"THE LOST CONTINENT OF

ATLANTIS"

For more than half a century, scientists have questioned the mystery of Atlantis, debating whether accounts of the lost continent are myth or reality.  A large number of scientists and laymen have tried to prove the story either true or false.  However, the present state of evidence for the existence of Atlantis is impressive.  This convincing data is based on new reports and on-site research under the ocean conducted by legitimate scientists.

I started my search for Atlantis in 1959, motivated by my college professor, Dr. Julian Nava, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico under President Jimmy Carter.  Dr. Nava, a Harvard scholar and specialist in ancient history, was convinced that someone would eventually prove the existence of Atlantis.  His motivational words inspired me to read extensively on the subject and make over fifty trips to Spain and the Mediterranean since 1968.

The roots of Atlantis can definitely be found in the Mediterranean.  According to Plato's Dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, Atlantis was an island continent, larger than Libya and Asia put together, which existed before the great biblical flood.  Atlantis, according to Plato, was a civilized island continent which existed 9000 years before the "Golden Age" of Greece (479-414B.C.).  Plato was writing in the fifth century B.C.  This date corresponds with the evidence from geology, indicating that there was a worldwide flood in approximately 9600 B.C. drowning most of Europe and causing the seas to rise more than 200 feet all over the Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean.  Arab legends and the Koran also describe the Flood and the Book of Genesis gives explicit information about the watery demise of a pre-diluvian world.  Arab stories place the Great Flood inside the Mediterranean, which makes it closer to Italy and Greece.  However, Plato's story describes Atlantis beyond the Gates of Hercules, a location corresponding to present day Gibraltar and Tangier.  That is why I centered my own research in Spain, specifically Cadiz, where I worked with a team of divers for more than three decades to investigate and photograph evidence for Atlantis.

Certainly no cooperation has ever been given to Atlantis researchers by the scientific community.  Most official agencies spurn Atlantis, since the discovery and validation of Atlantis would push back biblical history more than 5000 years, an anathema to purists who do not want change the status quo.  The truth is that four cities lie underwater from Cadiz to Gibraltar, and these cities are submerged at least 120 feet and resting on the continental shelf.  Using the yardarm of 10 feet for every 1000 years of recorded history, we can observe highly developed sunken cities, the remains of which are at least 9000 years old or older (see Internet Website www.web-hed.com.amra).  If these remains are not Atlantis, then such evidence still requires that we acknowledge civilization's beginnings at least 5000 years before the earliest Egyptian cities.

At the time of the Great Flood, only 1% of all people on earth survived, probably ending up on Mt. Ararat in Turkey according to Biblical accounts.  In fact, Jericho in the Holy Land, has been dated at 9200 B.C. which means that the survivors of Atlantis, may have stayed on the mountaintop for generations before descending the mountain to establish a sea level city similar to what they remembered about their ancestral home-Atlantis.

Legends of all peoples speak about the Great Flood, including the Navaho Indians of the American Southwest and the Mayas of  Mexico.  Ice cores taken at the North Pole also give evidence of the Great Flood of 9600 B.C. and inscriptions near Gibraltar show people escaping a flood in boats.  The survivors of Atlantis are believed to have floated across Spain and across the Mediterranean.  In fact, Sicily may have been an early Atlantean survival site as well as Malta and Cyprus, where evidence of advanced civilizations as old as 7500 B.C. have been identified.  Some survivors of Atlantis also went as far north as present day Ireland and perhaps also drifted along what is now the Danube River in Northern Europe.

My own research was confined to Spain simply because there was so much speleologic evidence for Atlantis in Iberia as well inscriptions and old textbook materials, some of which were more than 1500 years old and were written in medieval or archaic Spanish.  These materials, many of them in private collections, added to my on-site research and led me to believe that Atlantis was indeed a reality.  Yet, I was amazed to find that information about Atlantis had been withheld from the general public because of its controversial nature within the religious and scientific communities.  It has often been pointed out that religion and science are equally dogmatic in their ideas and highly resistant to change.  Evidence about Atlantis has been observed in sequestered archives of the Vatican Library and in the monasteries in Monte Cassino in the north of Italy.  It is also a well publicized fact that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1948, both the Christians and the Jews withheld large portions of the scrolls, as well as other books of the Old Testament, because of information about Atlantis that they did not wish to reveal.

Today, in the rapid pace of the twenty-first century, interest in Atlantis is at an all time high.  A huge resort called Atlantis has been built in the Bahamas and is believed to be an exact replica of the lost continent.  New books have emerged, discussing the issue of Atlantis and reports of Atlantis discoveries have increased on the Internet since 1998.

At present, plans are underway to build a large research center, museum and diving center in Spain devoted to Atlantis research.  The discovery and validation of Atlantis may change the history books, as man rediscovers his origins and revises the chronology of the Bible.  With space exploration now seen as a priority by many civilized nations, it is more than ever appropriate to dredge up new discoveries at the bottom of the ocean.  These discoveries may provide a whole new field of interest for scientists and a complete revision of our cultural heritage.

Bibliography

1. Asher, Maxine - The Atlantis Conspiracy - Los Angeles: A.M.R.A., 1973.

2. Asher, Maxine - Ancient Energy - Key to the Universe - San Francisco:  Harper & Row, 1979.

3. Asher, Maxine & Miller, Ann - Tapping Into the Force - Norfolk: Hampton Roads Publishing Co., 1990.

4. Bramwell, James. Lost Atlantis, New York:  Freeway Press, 1973.

5. Cisneros, Josefa Jimenez. Historia de Cadiz en al Antiquidad, Instituto de Estudios Gaditanos, Disputacion Provincial, No Date.

6. Donnelly, Ignatious (Egerton Skye, ad.). Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, New York:  Gramercy Publishing Co., 1949.

7. Galanopoulos, A.G. and Bacon, Edward. Atlantis, the Truth Behind the Legend, New York:  Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.

8. Hutchins, Robert M. (Ed.) The Dialogues of Plato, Chicago:  Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

9. Nevill, W.E., Geology and Ireland, Dublin: Allan Figgis, 1972.

10. Reyna, Simeon Gimenez. The Dolmens of Antaquera, Publicaciones de la Biblioteca Antequerana, 1967.

11. Schulten Adolfo, Tartessos, Second Edition (translation by Jose M. Sachristen), Madirid:  Espasa Calpe, S.A., 1945.

12. Scott Elliot W., The Story of Atlantis and Lost Lemuria, London:  Theosophical Society Publishing House, 1968.

13. Spence, Lewis, The History of Atlantis, University Books, 1968.

14. Tomas, Andrew, Los Secretos de la Atlántida, Barcelona:  Plaza and Janes, 1971.

15. Wykoff, James.  The Lost Continent of Atlantis, New York:  G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.

A NEW BOOK BY INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN WRITER, ARCHAEOLOGIST AND SCHOLAR DR. MAXINE ASHER

Other books by Dr. Maxine Asher: