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Cliffs of Moher, Ireland. Is Ireland the legendary Atlantis? Source: Patryk Kosmider / Adobe Stock

Atlantis as Ireland - The Emerald Enigma

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Could the answer to one of the world’s greatest mysteries have been under our noses all this time?

The legendary lost island of Atlantis. Everyone’s heard of it and everyone’s got an opinion.

Was it just an elaborate fiction given to us by the Greek philosopher Plato in 360 BC? Or was it a ‘mother culture’ - a real place with an advanced Stone Age civilization?

The answer is both.

Plato’s legend is clearly exaggerated. It contains many historical errors and combines two places into one tale, yet at its core there is a grain of truth. After all, the legend of Atlantis had already been passed down by word of mouth for thousands of years before Plato himself first heard it, so it’s hardly surprising that some details got distorted over time.

Truth became history, history became legend, and legend became myth. But almost 12,000 years later the grain of truth survives.

Atlantis: Three Key Factors

When you strip back the Atlantis legend to its very core, there are three key factors:

  • The legend originated in Egypt
  • Atlantis was an island in the Atlantic Ocean
  • The Atlantians were an advanced Stone Age seafaring people, a ‘mother culture’

Name a place on Earth from Antarctica to Africa, Sweden to South America, and someone will have claimed it was Atlantis.

Scientists roll their eyes whenever a new Atlantis theory emerges because the three key factors—the Egyptian connection, the Atlantic location, and the advanced Stone Age civilization—are the first casualties of the next fanciful claim. It seems that every time someone finds so much as a brick underwater, they claim they have found Atlantis.

Scientists rightly demand proof. Surely if such a mother culture existed, a civilization which predated the Greeks and the Egyptians, then there must be some physical evidence.

Academics claim Atlantis was a fable, yet this doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Ancient Egyptian texts describe how their ancestors came from a sacred island in the Atlantic Ocean that was devastated in a great flood.

Others claim that Atlantis sunk to the bottom of the ocean, eliminating all evidence. However, geologists who have mapped the entire Atlantic seabed are adamant that this there is simply no room for a lost sunken island. They insist that it’s not scientifically possible and that any claims of a large, sunken island lack credibility.

Therefore, if the Atlantis mother culture ever did exist, there must still be evidence above ground, not just wild speculation.

So how do we solve this riddle?

By bypassing Plato’s tale altogether and going right to the source: Ancient Egypt.

The Surprising Location of Atlantis

Ancient Egyptian texts describe how Egypt’s ancestors came from a sacred island in the Atlantic Ocean that was devastated in a great flood.

Sound familiar? That’s what the team from Keystone University thought.

In the largest investigation ever conducted into the legend of Atlantis, Keystone’s research team used cutting-edge techniques from multiple disciplines and reviewed thousands of ancient texts, including rare manuscripts from Egypt, Greece, and Ireland.

As a result, they have compiled over 1,000 pieces of evidence to support a surprising, yet oh-so-obvious location for the lost island of Atlantis.

Ireland.

A 17th century artwork of Olof Rudbeck dissecting the world and revealing the “secret location” of Atlantis. He is surrounded by well-known figures of antiquity such as Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. (Public Domain)

A 17th century artwork of Olof Rudbeck dissecting the world and revealing the “secret location” of Atlantis. He is surrounded by well-known figures of antiquity such as Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. (Public Domain)

This is not the first time that Ireland has been cited as Atlantis. In 2004, Dr. Ulf Erlingsson, a renowned, prizewinning Swedish scientist, published the book ‘ Atlantis from a Geographer’s Perspective’ and a scientific paper which both claimed that Ireland was the legendary lost island. Furthermore, he claimed that the physical description and measurements of Plato’s Atlantis perfectly matched Ireland.

His claims exposed him to the scorn and ridicule of his peers, who informed him that writing seriously about Atlantis was tantamount to professional suicide for an academic. Yet he went ahead anyway. When interviewed he said, “Sometimes a scientist has to do what a scientist has to do.”

The Keystone team agree with Erlingsson’s findings. In addition, their research includes many additional pieces of evidence that simply weren’t available to Erlingsson when he wrote his book 16 years ago.

It’s a well-known historical fact that the Egyptian civilization predated the Greeks by thousands of years.

It’s also well-known that Ireland’s Stone Age constructions were built long before the Egyptian pyramids and temples.

A virtually unknown, yet well-evidenced theory is that the builders of Newgrange, Ireland’s spectacular Stone Age temple, used boats to transport dozens of huge boulders to the site from Clogherhead, which is over 30 km (18.64 miles) away. Some of these boulders weighed as much as 10 tons. Imagine the quality of boat and level of skill required to load and unload such huge weights, let alone transport them. Stone Age quays & boats found near Newgrange are estimated to be at least 5,000 years old, making them older than the pyramids.

