ATLANTIS 2021 Lost continent discovered Cassandra 5 : Written by: Carlos Bisceglia Translated by: A. Parede.

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ATLANTIS 2021 Lost continent discovered

Cassandra 5 :

Written by: Carlos Bisceglia

Translated by: A. Parede

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Unlike the fantasy tale by Stephen Shaw, just finished before beginning this and seemingly titled similarly about Atlantis, this one seems a serious expose of known facts from Plato and from recent research findings.

Unlike many researchers and authors of history on various other subjects, however, this writer too seems more ambitious than tenable, in that he proceeds to leap quite unnecessarily across chasms in evidence, and twist and mangle logic until he presents A to mean not A.

His chief aim seems to be to establish that the discovery of recent decades via satellite in Northwestern Africa must be the only possibility of Atlantis, and towards this aim he then twists words of even Plato, saying that when Plato said island, he meant Mauritania.

Later half of the book, preceded by an assertion by Carlos Bisceglia to the effect that Plato confused location of Atlantis and in reality it was about an older civilisation in the Pacific Ocean, author proceeds thence to describe it at length.

While it's interesting and impressive, first, he hadn't really made his case, merely extrapolated from a recent research by Brasseur who apparently was so confused, inferring that so was Plato, and perhaps his sources.

Second, one comes to suspect that Carlos Bisceglia studied the work of this Brasseur, researched the subject and proposing to write the book, was told it Worrell, do he simply tacked on the poorly thought tearing to shreds of Plato in name of Atlantis to provide the book a catchy, saleable title.

"Due to a misunderstanding, the famous explorer Christopher Columbus called by the name 'Indians', peoples who had nothing to do with India. The famous explorer wanted to circumnavigate the globe to find a shorter way from Italy to India. On his journey, he came across America by chance. Convinced that he had reached India, Christopher Columbus called the local people 'Indians'. ... "

So far, that's all true; most people know this, rarely acknowledge it, and keep using the false nomenclature for people of another continent anyway.

But Carlos Bisceglia is mentioning it for a convenient reason - he labels his own theory a universally acknowledged fact, which it isn't, and Plato the one who made the mistake, which Plato certainly did not.

" ... Similarly, probably due to a misunderstanding, Plato made a similar error. Just as the explorer Christopher Columbus called not one, but two peoples (the 'Indians of India' and the 'Indians of America') by the name 'Indians', so Plato called two completely different peoples with the same name 'Atlanteans'. Originally, “the Atlanteans” were the inhabitants of the Western Mediterranean, or “people of Ma”. But for Plato, “the Atlanteans” were also the inhabitants of the coasts of Sundaland, Sahuland and ancient “Micronesia”, the “people of Mu”. We try now to remedy this error by identifying both peoples correctly."

None of that is true. It's Carlos who's shredding Plato's work and sticking pieces thereof wherever it suits him.

Other researchers, and even more so, serendipitous workers in various fields, have made diverse discoveries, separately, that lead people to believe that Plato's account of Atlantis - a large island situated in Atlantic Ocean, facing straits of Gibraltar and visible from Mediterranean, with a chain of smaller islands reaching a large continent opposite across Atlantic Ocean - was reality.

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"In the Timaeus the following is said: “In fact, our writings tell us of a military power which, unprovoked, organised a military expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city [Athens] put an end. [...] The men of Atlantis had subdued parts of Libya within the 'Pillars of Hercules', as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia [Italy]. This vast power, gathered together, endeavoured to subdue at once our country [Egypt], your country [Greece] and the whole region on this side of the Straits. On that occasion, Solon, your city [Athens] shone in the excellence of its virtue and strength among all mankind. It was pre-eminent in courage and military prowess and was the leader of the Greeks. And even when the other allied peoples surrendered, seeing themselves forced to resist alone, after suffering extreme danger, the Athenians defeated and triumphed over the invaders. And Athens preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated to Atlantis, and generously freed all others living on this side of the Pillars of Hercules”."

Again, Carlos Bisceglia quotes Plato, but doesn't read it himself!

"In his account, Plato explicitly says that this 'Lost Athens' existed some 11,500 years ago. In fact, in the dialogue Critias it is said: “First of all, we should not forget that the time that has elapsed since the war that took place between the peoples who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules and those who lived on this side of them amounts to about 9000 years from the days of Solon”. Furthermore, Critias also says 'that in total it was 9,000 years since, as is told, war broke out'. Considering that this story would have been told about 2,500 years ago, adding the 9,000 years mentioned by Solon, it would appear that 11,500 years ago a war broke out between Atlantis and the peoples of the Mediterranean, led by the “Lost Athens”. In this war the 'Lost Athens' would have led the Mediterranean to victory."

The phrase quoted, "war that took place between the peoples who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules and those who lived on this side of them", leaves no doubt or choice of orientation. Atlantis was NOT coastal North West Africa, but across the Strait of Gibraltar, not within with a Mediterranean coastline. ................................................................................................

Carlos Bisceglia seems to be either so overexcited post satellite discovery of Richart feature in Sahara that had people speculate whether this was Atlantis, since it seemed man-made and confirmed somewhat with descriptions of Atlantis by Plato, that he hurried to write this without research on Atlantis related recent discoveries; but his insistence that a large river beginning in Atlas mountains a hundred km south of coastal region makes northwest Africa seem like an island is an overreach that indicates an ambitious project for a thesis no sane examiners ought to pass, rather than an adult thinking coolly.

Far more likely is a scenario whereby survivors of Atlantis, after the main island sank, created a copy in Sahara, far enough away from volcanoes - and from sea, to keep it safer!

