The Atlantis Encyclopedia
by Frank Joseph
Formigas
An Irish rendition of Atlantis found in the ninth-century Travels of O’Corra and
Voyage of Bran. Formigas “had a wall of copper all around it. In the center stood
a palace from which came a beautiful maiden wearing sandals of findrine on her
feet, a gold-colored jacket covered with bright, tinted metal, fastened at the neck
with a broach of pure gold. In one hand she held a pitcher of copper, and in the
other a silver goblet.” Plato portrayed the Atlanteans as wealthy miners excelling
in the excavation of copper and gold. The findrine mentioned here appears to be
his orichalcum, the copper-gold alloy he stated was an exclusive product of Atlantis.
(See Findrine, Orichalcum)
Fortunate Isles
Also known as the Isles of the Blest in Greek and Roman myth. They are
sometimes used to describe Atlantis, such as during Hercules’ theft (his 11th
labor) of the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides that were protected
by daughters of Atlas. In other contexts, the Fortunate Isles were believed to
still exist, and seem to have been identified with the Canary Islands. Phoenician,
Greek, and Roman amphorae have been found in the waters surrounding
Lanzarote and other islands in the Canaries. The Fortunate Isles and Isles of
the Blest were synonymous for the distant west and used as a metaphor for the
afterlife.
Fountains of the Deep
German author Karl zu Eulenburg’s 1926 novel in which a passenger liner
runs aground on Atlantis after a part of the sunken civilization rises to the
surface. Die Brunnen der grossen Tiefe is an original, imaginative tale.
Frobenius, Leo
Early 20th-century German explorer and founder of modern African studies.
His pioneering collection of Yoruba oral traditions describing a catastrophic
flood in the ancient past and subsequent migration of survivors, together with
anomalous bronze manufacture among the Benin, convinced Frobenius that
native West Africans preserved folk memories of Plato’s Atlantis.
Fu Sang Mu
In Chinese myth, a colossal mulberry tree growing above a hot “pool” (sea) in
a paradise far over the ocean, toward the east. The land itself is hot. No less than
nine suns perch in Fu Sang Mu’s lower branches. White women renowned for
their beautiful, long hair tend the li chih, or “herb of immortality,” in a garden at
the center of the island. The lost Pacific civilization of Mu was chiefly characterized
by a sacred Tree of Life, and its climate was said to have been very hot.
(See Chomegusa, Horaizan, Mu)
G
Gadeiros
The second king named in Plato’s account of Atlantis, Kritias. Gadeiros was
assigned to a region of south-Atlantic Spain, and the modern city of Cadiz is
indeed the ancient Gades known to the Romans. But the name is found elsewhere throughout the Atlantean sphere of influence. Agadir is in Tunisia, while
another Agadir, a southern port in Morocco, was utterly destroyed during a
series of earthquakes and tsunamis that killed more than 20,000 persons between
February 29 and March 1, 1960. Fronting as it does the suspected location of Atlantis,
Agadir’s fate reaffirms the geologic feasibility of an Atlantis-like catastrophe
occurring in that area of the world.
But Plato is not the only source for information about Gadeiros. The Gauls
themselves spoke of their first chiefs arriving at the mouth of the River Tagus, in
or very near present-day Lisbon. There they settled for a time, naming their first
town Porto Galli (“Port of the Gauls”), from which derives modern Portugal.
Eventually they moved into the Continent to become the earliest leaders of the
Gallic tribes. Their king who led them from the sunken Turris Vitrea, or “Island
of Glass Towers,” was the “Chieftain of the Peoples,” Hu-Gadarn, likewise claimed
by the Druids. They told their Roman conquerors that the Celts were partly descended from refugees of a drowned land in the Far West. Legend begins to
merge with history at this point when we consider Celtic origins in the early 12th
century B.C. Tumulus culture—the same period that witnessed the dispersal of
Atlanteans from their engulfed homeland.
Hu-Gadarn is mentioned in the Welsh Hanes Taliesan, the “Tale of Taliesan,”
where he is known as Little Gwion. If this affectionate diminutive seems derivative
of the Trojan capital, Ilios, (Wilion in Hittite and perhaps the Trojan language, as
well), the impression is deepened when Hu-Gadarn says, “I am now come here to
the remnant of Troia.” Troy was allied with Atlantis through common blood-ties
(See Electra). Although Hu-Gadarn is regarded as the first ancestor of the Cymry,
the Welsh people, his Atlantean identity is no less apparent: “I have been fostered
in the Ark,” he confesses. Hanes Taliesan reports, “He had been fostered between
the knees of Dylan and the Deluge,” arriving in Wales after a worldwide flood
whipped up by a monstrous serpent.
“Hu” was not part of his name, but rather a title referring to his royal lineage.
So, the Welsh Gadarn and Plato’s Gadeiros, both kings, appear to be one and the
same monarch.
Gamu
An island among the Maldives, directly south of the Indian subcontinent at
the equator, featuring stone structures similar to Yucatan’s Pyramid of Kukulcan,
at Chichen Itza. Both sites have local traditions of racially alien culture-bearers
responsible for initiating civilization. “Gamu” apparently derives from “Mu,” the
Pacific kingdom contemporary with Atlantis.
(See Kukulcan, Mu, Redin)
Garamantes
A “Chariot-People” described by the Greek historian Herodotus (circa 500
B.C.) as invaders of the Mediterranean World at the time of the Trojan War
(1250 B.C.). The Garamantes’ red and yellow rock paintings may still be seen at
Tin-Abou Teka, in Tunisia. They wore the same armored vests and crested,
horned helmets as the Atlantean “Sea Peoples” depicted on the walls of Medinet
Habu, Pharaoh Ramses III’s “Victory Temple” in West Thebes. The Garamantes
were part of a massive invasion force from Atlantis, which tried to conquer Egypt
after the Atlantean catastrophe, in 1198 B.C.