Newgrange, Boyne Valley, Ireland. (Yggdrasill /Adobe Stock)

Newgrange, Boyne Valley, Ireland. (Yggdrasill /Adobe Stock)

Newgrange is also perfectly aligned to the rising sun at the winter solstice, as are hundreds of Irish megaliths, which demonstrates a stunning level of astronomical, mathematical and construction knowledge obtained by the early Irish.

We know for sure that the Stone Age Irish were master astronomers. We know for sure they were master builders. We know for sure that the Irish had boats. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine the wandering Irish sailing from their Atlantic island home to explore the wider world.

The Atlantic Location

The most telling characteristic of Atlantis is that it was an island located in the Atlantic Ocean. Obviously, Ireland is an island in the Atlantic with an ancient people, language, and culture. There are an estimated 100,000 Stone Age constructions remaining in Ireland - including the most spectacular megaliths on Earth - as you would expect if they really were an advanced early civilization. Similar constructions (mounds, cairns, stone circles, dolmens, passage tombs, etc.) are found all over the world, proving that the entire world, not just Ireland, has a stunning and forgotten ancient history.

Some claim that Atlantis lies at the bottom of the ocean. However, science has eliminated this as a possibility and an island in the Atlantic that does exist is a much more viable explanation than an island that doesn’t.

There are many descriptions of Plato’s Atlantis that perfectly fit Ireland, while there are also many that don’t. It’s clear that Plato’s legend is useful but unreliable, that it combined two separate related places, a lot of exaggeration, and several historical errors.

Plato’s Atlantis was an island in the Atlantic with a fertile, circular plain which was surrounded by mountains that descended towards the sea. Ireland is the only island on Earth with these features.

The hiking trail at the top of Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park, Ireland. (Louis-Michel DESERT /Adobe Stock)

The hiking trail at the top of Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park, Ireland. (Louis-Michel DESERT /Adobe Stock)

Plato’s Atlantis had a temperate climate capable of producing two crops per year. Ireland has one of the most temperate climates on Earth and to this day it is capable of producing two crops a year: winter and spring barley. Meanwhile, Ireland’s Ceide fields are the oldest agricultural fields on Earth.

Plato’s Atlantis had many hot and cold springs. Ireland has 27 warm springs and thousands of cold ones, known locally as holy wells.

Plato’s tale also described the city of Atlantis, a huge circular city with an abundance of elephants, gold, and ivory. This is actually a reference to the ancient city of Cerne, an early Irish settlement in Mauritania, Africa. Cerne is derived from the Irish word cairn, which means stacked or piled rocks. Cairns are also heavily associated with the Greek messenger god Hermes and his Egyptian equivalent Thoth. The site of the City of Cerne, Plato’s lost city of Atlantis, is also known as the Eye of the Sahara or the Richat structure.

The Richat Structure from Landsat satellite. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. (voran /Adobe Stock)

The Richat Structure from Landsat satellite. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. (voran /Adobe Stock)

Interestingly, in Greek history the name Cerne actually referred to two separate places: an African city near the Atlas mountains and an island in the Atlantic Ocean that was 12 days’ sail from the Strait of Gibraltar. Similarly, Plato’s Atlantis was a combination of the same two separate places: the island of Atlantis (Ireland) and the City of Atlantis (City of Cerne/the Eye of the Sahara, Mauritania). In Greek mythology Atlas was the first king of two separate places: the Island of Atlantis and the kingdom of Mauritania, Africa. The Atlas Mountains, which encircle the Eye of the Sahara, still bear his name.

The Greek Diodorus, in his ‘Library of History’, describes how the Atlantians were a civilized people who had a settlement called Cerne near the Atlas mountains and that it was here that the warlike Amazons, a ferocious army of female warriors from Libya, slaughtered the Atlantians before attacking Greece and waging war in the region. Greek history is very consistent in supporting the account of Diodorus, but not that of Plato, that it was actually the Amazons who attacked Greece, not the Atlantians.

‘Departure of the Amazons’ (1620s) by Claude Deruet. (CC0)

‘Departure of the Amazons’ (1620s) by Claude Deruet. (CC0)

The old Irish annals contain many records of voyages to Greece, Mauritania, and Egypt. The female Amazon warriors are also mentioned, as is an attempted invasion of Ireland by the Greeks and Romans, who were defeated at the Battle of Ventry in County Kerry. Perhaps it’s here, on Ireland’s wild Atlantic shore, that Rome’s famous missing Ninth Legion met their demise.

Plato described how Atlantis was ‘swallowed by the sea’. This is reference to a huge tsunami which decimated Stone Age Ireland. Virtually every culture on Earth has an origin story involving a great deluge. What is unique about the Irish is they have several records of life before, during, and after this great flood.

The ancient Irish annals even contain the names of the flood survivors who managed to escape by boat or survived by reaching higher ground. On Ireland’s western coast there are folk tales of a giant tsunami around 12,000 years ago. Similar tales are found in Iona, Scotland.

