Atlantis: The Antideluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

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We are further told (chap. ii., p. 42) that when Cain, after the murder
of. Abel, left the land of Adam, "he travelled over many countries"
before be reached the land of Nod; AND THE LAND OF NOD WAS TO THE
EASTWARD OF ADAM'S HOME. In other words, the original seat of
mankind was in the West, that is to say, in the direction of Atlantis.
Wilson tells us that the Aryans of India believed that they originally
came "from the West." Thus the nations on the west of the Atlantic look
to the EAST for their place of origin; while on the east of the
Atlantic they look to the WEST: thus all the lines of tradition
converge upon Atlantis.

But here is the same testimony that in the Garden of Eden there were
four rivers radiating from one parent stream. And these four rivers, as
we have seen, we find in the Scandinavian traditions, and in the legends
of the Chinese, the Tartars, the Singhalese, the Thibetians, the
Buddhists, the Hebrews, and the Brahmans.

And not only do we find this tradition of the Garden of Eden in the Old
World, but it meets us also among the civilized races of America. The
elder Montezuma said to Cortez, "Our fathers dwelt in that happy and
prosperous place which they called Aztlan, which means WHITENESS.
. . . In this place THERE IS A GREAT MOUNTAIN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
WATER which is called Culhuacan, because it has the point somewhat
turned over toward the bottom; and for this cause it is called
Culhuacan, which means 'crooked mountain.'" He then proceeds to describe
the charms of this favored land, abounding in birds, game, fish, trees,
"fountains enclosed with elders and junipers, and alder-trees both large
and beautiful." The people planted "maize, red peppers, tomatoes, beans,
and all kinds of plants, IN FURROWS."

Here we have the same mountain in the midst of the water which Plato
describes--the same mountain to which all the legends of the most
ancient races of Europe refer.

The inhabitants of Aztlan were BOATMEN. (Bancroft's "Native
Races," vol. v., p. 325.) E. G. Squier, in his "Notes on Central
America," p. 349, says, "It is a significant fact that in the map of
their migrations, presented by Gemelli, the place of the origin of the
Aztecs is designated by the sign of water, ATL standing for
ATZLAN, a PYRAMIDAL TEMPLE with grades, and near these a
palm-tree." This circumstance did not escape the attention of Humboldt,
who says, I am astonished at finding a palm-tree near this teocalli.
This tree certainly does not indicate a northern origin. . . . The
possibility that an unskilful artist should unintentionally represent a
tree of which he had no knowledge is so great, that any argument
dependent on it hangs upon a slender thread." ("North Americans of
Antiquity," p. 266.)

The Miztecs, a tribe dwelling on the outskirts of Mexico, had a
tradition that the gods, "in the day of obscurity and darkness," built
"a sumptuous palace, a masterpiece of skill, in which they male their
abode upon a mountain. The rock was called 'The Place of Heaven;' there
the gods first abode on earth, living many years in great rest and
content, as in a happy and delicious land, though the world still lay in
obscurity and darkness. The children of these gods made to themselves a
garden, in which they put many trees, and fruit-trees, and flowers, and
roses, and odorous herbs. Subsequently there came a great deluge, in
which many of the sons and daughters of the gods perished." (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. iii., p. 71.) Here we have a distinct reference to
Olympus, the Garden of Plato, and the destruction of Atlantis.

And in Plato's account of Atlantis we have another description of the
Garden of Eden and the Golden Age of the world:

"Also, whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots,
or herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers and fruits, grew
and thrived in that land; and again the cultivated fruits of the earth,
both the edible fruits and other species of food which we call by the
name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and
meats and ointments . . . all these that sacred island, lying beneath
the sun, brought forth in abundance. . . . For many generations, as long
as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and
well affectioned toward the gods, who were their kinsmen; for they
possessed true and in every way great spirits, practising gentleness and
wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one
another. They despised everything but virtue, not caring for their
present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold
and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were
they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their
self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods
were increased by virtuous friendship with one another, and that by
excessive zeal for them, and honor of them, the good of them is lost,
and friendship perishes with them."

All this cannot be a mere coincidence; it points to a common tradition
of a veritable land, where four rivers flowed down in opposite
directions from a central mountain-peak. And these four rivers, flowing
to the north, south, east, and west, constitute the origin of that sign
of the Cross which we have seen meeting us at every point among the
races who were either descended from the people of Atlantis, or who, by
commerce and colonization, received their opinions and civilization from
them.