Garden of the Hesperides
The Hesperides were Atlantises, daughters of Atlas by Themis, goddess of
justice, knowledge, and nature. In Kritias, Plato mentions that 5 was the sacred
numeral of Atlantis, and there were five Hesperides: Aigle, mistress of magic; Arethusa, who bore another set of daughters, the Hyades; Erythea, mistress of
Earth-powers; Hespera, personification of the planet Venus, whose cycles determined their ceremonial schedules; and Hestia, virginal keeper of the perpetual
flame at the heart of the universe. Their chief duty was to tend and protect the
Tree of Life at the center of Atlas’ garden, which he left in their care. The Tree
produced unique golden apples which none but the most holy and purified beings
could touch, because they granted immortality to anyone who ate them. To assist
the Hesperides in its protection, a serpent called Ladon entwined about the bough
Despite these precautions, Heracles managed to steal a golden apple, as one
of the duties he was forced to perform during his 12 labors. It would end up in the
possession of Eris, the goddess of dissension, who had been snubbed by her fellow
deities at the big wedding celebration of Helen and Paris. Aware of Olympian
jealousies, she inscribed only three words on the apple—“For the fairest”—and
surreptitiously rolled it among the immortal guests. From the petty bickering it
generated, the Trojan War, with all its attendant horrors and tragedy, developed.
This myth was cited to demonstrate the calamitous consequences of abusing
spiritual power.
The Hesperides were originally known as Hesperu Caras (Leonard, 178). To
the Guarani Indians, the Caras were light-skinned goddesses who arrived on the
eastern shores of South America after escaping a terrible cataclysm. The same
name and account are known to the Brazilian Goiaz. All white people are still
referred to as Cara-ibas by the Chevantes of Matto Grosso, in Brazil. The mid16th-century historian, Gonzalo de Orviedo, learned from the natives of the
West Indies that their islands were synonymous with the Hesperides. From this
and abundant, similar oral evidence he collected throughout Middle America,
de Orviedo was the first researcher to conclude that the indigenous inhabitants
were descended from survivors of the Atlantis catastrophe. Their remote and
isolated native traditions clearly preserved a folk memory of Atlantean visitors.
The Hesperides were Atlantean priestesses of the primeval and most holy
mysteries of Atlantis. Their mystery cult promised immortality for successful initiates, as signified by the Tree of Life with its snake, a symbol of regeneration
because of the animal’s ability to slough off its old, dead skin and emerge with a
new one. Comparisons with the Garden of Eden in Genesis are unavoidable, and
doubtless represent an Old Testament corruption of the Atlantean original.
The Hesperides are sometimes given as seven in number. As such, they may
correspond to the seven major chakras, or metaphysical energy centers that,
collectively, comprise the human personality. So too, the Tree of Life symbolizes
the spinal column, along which the chakras are arranged. This interpretation
suggests that kundalini yoga originated in Atlantis, from which it spread around
the world. Indeed, the Tree of Life is a theme frequently encountered in many
European and Asian traditions of Atlantis and Lemuria, respectively.
“Ides” of Hesperides means “in the midst of,” or “the all-powerful mid-point,”
implying the ceremonial revolution of the planet Venus, the Greek Hespera,
around the ritual core of the cult. But Hestia may have been the most centrally important as a fifth, central point of the Hesperides. She was entrusted with the
perpetual flame, that initial spark that created the universe and is located at its
very center. Hestia presided over the sacred fire at the hearths of private homes,
as well as in public temples. Hers was the torch with began the Olympic Games.
The Hesperides were venerated in Rome as the most holy concept, with particular
emphasis on Hestia as Vesta. Her temple enshrined a perpetual flame attended
by virgins known as Vestals.
Edgar Cayce said that sacred flames were tended in the Atlantis Temple of
Fire, always by women, like the Hesperides. He mentions Ameei, Asmes, Assha,
Ilax, and Jouel (like the five Hesperides, who they possibly impersonated) in
separate readings as priestesses “to the fire worship.”
The Gate-Keepers
In the Nile Valley, the Gate Keepers were deified guardians of the pillars of
Sekhet-Aaru, the “Field of Reeds.” Like much in Egyptian myth, Sekhet-Aaru was
regarded simultaneously as a real place and a religious metaphor. Elements of both
the historical and the spiritual combined and interacted. Sekhet-Aaru’s description
in the Egyptian Book of the Dead as an island for the souls of the departed located in
the far western ocean and featuring concentric walls clearly identifies it as a poetic
rendering of Atlantis, itself characterized by Plato as a “sacred isle.”
The “pillars” of the Gate Keepers are the Pillars of Hercules, an ancient reference to the Straits of Gibraltar, dividing Europe and Africa from the Atlantic
realm, including the pillar-cult that was practiced in Atlantis at the Temple of
Poseidon, according to Plato in Kritias. The names of some of these mythical
Gate-Keepers echo the Atlantean experience: Mistress of the World, Mistress of
Destruction, Lady of the Flames, Covering Deluge, and so on.
Gateway to Remembrance
A 1948 theosophical novel about Atlantis by Phyllis Cradock. Even the Atlantis
debunker, L. Sprague De Camp, admitted that he found Gateway to Remembrance
“a skillfully wrought and absorbing narrative.”
Gaueteaki
A Melanesian creation-goddess revered at Bellona Island and throughout the
Solomon Islands, where secret rituals inform her followers how they may overcome death and attain eternal life. Gaueteaki is worshiped in the unusual form of
a smooth, black stone. This is the Omphalos, or “Navel Stone,” centerpiece of the
chief mystery-religion in Atlantis, carried by surviving initiates around the globe
following the destruction of their homeland. She is also known as Gauteaki.
(See Navel of the World)
Geiger, Wilhelm
Leading Iraniologist and doyen of Middle Eastern archaeology, whose stellar
academic credentials lent Atlantology important credibility in the early 20th century. Referring to the ancient Athenian military commander and statesman,
Alcibiades I, as cited by Plato, Geiger remarked:
Quite unique stands the statement, “He was a Greek, or one of
those who came forth from the continent on the other side of the
Great Sea.” This last expression is very obscure. It sounds too
mysterious to designate the Greeks of Asia Minor. Is it, perhaps,
some reminiscence of the passage of primitive man to the six
Keshvars (mythic realms in Iranian tradition)? Or of Atlantis?
Gigantomachy
In Greek myth, a conflict between the Titans and the Olympians that could be
a metaphor for the Atlanto-Athenian War described by Plato. Atlas was a Titan,
and the Gods might have been fashioned into glorified images of the victorious
Greeks. For his participation in the Gigantomachy, which he led after the resignation of Kronos, Atlas was condemned to bear the sky on his shoulders. His
punishment was probably a mythic device to reaffirm the conquest of Atlantis,
because in other traditions he supports the sphere of the Zodiac, not in an image
of defeat, but as the inventor of astrology-astronomy.
Ginunngigap
In Norse myth, a great deluge that once drowned the whole world. After the
waters receded, the first dry land was exposed. In various sagas, Ginunngigap
was survived by various flood heroes who founded human society.
(See Esaugetuh Emissee)
Giron-Gagal
According to the Quiche cosmological book, the Popol Vuh, the Giron-Gagal
was a power-crystal presented to Balaam-Qitze by Nacxit, the “Great Father” of
Patulan-Pa-Civan, the Mayas’ version of Atlantis. He was about to lead a company of “Old Men,” the U Mamae, across the ocean to Yucatan. The Giron-Gagal
was a “symbol of power and majesty to make the peoples fear and respect the
Quiches.”
(See Balaam-Qitze, Chintamani, Nacxit, Patulan-Pa-Civan, The Tuaoi Stone,
U Mamae)
Glooskap
The Micmac Indians’ flood hero, who arrived on the eastern shores of Nova
Scotia from “beyond the sea.”
Gloyw Wallt Lydan Gaelic Liathan Literally “The days when the high seas parted the old kingdom,” a lost, medieval
epic describing an Atlantis-like flood and the arrival of survivors in ancient Wales,
where they became its first kings.
Die Goetterdaemmerung
In Germanic myth, the “Twilight of the Gods”—a worldwide cataclysm,
brought about by “fire from heaven” and a universal deluge. Also known as Ragnarok.
Gogmagog
British flood hero whose 150-foot-long image was cut into Dorset’s chalk hills,
near the town of Cerne-Abbas in the south of England, during the late Stone Age.
Gogmagog features the “og” appellation identifying Atlantean figures in Old Irish
and biblical traditions.
Golden Age
In Greek myth, the first age of mankind, when happiness, truth, and right
prevailed on Earth. It was known as a “golden” age, not for any abundance of
gold wealth, but because the sun was universally worshiped as a beneficent god.
As such, some researchers point to the numerous solar orientations of ancient
structures throughout the world, such as Ireland’s 5,200-year-old tomb at New
Grange, with its “roof-box” aligned to the winter solstice. Identical alignments
occur throughout the world among North America’s prehistoric mounds; on the
Pacific island of Tonga; formerly at Heliopolis, the Egyptian Onur, in the Upper
Nile Valley; and at many other locations. This epoch was also known as “the Age
of Chronos,” a Titan associated with the Atlantic Ocean (“Chronos maris” to the
Romans). Indeed, Plutarch wrote that Kronos, after his defeat in the
Gigantomachy, was imprisoned “under a mountain” on Ogygia; this is an apt
description of volcanic Mount Atlas, because Ogygia was the island of Calypso,
which is as much to say the island of Atlantis.
Thus the Golden Age may refer to an early, pre-imperial period of Atlantis
in the fourth millennium B.C., when seafaring culture-bearers were establishing
the spiritual-scientific principles of a solar cult around the world.
(See Fand)
Gorgons
In Greek myth, a trio of sisters: Euryale, the “Far-Flung,” or “Far Away”;
Stheino, “Strength”; and, most famous of all, Medusa, “Queen,” or possibly “Sea
Queen.” Their names imply that they were not always the monsters of classical
times, but originally titles of the triadic lunar goddess. Orphic mystics in fact
referred to the moon as “Gorgon Head.” The Gorgons’ unfortunate transformation
came about with the destruction of their Atlantean homeland.
To save Andromeda from being sacrificed for Poseidon, Perseus decapitates
Medusa’s head—writhing with snakes instead of hairs—for use as a weapon that
will turn his opponents to stone. Barbara Walker writes that this aspect of Medusa’s
power was perverted from its original function “to enforce taboos on secret
Mysteries of the Goddess, guarded by stone pillars formerly erected in honor of
her deceased lovers.” Its lethal potential may have been changed to reflect the
traumatic effects of the Atlantean cataclysm. Medusa’s parentage was Atlantean;
she was the offspring of Phorcys, “the Old Man of the Sea,” and Ceto, daughter of
Oceanus.
Gorgons were characteristically portrayed in Greek art as monstrous women
with exposed teeth, fangs, and tongue. Precisely the same figures appear at two
widely separated pre-Columbian American sites connected by common themes
to Atlantis: (1) at Colombia’s San Agustin, where the Atlantean kingdom of
Musaeus was located and the Muysica Indians preserved the story of a great flood,
and (2) at Peru’s Chavin de Huantar, a pre-Inca city built just when Atlantis was
destroyed, in 1198 B.C.
Even in Late Classical Times, the Canary Islands were known collectively as
“Gorgonia” by Greek and Roman geographers. The Gorgons were identified with
these Islands by the Iberian geographer, Pomponius Mela, who lived at Tingentera,
near the Pillars of Heracles, today’s Strait of Gibraltar, in 40 A.D. The Canary
Islands’ association with Gorgons finds additional historical foundation in the
names its original inhabitants, the Guanches, gave to different areas of their main
island, Tenerife—Gorgo and Gorgano. In the Posthomerica (Book X, 197), the
Atlantic province of the Gorgons is explicit: “Gilded Perseus was killing fierce
Medusa, where the bathing place of the stars are, the ends of the Earth, and the
sources of deep flowing Oceanus, in the West, where night meets the timeless,
setting sun.”
Aethiopia, where Atlas was transformed into a mountain, was identified in
early classical times, not with Abyssinia, but North Africa’s Atlantic coast. The
Gorgons, “Daughters of Night,” were said to live in the western extremes of
Oceanus, a theme underscored first by Medusa’s marriage to Poseidon, and again
through her son, the monarch of Erytheia, the Atlantean kingdom of Gadeiros
(Cadiz) in Atlantic Spain. The Gorgons’ location in the Far West was reaffirmed
by Ovid, and placed specifically in the Atlantean realm by Hesiod, who wrote that
they “dwell beyond the glorious ocean, where are the clear-voiced Hesperides.”
Palaephastus recorded that Athena herself was worshiped as “Gorgo” in the Fortune Isles (that is, the Canary Islands). Even in Greece, her surname was
Gorgophora. In Libya, Athena was actually referred to as “Medusa.” Given her
cult’s arrival in Greece from the west, via Libya, Athena may have been originally
an Atlantean goddess. This interpretation is underscored by the Gorgons themselves, who were described in their earliest myths as residents of the near-Atlantic,
but relocated in later accounts to Libya. Her Egyptian incarnation as Neith is
particularly cogent, because it was at her temple in Sais that the story of Atlantis
was enshrined, according to Plato.
