atlantis in the
sunrise sea
In 1954 I was traveling from New York to Europe on a ship called Mauritania. Midway across the ocean, despite my unpleasant problems from the very rough seas, I began to have an awful feeling of things far below me. I knew nothing about Atlantis. Yes, my sister [author Shirley Andrews] spoke of this place, but I had nothing to do with that. As I grew up, I had no interest in the mysterious land which she said was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But now I felt Atlantis lying crushed beneath me. Broken land. Smashed cities. I had a sense of dread, doom. This horrible feeling stayed with me as we moved slowly toward our destination. Atlantis was big, very big. A wondrous, civilized, complex society with all its good and all its bad, and as the ship took me toward Europe, I knew it lay shattered and ruined under the water.
—barbara wolf
When I went to Barbados, I was led to an older gentleman who took me to the top of the island to a little town called “Atlantis”! He further told me folk tales that described the ancient mountaintops of Atlantis as the present islands of the Caribbean.
—anonymous
The inhabitants of the Motherland of Mu in the Pacific Ocean were the first to develop a high civilization, but in prehistory people thrived throughout the world, just as they do today. In 350 b.c., Greek scholar Plato wrote a detailed description of a country on fertile land he called Atlantis. Plato’s Atlantis was an extensive island that, before it sank in about 10,000 b.c., was in the Atlantic Ocean in front of the mouth of the Pillars of Heracles. Long ago, the Straits of Gibraltar were called the Pillars of Heracles because Heracles, an emperor of the African Tuaregs, controlled shipping through that narrow passageway.40 Before 10,000 b.c., Lemurians traveled to Atlantis and Atlanteans traveled to Lemuria. As we shall see, in spite of some basic differences, the people of the two countries influenced each other and sometimes intermarried.
Three times Plato asserts that his Atlantean information is true. He carefully outlines his sources, and researchers who checked on them confirm that his authorities lived when Plato says they did. The subject of Atlantis fascinated Plato and, to learn more, it is said that he consulted students of Pythagoras (582–500 b.c.) and others who were acquainted with the ancient mythological, historical, and geological lore. Proclus (a.d. 410–485) reports that before Plato wrote about Atlantis he made a trip to Egypt, presumably to confirm his data. In Egypt Plato sold edible oils, probably olive oil, to the Egyptians to pay for the journey. While he was there, he talked with priests at Sais, Heliopolis, and Sebennytus.41
For his Atlantean account, Plato also had access to ancient records, such as those in the remarkable library at Alexandria, which Edgar Cayce says Atlanteans established in 10,300 b.c. to include information about cultures and religions from all over the world. For hundreds of years learned people assembled in that attractive North African city to exchange information and contribute to the growing collection of valuable manuscripts. Eventually almost a million scrolls and books from all parts of the western world were available to scholars who traveled to Alexandria.
In a.d. 391, and again in a.d. 642, ignorant invaders completely burned the Alexandrian library’s irreplaceable contents, including the collections of information about Atlantis and Lemuria that scholars had so carefully preserved. The fate of Hypatia, a gifted female mathematician and philosopher, demonstrates the zeal of those who compulsively destroyed the precious writings. This very beautiful woman, who was curator of the library at Alexandria in the fourth century a.d. when it was torched and burned, attempted to save some scrolls from the flames. The story is that “Christians” dragged Hypatia into a church, stripped her naked, and cut her into pieces with abalone shells.
Plato refrained from writing about Atlantis until just before he died. It appears that, as he neared the end of his life, he finally wrote about Atlantis in an effort to ensure that the history of the lost civilization would be preserved. He undoubtedly received some of his information from priests who were members of secret brotherhoods who swore him to secrecy. In the past, these mystery schools kept wisdom from those who were not initiated into their society, for it helped to ensure the safety of their intellectual treasures during perilous times when marauders were pillaging the land. It also offered them esteem and a means of controlling the general public. In some situations, the punishment for disclosing sacred hidden knowledge was death. Since the time of Plato, secret societies have continued to appeal to the human race. Their ceremonies are usually not open to the public, but knowledge about the organizations is generally available.
