, the "Corn Maiden" daughter of the Earth Mother, Demeter.
(See Navel of the World)
d-ima
In Indian myth, the first man to arrive in the subcontinent, with his wife (Heva), from an island overwhelmed by a natural catastrophe that forever cut off all communication with his homeland. In Sanskrit, the word for "first" is Adim, surprisingly like the biblical Adam. Later versions of the story identify the lost island with Sri Lanka, but in that the former Ceylon still exists, Atlantis was undoubtedly the location from which Ad-ima came. His name, moreover, is identifiably Atlantean, apparent in the philological relationship between "Ad-ima" and the Greek variant, "Atlas." This association is underscored by the antediluvian setting of the Ad-ima myth.
(See Heva)
Aditayas
Also known as the Daityas, offspring of Vishnu. Water-giants somewhat equivalent to the Titans of Greek myth (like Atlas and the other kings of Atlantis), the Aditayas are mentioned in Vishnu Purana and Mahabharata, two of the oldest and most revered ancient Indian literary traditions. The latter work describes them as the inhabitants of Tripura, the Triple City in the Western Ocean, doubtless the Atlantic island of Poseidon (of the trident). The Aditayas were destroyed after they engaged in a war that culminated in the sinking of Tripura, the same story retold by Plato in his account of Atlantis.
Aditi
In Indian myth, the mother of Vishnu, who conquered the Earth for the gods and became the first Aditaya, or "Upholder" of the sky (the moral order of the cosmos), and is therefore identified with Atlas. His offspring were the Aditayas (or Daityas), who supported the heavens.
(See Aditayas, Atlas)
Aegle
An Atlantis, or "Daughter of Atlas," one of the Hesperides, a trio of divine sisters who guarded the golden apples of eternal life in a sacred grove on Atlas's island.
(See Garden of the Hesperides)
Aegeon
In Greek myth, a Titan who carried civilization into the eastern Mediterranean, which he named after himself: the Aegean Sea. Aegeon is associated with Atlantean culture-bearers during the 12th century B.C. He was also known as Briareus.
(See Hecatoncheires)
Aegyptus
In Greek myth, an early king of Egypt, from whom the country derived its name. He was the grandson of Poseidon and Libya, which is to say his lineage was Atlanto-African. Aegyptus was descended from Atlantean royalty who, on their passage through the Nile Valley, married native North Africans.
Aelian
Roman biologist (third century A.D.) and author of The Nature of Animals, in which he reported, "The inhabitants of the shores of the Ocean tell that in former times the kings of Atlantis, descendants of Poseidon, wore on their heads, as a mark of power, the fillet of the male sea-ram [a dolphin], and that their wives, the queens, wore, as a sign of their power, fillets of the female sea-rams [perhaps narwhals]."
Aethyr
The Egyptian month corresponding to our late October/early November, during which a world deluge associated with the final destruction of Atlantis was caused by the goddess Hathor.
Agadir
A city on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Its name may have been derived from the Atlantean king mentioned in Plato's Kritias, Gadeiros.
Ah-Auab
Literally "white men," or "foreigners to the land," a term by which the Mayas of the Lowland Yucatan distinguished themselves from native Indian populations, because they claimed descent from fair-skinned survivors of the Great Flood.
(See Halach-Unicob, Tutulxiu)
Ahson-nutli
Among the Navajo Indians in the American Southwest, Ahson-nutli was a god who, in the days before the Great Flood, created a quartet of twin giants to support the four corners of the sky. In Plato's account of Atlantis, supreme leadership of the antediluvian civilization belonged to twin brothers, likewise Titans, or giants. Atlas, the first of these, was mythically perceived as supporting the sky on his shoulders. His name derives from the Sanskrit atl, "to support or uphold."
(See Atlas, Ayar-aucca)
Aiken, Conrad
Renowned 20th-century American author and master poet who wrote of Atlantis in his 1929 works, Priapus and the Fool and Senlin.
Aintzine-Koak
Literally "those who came before," the forefathers of the Basque. The ancestral Aintzine-Koak are still remembered as former inhabitants of "the Green Isle," a powerful maritime nation that sank into the Atlantic Ocean after a terrible cataclysm and from which the few survivors sailed into the Bay of Biscay, eventually bringing the holy relics of their mystery religion into the Pyrenees Mountains.
(See Atlaintika)
Ainu Deluge Myth
The Ainu are mixed descendants of a Caucasian population that inhabited Japan before Asian immigrations from Korea. They may have belonged to the same white population that inhabited the kingdom of Mu and dispersed across the Pacific Ocean after it was overwhelmed by a great flood. Remnants of this lost race also appear among 9,000-year-old skeletal remains found in Washington State (the so-called "Kennewick Man"), the untypically bearded Haida of coastal British Columbia, and in parts of Polynesia.
The Ainu recall a time when the sea suddenly rose over the land, drowning most humans. Only a few survived by climbing to mountaintops.