The Gorgons’ legendary power to turn men and objects into stone suggests the
numerous islets in the vicinity of the Canary Islands, many of them fashioned into
fantastic simulacrum by the actions of wind and wave over time. Mela’s association of the Canary Islands with the abode of the Gorgons may have derived from
numerous rocks he saw fashioned into bizarre forms by constant wave action. The
rocks were deadly for sailors, hence the Gorgons’ lethal reputation.
Gorgon means “grim-faced” and implies “the works and agencies of Earth,”
referring to geologic upheaval. Lewis Spence writes (in The Occult Sciences in
Atlantis):
Thus we find the Gorgon women connected with those seismic
powers which wrought the downfall of Atlantis...It was indeed
the severed head of Medusa, the “witch,” which, in the hands of
Perseus, transformed Atlas into a mountain of stone. The proof,
therefore, is complete that the myth of the Gorgon sisters is
assuredly a tale allegorical of the destruction of Atlantis and of
those evil forces, seismic and demonic, which precipitated the
catastrophe.
Gorias
A sunken city from which the Nemedians arrived in Ireland after the Third
Atlantean Flood during the early 17th century B.C. The sacred object of Gorias
was a mysterious “dividing sword.”
(See Falias, Finias, Murias, Nemedians, Tir-nan-Og, Tuatha da Danann)
Great Pyramid
According to Edgar Cayce, the Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau was built as
a cooperative effort between Egyptian residents, who formed the labor force, and
Atlantean architects, in a successful effort to politically combine immigrants from
the west with native population through a shared public works project. He is at least
fundamentally seconded by researcher, Kurt Mendelssohn, who concluded that the
monument was raised as a state-forming act that called upon the participation of
the entire population in the cause of national unification. Placing its construction at
the very beginning of Dynastic civilization, Mendelssohn believed its completion
coincided with and actually brought about the creation of ancient Egypt.
Arab accounts told of a pre-flood
king, Surid (pronounced shu-reed),
who was forewarned of the coming
cataclysm, and commanded to establish the Great Pyramid as “a place of
refuge.” Shu, the Egyptian Atlas, was
likewise portrayed as a man supporting the sphere of the heavens on his
shoulders. Perhaps the Arab Surid was
actually the Egyptian Shu, the most
Atlantean of all the gods. The same
Arab writers reported that the Great
Pyramid’s grand architect was Thoth,
the Egyptian god of literature and science, the divine patron of learning,
keeper of the ancient wisdom. He was
equated by the Greeks and Romans
with Hermes and Mercury, respectively, and these names are used interchangeably with Thoth in various
traditions, Arabic and Western, describing the Great Pyramid’s chief engineer.
Edgar Cayce certainly neither heard nor read anything of these obscure traditions in the 1930s or 40s. Yet, during one of his trance-states, he too spoke the
name of the genius most responsible for raising the Pyramid: Thoth. Of all the
deities associated with the structure, either astronomically or spiritually, the
Egyptian Hermes is the most Atlantean. His surviving myth recounts simply that
he arrived at the Nile Delta before the beginning of Egyptian civilization carrying
with him a body of knowledge preserved on “emerald tablets” from a flood that
overwhelmed his homeland in the primeval sea.
According to the Classical geographer Diodorus Siculus, “The Egyptians themselves were strangers who in very remote times settled on the banks of the Nile,
bringing with themselves the civilization of their mother country, the art of
writing and a polished language. They had come from the direction of the setting
sun, and were the most ancient of men.” Other contemporary writers described
Egypt as the “daughter of Poseidon,” the sea-god creator of Atlantis.
(See Cayce)
Great Sphinx The most famous anthropomorphic monument on Earth, its earliest known
name was Hu, or “guardian.” The Greek word, sphinx, describes various elements
“bound together,” referring to the human head atop its lion’s body. Rain erosion
appears to fix the creation of the Great Sphinx to circa 7000 B.C., a conclusion both
conventional scholars and Atlantologists find troubling; the former refuse to believe that it dates before 2600 B.C., while many of the latter are unable to envision an
eighth-millennium B.C. Atlantis. Regardless of who built the Great Sphinx, it was modified on several occasions over time. The head, for example, is clearly dynastic, and
may indeed have been sculpted around the period assigned to it by most Egyptologists. Its face could have belonged to Pharaoh Chephren (or Khafre), as they insist,
although evidence suggests he did not build the Great Sphinx, but only restored it in
the VI Dynasty, when it was already centuries old. Who the original head or face
depicted could not be determined after the pharaoh reworked it into a self-portrait.
At its inception, the monument more likely resembled a crouching lion. Although
it may or may not have been constructed by Atlanteans, they were probably responsible for at least one of its modifications, if not its conception. As a lion, the
Great Sphinx signified the constellation Leo, traditionally associated with heavy rainfall, even floods. As such, it suggests the immigration of Atlanteans after their homeland experienced extensive geologic disturbances in 3100 B.C., when they brought
civilization to the Nile Delta. Interestingly, the famous Dendera zodiac painted on
the ceiling of a New Kingdom temple begins in Leo on the vernal equinox of 9880 B.C.
While this year was millennia before the suspected beginning of civilization in
Egypt, it coincides with the literal date for Atlantis reported by Plato.
Greater Arrival
The Mayas of Middle America recounted two worldwide floods separated
by many centuries. The first of these was the Greater Arrival of Itzamna and Ixchel.
They survived the loss of their kingdom in the Atlantic Ocean, but arrived to
present the Maya ancestors with the gifts of civilization. These included
hieroglyphs, mathematics, temple-building and astronomy-astrology from
Itzamna, “the Lord of Heaven.” Weaving, medicine, and religion were gifts from
his wife, Ixchel. Her name means “the White Lady,” while Itzamna was portrayed
in sacred art with the distinctly un-Indian features of a bearded man with a long
nose. The Itzas were his followers, who named their most famous ceremonial
site in Yucatan, Chichen Itza, after him. The Itzas were also known as the Ahaab,
or “Foreigners to the Land,” a title that literally meant “White Men.” They are
portrayed on the 27th stele at Yaxchilan, the 11th stele at Piedras Negras, and on
the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza as bearded, long-nosed figures with
Europoid features.
They and their leader were said to have come from Tutul Xiu, the “Land of
Abundance,” or “the Bountiful,” far across the sea, “where the sun rises.” The
worship of Ixchel survived the disappearance of the Mayas around the turn of the
10th century among the Aztecs as Coyolxauhqui. Maya temple art depicts her struggling in the waters of the Great Flood, as her possessions lie strewn across the
water. Itzamna was the Atlantean king mentioned in Plato’s Kritias as “Azaes.”
