The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly
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Ignatius Donnelly >> The Antediluvian World
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33 Prepared by Norm Walcott, walcott@kreative.net, source from Mr. J.B. Hare.
ATLANTIS-the Antediluvian World
[Redactor's Note: This text version of "Atlantis, the Antediluvian
World" was prepared from input provided by Mr. J.B. Hare. For an HTML
text with the illustrations from the original see his web site at
http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/index.htm
Inline Mayan glyphs in Part III Chapter 7 have been replaced by '###'.
Figure captions are retained as text in capital letters centered on the
page set off by blank lines.
The line length is 73 characters, but one table in Part II Chap V
unavoidably had to be extended to 107 characters.]
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ATLANTIS
THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
BY
IGNATIUS DONNELLY.
The world has made such comet-like advance
Lately on science, we may almost hope,
Before we die of sheer decay, to learn
Something about our infancy; when lived
That great, original, broad-eyed, sunken race,
Whose knowledge, like the sea-sustaining rocks,
Hath formed the base of this world's fluctuous lore
FESTUS.
Frontpiece: The Profile of Atlantis
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
I. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK
II. PLATO'S HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
III. THE PROBABILITIES OF PLATO'S STORY
IV. WAS SUCH A CATASTROPHE POSSIBLE?
V. THE TESTIMONY OF THE SEA
VI. THE TESTIMONY OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA
PART II.
THE DELUGE.
I. THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS DESCRIBED IN THE DELUGE LEGENDS
II. THE DELUGE OF THE BIBLE
III. THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS
IV. THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF OTHER NATIONS
V. THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF AMERICA
VI. SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE DELUGE LEGENDS
PART III
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD AND NEW COMPARED.
I. CIVILIZATION AN INHERITANCE
II. THE IDENTITY OF THE CIVILIZATIONS OF THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
III. AMERICAN EVIDENCES OF INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPE OR ATLANTIS
IV. CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES
V. THE QUESTION OF COMPLEXION
VI. GENESIS CONTAINS A HISTORY OF ATLANTIS
VII. THE: ORIGIN OF OUR ALPHABET
VIII. THE BRONZE AGE IN EUROPE
IX. ARTIFICIAL DEFORMATION OF THE SKULL
PART IV.
THE MYTHOLOGIES OF THE OLD WORLD A RECOLLECTION OF ATLANTIS.
I. TRADITIONS OF ATLANTIS
II. THE KINGS OF ATLANTIS BECOME THE GODS OF THE GREEKS
III. THE GODS OF THE PHŒNICIANS ALSO KINGS OF ATLANTIS
IV. THE GOD ODIN, WODEN, OR WOTAN
V. THE PYRAMID, THE CROSS, AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN
VI. GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS
PART V.
THE COLONIES OF ATLANTIS.
I. THE CENTRAL AMERICAN AND MEXICAN COLONIES
II. THE EGYPTIAN COLONY
III. THE COLONIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
IV. THE IBERIAN COLONIES OF ATLANTIS
V. THE PERUVIAN COLONY
VI. THE AFRICAN COLONIES
VII. THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS
VIII. THE OLDEST SON OF NOAH
IX. THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS
X. THE ARYAN COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS
XI. ATLANTIS RECONSTRUCTED
ATLANTIS:
THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
PART I. THE HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.
This book is an attempt to demonstrate several distinct and novel
propositions. These are:
1. That there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the mouth of
the Mediterranean Sea, a large island, which was the remnant of an
Atlantic continent, and known to the ancient world as Atlantis.
2. That the description of this island given by Plato is not, as has
been long supposed, fable, but veritable history.
3. That Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state of
barbarism to civilization.
4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation,
from whose overflowings the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the
Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South America, the
Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the
Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations.
5. That it was the true Antediluvian world; the Garden of Eden; the
Gardens of the Hesperides; the Elysian Fields; the Gardens of Alcinous;
the Mesomphalos; the Olympos; the Asgard of the traditions of the
ancient nations; representing a universal memory of a great land, where
early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness.
6. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phœnicians,
the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and
heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology are a
confused recollection of real historical events.
7. That the mythology of Egypt and Peru represented the original
religion of Atlantis, which was sun-worship.
8. That the oldest colony formed by the Atlanteans was probably in
Egypt, whose civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic
island.
9. That the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived from
Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers of iron.
10. That the Phœnician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets,
was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed from
Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.
11. That Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or Indo-European
family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly also
of the Turanian races.
12. That Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which
the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its inhabitants.
13. That a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts, and, carried to
the nations east and west the tidings of the appalling catastrophe,
which has survived to our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends of
the different nations of the old and new worlds.
If these propositions can be proved, they will solve many problems which
now perplex mankind; they will confirm in many respects the statements
in the opening chapters of Genesis; they will widen the area of human
history; they will explain the remarkable resemblances which exist
between the ancient civilizations found upon the opposite shores of the
Atlantic Ocean, in the old and new worlds; and they will aid us to
rehabilitate the fathers of our civilization, our blood, and our
fundamental ideas-the men who lived, loved, and labored ages before the
Aryans descended upon India, or the Phœnician had settled in Syria, or
the Goth had reached the shores of the Baltic.
The fact that the story of Atlantis was for thousands of years regarded
as a fable proves nothing. There is an unbelief which grows out of
ignorance, as well as a scepticism which is born of intelligence. The
people nearest to the past are not always those who are best informed
concerning the past.
For a thousand years it was believed that the legends of the buried
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths: they were spoken of as
"the fabulous cities." For a thousand years the educated world did not
credit the accounts given by Herodotus of the wonders of the ancient
civilizations of the Nile and of Chaldea. He was called "the father of
liars." Even Plutarch sneered at him. Now, in the language of Frederick
Schlegel, "the deeper and more comprehensive the researches of the
moderns have been, the more their regard and esteem for Herodotus has
increased." Buckle says, "His minute information about Egypt and Asia
Minor is admitted by all geographers."
There was a time when the expedition sent out by Pharaoh Necho to
circumnavigate Africa was doubted, because the explorers stated that
after they had progressed a certain distance the sun was north of them;
this circumstance, which then aroused suspicion, now proves to us that
the Egyptian navigators had really passed the equator, and anticipated
by 2100 years Vasquez de Gama in his discovery of the Cape of Good Hope.
If I succeed in demonstrating the truth of the somewhat startling
propositions with which I commenced this chapter, it will only be by
bringing to bear upon the question of Atlantis a thousand converging
lines of light from a multitude of researches made by scholars in
different fields of modern thought. Further investigations and
discoveries will, I trust, confirm the correctness of the conclusions at
which I have arrived.
CHAPTER II.
PLATO'S HISTORY OF ATLANTIS.
Plato has preserved for us the history of Atlantis. If our views are
correct, it is one of the most valuable records which have come down to
us from antiquity.
Plato lived 400 years before the birth of Christ. His ancestor, Solon,
was the great law-giver of Athens 600 years before the Christian era.
Solon visited Egypt. Plutarch says, "Solon attempted in verse a large
description, or rather fabulous account of the Atlantic Island, which he
had learned from the wise men of Sais, and which particularly concerned
the Athenians; but by reason of his age, not want of leisure (as Plato
would have it), he was apprehensive the work would be too much for him,
and therefore did not go through with it. These verses are a proof that
business was not the hinderance:
"'I grow in learning as I grow in age.'
And again:
"'Wine, wit, and beauty still their charms bestow,
Light all the shades of life, and cheer us as we go.'
"Plato, ambitious to cultivate and adorn the subject of the Atlantic
Island, as a delightful spot in some fair field unoccupied, to which
also he had some claim by reason of his being related to Solon, laid out
magnificent courts and enclosures, and erected a grand entrance to it,
such as no other story, fable, or Poem ever had. But, as he began it
late, he ended his life before the work, so that the more the reader is
delighted with the part that is written, the more regret he has to find
it unfinished."