(See Mu)
Alalu
The Hurrians were a people who occupied Anatolia (Turkey) from the early third millennium B.C. Many of their religious and mythic concepts were absorbed by their Hittite conquerors, beginning after 2000 B.C. Among these traditions was the story of Alalu, the first king of heaven, a giant god who made his home on a mountainous island in the sea of the setting sun. His son, Kumarbi, was synonymous for the Greek Kronos, a mythic personification of the Atlantic Ocean through Roman times. In Alalu survives a Hurrian memory of the mountainous island of Atlantis.
(See Arallu, Arallu, Kronos)
Alas, That Great City
Francis Ashton's popular 1948 novel about Atlantis, influenced by Hanns Hoerbiger's Cosmic Ice Theory.
(See Hoerbiger)
Alatuir
A magic stone, the source of ultimate power, at the very center of Bouyan, the sunken island-kingdom from which the ancestors of the Slavic peoples migrated to the European Continent from the Western Ocean. Alatuir was a sacred omphalos, a large, egg-shaped stone symbol of the primeval mystery cult in Atlantis.
(See Navel of the World)
Albion
The ancient name for Britain, "The White Island," derived from the twin brother of Atlas. Albion was said to have introduced the arts of shipbuilding and astrology, the leading material features of Atlantis. "The White Island" concept associated with Atlantis is also found in Aztec Mexico, North Africa, and India. The spiritual arts Albion brought to Britain were believed to have formed the basis for Druidism.
(See Atala, Aztlan, Blake)
Algonquian Flood Myth
Native tribes of the American Northeast preserved a tribal memory of their ancestral origins on a large island in the Atlantic Ocean. After many generations, signs and portents warned the inhabitants of impending disaster. Some magnitude of the evacuation that took place is suggested in the 138 boats said to have been prepared for the emergency. According to Algonquian elder Sam D. Gill, it began when "the Earth rocked to and fro, as a ship at sea." The quakes became so powerful the island "was cut loose from its fastenings, and fires of the Earth came forth in flames and clouds and loud roarings." As the flotilla of refugees made good their escape, "the land sank down beneath the waters to rise no more." The survivors eventually landed along the eastern seaboard of North America, and married among the indigenous peoples to become the forefathers of the Algonquian tribes. There is no more succinct and credible version of the Atlantis catastrophe and its aftermath.
Alkynous
The king of Phaeacia (Atlantis) in Homer's Odyssey. The monarch's name is a derivative of the leading Pleiade most directly associated with Atlantis, Alkyone.
Alkyone
An "Atlantis," a daughter of Atlas and the sea-goddess Pleione; leader of her divine sisters, the Pleiades. Alkyone may be a mythic rendering of Kleito, the woman in Plato's account of Atlantis, who likewise bore culture-bearers to the sea-god Poseidon. Her title was "The Queen who wards off Storms." To the Druids at Boscawen-Uen, Mea-Penzance, Scotland's Callanish, and other megalithic sites throughout Britain, the Pleiades represented fearful powers of destruction through the agency of water.
The same dreadful association was made by the Egyptians. The so-called "Scored Lines" of the Great Pyramid at Giza were in alignment with the star Alkyone of the Pleiades, in the constellation of Taurus the Bull, at noon of the spring equinox (March 21) in 2141 B.C. Suggestion that the Alkyone alignment was deliberately intended by the pyramid's designer is supported by the fact that the feature corresponding to the Scored Lines in the so-called "Trial Passages" is a flat surface that could have been used as a pelorus for stargazing (Lemesurier, 193).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Atlantis Encyclopedia"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Frank Joseph.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Brad Steiger,
Introduction: A Lost Civilization,
A: Aalu to Aztlan,
B: Bacab to Byamspa,
C: Caer Feddwid to Cuchavira,
D: Dardanus to Dzilke,
E: Ea to Exiles of Time,
F: Falias to Fu Sang Mu,
G: Gadeiros to Gwyddno,
H: Haiyococab to Hyne,
I: Iamblichos to Izanagi and Izanami,
J: Jacolliot to Jubmel,
K: Ka'ahupahau to Kuskurza,
L: Ladon to Lyonesse,
M: Macusis to Mu-yu-Moqo,
N: Naacals to Nyoe,
O: Oak to Ova-herero,
P: Pacata-Mu to Pur-Un-Runa,
Q: Qamate to Quikinna'qu,
R: Ragnarok to Ruty,
S: Sacsahuaman to Szeu-Kha,
T: Tahiti to Tyche,
U: Ualuvu levu to Uxmal,
V: Vediouis to Vue,
W: Wai-ta-hanui to Wotan,
X: Xelhua to Xochiquetzal,
Y: Yamquisapa to Yurlunggur,
Z: Zac-Mu-until to Zuni Deluge Story,
Afterword by Professor Nobuhiro Yoshida,
Bibliography,
About the Author,