The Greater Arrival is probably a seminal event that marked the opening of
the Maya calendar on August 11, 3110 B.C. This date is remarkable, because it is
virtually identical to Babylonian records of the Great Flood, and coincides with
the founding of Egypt’s First Dynasty; the sudden construction of Ireland’s oldest prehistoric site at New Grange; the start of work at Stonehenge in England; Troy’s
earliest archaeological date; the sudden flowering of megalithic construction at
Malta; the beginning of Minoan civilization; the first Indus Valley cities; and on
and on. Of the traditions that survive from these early cultures, all of them recall
an oceanic catastrophe from which their civilizing ancestors escaped to restart
civilization in new territories.
(See Lesser Arrival)
gSum-pam-Khan-po
Still widely respected 18th-century Tibetan scholar who described the arrival
of Tibet’s first king in Yarling, then the nation’s capital, from “the Land of Mu.”
The new monarch supposedly had webbed fingers, an indigo brow and the images
of wheels tattooed on the palms of both hands. His webbed fingers signified
the overseas character of his Lemurian homeland, while his indigo forehead
corresponded to the dark-blue color associated in kundalini yoga with the “Third
Eye” of psychic power located in the fifth chakra. Indeed, his tattooed hands
imply that he introduced knowledge of the chakras, or spiritual “wheels,” to Tibet.
Chakras are energy centers rising from the base of the spine to the crown of the
head, and operate as vortices connecting the mind and body through the soul.
According to British researcher Chris Ogilvie-Herald, “Even in the mountains of Tibet there survives a tradition of a cataclysm that flooded the highlands,
and comets that caused great upheavals.”
(See Mu)
Guanches
Native inhabitants of the Canary Islands. “Guanche” is a contraction of
Guanchinerfe (“Child of Tenerife”) the name of the largest of the islands. They
were discovered by Portuguese explorers in the mid-15th century, but subsequently
exterminated by the Spaniards through wars and disease. A few, far from pure blooded Guanches may still survive, but their lineage is doubtful. Although their
estimated population of 200,000 resided in most of the Canary Islands, they were
concentrated on Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Las Palmas, and
Lanzarote. Tall, fair-haired, and light-eyed, the Guanches were a white race some
modern investigators believe were the last examples of Cro-Magnon man.
The Guanches raised massive, finely crafted step pyramids not unlike those
in Egypt and Mesoamerica. Many of these structures were built of the native
volcanic tufa, pumice, and lava stone—the same materials Plato described as the
construction components of buildings in Atlantis. The Guanches’ chief deity was
Atlas, known to them as “Ater.” Variants of the name reflect his attributes by
which he was known in Greece: Ataman, “Upholder of the Sky”; Atara, “Holy
Mountain,” etc. Approximately 25 percent of Guanche personal names began
with “At.” The Guanches told the Portuguese their islands were anciently part of
a larger homeland engulfed by the sea, a cataclysm their forefathers survived by
climbing to the top of Mount Teide, Tenerife’s great volcano, the highest peak in
Europe. Guanche oral tradition of this catastrophe concluded with the words,
Janega qyayoch, archimenceu no haya dir hando sahec chungra petut—“The powerful Father of the Fatherland died and left the natives orphans.”
The Atlantis story was preserved at the Canary Islands perhaps in far greater
detail than even Plato’s account before the imposition of Christianity, which
affected Guanche culture like a blight. Perhaps the most revealing of all surviving
material connecting the Canary Islanders to Atlantis is found in the Tois
Aethiopikes by Marcellus. In 45 A.D., he recorded that “the inhabitants of the
Atlantic island of Poseidon preserve a tradition handed down to them by their
ancestors of the existence of an Atlantic island of immense size of not less than
a thousand stadia [about 115 miles], which had really existed in those seas, and
which, during a long period of time, governed all the islands of the Atlantic
Ocean.” Pliny the Elder seconded Marcellus, writing that the Guanches were in
fact the direct descendants of the disaster that sank Atlantis. Proclus reported
that they still told the story of Atlantis in his day, circa 410 A.D.
Atlantis in the Canary Islands does not end with these ancient sources. Like
the Atlanteans in Plato’s account, the Guanches met for prayer by forming a circle
around a sacred pillar with arms raised and palms open in the Egyptian manner.
The Christians threw down all the pillars they could find, but at least one perfectly
preserved specimen survived in the Barranco de Valeron on Tenerife.
The Canaries received their name probably sometime in the mid-first century
from Roman visitors, who observed the inhabitants’ worship of dogs (canarii) in
association with mummification, two more ritual ties to the Nile Valley, where
dog-headed Anubis was a mortuary god. But the Islands appear to have been so
characterized five centuries earlier, when the Greek historian Herodotus wrote
of the Kynesii, who dwelt the farthest away of men, in the west, on an island beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Kyneseii means “dog-worshippers.” Centuries previous to the discovery of the Canary Islands there were medieval accounts of the
Cynocephalii, a dog-headed people living somewhere in the vicinity of Northwest
Africa. In the Old Testament story of Japheth’s son, after the flood he:
...abandoned the society of his fellow men and became the progenitor of the Cynocephalii, a body of men who by this name
denoted that their intelligence was centered on their admiration
for dogs. Following this line of thought we note that when men
are represented as dog-headed one interpretation is that they are
to be regarded as pioneers of human progress through hitherto
untrodden ways” (Howey, 166).
Dogs always played significant roles in Egyptian society. Herodotus describes
how Egyptian males shaved their heads in mourning after the death of a family
dog, just as they did for their fellow humans. In Book II of his History, he writes
that the consumption of wine or bread or any other food that happened to be in
the house at the time of the animal’s death was not permitted. The wealthy had
lavish tombs built specifically for their dogs. An entire sacred city, Cynopolis, was
the center of a canine cult reminiscent of the Canary Islanders, and the location
of an immense cemetery for dogs, which were mummified and buried with their
masters.
But there is no indication that the Pharaonic Egyptians themselves knew the
Guanches ever existed. Numerous comparisons between them indicate diffusion
from west to east, as Atlantean influences spread from the vicinity of the Canary
Islands, across the Mediterranean, and to the Nile Delta in predynastic times.