There can be no question that Solon visited Egypt. The causes of his
departure from Athens, for a period of ten years, are fully explained by
Plutarch. He dwelt, he tells us,
"On the Canopian shore, by Nile's deep mouth."
There be conversed upon points of philosophy and history with the most
learned of the Egyptian priests. He was a man of extraordinary force and
penetration of mind, as his laws and his sayings, which have been
preserved to us, testify. There is no improbability in the statement
that he commenced in verse a history and description of Atlantis, which
he left unfinished at his death; and it requires no great stretch of the
imagination to believe that this manuscript reached the hands of his
successor and descendant, Plato; a scholar, thinker, and historian like
himself, and, like himself, one of the profoundest minds of the ancient
world. The Egyptian priest had said to Solon, "You have no antiquity of
history, and no history of antiquity;" and Solon doubtless realized
fully the vast importance of a record which carried human history back,
not only thousands of years before the era of Greek civilization, but
many thousands of years before even the establishment of the kingdom of
Egypt; and he was anxious to preserve for his half-civilized countrymen
this inestimable record of the past.
We know of no better way to commence a book about Atlantis than by
giving in full the record preserved by Plato. It is as follows:
Critias. Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which is, however,
certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages,
declared. He was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather,
Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told
Critias, my grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that there were of
old great and marvellous actions of the Athenians, which have passed
into oblivion through time and the destruction of the human race and one
in particular, which was the greatest of them all, the recital of which
will be a suitable testimony of our gratitude to you....
Socrates. Very good; and what is this ancient famous action of which
Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action of the
Athenian State, which Solon recounted!
Critias. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man;
for Critias was, as he said, at that time nearly ninety years of age,
and I was about ten years of age. Now the day was that day of the
Apaturia which is called the registration of youth; at which, according
to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of
several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sung the poems of
Solon, which were new at the time. One of our tribe, either because this
was his real opinion, or because he thought that he would please
Critias, said that, in his judgment, Solon was not only the wisest of
men but the noblest of poets. The old man, I well remember, brightened
up at this, and said, smiling: "Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like
other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the
tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled,
by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in this
country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer, or Hesiod, or any poet."
"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the person who addressed
him.
"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought
to have been most famous, but which, through the lapse of time and the
destruction of the actors, has not come down to us."
"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and bow and from whom Solon
heard this veritable tradition."
He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile
divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of
Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the
city from which Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a
deity who is their foundress: she is called in the Egyptian tongue
Neith, which is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes called
Athene. Now, the citizens of this city are great lovers of the
Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. Thither
came Solon, who was received by them with great honor; and he asked the
priests, who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and
made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything
worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, when he was
drawing them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most
ancient things in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called
'the first,' and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to tell of the
lives of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their
descendants, and attempted to reckon bow many years old were the events
of which he was speaking, and to give the dates. Thereupon, one of the
priests, who was of very great age; said, 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes
are but children, and there is never an old man who is an Hellene.'
Solon, bearing this, said, 'What do you mean?' 'I mean to say,' he
replied, 'that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed
down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with
age. And I will tell you the reason of this: there have been, and there
will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.
There is a story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time
Phaëthon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's
chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his
father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed
by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies
a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens,
and a great conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long
intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the mountains
and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those
who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the
Nile, who is our never-failing savior, saves and delivers us. When, on
the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, among
you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains are the survivors, whereas
those of you who live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea;
but in this country neither at that time nor at any other does the water
come from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from
below, for which reason the things preserved here are said to be the
oldest. The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing at
times, and at other times diminishing in numbers. And whatever happened
either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we
are informed--if any action which is noble or great, or in any other way
remarkable has taken place, all that has been written down of old, and
is preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are just
being provided with letters and the other things which States require;
and then, at the usual period, the stream from heaven descends like a
pestilence, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters
and education; and thus you have to begin all over again as children,
and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or
among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you have
recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children;
for, in the first place, you remember one deluge only, whereas there
were many of them; and, in the next place, you do not know that there
dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived,
of whom you and your whole city are but a seed or remnant. And this was
unknown to you, because for many generations the survivors of that
destruction died and made no sign. For there was a time, Solon, before
that great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in
war, and was preeminent for the excellence of her laws, and is said to
have performed the noblest deeds, and to have had the fairest
constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.'