"Generating close to the Mediterranean coast, and flowing into our modern Atlantic Ocean, this gigantic river, in some places as wide as a small sea, “cut” almost entirely through a piece of Northwest Africa. Looking at it from the point of view of an observer on the ground, who did not have an aerial view of the area, this land almost surrounded by water (except where the river had its source on Mount Atlas) would have looked like a big island. In this description, the coast washed by the Tamanrasset would appear as surrounded by a 'narrow sea'. (The only way to tell that it was a river, and not a 'narrow' sea, was to examine the salinity of the water. But we do not know if this knowledge was already possessed in ancient times). The other way around, the coast washed by the Western Mediterranean and our present Atlantic Ocean would appear as surrounded by an 'open sea'. This is exactly Plato's description of the seas that surrounded Atlantis."

On one hand he claims they thought it was an island because they did not see it "from above; on the other, he thinks a hundred kilometres inland from coast is close enough that seen from land or ship, northwest Africa would look like an island.

But then he also claims Egypt and Greece were too primitive to know thst salinity was the difference between river and sea!

Carlos Bisceglia is either an idiot or a total fraud. What exactly does he think ancient people drank? Coca-Cola and wine? Everyone had to know salinity was the difference, apart from flow!

And he's talking of Egypt, one of the most advanced civilised nations of that era! Or has his community figured out how pyramids were constructed, and why?

" ... Plato really believed what he wrote about the end of Atlantis. But the area of Mount Atlas, in the Mediterranean, at least in the last 100,000 years has never been submerged by water. How can this apparent contradiction be explained?"

Because the two - Atlantis and Atlas - are identified only in mind of Carlos Bisceglia, but the identification is not in evidence or justified by logic, much less true or proven in any other manner.

So, no contradiction except that of the identification. This point about sinking of Atlantis is yet another proof of Carlos Bisceglia being wrong.

Strangely enough, he talks repeatedly of comet strikes only when discussing coastal tropical Southeast Asia and its continental shelf, but never imagines the scenario to grant that it could've happened to Atlantis as described by Plato, an island in Atlantic Ocean.

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"Not a sunken continent

"Anyone who has heard of the history of Atlantis knows very well what, according to Plato, happened to that land. For example, in Plato's dialogue entitled 'Timaeus' it is said: “But later there were violent earthquakes and floods. In a single day and night all your warriors sank together into the earth. And the island of Atlantis likewise disappeared into the depths of the sea. That is why the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud which closes off the access. This was created by the subsidence of the island”.

"Let us immediately point out that, from a strictly scientific point of view, it is impossible to think that a continent, anywhere on Earth, could have “sunk to the bottom of the sea” in recent geological times, that is since the time when human beings have existed on Earth. No one, in fact, can think that continents or islands float on the sea, as if they were huge rafts. An island emerging from the water is only the visible part of something that starts under the sea and connects directly to the earth's crust. In practice, an island can be compared to the top of a mountain that starts below sea level, a protuberance of the earth's crust. We only see the top of the mountain out of the sea, while everything else is under water. The same can be said of a continent, albeit of much larger proportions."

Quite on the contrary, recent research via satellite discoveries proposes st least two continents are sunken beneath islands visible above, one under Seychelles (Kumari Khanda?), and another under and stretching northwards from New Zealand north upto northeast from Australia, near or including Tonga. The latter is called, tentatively, Lemuria.

Atlantis sinking over Mid-Atlantic Ridge is far easier to comprehend, due to stresses of the Ridge and the volcanic activity from Iceland onwards to South along the Ridge.

" ... So, if a continent were to 'sink', this would not only mean that the part of the land that emerged from the water would sink below sea level. It also means that the base of the Continent, which rested on the Earth's crust, would sink into the 'mantle' below. To end up there, it means that the base of the Continent would have to dramatically crack the Earth's crust, causing catastrophic seismic effects at a global level.

"For this reason, a Continent cannot sink into the underlying 'mantle' in a matter of days or months. ... The idea that a continent could collapse into the mantle below in a matter of hours is therefore physically impossible, whichever way you look at it."

It's more complex than that, and obviously Carlos Bisceglia isn't a knowledgeable expert in physical sciences, including physics or geology or geophysics. And at least two continents have been pronounced discovered sunken under existing islands, one in Pacific and another in Indian Ocean.

It's amazing that someone can swallow, not only the twisted and impossible church narrative regarding occupation of West Asia by Rome, but also that of Brasseur who firmly believed that Atlantis was in reality tale of another island in the other great ocean westwards - and yet, not only not believe an account by Plato who is only reporting what Egyptians said to Greeks enquiring about history, but go to great lengths to construct a far more unbelievable, incredibly twisted narrative.

Far more surprisingly, while he knows about satellite discovery of Richat structure and theory about that being behind the legend of Atlantis, he's set out to prove it without familiarising himself with Atlantis related serious works - he certainly does not know about Challenger ship discovery a century or so ago, mentioned by Ignatius Donnelly, about level of sea immediately past straits of Gibraltar being far too shallow, confirming the assertion by Plato that sailors found it difficult in his day to navigate in that region.

On the contrary Carlos Bisceglia goes to great lengths asserting not only that islands cannot sink, but that no such barriers exist, and then proceeds to take a straightforward narrative about a great island or two with a chain of islands towards west reaching a great continent surrounded by a true open sea, into one about Spain, Africa, and Canary Islands strictly instead.

It's unclear how much of this is racism assuming Greek and Egyptian civilisations would take a contiguous land for an island and didn't know the difference between river and sea, and how much is a subconsciously terrorised mind dominated by church that writes off anything not explicitly sanctioned by either church or science current to his own times, as impossible.

That he knew about satellite discovery of the so-called Eye of Sahara, Richat Structure, while he didn't know of continents sunken under Seychelles and New Zealand, is understandable - he probably hurried to write this post discovery of Richat Structure; and he might not have lived long enough to correct his assertion in this publication about impossibilityof islands, even continens sinking - but that he wrote this without familiarising himself about writing by anyone else on the topic, and didn't know about Challenger ship discovery, shows shoddy scholarship.

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"If a continent had indeed sunk beneath the ocean in 9,500 BCE, the tsunami generated by that event would have devastated much of the Earth, reaching hundreds of kilometres inland of every part of the globe. Furthermore, the seismic activity generated by the sinking of an entire continent into the mantle below would have triggered an earthquake of magnitude 10 on the Richter scale that would have lasted for an incalculable period, affecting the entire planet Earth. Countless volcanoes would have sprung up along the crack in the Earth's crust caused by the 'Sunken Continent', covering the Earth's atmosphere with poisonous gases. All of Earth's volcanoes would have 'woken up'. The human species and almost all animal species would have disappeared within week."

That's one scenario, but other possibilities exist, some discussed by Ignatius Donnelly in his work on Atlantis, where he begins with the Challenger ship's discovery of underwater barrier in Atlantic Ocean before the Strait of Gibraltar.

Carlos Bisceglia doesn't say so, but the strong resistance at subconscious level in him is about humanity being unaware of such a cataclysm, whether now or at time of Plato; it was then already a legend not known to Greeks, told by Egyptian priests centuries before Plato and disbelieved by Plato's contemporaries when he wrote of it.

There are two strong factors to respond to this with - one, the island probably sank with not so much of a universal extinction but much less, so it wasn't even a local history in Europe; two, to the subconscious resistance about "If this really did happen, why first we know?", there's this - most of generations from twentieth century already didn't, don't, know about the late nineteenth century event of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia that was huge - and this, despite the increasingly global communications and records, libraries and more.

Some know due to reading habits of extensive nature, others font know, and couldn't care less. This would be true to more or less extent about most events, whether holocaust or other genocides, current or immediate past.

Plato did a favour to history in writing about Atlantis, and it became known due to his fame, else would be lost as account by Solon and others were. Donnelly connects it with old testament; whether that's correct or not, it gives one an awareness of possibilities; meanwhile Carlos Bisceglia was also unaware of finds underwater in Caribbean Islands, presumed to be evidence of Atlantis and its colonised islands.

"But the ancient people could not have known all this things. ... "

Carlos Bisceglia is amazingly contemptuous of "ancient people"; does he include writers of gospels therein? Evidently not, since an excommunication due to vociferous protests against various articles forced on flock by church would leave an imprint he lacks. So the key is, anything however fantastic, Carlos Bisceglia would swallow as long as told by a church authenticated priest.

His disdain for "ancient people", however, is out of place. It's only based on a racism with an attitude presuming not only superiority but sole validity of all knowledge only if and when authenticated by Europe and her descendants, going back to Rome.

It's very ignorant, apart from racist colonialism.

" ... Their limited knowledge of geology led them to think that islands and continents in some ways 'floated' on the sea like 'giant ships'. It was therefore thought that they could suddenly 'sink' like a boat. ... "

Not necessarily. Piles of mud can sink, too.

" ... But we know today that this is not the case. We cannot even think that a continent can 'disappear' simply because it is hit by phenomena such as tsunamis or floods. ... "

It's unclear how long Carlos Bisceglia lived, whether he heard of the continents sunken under Seychelles and New Zealand. He was incorrect.

Other places sunken include cities of India, famous legendary ones, one coastal.

" ... Although such phenomena are frightening for us small human beings, they are only a 'passing breeze' compared to the mass of a continent. Moreover, as time passes, sooner or later the waters recede, and what seemed submerged re-emerges. ... "

That re-emergence isn't that fast, but meanwhile Carlos Bisceglia was also unaware of finds underwater in Caribbean Islands, presumed to be evidence of Atlantis and its colonised islands.

" ... But this does not seem to be the case with Atlantis. That land disappeared, never to reappear again. It must therefore have been the victim of a different phenomenon, something that lasted much longer than a tsunami or a flood.

"This cannot have happened in the Mediterranean over the last 11,500 years. ... "

It didn't, not "in the Mediterranean", but in Atlantic Ocean is quite another story; Carlos Bisceglia is also totally unaware, as he writes the above, of finds underwater in Caribbean Islands, presumed to be evidence of Atlantis and its colonised islands. Strangely enough they were not too recent, so does that mean Carlos Bisceglia died after satellite discovery of the so-called Eye of Sahara, the Richat Structure, but before 1975, when discovery underwater in Caribbean of huge man-made structure happened?

But no, next he writes about discoveries and publications circa 2016!

So this denial of Plato and Egypt, with so shoddy a logic, is all for - what,? Publication, promotion, position, ... a mere rat race?

Or is he just oblivious of everything that contradicts his own outlandish theme that North West Africa looked like an island to ships sailing past, to Egyptians and Greeks, who he thinks were too primitiveto know the difference between river and sea, whether of flow or of salinity?

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Carlos Bisceglia is either continually doing verbal sleight consciously or is completely unaware of concept of logic, reasoning and proof, twisting as he does anything remotely related to evidence any which way to suit his conclusions.

For example, evidence of submerged land connection from Asia to Australia merely tells one that it can happen, not that, as he promptly asserts, this was exactly what Brasseur meant by Land of Mu, much less that this was so.

"Until recently it was believed that 'all' indigenous Americans were of Siberian origin, and therefore Charles Étienne Brasseur was wrong. In fact, DNA analyses were carried out on the descendants of the Maya. According to the results, the present-day descendants of the Maya originate from the Iñupiat people, a population that came from Siberia and settled in Central America around 30,000 years ago."

Recent research, Carlos Bisceglia quotes references to show, indicates, other sources of roots.

"DNA testing has shown that the Karitiana, along with the Surui and Xavante, other indigenous peoples of Central and South America, all originate from Sundaland. They come from the landmasses of the Andaman Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. ... "

But these indicate originally African roots of this particular part of population, which Carlos Bisceglia omits to say.

Also, he's not mentioning Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki, the raft built in Polynesian style, which he single-handedly took from one end of Pacific to another, mid-twentieth century, to prove his contention regarding people of Pacific islands having travelled across the Pacific Ocean for centuries; this indicated that population of Polynesian islands were related to the continent across South Pacific Ocean, and for example to the high civilisation of Peru.

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"The particular type of construction used in Nan Madol alternates between heavy and light blocks. It is possible that for the heavier blocks the builders of the city used some kind of winch with a counterweight system. But this presupposes a knowledge of elements of physics, techniques, and materials which it is thought that men of that time did not possess. ... "

Seriously, dump the racist presumptions, West!

"In the site of Gunang Padang there is a fourth layer underneath, the remains of which, according to C14 radiocarbon investigations, could be dated as far back as 28,000 years ago. It means that, when the Deglaciation began 14,500 years ago, the oldest part of this 'false pyramid' had already existed for at least 14,000 years. This structure could therefore predate Göbekli Tepe by as much as 15,000 years. If indeed, as it seems, the Gunung Padang structure was a kind of artificially constructed ceremonial 'false pyramid', this would prove the existence of a civilization that predated the Last Deglaciation. It was a civilization that, holed up in the only “relatively warm” place on Earth, the equator where Sundaland was located, should have been the only civilization in existence during the Last Ice Age at the time. It would mean that at least 22,000 years of human history (and not prehistory) are almost totally unknown to us."

That last part is certainly correct. Civilisation of India predates rising of Himalayan ranges from the ocean that vanished to the North between India and Asia.

" ... Is it possible that the Patung are the last remnants of that ancient civilization? Until a few years ago, official archaeology would have scoffed at such a hypothesis. But since Göbekli Tepe, a huge megalithic structure, was found buried in Turkey, no one is laughing anymore. In fact, those structures were built at least 12,000 years ago, around 10,000 BCE. Nothing strange, then, if a similar civilization had existed in Sundaland during the same period. So, the biggest “suspects” in the making of the Patungs are the original inhabitants of Sundaland."

That timeline just takes us back to Ramayana, dated recently at 14,5,00-11,000 BCE, via astronomical observations from the text. And that's a conservative estimate, while reality could be n ×26,000 years ago for a positive value of n, upto a million years ago, the latter being choice of those who point out the geological features mentioned in the epic.

Vedic civilisation is much older, of course.

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"Plato's point of view

"What Plato wrote about the 'continent sunk in the sea' needs to be re-evaluated. The date given by Plato in relation to when his 'Atlantis' was swallowed up by the waters coincides with the date of one of the frightening tsunamis that really did submerge most of the coastal areas of the Pacific Ocean: 11,500 years ago. Plato could not have known this, and to think that he simply “guessed the date” is childish. The priests of Sais were not lying when they mentioned this detail to Solon."

Carlos Bisceglia has perhaps forgotten asserting in previous chapters that Atlantis could not have been a large island in Atlantic Ocean that sunk in a day, because that would generate tsunamis around the globe; now he asserts that Plato's timeline coinciding with that of deglaciation resulted tsunami inundation southeast Asia and Australia must mean that Atlantis did not exist?

Why not consider the possibility that it might have been the Atlantis event thst triggered the tsunami?

Besides, "11,500 years ago" is a very vague timeline, not

"date given by Plato in relation to when his 'Atlantis' was swallowed up by the waters", and besides, Plato did not mention a tsunami. It was likely a volcanic eruption or more than one, and a geological cataclysm related to Mid-Atlantic Ridge that had Atlantis destroyed, which may have affected Atlantic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean as well, via Southern Ocean carrying the tsunami.

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"The island of Atlantis

"Researchers are convinced that the main course of the Tamanrasset River, at some point, turned west, and flowed west into the territory of present-day Mauritania. It appears that the Tamanrasset River originated about 100 km east of the Moroccan-Algerian border, about 100 km from the coast, in the Atlas Mountains. (Another end of the river originated in the Hoggar plateau in Algeria). The river continued southwards for another 200 km or so. Then the river slowly turned westwards, heading towards Western Sahara and present-day Mauritania. Continuing its south-westerly course, after a total distance of over 2,500 km, the river emptied to the north of present-day Mauritania."

A river originating a 100 km south from northern coast of North West Africa and flowing southwest certainly does NOT cut off Egypt from Algeria, Morocco or Mauritania, and the land along the coast certainly does not look like an island to ships sailing past.

"Once again, the priests of Sais had not lied to Solon. Thousands of years before Solon was born, at the foot of Mount Atlas, due to a natural phenomenon caused by the extremely high humidity of the African Humid Period, part of North West Africa could be considered as a kind of “island” surrounded by water. (For about 100 km this land was attached to the rest of the continent by the Atlas mountain range, so technically it was a kind of 'peninsula')."

This is exactly how situated India was for millennia, post rising of Himalayan ranges from the ocean that vanished to the North between India and Asia; nobody, certainly not Greeks, "considered as a kind of “island” surrounded by water".

Now Carlos Bisceglia begins to cheat directly, having claimed but not proved that when Plato and his sources spoke of mountains in Atlantis, they meant Atlas mountains.

"The story says that south of the mountains of Atlantis (i.e., south of the Atlas mountain range) ... "

This sort of sleight turns this book into a charlatan card trickster's sleight, instead of a seriously questioning work, about whether Richart feature was Atlantis.

" ... there was a green plain. Together with the mountains, the landscape was full of 'rivers, lakes and meadows, capable of feeding all sorts of domestic and wild animals'. This is exactly the description given by climatologists of the Sahara during the African Humid Period. It was a kind of 'paradise on earth', full of greenery and water. So, the description of this lush plain and green-covered mountains, even if it clashes with the current scenery of the Sahara, corresponds exactly to the description of the place as it was more than 10,000 years ago."

If one cuts out, or cheats on, the characterisation of Atlantis as a large island, there's many a land that fit the rest of the description.

But not only it was described as an island across sea from Strait of Gibraltar, it was also described how there was a chain of smaller islands reaching a large continent surrounded by a true open sea, unlike the sea one had to cross to reach Atlantis.

And as for any location in Sahara, it did not sink, as described, but rather the water "sank" or vanished. That does not overnight destroy a civilisation and a city, much less a part of a continent it traverses.

A fertile land reduced to desert by shifting or drying up of rivers, or one going underground, has her civilisation shift gradually, as happened with the so-called Indus Valley Civilisation (which in reality was along quite another, far mightier river, Sarasvati or Saraswati); people shifted away to the valleys east or east, as rivers feeding this mighty river had done.

But Plato reports Egyptian sources saying Atlantis sank overnight. This was a geological cataclysm, not a gradual drying up of a river.

Carlos Bisceglia proceeds to shred Plato's description by changing directions and verbal sleight of hand to say that when Plato says chain of islands towards west, reaching a large continent across, he meant islands such as Capo Verde and Canary, and continent across meant Spain.

Surely both Plato and Egypt knew Europe and Spain, and could name them, instead of speaking of a nameless large other continent reached via a chain of islands to west?

"So, about 11,500 years ago, anyone who wanted to reach the plains of North West Africa (except from the area of the Atlas mountain range) would have found the way blocked by water. The water barrier to the west was the Mauritanian Sea. The water barrier to the north was the Western Mediterranean. The water barrier to the south and east was the gigantic Tamanrasset River. It is not surprising that many would have thought that the land, at least during that period, was an island. Once again, the Egyptians who told Solon about the 'Land of Ma' were, therefore, not lying. On the contrary: the mystery of how they had preserved this knowledge is probably an even greater mystery than that of Atlantis itself."

This is worse than idiotic and fraud, since Greeks could sail and thus land in coastal parts anywhere along Mediterranean, which was not a barrier. Nor would the Atlanticalong vast of Africa be so. After all he's described an Egyptian ship sailing from Red Sea to Egypt via Cape of Good Hope, and it must have been easier to sail west through Strait of Gibraltar around western coast of North West Africa.

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"The 'smaller islands' of Atlantis

Carlos Bisceglia proceeds to hammer in his thesis, about the islands Plato spoke of being along west coast of Africa and Spain.

But why would anyone from Greece, or Egypt, think those islands were useful in getting from Africa to Spain?

Or talk of Spain, or Europe, vaguely, as the continent opposite?

This is fraudulent argument by Carlos Bisceglia.

"If the Canary Islands, plus other archipelagos that have disappeared in the south of Spain and Portugal, were the islands that led from Atlantis to the Continent, this means that if we take the road backwards, we arrive at the “Big Island” of Atlantis. This road takes us in Mauritania, near the 'Pillars of Hercules' and Mount Atlas. Once again, all this clues tell us that Atlantis was located right there, in front of the Canary Islands."

Again a sleight, involving doubling back on his own logic and pretending it proves his point. Carlos Bisceglia is fraudulent and stupid, both, imagining his readership is idiotic, and would be convinced merely by his repeated hammering on.

Plato did say chain of islands towards West, and besides, there's the Irish priest who sailed centuries before Columbus, arrived in America, and after three years, returned to write about it. His account was forbidden by Vatican until he travelled to Vatican and convinced them. He'd taken Plato's description of chain of islands, and had arrived presumably via the blue river, finding it easy.

Carlos Bisceglia proceeds to fit the rest of the description of Atlantis given by Plato into his theme, but one now is getting fed up with the fraud and sleight and hammering.

Now Carlos Bisceglia proceeds to speak of Semsiyat Dome (identified by Google maps as Richat structure), and give its history.

So really this book is a very long version of the newsflash describing discovery of this feature in the Sahara and asking if this was Atlantis.

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"An 'eye' in the desert

"The Sahara Eye, also known as the 'Eye of Africa', or the 'Richat Structure', is in Mauritania, in the Sahara Desert, about 50 km from the 'Semsiyat Dome'. It is a massive geological dome, which lies within a 'crater' that marks its edges. Depending on where it is measured from, this crater has an estimated total diameter of 38 to 50 km. The most recent satellite images suggest a diameter of 44 km. For millennia, no one was aware of its existence. As with the 'Semsiyat Dome', the Sahara Eye is only fully visible in its entirety if the observer is at high altitude, or in space. Seen from ground level, on the other hand, the 'Richat Structure' easily blends in with the rest of the landscape. This 'eye' was first briefly described by Richard-Molard in 1948. But it was not until 1965, when the crew of the Gemini IV spacecraft took photos from space, that we realized what it really was."

So the two are different. Carlos Bisceglia is going to argue there were two Atlantis islands?

But Google maps, when searching for the coordinates of Shamsiyat dome given by Carlos Bisceglia, brings one next door to Richat feature, and there's only the latter visible, not two separate eyes of Africa! What gives?

He proceeds to inform about work of scientists concluding that this feature is a natural formation, instead.

"What happened to the temple of Poseidon, to the royal palace, to the bridges, to the arsenals, and to all that Plato tells us about the capital of Atlantis? It is obvious that, in describing of the capital, the famous philosopher drew heavily on his imagination. In fact, Plato tells us that the Atlanteans essentially built Atlantis as a Greek city. Plato places in this city the temple of a Greek deity, Poseidon. But it is rather unlikely that a people who lived thousands of miles away from Greece would have a temple to a Greek god.

"It is not can it be said that Plato simply 'changed the name' of the Greek deity, as many suggest. In fact, the description given of the statue of Poseidon in his temple, surrounded by the Nereids, is precisely that of the Greek deity. Plato writes: “The statue of Poseidon was so large that its head touched the ceiling of the temple. All around him stood a hundred Nereids on as many dolphins (for this was the number of them as men then believed)”. But it is hard to imagine that a people living in Africa 11,500 years ago had beliefs identical to the Greeks of Plato's time."

Racism? Or inability to imagine Greek colonial influence? Rome did colonise much of the region and in fact there are Roman ruins in more than one place near Algiers.