Persistence of mummification, dog-worship, pyramid-building, and so on among
the Guanches, centuries after these practices vanished from Egypt, was a remnant
from Atlantean epochs. The Canary Islands’ “Egyptian” cultural characteristics
can only be explained by their origin in the Atlantic, not in the Nile Valley, where
they arrived later, circa 3100 B.C. In other words, civilization spread to both the
Canary Islands and the Nile Delta from Atlantis.
Guatavita ceremony
In pre-Spanish Colombia, prior to becoming king, a prince of the Muiscas
Indians boarded his royal barge at the edge of Lake Guatavita. While thousands
of his well-wishing subjects gathered on the shore, the young man was rowed out to a designated location, where he was stripped naked and his body smeared with
a glutinous resin, then entirely sprinkled with gold dust. Thus transformed, the
aspirant to the throne assumed the title of Noa, “the Gilded One.” After sufficiently displaying himself, he dove into the lake, leaving a glittering trail of gold
flakes through the crystal-clear water. When most of them were washed away, he
swam back to the barge, and was helped aboard, his shoulders draped for the first
time with the blue robe of kingship. The initiation ritual dramatized his direct
descent from the Musscas’ founding father, Noa, a rich king from across the sea
who had been thrown adrift by a terrific flood that destroyed his island home. The
gold dust streaming from the swimming prince signified the ancient loss of ancestral wealth.
A similar deluge story repeated by the neighboring Orinoco Indians told of
the Catena-ma-noa, the “Water of Noa.” Resemblance to the biblical Noah in
ether version is striking, but suggestions of lost Atlantis are not missing. The
Muyscas’ newly installed king clearly identified with the survivor of a sunken realm,
while the royal initiate’s blue robe recalls the azure raiment worn by the kings of
Atlantis, as described by Plato.
These overtly Atlantean details associated with Guatavita are remarkably
underscored by the origins of the site itself. The lake is an astrobleme, a crater
caused by a meteor and later filled with water. And while the geologic date of its
formation is uncertain, its impact as concurrent with cometary events involved in
the Atlantis destruction is at least suggested by the oral and ceremonial evidence.
In other words, Lake Guatavita was recognized as a result of the same celestial
catastrophe, perhaps a large fragment of meteoritic debris accompanying the killer comet; hence, the ritual activity, fraught with Atlantean overtones, surrounding
its location since prehistoric times.
Gucumatz
The Quiche Maya flood-hero who traveled over the Sunrise Sea following
the loss of his island home beneath the waves, arriving on the shores of Yucatan
with a troupe of followers who instituted Mesoamerican Civilization. Gucumatz,
described in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiches, would seem to be the
same founding-father figure as Kukulcan, the “Feathered Serpent.”
Gwyddno
In Welsh tradition, the Prince of Cantrefy Gwaelod, a splendid city sunk beneath
the sea—some say in Cardigan Bay, although this may be a later, localized version
of the Atlantis story. Also known in Celtic myth as “Longshanks,” Gwyddno possessed a magic cauldron which was among the original, ancient treasures of Britain.
This sacred object comprises a theme belonging to the Atlantean mystery cult, a
motif often found in other parts of the world in conjunction with Atlantis imagery.
(See Navel of the World)
H
Haiyococab
Recounted in the Dresden Codex as the Aztec “Water Over Earth,” from
which “the Earth-upholding gods escaped when the world was destroyed by a
deluge. Language used to describe the Haiyococab clearly refers to Atlantean
culture-bearers from the cataclysm that struck their homeland.
Halach-Unicob
Meaning “Lords,” “True Men,” “the Lineage of the Land,” “Great Men,” or
“Priest-Rulers,” the Halach-Unicob are ancestors of the Maya who are identified
and portrayed on the 27th stele of Yaxchilan, the 11th stele at Piedras Negras,
and at Chichen Itza’s Temple of the Warriors as bearded figures with long, thin
noses and a European cast of facial features. Inscriptions at these sites repeat that
the Halach-Unicob arrived in Yucatan from Tutulxiu, a radiant kingdom far across
the Atlantic Ocean, long since swallowed by the sea.
(See Ah Auab, Tutulxiu)
Harimagadas
A select group of Guanche women at the Canary Island of Tenerife who sacrificed themselves by jumping from a towering cliff into the sea. This act was meant
to propitiate the sea-god and prevent him from sinking their island, as long ago
happened to an ancestral kingdom. The ritual deaths of these virgins was an
apparent recollection of and response to the destruction of Atlantis, which
occurred approximately 600 miles north of Tenerife.
Harimagadas translates from Old High German for “Holy Maidens,” at least
one indication of the linguistic impact Atlantis made on two widely disparate
peoples and the common Atlantean heritage so many cultures share.
Har-Sag-Mu
“Mu of the Mountain Range,” where Zu, the Sumerian sky-god, settled after
causing a terrible cataclysm. Thereafter, “stillness spread abroad, silence prevailed.”
In the later Babylonian version, as preserved in the Assyrian library of
Ashurbanipal, Zu stole the Tablets of Destiny from his fellow gods, and brought
them to Har-Sag-Mu. His self-transformation into a bird of prey, in order to fight
off a serpent guarding the Tablets, recurs throughout worldwide imagery of an
eagle battling a snake, from the Greek Delphi and Norse Yggdrasil to Aztec Mexico
and pre-Columbian Colombia.
It is also associated with the chakra system of spiritual conflict between the
kundalini serpent wound around the base of the human spine and Garuda, the
eagle of an enlightened crown chakra. Zu’s myth implies that this metaphysical
concept was brought directly from heaven to Har-Sag-Mu, a sacred mountain on
the Pacific island of Mu. Zu’s theft of the Tablets of Destiny, which first described
kundalini yoga, parallel the Western myth in which the brother of Atlas,
Prometheus, stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. That “Promethean
heat” appears to have been no less analogous to kundalini energy, because the
Greek Titan suffered the daily digestion of his liver by an eagle.
During his “life-reading” of April 17, 1936, Edgar Cayce told of immigrants
from the Atlantean catastrophe arriving in the Near Eastern “lands of Zu.”
(See Cayce, Mu)
Hathor
The Egyptian goddess of fiery destruction. She was identified in the wall texts of
Medinet Habu, West Thebes, with a flaming “planet,” in other words, a comet, that
destroyed the island home of the “Sea People” who invaded the Nile Delta in the
early 12th century B.C. These were the Atlanteans described by Plato in their
attempted conquest of the eastern Mediterranean. To extinguish the blazing island,
she sank it beneath the sea. In what may be a variation of this same destruction,
Hathor provoked the gods to inundate the world with a flood aimed at preventing
her from burning up all humanity. In this version of her myth appears a dangerous
comet threatening all human life, but ending with a world deluge.