Solon marvelled at this, and earnestly requested the priest to inform
him exactly and in order about these former citizens. 'You are welcome
to hear about them, Solon,' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and
for that of the city; and, above all, for the sake of the goddess who is
the common patron and protector and educator of both our cities. She
founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth
and Hephæstus the seed of your race, and then she founded ours, the
constitution of which is set down in our sacred registers as 8000 years
old. As touching the citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform
you of their laws and of the noblest of their actions; and the exact
particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure, in
the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with
your own, you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours,
as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste
of priests, which is separated from all the others; next there are the
artificers, who exercise their several crafts by themselves, and without
admixture of any other; and also there is the class of shepherds and
that of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe,
too, that the warriors in Egypt are separated from all the other
classes, and are commanded by the law only to engage in war; moreover,
the weapons with which they are equipped are shields and spears, and
this the goddess taught first among you, and then in Asiatic countries,
and we among the Asiatics first adopted.
"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe what care the law took from the
very first, searching out and comprehending the whole order of things
down to prophecy and medicine (the latter with a view to health); and
out of these divine elements drawing what was needful for human life,
and adding every sort of knowledge which was connected with them. All
this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when
establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you
were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in
that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who
was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected, and first of all
settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest
herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better
ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and
disciples of the gods. Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of
your State in our histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in
greatness and valor; for these histories tell of a mighty power which
was aggressing wantonly against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to
which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic
Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an
island situated in front of the straits which you call the Columns of
Heracles: the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and
was the way to other islands, and from the islands you might pass
through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true
ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a
harbor, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the
surrounding land may be most truly called a continent. Now, in the
island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire, which had
rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of
the continent; and, besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya
within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as
Tyrrhenia. The vast power thus gathered into one, endeavored to subdue
at one blow our country and yours, and the whole of the land which was
within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the
excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she was
the first in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the
Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand
alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated
and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who
were not yet subjected, and freely liberated all the others who dwelt
within the limits of Heracles. But afterward there occurred violent
earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain all your
warlike men in a body sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in
like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that is the
reason why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,
because there is such a quantity of shallow mud in the way; and this was
caused by the subsidence of the island.' ("Plato's Dialogues," ii., 617,
Timæus.) . . .
"But in addition to the gods whom you have mentioned, I would specially
invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of what I have to tell is
dependent on her favor, and if I can recollect and recite enough of what
was said by the priests, and brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I
shall satisfy the requirements of this theatre. To that task, then, I
will at once address myself.
"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was the sum
of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken
place between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and
those who dwelt within them: this war I am now to describe. Of the
combatants on the one side the city of Athens was reported to have been
the ruler, and to have directed the contest; the combatants on the other
side were led by the kings of the islands of Atlantis, which, as I was
saying, once had an extent greater than that of Libya and Asia; and,
when afterward sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of
mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean. The progress of the
history will unfold the various tribes of barbarians and Hellenes which
then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must begin
by describing, first of all, the Athenians as they were in that day, and
their enemies who fought with them; and I shall have to tell of the
power and form of government of both of them. Let us give the precedence
to Athens. . . .
"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for
that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I
am speaking; and in all the ages and changes of things there has never
been any settlement of the earth flowing down from the mountains, as in
other places, which is worth speaking of; it has always been carried
round in a circle, and disappeared in the depths below. The consequence
is that, in comparison of what then was, there are remaining in small
islets only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, all the
richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere
skeleton of the country being left. . . .
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