All this, of course, whether Carlos Bisceglia is completely wrong about his thesis, or not quite so. Plato did, after all, say that Atlantis influenced, perhaps colonized, much of Mediterranean region, including northwest Africa, upto Italy.

"Describing the ships of Atlantis, Plato speaks of Greek triremes. But it is unlikely that a population of 11,500 years ago had the same type of ships of Greek people of Plato's time. The structure of the city includes an 'acropolis', like that of Athens. The army described, equipped with two-person horse-drawn chariots, hoplites, stone-throwers, and infantrymen, is the typical Greek army. The hippodromes, gymnasiums, baths with hot and cold water, are all typical structures of the Greek cities of the philosopher's time. But it is impossible that thousands of kilometres away, near the tropics, 9,000 years before Plato, the Atlanteans had built a 'copy' of the Greek civilization of his time. When we look how different the Egyptians cities were from the Greeks ones, in terms of customs and habits, we can imagine how living in Africa would have made the Atlanteans different from the Greeks."

One, Plato and his sources spoke of Atlantis influence on Mediterranean region, so perhaps it was Greece that retained it, rather than the other way.

Two, Egypt might be warmer than Greece, but Atlantis wasn't necessarily all tropical, besides being island in a large ocean stretching from pole to pole; it probably was cooler.

Three, Boston and Lisbon are at comparable latitudes, but certainly not share comparable weather - New England is far colder than even London, far more north of Lisbon, and perhaps colder than Scandinavia in winter, although not in summer.

Four, finally and most importantly, Atlantis wasn't North West Africa, but an island across and outside of straits of Gibraltar in Atlantic Ocean.

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"If the priests of Sais had told Solon the architectural of the city of Atlantis, even if they had made it up, then it would have been full of pyramids, sphinxes, and Egyptian gods. An Atlantis without pyramids can hardly be the product of an Egyptian mind of that time. The description of the capital of Atlantis as a beautiful Greek-style city is the clearest proof that this part of the story is Plato's creation."

Because nobody else could have had Greek ideas, architecture or civic facilities, ten thousand years before Greeks, and there's mathematical proof that Greek culture was original, not copy of Atlantis?

Really Carlos Bisceglia is like the monotheistic that's atheist in reality in all but the name. He's attempting to prove Plato's Atlantis was North West Africa, but does a sleight, instead, and thereafter proceeds then to insist that Plato lied.

"Thus, Plato's accounts were often made to 'nudge' his listeners in one 'political' direction rather than another. Seen from this point of view, the historical reliability of one of his accounts was not the main element to bear in mind. Plato made extensive use of 'myths' in his teaching, whether these myths were based on mere fantasy and legend, such as the endless stories about Greek gods, or whether they were based on real events, as in Solon's account. People knew this, and so they could discern what was true from what was mythical. Plato therefore felt no obligation to write things that were necessarily 'true and verifiable', otherwise we would have to believe that all the myths he wrote about Greek gods or goddesses were 'true and verifiable'. Of course, this cannot be so."

And yet Carlos Bisceglia wouldn't lift a finger to save anyone from death in inquisition. Bravery in denying Gods of others is always easy!

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"The 'geographical coordinates' left by Plato indicate that the empire of Atlantis included the regions enclosed by Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, the adjacent islands, and possibly southern Spain. Herodotus wrote how the Atlanteans resided at the foot of Mount Atlas in Northwest Africa. Similarly, Diodorus Siculus also places the Atlanteans in the area south of the Atlas mountain range. According to Diodorus Siculus, therefore, the Atlanteans, at some time in the distant past, were a population of northwest of Africa."

It'd be more correct to conclude that "the Atlanteans, at some time in the distant past, included a population of northwest of Africa", rather than that "the Atlanteans, at some time in the distant past, were a population of northwest of Africa".

It's very possible that Plato's judgment regarding the island than sank was better, since he wrote about mud barrier past straits of Gibraltar that were difficult to navigate, but others did not take into consideration.

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"The Atlantis of Pliny the Elder

"The historian Pliny the Elder (23 CE - 75 CE), although not dealing with the legend of Atlas, explicitly mentioned the “island of Atlas” in his writings. He had never been there and tells us this account only from hearsay. This further helps us to understand where the people of that time believed Atlantis to be. In his Naturalis Historia (36:31) he writes: “Polybius (206 BCE - 118 BCE) informs us that Cerne is situated at the extremity of Mauritania, opposite Mount Atlas, a mile from the coast. Cornelius Nepos says that it lies almost in the same meridian as Carthage, 10 miles from the mainland and that it measures no more than 2 miles. There is also said to be another island off Mount Atlas, itself also called Atlantis, from which a journey of two days along the coast reaches the desert district in the vicinity of the Western Ethiopians and the above-mentioned cape called the West Horn, the point at which the coast begins to curve westwards towards the Atlantic”. The historian Pliny the Elder tells us that it was generally believed that the Island of Atlantis lay somewhere near Mauritania.

"Pliny the Elder, like Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, also makes no mention of Atlantis as an empire. He does not mention its fantastic capital, the war fought with Greece, or the sinking of the island overnight. In fact, Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder omits Plato's story, even though it was written centuries before his account. Why? The writer Proclus, in his “Commentary on Plato's Timaeus”, Book I, verses 76, 1-15 talks about it saying: “[Regarding the tale of Atlantis] some say that it is a true story. This is also the opinion of Cantor, the first commentator on Plato. He claims that the philosopher was mocked by his contemporaries”. Is it likely that, at that time, Plato's version of Atlantis had “fallen out of favour”, being regarded as a mere legend, and therefore writers did not think it appropriate to mention it? This is a distinct possibility."

They did not have the knowledge brought by modern science, which ought to lead us to better judgment.