Hau-neb
A name appearing throughout the wall texts of Medinet Habu, the “Victory
Temple,” erected by Pharaoh Ramses III in West Thebes to commemorate his
triumph over invading Atlanteans. They were known by early 12th-century B.C.
Egyptians as the Hau-neb.
Hawichyepam Maapuch
Sea-goddess of California’s Chemehuevi and Mohave Indians, who believe
she was responsible for keeping the Great Deluge from totally obliterating all
life on Earth. She spared the last two creatures, Coyote and Puma, who sought
refuge at the summit of Charleston Peak. As the flood receded, they descended
the mountain to repopulate the world and pay homage to Hawichyepam
Maapuch. She is part of the Native American rendition of the Flood, which
destroyed a former age of greatness when human arrogance made the Indians’
ancestors turn from their gods.
He Alge tid Kem
“How the Bad Days Came,” a section from the Frisian version the destruction
of Atlantis.
(See Oera Linda Bok)
Hecatoncheires
In Greek myth, “Titans of Ocean,” inventors of the first warships, each one with
50 heads and 100 arms. After their defeat by the Olympian gods, they were buried
under volcanic islands far out at sea. Their fate and description suggests the
Hecatoncheires were metaphors for Atlantean battle cruisers. Their 100 “hands”
were actually oars, while their 50 “heads” corresponded to as many marines on
deck. Cottus, Gyges, and Aegeon, also known as Briareus, formed the trio of “Hundred-Handed Ones,” corresponding to the three harbors of Atlantis described in
Kritias, and may have been the names of flagships in the Atlantean navy, its 1,200
vessels divided into three battle divisions of 400 ships each. As long ago as 1882,
Ignatius Donnelly believed the Hecatoncheires “were civilized races, and that the
peculiarities ascribed to the last two refer to the vessels in which they visited the
shores of the barbarians. The empire of the Titans was clearly the empire of Atlantis.”
Gyges appears to have been Ogyges, who gave his name to the second great
flood associated with the late third-millennium B.C. cataclysms that struck Atlantis.
(See Aegeon, Ignatius Donnelly)
Heer, Oswald
A German paleontologist who was the first scientist to suggest, in 1835, that
the migratory patterns of certain birds and fish in the North Atlantic might be
residual behavior genetically imprinted over successive generations by the former
existence of Plato’s Atlantis.
(See C.P. Chatwin)
Heitsi-Eibib
The Namaqua Hottentots’ flood hero who “came from the east,” landing in the
west of Cape South Africa, a very long time ago, with fellow survivors from a sunken
kingdom. He was the captain of a “swimming house” filled with people and animals.
Despite its resemblance to the biblical Noah, the story of Heitsi-Eibib predates any
contacts with missionary Christianity. Both the Namaqua version and Genesis shared
the same origin in describing culture-bearers from the Atlantean catastrophe.
Helig Voel ap Glannog
A Welsh version of Atlantis.
(See Gwyddno, Llyn Syfaddon) 137s
Hemet Maze Stone
A gray boulder emblazoned with the intricate design of a labyrinthine maze
enclosed in a 3 1/2-foot square. The petroglyph is located on a mountainside just
west of Hemet, California, some 90 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Accumulation
on its surface of a light patina known locally as “desert varnish” suggests the
incised carving was executed between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, despite the
insistence of mainstream archaeologists, who insist, on tenuous physical evidence,
that it could be no more than a few centuries old.
About 50 maze-stones have been identified throughout California, in Orange,
Riverside, Imperial, and San Diego counties, and at least 14 examples of labyrinthine rock art are known in the remote area of Palm Springs. All of them have
been found within 150 miles of each other, and virtually every one is rectangular,
although varying in size from 4 inches to several feet in diameter. They are invariably located on boulder-strewn mountainsides, and are perhaps the remnants of
a pilgrimage route dedicated to commemorating a seminal event in the deep past.
The maze itself is in the form of a swastika, a sacred symbol for numerous
Native American tribes across the continent. Among the Hopi Indians, the hooked
cross signifies the migration of their tribe from the east following a great flood that
overwhelmed early mankind. Although it is not known if Hopi forefathers carved
the Hemet Maze Stone, the Atlantean significance of their ancestral myth is
suggested by its westward oriented design. These implications are complimented by a late 15th-century example of
Mexican featherwork in a similar,
swastika-like design (with reversed
orientation, however) belonging to a
transparently Atlantean figure in
Mesoamerican myth, Chalchiuhtlicue;
“Our Lady of the Turquoise Skirt”
was the Aztec goddess of death at sea.
Hopi sand paintings, spiritual devices
for the removal of illness, are often
formed into swastikas, with the patient
made to sit at its center.
In the bottom-left corner of the
square outline of the Hemet Maze
Stone is a simple, much smaller, reversed, or right-oriented hooked
cross, known in Buddhism as the
sauvastika. Both swastikas and
sauvastikas are common images
throughout Asia, where they denote
Buddha’s right and left foot, respectively, and refer to his missionary
travels throughout the world. As such, the Buddhist swastika-sauvastika and
California petroglyph appear to share a parallel symbolism which both Asians and
ancient Americans may have received independently from a common source. James
Churchward, a 20th-century authority on Mu, stated that the swastika was the
Pacific civilization’s foremost emblem. He referred to it as “the key of universal
movement,” a characterization complimenting both Hopi and Buddhist symbolism.
(See Chalchiuhtlicue, Churchward)
Hennig, Richard
A notable historian who, in 1925, persuasively argued for a historical Atlantean
presence in the region of Spanish Cadiz, scene of the ancient Iberian city of
Tartessos. Although he erred in identifying Tartessos with Atlantis itself, Hennig
demonstrated that the Atlantean kingdom of Gadeiros held sway over Atlantic
Spain during pre-Classical times. Unfortunately, his work has never been fully
translated into other languages; hence, his important contribution to Atlantology
is little-known outside Germany.
(See Gadeiros, Ellen Whishaw)
Heroic Age
In his Works and Days, Hesiod describes five ages of mankind prior to his time
(circa 700 B.C.) at the beginning of classical times. These were the ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroism, and Iron. They coincide remarkably well with modern
archaeology in some respects, and roughly correspond to the fourth-millennium
Neolithic Period, when golden sunlight, not gold coin, was most prized by the
megalith-builders. Long after incorporating solar alignments into their standing
stones, a shift to lunar orientations was followed by the Bronze Age, characterized
by Hesiod as extremely bellicose.