Let us look at the question of the identity of the Garden of Eden with
Atlantis from another point of view:

If the alphabet of the Phœnicians is kindred with the Maya alphabet, as
I think is clear, then the Phœnicians were of the same race, or of some
race with which the Mayas were connected; in other words, they were from
Atlantis.

Now we know that the Phœnicians and Hebrews were of the same stock, used
the same alphabet, and spoke almost precisely the same language.

The Phœnicians preserved traditions, which have come down to us in the
writings, of Sanchoniathon, of all the great essential inventions or
discoveries which underlie civilization. The first two human beings,
they tell us, were Protogonos and Aion (Adam and 'Havath), who produce
Genos and Genea (Qên and Qênath), from whom again are descended three
brothers, named Phos, Phur, and Phlox (Light, Fire, and Flame), because
they "have discovered how to produce fire by the friction of two pieces
of wood, and have taught the use of this element." In another fragment,
at the origin of the human race we see in succession the fraternal
couples of Autochthon and Technites (Adam and Quen--Cain?), inventors of
the manufacture of bricks; Agros and Agrotes (Sade and Cêd), fathers of
the agriculturists and hunters; then Amynos and Magos, "who taught to
dwell in villages and rear flocks."

The connection between these Atlantean traditions and the Bible record
is shown in many things. For instance, "the Greek text, in expressing
the invention of Amynos, uses the words kw'mas kai` poi'mnas, which are
precisely the same as the terms ôHEL UMIQNEH, which the Bible
uses in speaking of the dwellings of the descendants of Jabal (Gen.,
chap. iv., v. 20). In like manner Lamech, both in the signification of
his name and also iv the savage character attributed to him by the
legend attached to his memory, is a true synonyme of Agrotes."

"And the title of A?lh~tai, given to Agros and Agrotes in the Greek of
the Phœnician history, fits in wonderfully with the physiognomy of the
race of the Cainites in the Bible narrative, whether we take a?lh~tai
simply as a Hellenized transcription of the Semitic ELIM, 'the
strong, the mighty,' or whether we take it in its Greek acceptation,
'the wanderers;' for such is the destiny of Cain and his race according
to the very terms of the condemnation which was inflicted upon him after
his crime (Gen. iv., 14), and this is what is signified by the name of
his grandson 'Yirad. Only, in Sanchoniathon the genealogy does not end
with Amynos and Magos, as that of the Cainites in the Bible does with
the three sons of Lamech. These two personages are succeeded by Misôr
and Sydyk, 'the released and the just,' as Sanchoniathon translates
them, but rather the 'upright and the just' (Mishôr and Çüdüq), 'who
invent the use of salt.' To Misôr is born Taautos (Taût), to whom we owe
letters; and to Sydyk the Cabiri or Corybantes, the institutors of
navigation." (Lenormant, "Genealogies between Adam and the Deluge."
CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, April, 1880.)

We have, also, the fact that the Phœnician name for their goddess
Astynome (Ashtar No'emâ), whom the Greeks called Nemaun, was the same as
the name of the sister of the three sons of Lamech, as given in
Genesis--Na'emah, or Na'amah.

If, then, the original seat of the Hebrews and Phœnicians was the Garden
of Eden, to the west of Europe, and if the Phœnicians are shown to be
connected, through their alphabets, with the Central Americans, who
looked to an island in the sea, to the eastward, as their
starting-point, the conclusion becomes irresistible that Atlantis and
the Garden of Eden were one and the same.

THE PYRAMID.--Not only are the Cross and the Garden of Eden
identified with Atlantis, but in Atlantis, the habitation of the gods,
we find the original model of all those pyramids which extend from India
to Peru.

This singular architectural construction dates back far beyond the birth
of history. In the PURâNAS of the Hindoos we read of pyramids
long anterior in time to any which have survived to our day. Cheops was
preceded by a countless host of similar erections which have long since
mouldered into ruins.

If the reader will turn to page 104 of this work he will see, in the
midst of the picture of Aztlan, the starting-point of the Aztecs,
according to the Botturini pictured writing, a pyramid with worshippers
kneeling before it.