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" ... In the dialogue 'Timaeus', Plato says of the 'Land of Ma' (or Atlantis): “This power came from the Sea of Atlas. In those days it was possible to cross that sea. There was an island situated in front of the Strait that you call 'the Pillars of Hercules'. The island was bigger than Libya and Asia put together, and it was the way to other islands. From these islands, you could go to the mainland opposite, which was surrounded by a true open sea. For the sea on this side of the strait of which I spoke before is like a harbour, with a narrow entrance. But that other is a true sea, and the surrounding land can truly be called ´Continent´. Now on this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire that ruled over the whole of that island, but also over other islands and over some parts of the Continent. Furthermore, the people of Atlantis, had subdued parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy)”."

"Plato describe Atlantis as an empire that extended over several geographical areas. The most important part was a big island. It is said to have been “as large as Libya and Asia”. But we must remember that at that time, not having accurate maps, it was quite difficult to quantify exactly how big the various lands were. This description of Plato was a way of saying that Atlantis was a big island, much bigger than the big islands known at the time, i.e., Sicily and Sardinia."

Author is proceeding here to contradict everything plainly seen in previous paragraph. Greece probably misjudged size of Asia in saying that Atlantis was "as large as Libya and Asia", but it can be safely said that it amounted to it being not a Canary Island opposite Africa. Moreover he does speak of other, smaller islands leading to a much greater Continent west, surrounded by a sea, compared to which Mediterranean was a harbour. All this indicates an island Continent on top of what we know as Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Author proceeds to argue instead that Plato meant North West Africa when he said Atlantis was an island outside Straits of Gibraltar.

"Furthermore, close to this large island, there were smaller islands. Near these smaller islands there was a continent. Figuring out which continent we are talking about is quite simple. There are not many options to choose from. This continent was located to the west of Greece. It cannot be the American continent, as some claim. An “American continent' would have been found in the “Ôkeanos”. But Plato nowhere mentions the “Ôkeanos” about Atlantis. Being close to the “Atlas Sea”, this “continent” could have been situated either in northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), or in southwest Europe (Spain and Portugal)."

If there was a large island facing straits of Gibraltar after crossing the straits, sea wouldn't seem large there. Plato then speaks of smaller islands chain reaching a continent surrounded by a true sea, which would be correct description of a chain of islands reaching continent across Atlantic Ocean.

"In the description of Atlantis given in the dialogue Critias, it is said: “The twin brother born after [King Atlas] was called Gadiro ... He was given the end of the island towards the Pillars of Hercules, opposite the region now called Gadirica”. According to Plato, 'opposite' the Gadirica region was the 'island' of Atlantis'. A piece of the island was in front of 'the region called Gadirica'. The name 'Gadir', meaning 'fortress', is the original name of the Spanish city of Cadiz. In ancient Greece it was known as Gadeira, and in the time of the Roman Empire as Gades. So, it is easy to imagine that the “continent” of Atlantis included southern Spain and Portugal."

No, it clearly indicates that the region meant was opposite Spain across sea, a part of an island that stretched from opposite Africa in south to opposite Spain in North, and connected across Atlantic to a large continent opposite in west via a chain of smaller islands.

" ... Opposite Spain, bathed by the “Atlas Sea”, was located ancient Mauritania, i.e., present-day Morocco. Why does Plato speak of ancient Mauritania as an island? In our perception of reality, the world around us never changes. We live too little time to realize the profound climatic and geographical changes our planet is undergoing. What was the area around ancient Mauritania like 11,500 years ago? The answer to this question may surprise us."

Or Carlos Bisceglia is stretching, and Plato is speaking of North East coast of an island situated over Mid-Atlantic Ridge stretching from Strait of Gibraltar to west towards Caribbean.

Carlos Bisceglia quotes several sources on the subject with different data, who opine that Sahara was not always a desert, but that still doesn't make it an island across sea.

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"The mega-lakes of the Sahara

"Now we know that the 'African Humid Period' had a deep impact on Africa's water resources, such as rivers and lakes. The latest research carried out with the help of satellites whose radio waves are capable of 'looking under the sand', shows that there were huge lakes in North Africa at least 9,000 years ago. According to these findings, some ancient lakes in North Africa were exceptionally large, like today's Caspian Sea, or even larger. These so-called mega-lakes were formed in the North (Mega-Lake Fezzan, Libya); in the South (Mega-Lake Chad, between Chad, Niger, and Nigeria); in the West (Mega-Lake Chotts, Algeria); in the East (Mega-Lake Turkana, Kenya). There were also many large lakes scattered throughout the territory, but which cannot be called mega-lakes comparable to the Caspian Sea. This would mean that during their presence there was an extremely high level of humidity throughout Africa. At the foot of Mount Atlas, nothing resembled today's Sahara Desert."

Nevertheless, there are two major factors that contradict Carlos Bisceglia in his establishing that Plato meant North West Africa.

One, the said lakes weren't, presumably, salt water lakes like Lake Titicaca, remnants of a once coastal region that was heaved up during a tectonic clash. And that people have always known this difference between a lake and the sea.

So when Plato said island across sea from Strait of Gibraltar, he wasn't confusing a mainland region of North West Africa surrounded by lakes that weren't saltwater but fed by Monsoon rains.

Two, far more vital, the story came from Egyptian sources - and they could always reach this region by land, and presumably knew this, and couldn't have referred to it as an island at all. But Plato and other Greek writers do, which had to be what Egyptians told Greeks. So it could hardly be part of the same continent as Egypt.

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"The gigantic Tamanrasset River

"The Sahara of 9,000 BCE was not only a land of mega-lakes, but also of mega-rivers. An article in the 10 November 2015 issue of 'Nature' confirms this. The study is entitled “African humid periods triggered the reactivation of a large river system in Western Sahara”. The article reiterates that the last “African Humid Period” extends roughly between 14,500 and 6,000 years ago, i.e., from 12,500 BCE to 4,000 BCE According to this study, along the coast of Mauritania are the remains of huge sediment deposits from one or more rivers. But in our days, there are no rivers in that part of Africa of such a size that they could create such a phenomenon. Some scholars have suspected, therefore, that in the past, during the last African Humid Period, there was at least one mega-river that crossed North-West Africa, from the Atlas mountain range to present-day Mauritania. Subsequently, this mega-river should have dried up.