The Heroic Age comprised the last century or so of the Bronze Age to include
the Trojan War, and ended with the destruction of Atlantis. Hesiod wrote of the
Iron Age as a period of general ignorance, savagery, and decline—all of which
typify the Dark Age that overspread Europe, Asia Minor, and most of the Near
East for nearly five centuries after the Atlantean holocaust.
Hesiod’s Works and Days traces some discernibly Atlantean themes. The
Silver Age, which climaxed when Atlantis suffered massive geologic upheavals
circa 2100 B.C., came to its conclusion as it was “engulfed by Zeus,” who likewise
ordered the final destruction of the Atlantean capital in Plato’s account. Hesiod
characterized Bronze Age men as extraordinarily large of stature (the Atlanteans
were descendants of “Titans”), and outstanding metalsmiths, who crafted great
walls of bronze; in Kritias, the Atlanteans are described as wealthy metallurgists
who ringed their city with bronze-sheeted walls.
Heva
The legendary “first woman” who, together with Ad-ima, arrived at the Indian
subcontinent after the Great Flood destroyed a former age of civilized greatness.
Throughout Polynesia, numerous island traditions recall a similar catastrophe in
which the ancestral kingdom of Hiva was lost. Both appear to be reflections of the
same deluge account, a suspicion underscored by Heva herself, referring to the
drowned land she and her husband escaped.
(See Ad-ima)
Hiintcabiit
The Arapaho Indian version of a horned giant who arose from the bottom of
the sea to save victims of the Great Flood by carrying them to the eastern shores
of Turtle Island, or North America. On the walls of Ramses III’s “Victory Temple,”
in West Thebes, some of the Atlantean invaders he fought wore horned helmets.
In Greek myth, the Atlanteans, like Hiintcabiit, are depicted as Titans.
(See Wolf Clan)
Hina-lau-limu-kala
“Hina-of-the-Leaves-of-the-Limu-kala,” or seaweed, a patroness of Hawaiian
sacred practices known as kahuna, inherited from the drowned Motherland of Lemuria.
(See Lemuria, Limu-kala)
Hiti
In Samoan myth, antediluvian giants who ruled the world before “the heavens
fell down” to set their island aflame. As it sank into the sea, new lands emerged
from the depths to become the Samoan Islands.
Hmu
The original name of the Miao or Hmong, whose earliest historical period
began with their migration from China into the Laotian Peninsula, just 5 centuries
ago. But they are unique among all Southeast Asian peoples for their strong
Caucasoid racial heritage predating any contacts with modern Europeans. A persistent creation myth described their origins as a Caucasian people in the Indo-Aryan
homeland, a folk tradition confirmed by recent DNA testing, which establishes
genetic traces back hundreds of generations to the Steppes of Central Russia. Hmong
oral traditions also tell of a great deluge, after which their ancestors, the Hmu
arrived in South East Asia. The Hmong still refer to themselves as “Hmu.”
(See Mu)
Hoerbiger, Hanns
Austrian engineer who first published his Welteislehre (WEL), or Cosmic Ice Theory,
in 1913. Interest in Hoerbiger’s Glazial-Kosmogonie was eclipsed soon after by World
War I, so his book could not achieve recognition until the 1920s, when it became an
international best-seller in the millions of copies, and almost dominated the cosmological sciences for nearly 25 years. WEL was based on the supposition that large
fragments of ice from passing comets have often altered the natural, geologic and
human history of our planet, most notably, the destruction of Atlantis.
After Hoerbiger died in 1931, his ideas were popularized by a fellow Austrian,
Hans Bellamy, in England. But any serious consideration of Welteislehre was dismissed from all academic thought following World War II, for political if not always
scientific reasons. However, the ongoing discovery of icy moons and planets in our
own solar system and beyond, as revealed by space probes from the 1970s onward,
has done much to validate at least some of his fundamental conclusions.
During the last decade of the 20th century, Hoerbiger’s belief that Atlantis
was destroyed through the agency of cometary debris was given powerful impetus
by archaeo-astronomers who identified Comet Encke as the celestial culprit most
likely responsible for the Atlantean catastrophe.
(See Asteroid Theory)
Ho-ho-demi-no-Mikoto
Cited in the Nihongi, a Japanese collection of pre-Buddhist myths, histories
and traditions, as a divine hero who descended to the ocean floor in an overturned basket. On his arrival, he visited a sunken palace belonging to the sea-god. Its
described towers and walls are reminiscent of the stone structure found by scuba
divers in 1985 off the coast of the Japanese island of Yonaguni.
(See Mu, Yonaguni)
Honomu
One of several place names in Hawaii commemorating the lost civilization of
the Pacific, it means literally “Sacred Mu.”
(See Lono, Mu)
Horaizan
Known throughout the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan as a sunken kingdom of great antiquity and former splendor. It derived its name from the island’s
highest mountain, Horai, on the summit of which grew the Tree of Life.
(See Hesperides, Mu, Yonaguni)
Hotu-matua
The legendary founding father of Easter Island arrived from over the sea
with a fleet of his family and followers after surviving a great catastrophe. The
god of earthquakes, Poku, had upended Hotu-matua’s homeland with a crowbar,
sinking Hiva into the ocean depths.
(See Lemuria, Mu)
Hrim Thursar
In Scandinavian myth, a new race begat by the only man and woman to survive
the Great Flood. All Norse traced their descent to the Hrim Thursar, or “Hoar Frost.”
Huitzilopochtli
In Aztec myth, he was the divine leader who rescued an ancestral people from
his devastated island kingdom in the Atlantic Ocean, Aztlan. Arriving in the
Valley of Mexico, they built a new capital to commemorate their lost city, when
Tenochtitlan was constructed on a rocky island at the center of a man-made lake.
That Aztlan was the Nahuatl word for the Greek Atlantis is no less obvious than
Huitzilopochtli’s identification with Atlas: The 14th-century Codex Borgia, at the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, depicts Huitzilopochtli supporting the sky on his
shoulders. In other words, he was remembered as a leader who guided a large contingent of survivors from the destruction of Atlantis to Mexico, where they
founded Mesoamerican civilization.
(See Atlas, Aztlan)
next-142s
The Hulluk Miyumko
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a journalist, I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of artistic, cultural, historic, religious and political issues. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Copyrighted material can be removed on the request of the owner.
No comments:
Post a Comment