ECHOES OF ATLANTIS

The traditions and mythologies which will be brought forward here are not intrinsically a part of Plato's account. They are separate in themselves, but will be compared to Plato's story of Atlantis to illustrate the similarities. Plato did not create a mythology when he wrote of Atlantis; rather, he repeated a tradition which had been handed down to him as "historical".

Here we will be dealing in supposition and interpretation rather than solid scientific facts. The story as related to us by Plato has seemingly mythological elements in it, just as the Old Testament contains similar elements even though it is usually thought of as basically historical. At least one of these "mythological elements" will be dealt with in detail, since it is found in both the Platonic and traditional accounts.

Again, the whole purpose of this website is to acquaint the inquirer with information that is not widely known. Therefore, be ready for some real surprises. The thrust here is specifically to compare Plato's quasi-historical account of Atlantis (including both its rise and demise) to mythologies and traditions which were in existence long before Plato, and to show how they relate to Plato's story of Atlantis.

I believe very strongly that events which actually happened gave rise to these traditions--even though they do not mentioned Atlantis by name--and it is the events which are important, not formalities which would satisfy scholars. The traditions and myths I am about to describe correspond so closely to details given in Plato's Atlantis narratives that mere coincidence is highly unlikely.

The ancient Egyptian records give us several kinds of information relating to the era of Atlantis. First of all, there is what is called the First Time, Zep Tepi, or the Golden Age, when the gods ruled. This is the time when mankind was given the elements of civilization, when the primordial darkness was banished. During Zep Tepi there were intermediaries between the gods and men, a time of the Neteru, the "Watchers", who lived on the earth with men and guided them.

Not only do we have the king-lists bequeathed to us in Greek translation by Manetho (250 B.C.), we also have direct Egyptian sources, such as the king-list engraved on the Palermo Stone (2565-2420 B.C.) and the Turin Papyrus (circa. 1300 B.C.). One of the important aspects of Manetho's king-list is that since he writes in Greek, he gives us the Greek equivalent of each Egyptian king mentioned in the lists.

After telling us that the total number of years covered by all the king-lists equals 36,525 (which, incidentally, agrees precisely with the period of Cro-Magnon Man), he continues: "the first series of princes was that of the Auritae (or the Aletae according to Sanchuniathon)." Then he lists the kings who ruled during this "reign of the gods". Here is Manetho's king-list, including the names from the Turin Papyrus on the left (there are two different kings named "Horus"):

According to Manetho the "rule of the demi-gods" immediately follows the reign of the gods (Cory, 1832). And Manetho's king-lists have been confirmed by the Egyptian sources mentioned above. (For an explanation of the omission of three kings, click on Manetho's king-list.) The important thing is that whenever the "reign of the gods" is included, Cronos (Seb) is always listed in one form or another.

Manetho is careful to point out that these first kings ruled not in Egypt itself, but rather in a foreign country. King Cronos and his connection with this Golden Age is very important in connecting up these traditions.

The Oldest Egyptian name for Cronos (Saturn) was Seb, which among the later Coptics became Repha. The latter appears in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (the LXX) as "Raiphan" (Amos 5:26; modern versions use Rephan where the Amos passage is quoted in the New Testament--Acts 7:43). In any case, there is no doubt among scholars (Tyndale, 1962) that Saturn is the deity in reference--and as you know, Saturn is the Roman equivalent of Cronos.

This is in itself interesting, since the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years and acquired many loan-words during that captivity. So it appears that Repha is an Egyptian loan-word, and the Hebrews' use of Rephaim (plural of Repha, usually translated "giants") is most likely a reference to the gigantic sons of Cronos--the Titans.

One of the god-kings listed in the Turin Papyrus which is omitted in our copies of Manetho's king list is the god Thoth. King Thoth is important for several different reasons. First, he is credited as being the inventor of writing; secondly, he wrote a large number of mystical works known as the Books of Thoth; and thirdly, he ruled on an island located in the west (Budge, 1960). The well-known Egyptian Book of the Dead contains some of the writings of Thoth.

Both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus described certain "Atlantean" tribes who lived in Libya. Herodotus describes them as living in the vicinity of Mt. Atlas (History, Book IV), and Diodorus (Lib. Hist., Book III) says they lived "in the regions which lie close to the shore of the ocean." Both descriptions fit the modern North African country of Morocco. But most importantly, these very people retained traditions of a time when they were ruled by Ouranos, Cronos and Atlas.

According to Diodorus, King Ouranos married Titaea and their sons were called Titans. The most prominent among them were Cronos and Atlas. Atlas was given the regions near the shore of the ocean to rule. Cronos eventually deposed Ouranos and became their next king. (Lib. Hist., Book III) These rulers more closely resemble the "gods" of Homer and Hesiod than the Atlantean kings of Plato's account. This tells us that Diodorus did not use Plato's Atlantis narratives as a source. (Critias explains that the original king-names had first been translated into Egyptian using the meanings of the names, which the priests in turn translated into the Greek for Solon.)

Diodorus' "Atlanteans" were without doubt the survivors of the cataclysm and, finding themselves in North Africa, evidently retained memories of being ruled by the gods, "whose source was the ocean [i.e., the Atlantic]". It is more than interesting that Herodotus (450 B.C.) had already called these people "Atlanteans," and the ocean to the west of them the "Atlantis Sea" nearly a hundred years before Plato. And it is also curious that a people calling themselves "Atlanteans" happened to be living precisely in the area that survivors of such a catastrophe should be expected!

As we have seen, it is virtually impossible to separate King Cronos from Atlantis. The war waged by the Atlanteans against the nations within the Mediterranean area and the mythological War of the Titans and Olympian gods have many important parallels. In both cases it happened just before the end of the invaders' civilization. In both accounts it was Zeus who was responsible for the demise of the opposing army. Both battles ended in violent destruction and a watery conclusion.

In the Atlanteans' case it was earthquakes, cataclysmic floods, and finally subsidence. In the Titans' case, Zeus rolled up a huge ball of fire in his hands and cast it down upon the Titans. This set the forested land on fire made the ocean boil; the hills and valleys heaved and shook in a tremendous earthquake. The Titans were imprisoned (since they could not die) in Tartaros, which the Greek poets Homer and Orpheus place beneath the waves of "Oceanos," now called the Atlantic Ocean.

In Plato's unfinished Critias, Zeus had just decided to convene a council of the gods to determine the fate of the Atlanteans; but we have already learned the result of that council from the Timaeus; i.e., after suffering tremendous earthquakes and floods, Atlantis, with all her inhabitants, was destroyed, disappearing beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Atlanteans were described by Plato as being in the beginning a most noble race; but slowly the godly element of their nature became diluted by the baser human side. They eventually became greedy, materialistic, and warlike. In Greek mythology, King Cronos ruled during a Golden Age, introduced agriculture, established cities and law. The Golden Age was one of abundance and peace.

Hesiod writes about the Golden Age of Cronos in his Theogeny, wherein he is principally dealing with deities; but in his Works and Days where he is describing mankind he resorts to a different set of terms. He portrays mankind as a series of "races," starting with a Golden Race, but eventually degenerating into an Iron Race. The original Golden race "lived in the time of Cronos" during the Golden Age. (Hesiod, 750 B.C.)

But, according to Hesiod, upon the demise of the Golden Race, an inferior Silver Race was then created. Later came the Bronze Race, the race of Heroes, and finally the inferior Iron Race (Hesiod, 750 B.C.). Since these are oral traditions carried down by the ancient Greeks, mostly in ballads and epic poems, no time frame is given; but the sequence as given is certainly indicative of the gradual deterioration of mankind parallel to Plato's description of the fate of the Atlantean people.

King Cronos ruled a western kingdom (called "the Saturnian island" by Latins), was said to have invented agriculture and instructed men how to live in a civilized manner. But to prevent rivals to his throne he began to kill all his own sons. Zeus (who was destined to depose him), was hid by his mother on the isle of Crete, where he grew up finally to defeat his father and rule as king of the gods (Hesiod, 735 B.C.).

The manner in which Zeus finally defeats Cronos and his Titans (the sons of Heaven) is reminiscent of the account found in the Mahabharata. After the war had continued unabated for ten years, Zeus was finally presented with "weapons" which resembled lightning, and the earth began to quake as fiery bolts flew from his hands. The vast forests were set on fire and the waters of the ocean itself "boiled and seethed" (Hesiod, 735 B.C.).

Cronos and the Titans are finally imprisoned in Tartaros, located deep beneath the ocean waves. In this passage from the Iliad (Book XIV), the queenly Hera proposes "to visit Oceanus at the far end of the earth, from whom the gods are sprung," where Zeus "had also thrust great Cronos down beneath earth and the restless sea." (Homer, 850 B.C.) Once the Titans are sealed in their infernal prison, Atlas himself is left guarding the gates, preventing a future escape--a lot of Atlantean connections here!