So what could have caused this global apocalyptic event?

While a localized tsunami affecting Ireland could easily have been caused by an ocean earthquake, there is only one thing which could cause a huge global event: a cosmic impact.

The Keystone team speculate that a comet struck the Atlantic Ocean at the Puerto Rico Trench, triggering a huge tsunami, epic global rainfalls, flooding, ocean volcanoes, and earthquakes. Gravitational anomalies often signal a cosmic impact, and the most negative gravitational anomaly on Earth is situated deep in the Puerto Rico Trench. NASA scientists report that beneath the trench there is a mass so dense that its gravitational pull causes the ocean to dip and it affects navigational instruments.

The Puerto Rico Trench is located in the infamous Bermuda Triangle and is the deepest point in the entire Atlantic Ocean. The Keystone team suggest that this anomaly is the result of a comet strike around 11,600 years ago. This date perfectly matches the end of the Younger Dryas period, a time of extreme flooding and rising sea levels which oceanographers and geologists call Meltwater Pulse 1B and there is evidence for a huge tsunami that impacted the Caribbean sea during this period.

The Keystone team suggest that there was a comet strike around 11,600 years ago. (Aliaksandr Marko /Adobe Stock)

The Keystone team suggest that there was a comet strike around 11,600 years ago. (Aliaksandr Marko /Adobe Stock)

In short, there is scientific evidence for a cataclysmic event at a time in history when many independent cultures around the world speak of a global flood.

It is also the exact same time Atlantis is said to have drowned.

Read Part II Here: Ireland as Atlantis - Insight from the Egyptians and Greeks

For more information, visit www.keystone.ie

The brand new book which gives full details and the supporting evidence on these proposals, ‘Atlantis Ireland’ by Anthony Woods and Keystone University is now available from Amazon.

Top Image: Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland. Is Ireland the legendary Atlantis? Source: Patryk Kosmider / Adobe Stock

By Keystone University

References

Ancestors of Egypt, Sunset Land, Urini, Menes’ empty Egyptian tomb, Menes buried in Ireland:

Waddell, L. A. 1929. Makers of Civilization in Race and History and Waddell, L. A.  Egyptian Civilization.

Atlantis from a Geographer’s Perspective:

Erlingsson, Ulf, Atlantis from a Geographer’s Perspective (Lindorm Publishing, 2004). 

Druid stone circles:

Gwilt, Joseph, An Encyclopaedia of Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Druid college destruction:

Harpur, Tom, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light P61 (Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004).

Abaris the Hyperborean:

O’Brien, Henry, The Round Towers of Ireland.

The Druids:

Higgins, Godfrey, The Celtic Druids (Cosimo Classics, 2007) p. 121

Comet impact in the Atlantic Ocean:

Muck, Otto, The Secret of Atlantis (Collins, 1978).

Hyperborea:

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History (Loeb Classical Library,1935)

The Irish language is remarkably similar to ancient Hebrew, Chaldean, Arabic and Sanskrit:

Lt. General Charles Vallancey, Dictionary of the Language of the Aire Coti (Graisbury and Campbell, 1802).

Brú na Bóinne: Geraldine Stout, Newgrange and the Bend of the Boyne (Cork

University Press, 2004).

Woods, Anthony, ‘ Atlantis Ireland’, Keystone University Press (1 July 2020)

 

Comments

Pete Wagner's picture

Let me help out here.  They removed a zero from Plato’s timeline, which has nearly everybody fooled as a result.  But put the zero back and everything falls into place.  So instead of the Atlantis destruction being 11.5k BC, it becomes 115k BC, which perfectly matches up with the SUDDEN emergence of the Ice Age, which is actually the resulting nuclear winter caused by the global assault, which not only flattened Atlantis, but created ruins the world around (e.g., Persia, Indus Valley, Gobi, even the Americas).  Now, back before the assault (pre-Ice Age), Earth was hotter, there were NO ice caps - even at the poles, and seas were hundreds of feet HIGHER than today.  The Richat Structure at that time was the concentric-ringed island in an estuary/island sea just as Plato describe it (Atlantis).  As for Ireland, it too was inhabited by the fair-haired Atlantean culture – long before the arrival of the self-described black-headed (black haired) people of Sumer, who per Sitchin were of alien stock.  The Irish carns and ring forts were what the people of those pre-Ice Age times lived in.  The timber roofs of course did not survive for long, but the stones did.  Stonehenge once had a huge roof to it.  It was just a communal complex, with no special astrological significance - but of course aligned with the cardinal directions, as with nearly all Atlantean-era construction.

Nobody gets paid to tell the truth.

My intuition tells me that there have been many and I mean many civilisations in the past which have peaked and died, just as this civilisation is currently in the process of doing.

In the future we will be studied and found to be primitive relative to those that come next, from the east, I suspect.

Then the new will find that we weren't so primitive as was initially suspected.

May Eire-land come again.

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