Fifty years ago Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," placed
artificial tumuli, pyramids, and pagodas in the same category,
conceiving that all were transcripts of the holy mountain which was
generally supposed to have stood in the centre of Eden; or, rather. as
intimated in more than one place by the Psalmist, the garden itself was
situated on an eminence. (Psalms, chap. iii., v. 4, and chap. lxviii.,
vs. 15, 16, 18.)

The pyramid is one of the marvellous features of that problem which
confronts us everywhere, and which is insoluble without Atlantis.

The Arabian traditions linked the pyramid with the Flood. In a
manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library, and translated by Dr.
Sprenger, Abou Balkhi says:

"The wise men, PREVIOUS TO THE FLOOD, foreseeing an impending
Judgment from heaven, either by submersion or fire, which would destroy
every created thing, built upon the tops of the mountains in Upper Egypt
many pyramids of stone, in order to have some refuge against the
approaching calamity. Two of these buildings exceeded the rest in
height, being four hundred cubits, high and as many broad and as many
long. They were built with large blocks of marble, and they were so well
put together that the joints were scarcely perceptible. Upon the
exterior of the building every charm and wonder of physic was inscribed."

This tradition locates these monster structures upon the mountains of
Upper Egypt, but there are no buildings of such dimensions to be found
anywhere in Egypt. Is it not probable that we have here another
reference to the great record preserved in the land of the Deluge? Were
not the pyramids of Egypt and America imitations of similar structures
in Atlantis? Might not the building of such a gigantic edifice have
given rise to the legends existing on both continents in regard to a
Tower of Babel?

How did the human mind hit upon this singular edifice--the pyramid? By
what process of development did it reach it? Why should these
extraordinary structures crop out on the banks of the Nile, and amid the
forests and plains of America? And why, in both countries, should they
stand with their sides square to the four cardinal points of the
compass? Are they in this, too, a reminiscence of the Cross, and of the
four rivers of Atlantis that ran to the north, south, east, and west?

"There is yet a third combination that demands a specific notice. The
decussated symbol is not unfrequently planted upon what Christian
archæologists designate 'a calvary,' that is, upon a mount or a cone.
Thus it is represented in both hemispheres. The megalithic structure of
Callernish, in the island of Lewis before mentioned, is the most perfect
example of the practice extant in Europe. The mount is preserved to this
day. This, to be brief, was the recognized conventional mode of
expressing a particular primitive truth or mystery from the days of the
Chaldeans to those of the Gnostics, or from one extremity of the
civilized world to the other. It is seen in the treatment of the ash
Yggdrasill of the Scandinavians, as well as in that of the Bo-tree of
the Buddhists. The prototype was not the Egyptian, but the Babylonian
CRUX ANSATA, the lower member of which constitutes a conical
support for the oval or sphere above it. With the Gnostics, who occupied
the debatable ground between primitive Christianity and philosophic
paganism, and who inscribed it upon their tombs, the cone symbolized
death as well as life. In every heathen mythology it was the universal
emblem of the goddess or mother of heaven, by whatsoever name she was
addressed--whether as Mylitta, Astarte, Aphrodite, Isis, Mata, or Venus;
and the several eminences consecrated to her worship were, like those
upon which Jupiter was originally adored, of a conical or pyramidal
shape. This, too, is the ordinary form of the altars dedicated to the
Assyrian god of fertility. In exceptional instances the cone is
introduced upon one or the other of the sides, or is distinguishable in
the always accompanying mystical tree." (EDINBURGH REVIEW, July,
1870.)

If the reader will again turn to page 104 of this work he will see that
the tree appears on the top of the pyramid or mountain in both the Aztec
representations of Aztlan, the original island-home of the Central
American races.

The writer just quoted believes that Mr. Faber is correct in his opinion
that the pyramid is a transcript of the sacred mountain which stood in
the midst of Eden, the Olympus of Atlantis. He adds:

"Thomas Maurice, who is no mean authority, held the same view. He
conceived the use to which pyramids in particular were anciently applied
to have been threefold-namely, as tombs, temples, and observatories; and
this view he labors to establish in the third volume of his 'Indian
Antiquities.' Now, whatever may be their actual date, or with whatsoever
people they may have originated, whether in Africa or Asia, in the lower
valley of the Nile or in the plains of Chaldea, the pyramids of Egypt
were unquestionably destined to very opposite purposes. According, to
Herodotus, they were introduced by the Hyksos; and Proclus, the Platonic
philosopher, connects them with the science of astronomy--a science
which, he adds, the Egyptians derived from the Chaldeans. Hence we may
reasonably infer that they served as well for temples for planetary
worship as for observatories. Subsequently to the descent of the
shepherds, their hallowed precincts were invaded by royalty, from
motives of pride and superstition; and the principal chamber in each was
used as tombs."