Edgar Cayce depicts Atlantis as a large island that originally lay between the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean. Over a period of thousands of years, the huge country gradually disintegrated into smaller islands. In the Timaeus, Plato describes the final days of the main island, when what remained was located on the Atlantic Ridge, a mountainous section of the sea floor that runs north-south in the Atlantic Ocean between the European and American continents. This land is not granite, like continents, but volcanic material that comes through rifts in the ocean floor where sections of the Earth’s crust are separating. Proof that portions of the mountainous Atlantic Ridge were above the surface until 9500 b.c. is available in innumerable other books, which offer the results of intensive studies from analysis of core samples, the geography of the terrain, glacial residue, lava rock, coral, sand deposits, and plant growth. The evidence is convincing and readily available. Sources are more fully indicated in my book Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization. The proposition that Plato’s Atlantis was a Bronze Age society that thrived until 1200 b.c. is impossible to validate, for there is no evidence that substantial portions of the Atlantic Ridge were above the surface after 9500 b.c.
The hills, valleys, and broad central plain of Atlantis are clearly visible on an ocean floor map of the Atlantic Ridge today. The Azores Islands, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands, which were the mountaintops of Atlantis, are all that remain of the once-flourishing land. These islands’ steep coastal hillsides extend almost perpendicularly down to the sea floor without underwater platforms. The sand beaches along parts of the western and southern coasts of the country, and the coral reefs that offered protection from ocean storms, are also visible far below the surface.
The volcanic soil of Atlantis was rich and nourishing, and the temperate Gulf Stream that circled the island ensured a pleasant climate even during the Ice Age. In this desirable location, with the protection from invaders that the surrounding ocean provided, the Atlantean civilization thrived. Plato’s report of Atlantis includes the geography of the country, an extensive description of its massive capital city, information about the government, the army, the people’s extensive use of gold and silver, and much more. (Further details may be found in Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization.)
The inhabitants of Atlantis had a major geographical problem. The Atlantic Ridge lies at the intersection of two sections or plates of the Earth’s crust, and three sections intersect in the region of the Azores Plateau. Although it is below the surface, it is one of the most active volcanic areas in the world, for these sections of the Earth’s surface frequently change positions. The movement is very slow but, when it happens, it stimulates damaging earthquakes and volcanoes. As in Iceland today, which is the only major portion of the Atlantic Ridge above the surface, life-threatening earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were frequent events in Atlantis.
Small islands that occasionally appear and disappear in the Atlantic Ocean demonstrate the instability of the Atlantis Ridge. In March 1882, 200 miles south of the Azores, a British captain and his crew aboard the S.S. Jesmond noticed smoke in the distance and quantities of dead fish and mud on the surface of the ocean. The ship continued on and came to an island with smoking mountains that was not on their maps.
When the captain and some sailors went ashore to explore the desolate place, they were surprised to discover that no plants or trees grew on the island. The apprehensive men came to ruins of massive stone walls and, while digging near one of them, they unearthed bronze swords, jewelry, pottery, and a lava-covered stone case that apparently contained a mummy. They took the sarcophagus to the British Museum for safekeeping, but the museum says it is currently lost. The British and American press reported the event at the time, but the ship’s log, which was in the offices of the S.S. Jesmond’s owners, was destroyed in the London Blitz in 1940. The mysterious island soon disappeared and has never appeared again.42
In 1808, after a substantial underwater volcanic eruption, a large island appeared among the Azores. It was given the name Sambrina, but before long it, too, sank beneath the waves. During the twentieth century, several additional acres of the Azores island of Terciera rose from the sea, and more land, which is only seven feet under the surface, is currently moving upward.
When the Earth shook too often, the ground beneath their feet flooded and sank, and volcanoes ejected rocks, lava, and hot ashes, many Atlanteans left their island home and moved to more stable lands around the Atlantic Ocean. They thrived in their new locations, and soon the Atlantean civilization was widespread. The Caribbean area, where life was easier, was a favorite destination. Here Atlanteans built extensive cities similar to their old capital that Plato portrays so well. Ruins of Atlantean buildings in these regions are more accessible, and are slowly revealing themselves to the many diligent searchers who hope to find Atlantis. The civilization of Poseidia, the largest island in the Caribbean Sea, and a popular destination of Atlanteans, will be described in the following chapters.