Posted on 08/06/2004 12:41:50 PM PDT by Red Badger
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist.
Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves.
Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly.
"I am amazed no one has come up with this before, it's incredible," he told Reuters.
"Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains.
"I've looked at geographical data from the rest of the world and of the 50 largest islands there is only one that has a plain in the middle -- Ireland."
Erlingsson believes the idea that Atlantis sank came from the fate of Dogger Bank, an isolated shoal in the North Sea, about 60 miles off the northeastern coast of England, which sank after being hit by a huge floodwave around 6,100 BC.
"I suspect that myth came from Ireland and it derives from Dogger Bank. I think the memory of Dogger Bank was probably preserved in Ireland for around 3,000 years and became mixed up with the story of Atlantis," he said.
Erlingsson links the boundaries of the Atlantic Empire, as outlined by Plato, with the geographic distribution of megalithic monuments in Europe and Northern Africa, matching Atlantis' temples with well-known burial sites at Newgrange and Knowth, north of Dublin, which pre-date the pyramids.
His book, "Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land," calculates the probability Plato would have had access to geographical data about Ireland as 99.98 percent.
Previous theories about Atlantis have suggested it may have been around the Azores islands 900 miles west of the Portuguese coast, or in the Aegean sea. Others locate it solely in the long-decayed brain of Plato.
Diana Rigg, love your screen name, though, is Ireland in the Pegasus galaxy- I always thought we lived in the Andromeda Galaxy.
hehe, SG fan :) we should make a ping list (or is there one?)
you forgot the Scots (Picts) and Mongols...
if you wanna get technical.... America was known long before most people think as well. the Asian's certainly had the ability to travel there. the Vikings later as well... the Egyptians traded with both the Northmen and the Asians.... who's to say Egypt didnt get the info from them and landed Atlantis 500 miles south of Hawaii? or off the coast of Maine?
check out the studies on kites and pyramids.
"But these things come not into the tale of the Drowning of Númenor, of which now all is told. And even the name of that land perished, and Men spoke thereafter not of Elenna, nor of Andor the Gift that was taken away, nor of Númenórë on the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue"
Nope. We're in the "Milky Way." Andromeda is a neighbor.
I was aware of those points; what I meant was that, there was an advanced civilization here (remember the ancient Greeks were never united under one government either), while on the Continent, there was period where even the most basic institutions (barring, of course, the Church), did not exist- the Dark Age was basically a period of total anarchy.
Mrs. Peel, I hope you realise that I was joking.
Patrick Duffy is God- remember when Bobby Ewing died and then came back to life- the 'Dream' series of Dallas is just a smokescreen, a cover up by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (VRWC).
Well, OK, I forgot about Egypt and Sumeria.- is it a crime to forget?
I know that too.
So then, both Aqua Man and the Sub-Mariner were Irish?
The discovery of whiskey?
well, which were the two youo were referring to??
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