The pyramidal imitations, dear to the hearts of colonists of the sacred
mountain upon which their gods dwelt, was devoted, as perhaps the
mountain itself was, to sun and fire worship. The same writer says:

"That Sabian worship once extensively prevailed in the New World is a
well-authenticated fact; it is yet practised to some extent by the
wandering tribes on the Northern continent, and was the national
religion of the Peruvians at the time of the Conquest. That it was also
the religion of their more highly civilized predecessors on the soil,
south of the equator more especially, is evidenced by the remains of
fire-altars, both round and square, scattered about the shores of lakes
Umayu and Titicaca, and which are the counterparts of the Gueber dokh
mehs overhanging the Caspian Sea. Accordingly, we find, among these and
other vestiges of antiquity that indissolubly connected those long-since
extinct populations in the New with the races of the Old World, the
well-defined symbol of the Maltese Cross. On the Mexican feroher before
alluded to, and which is most elaborately carved in bass-relief on a
massive piece of polygonous granite, constituting a portion of a
cyclopean wall, the cross is enclosed within the ring, and accompanying
it are four tassel-like ornaments, graved equally well. Those
accompaniments, however, are disposed without any particular regard to
order, but the four arms of the cross, nevertheless, severally and
accurately point to the cardinal quarters, The same regularity is
observable on a much smaller but not less curious monument, which was
discovered some time since in an ancient Peruvian huaca or
catacomb--namely, a syrinx or pandean pipe, cut out of a solid mass of
LAPIS OLLARIS, the sides of which are profusely ornamented, not
only with Maltese crosses, but also with other symbols very similar in
style to those inscribed on the obelisks of Egypt and on the monoliths
of this country. The like figure occurs on the equally ancient Otrusco
black pottery. But by far the most remarkable example of this form of
the Cross in the New World is that which appears on a second type of the
Mexican feroher, engraved on a tablet of gypsum, and which is described
at length by its discoverer, Captain du Paix, and depicted by his
friend, M. Baradère. Here the accompaniments--a shield, a hamlet, and a
couple of bead-annulets or rosaries--are, with a single exception,
identical in even the minutest particular with an Assyrian monument
emblematical of the Deity. . . .

"No country in the world can compare with India for the exposition of
the pyramidal cross. There the stupendous labors of Egypt are rivalled,
and sometimes surpassed. Indeed, but for the fact of such monuments of
patient industry and unexampled skill being still in existence, the
accounts of some others which have long since disappeared, having
succumbed to the ravages of time and the fury of the bigoted Mussulman,
would sound in our ears as incredible as the story of Porsenna's tomb,
which 'o'ertopped old Pelion,' and made 'Ossa like a wart.' Yet
something not very dissimilar in character to it was formerly the boast
of the ancient city of Benares, on the banks of the Ganges. We allude to
the great temple of Bindh Madhu, which was demolished in the seventeenth
century by the Emperor Aurungzebe. Tavernier, the French baron, who
travelled thither about the year 1680, has preserved a brief description
of it. The body of the temple was constructed in the figure of a
colossal cross (i. e., a St. Andrew's Cross), with a lofty dome at the
centre, above which rose a massive structure of a pyramidal form. At the
four extremities of the cross there were four other pyramids of
proportionate dimensions, and which were ascended from the outside by
steps, with balconies at stated distances for places of rest, reminding
us of the temple of Belus, as described in the pages of Herodotus. The
remains of a similar building are found at Mhuttra, on the banks of the
Jumna. This and many others, including the subterranean temple at
Elephanta and the caverns of Ellora and Salsette, are described at
length in the well-known work by Maurice; who adds that, besides these,
there was yet another device in which the Hindoo displayed the
all-pervading sign; this was by pyramidal towers placed crosswise. At
the famous temple of Chillambrum, on the Coromandel coast, there were
seven lofty walls, one within the other, round the central quadrangle,
and as many pyramidal gate-ways in the midst of each side which forms
the limbs of a vast cross."