During the yearly festival known as the Cronia--similar to the Roman Saturnalia festival--the bound statue of Cronos was brought forth and loosed, but only for the duration of the festival. At the same time all slaves were temporarily freed, gifts exchanged, and a 7-day long party ensued during which there was drinking and merry making. Slaves were allowed to order their masters around (although the severity of such orders was tempered by the knowledge that in a few days they would again be ruled by these same masters). This was all, of course, to honor Cronos, the first great king and civilizer of mankind; but also to commemorate the defeat, binding, and imprisonment of Cronos at the end of the 10-year long war.

Just how did Plato's Atlanteans obtain their "godly" nature to begin with? According to Plato's Critias, the god Poseidon fell in love with an earthborn girl named Cleito. He had intercourse with her (the "mythological element" of the Atlantis story), and built her a palace in Atlantis on a hill. They eventually had five sets of twins (ten princes), the eldest of which was named Atlas, for which the entire land was named Atlantis.

This "mixture" of divine and earthborn would, of course, make each of their offspring one-half divine and one-half human. The natural result of this generation mating with other earthborn women would result in only a "quarter" of the divine element, etc., etc., until eventually the divine element would become so "diluted" that the baser "human" characteristics would finally be in control. Now let's compare this scenerio with another prominant body of legends.

The traditions recorded by the Hebrews parallel the above account closely. A strange, often puzzling, passage appears early in the Hebrew Bible which bears looking into at this point. In the book of Genesis one finds the following:

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. . . .
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughter of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (heroes) which were of old, men of renown." (Genesis 6:1-2,4)

Now this is basically how Plato says the Atlanteans came to be. (Remember also that Hesiod calls the Titans "sons of Heaven".) The Hebrew account even contains a reference to Plato's "dilution" of the divine element with the human: "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh" (verse 3), after which man grows extremely wicked and is eventually destroyed by a flood. The account in the Book of Enoch mentions the earth tilting on its axis during which the earth "labours and is violently shaken." (I Enoch LXIV. 1-3)

Two of the most surprising (and mistranslated) verses in the Old Testament may actually concern Atlantis. The passage is found in the Book of Job, and in the respected King James version reads like this:

"Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." (Job 26:5-6)

An innocuous enough sounding passage: no clue here to the famous sunken land. But in reality, these verses deserve a second look. The very first word in the above passage is the Hebrew word Rephaim, a reference to the descendants of Repha! In other words, this is a direct reference to the sons of King Cronos - the famed Titans of Greek mythology. And the Hebrew verb translated "formed" should have been translated "tremble" or "writhe". What a change this makes! An informed modern translation would read:

"The Titans tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof. Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." (Job 26:5-6)

Dr. James Moffett (1922) of Oxford University is almost poetic in his expressive rendering of the passage in question. Undoubtably he has caught the meaning of what this is all about.

"Before him the primaeval giants writhe, under the ocean in their prison; the underworld lies open to his eyes, the nether regions are unveiled." (Job 26:5-6)

If this is not a reference to the fateful destiny of the Titans, I don't know what it is! It was the god Zeus who had won the battle (leading the Olympian gods against Cronos and the Titans), and had imprisoned them at the bottom of the ocean (Oceanos, which we now call the Atlantic). Yahweh, the Hebrew equivalent of Zeus, is said to be able to see right through the "covering" (the waters) and view "destruction" as if it were lying naked before him. Tartaros is the Greek name for this underwater prison (translated "hell" in II Peter 2:4 of the New Testament), but this term is not used in the Hebrew texts--it is not a Hebrew word. However, if there ever was a place where the Hebrews could have used a Greek loan-word in place of sheol, this was it.

The only scholarly reference I've ever seen acknowledging this ancient Hebrew belief in a special "prison" or "hell" beneath the sea is that of the famed assyriologist Alexander Heidel. He states unequivocally that: "The Old Testament localizes the realm of the dead, or, rather, the realm of certain disembodied human spirits, within the innermost parts of the earth, below the sea." (Heidel, 1946; italics are mine.) In support of this, he quotes this same passage from the Book of Job which we have been considering.

The above reference to the Rephaim (giants), the descendants of Repha (Cronos), the agony of their imprisonment beneath the ocean, and the obvious reference to "destruction" is about as close as the Bible comes to mentioning the demise of Atlantis and the fate of its inhabitants.

http://www.atlantisquest.com/Myth.html