"Driven by this suspicion, the researchers tried to find out if they were right. To get their answers, they used the Japanese PALSAR satellite, which can carry out geological surveys under the Saharan sand. In the area where the remains of ancient river sediments were found, the satellite discovered an underwater canyon, called Cap Timiris, 400 kilometres wide, off the coast of Mauritania. (The article reporting the discovery is entitled “Cap Timiris Canyon: A Newly Discovered Channel System offshore of Mauritania”, by Sebastian Krastel)."

Carlos Bisceglia includes a photograph (or colored picture resembling one), of the region as it'd look when this river flowed from East of Gibraltar Strait to South West, in effect separating the North West region of Africa from the rest, in his efforts to establish that it may have looked like an island.

Except, Egypt and Greece were familiar with huge rivers, and with regions of Earth separated from others by rivers. They aren't called islands, except when the separation is via a single body of water - lake, river or sea.

West couldn't reach Indian lands without crossing Sindhu, whence the nomenclature - India is what West called the land bounded roughly between Sindhu Valley, Himalayan ranges and oceans on three sides to south, and it never was called an island, after Himalayan ranges rising from the ocean that vanished to the North between India and Asia had nevertheless kept it isolated from Asia.

But Australia has always been, naturally and justifiably, always called an island and a continent, both.

The photograph or illustration given by Carlos Bisceglia, moreover, is slightly deceptive. He speaks of the large river from Hoggar plateau, but the Hoggar peak is quite a bit south of the coast; and of course, any sources closer you vast, as his illustration shows, of any major tributary of this river, not only still leave coastal region connected to what he proposes as the alternative Atlantis, but also that's visibly so for any Greek ships.

" ... If the 'river valley', at least at certain times of the year, was completely flooded in large parts of its course, even with shallow water, a peculiar phenomenon would occur. The two sides of the river may have been between 40 and 90 kilometres apart. Looking at the river at ground level, no one would be able to tell whether it was a river or a sea."

No, that's stretching it, and only tenable on the incorrect assumption that humanity was so primitive at the time of Solon and of Atlantis. But reports by Egypt repeated by Solon contradict this. Humanity was civilised enough to distinguish between an island and a large part of a continent separated by a river in spate, especially since coastal region was still connected from Egypt to Algiers city and thence onwards west and south, down to Cap Timiris.

"Although that area of Greece is known as the 'Island of Pelops', the Peloponnese is not actually an island. It is a peninsula connected to the rest of the continent by a small strip of land at the site of the present-day city of Corinth. In our modern language we should call that area the 'peninsula of Pelops', not the 'island of Pelops'. But despite this knowledge, the great Greek playwright Sophocles (496 BCE - 406 BCE) calls it in his works 'the golden island of Pelops'.

"This historical and geographical evidence leads some scholars to believe that, in ancient times, the Greek term 'Nisos', i.e., island, in some cases took on a somewhat broader meaning than the modern one. Our current definition of an island is: a portion of land surrounded by a sea, river, or lake. Usually, an island is defined as something much smaller than a continent. For example, Australia is technically an island, being surrounded by sea. But it is so big that nobody would call it an island. It is a Continent surrounded by sea."

Australia certainly is also termed an island, whatever the mistakes by Greeks - and, it was Egypt, not Greeks, that called Atlantis an island.

Egyptians were perfectly capable of expressing it otherwise if Atlantis were situated on their own continent reachable by a long walk west along coast.

Carlos Bisceglia mentions a map by Herodotus with this river confused with Nile, and hives an illustration that's bordering deception. Because the picture given is as if there's an ocean connecting Arabic sea to Atlantic just south of Sahara and Ethiopia, and a river is separately pictured from Atlas mountains to flow in a parallel crescent. He labels Strait of Gibraltar 'Atlas Sea'.

"Before going any further, it is useful to note one aspect. The lands south of Mount Atlas, i.e., the Sahara, were already arid at the time Herodotus lived. The African Humid Period had been over for at least centuries, if not millennia. The river described in his map, which he starts at Mount Atlas and then becomes 'the Nile', did not exist at the time of the ancient Greeks. Herodotus cannot, therefore, have seen that river in person, any more than any Greek historian or geographer of his time, or even of previous centuries. In fact, in the map of Hecataeus of Miletus, a highly esteemed geographer just before Herodotus, that river does not appear. How did Herodotus know of its past existence?

"If the Tamanrasset River had already dried up by about 3000 BCE, the source of Herodotus' information must necessarily have been before that date. What population of the Sahara had kept this information, which was then consulted by Herodotus? Only an advanced civilization, such as the Greeks or the Egyptians, was capable to create such maps, for reasons of trade or study. And this civilization, whoever it was, had studied the course of the Tamanrasset River during the last African Humid Period, millennia before Herodotus. The most logical explanation is to think that, through the priests of Sais, this source of information came from the same 'Land of Ma', or Atlantis, as it was later called by Solon."

And presumably they were capable of distinguishing between a region across a large river but connected along vast, from an island across the Strait of Gibraltar which was not reachable by land.

"The knowledge of the geography of the Sahara by the priests of Sais, or those who informed them, was amazing. They were talking about landscapes that existed thousands of years ago. In the Timaeus, the priest of Sais told the incredulous Solon: “As for the foundation of the city of Sais, it is written in our Holy Scriptures that it has existed for 8,000 years (8,600 BCE, thus 10,600 years ago)”. How is this possible?"

It's unclear what exactly is Carlos Bisceglia questioning possibility of, apart from Sais being as old as 10,600 years old - and if that, why.

Is it only because modern historians of West are too terrified post centuries of Inquisition to flout church diktats regarding history of humanity? It'd seem so, since there's no reason to contradict or question the ground source in Egypt so promptly, even if one cannot declare faith without evidence thereof - but surely the pyramids are evidence enough of antiquities of Egypt?