In Mexico pyramids were found everywhere. Cortez, in a letter to Charles
V., states that he counted four hundred of them at Cholula. Their
temples were on those "high-places." The most ancient pyramids in Mexico
are at Teotihuacan, eight leagues from the city of Mexico; the two
largest were dedicated to the sun and moon respectively, each built of
cut stone, with a level area at the summit, and four stages leading up
to it. The larger one is 680 feet square at the base, about 200 feet
high, and covers an area of eleven acres. The Pyramid of Cholula,
measured by Humboldt, is 160 feet high, 1400 feet square at the base,
and covers forty five acres! The great pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, is 746
feet square, 450 feet high, and covers between twelve and thirteen
acres. So that it appears that the base of the Teotihuacan structure is
nearly as large as that of Cheops, while that of Cholula covers nearly
four times as much space. The Cheops pyramid, however, exceeds very much
in height both the American structures.

Señor Garcia y Cubas thinks the pyramids of Teotihuacan (Mexico) were
built for the same purpose as those of Egypt. He considers the analogy
established in eleven particulars, as follows: 1, the site chosen is the
same; 2, the structures are orientated with slight variation; 3, the
line through the centres of the structures is in the astronomical
meridian; 4, the construction in grades and steps is the same; 5, in
both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; 6, the Nile has
"a valley of the dead," as in Teotihuacan there is "a street of the
dead;" 7, some monuments in each class have the nature of
fortifications; 8, the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the
same purpose; 9, both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their
faces; 10, the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also
found in some Egyptian pyramids; 11, the interior arrangements of the
pyramids are analogous. ("Ensayo de un Estudio.")

It is objected that the American edifices are different in form from the
Egyptian, in that they are truncated, or flattened at the top; but this
is not an universal rule.

"In many of the ruined cities of Yucatan one or more pyramids have been
found upon the summit of which no traces of any building could be
discovered, although upon surrounding pyramids such structures could be
found. There is also some reason to believe that perfect pyramids have
been found in America. Waldeck found near Palenque two pyramids in a
state of perfect preservation, square at the base, pointed at the top,
and thirty-one feet high, their sides forming equilateral triangles."
(Bancroft's Native Races," vol. v., p. 58.)

Bradford thinks that some of the Egyptian pyramids, and those which with
some reason it has been supposed are the most ancient, are precisely
similar to the Mexican TEOCALLI." ("North Americans of Antiquity"
p. 423.)

And there is in Egypt another form of pyramid called the MASTABA,
which, like the Mexican, was flattened on the top; while in Assyria
structures flattened like the Mexican are found. "In fact," says one
writer, "this form of temple (the flat-topped) has been found from
Mesopotamia to the Pacific Ocean." The Phœnicians also built pyramids.
In the thirteenth century the Dominican Brocard visited the ruins of the
Phœnician city of Mrith or Marathos, and speaks in the strongest terms
of admiration of those pyramids of surprising grandeur, constructed of
blocks of stone from twenty-six to twenty eight feet long, whose
thickness exceeded the stature of a tall man. ("Prehistoric Nations," p.
144.)

"If," says Ferguson, "we still hesitate to pronounce that there was any
connection between the builders of the pyramids of Suku and Oajaca, or
the temples of Xochialco and Boro Buddor, we must at least allow that
the likeness is startling, and difficult to account for on the theory of
mere accidental coincidence."

PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

The Egyptian pyramids all stand with their sides to the cardinal points,
while many of the Mexican pyramids do likewise. The Egyptian pyramids
were penetrated by small passage-ways; so were the Mexican. The Pyramid
of Teotihuacan, according to Almarez, has, at a point sixty-nine feet
from the base, a gallery large enough to admit a man crawling on hands
and knees, which extends, inward, on an incline, a distance of twenty
feet, and terminates in two square wells or chambers, each five feet
square and one of them fifteen feet deep. Mr. Löwenstern states,

PYRAMIDS OF TEOTIHUACAN.

according to Mr. Bancroft ("Native Races," vol. iv., p. 533), that "the
gallery is one hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height
to over six feet and a half as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well
is over six feet square, extending (apparently) down to the base and up
to the summit; and that other cross-galleries are blocked up by débris."
In the Pyramid of Cheops there is a similar opening or passage-way
forty-nine feet above the base; it is three feet eleven inches high, and
three feet five and a half inches wide; it leads down a slope to a
sepulchral chamber or well, and connects with other passage-ways leading
up into the body of the pyramid.

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