The mystery of the eighth continent
By P. Lal

PLATO spoke of it some 2500 years ago. Oceanographers have discovered what look like its vestiges, on the floor of the Atlantic. Writers have written about it. Libraries have catalogued it under the category of legends. The scientific community, by and large, has denied that it ever existed.

Yet, there are reasons to believe that Atlantis, the eighth continent, once existed, in the middle of the Atlantic, roughly between Spain, Africa and the Americas, and sank some 11,500 years ago, into the ocean, where it now rests at the bottom.

According to Plato, Atlantis had a powerful empire, with influence on and trade with, the countries on both sides of the Atlantic, the eastern American and the western African and European coasts. It was larger than Libya and Asia put together (here, Libya means North Africa and Asia means Asia minor and parts of the Middle East), from where one could pass through the whole of the "opposite continent". Plato’s reference to the "Opposite Continent" came to be true 2000 years after him, when America was discovered by Columbus. There is no reason why his account of the Atlantis should also not be true.

Plato ascribed his knowledge of Atlantis to the account possessed by Solon, the Athenian law-giver, which he obtained during a journey he made to Egypt. Solon had initially received the information from Egyptian priests who, in turn, had derived the knowledge from hieroglyphics inscribed on temple columns.

It is believed that Atlantis not only had trade relations with Egypt but several of its survivors fled to Egypt as also to other parts of the world when catastrophe struck the Atlantis.

Memories of a vanished island are also preserved in the myths and traditions of the countries and the people all along the Atlantic littoral — on both sides of the ocean. The memory also seems to be instinctively shared even by animals, as eels swim from fresh water rivers in America and Europe, to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, to spawn and die, and migratory birds, during their flight from Europe to South America, circle over the same area, as if looking for a land which once existed and where they rested for a while.

Reference to the Atlantis is found in the ancient literature and records of the people in various parts of the world. Thus, in the Puranas and the Mahabharata of India, there is a mention of Attala, "the white island", a continent located in the western ocean, half a world away from India. In these very texts and some others, the world Atyantika has been used in relation to the final catastrophic destruction. Some of the tribes of north-western Africa near the Atlantic coast were described by ancient writers as Atlantes and Atlantioi who were descendants of Atlantean colonists. The Berber tribes of North Africa believe that there was a kingdom of Attala, off the African coast, with riches of gold and silver which sank into the see in antiquity and which will re-surface one day. It is believed by the Portuguese that Atlantida once existed near Portugal and parts of it, the Azores islands, are still jutting out their peaks from under the sea.

If the golden cities and fertile plains of the Atlantis were destroyed in one quick action, as it appears to be the case, it is all the more reason to find out as to what brought about its doom — whether some natural event or the forces unleashed by its advanced civilisation, for if latter was the case, there is a lesson or two to be learnt by the modern man.

The oldest records of our civilisation written on papyrus, carved on stones or inscribed on clay do not extend beyond 4000 B.C. or say 6000 years. That leaves us with a 6000-year period before we get back to the time-zone of Atlantis.

Plato described Atlantis in the two dialogues he wrote Timaeus and Critias". This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days, the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you call the Columns of Hercules; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together and was the way to other islands and from the islands, you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean", wrote Plato. The oppostie continent obviously meant America discovered much later in the fifteenth century.

What is also remarkable is Plato’s mention of the "other islands" from which one could pass to the opposite continent. These other islands were probably land masses above the sea level before the last glaciation which took place about 11,000 to 12,000 years ago resulting in a rise of 600 to 1,000 feet in the sea-level all over the globe. Before the glaciation, therefore, islands in the Atlantic, like the Azores, Madiera, Cape Verde, Bermuda and the Bahamas, would have been much greater land masses than what they are today. How did Plato know of the existence of the "other islands" on the way to the opposite continent, when the seas were still unchartered during those regions?

Scientists believe that during the last 40 million years, the world has undergone a succession of ice-ages, each spell lasting about 1,00,000 years. The warm times in between — the interglacials — have been rather short, between 10,000 to 12,000 years. The last ice-age ended about 11,000 years ago. (In fact, we are headed for the next ice-age, about 1,000 years hence). The melting of large amounts of ice all over the world resulted in the rise of the sea levels. Cities on coast lines got submerged under water. It is speculated that Atlantis might also have disappeared under the sea at that time, as perhaps the Krishna’s city of Dwarika on the western coast of Gujarat. However, as mentioned in the Mahabharata, Krishna knew of the coming disaster and warned Arjun who evacuated the city in good time. The Egyptian priests spoke to Solon, "a great conflagration of things upon the Earth recurring at long intervals of time: When this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea shore. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the Earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains, are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by rivers into the sea".

According to Plato, the inhabitants of the Atlantis had an advanced irrigation system, harbours on the sea-shore, mighty fleets, large temples, and used gold and another unidentified metal, possibly a gold alloy, called orichalcum. They had a system of land allotment, agriculture, domestic and wild animals, military, government and commerce. "Beginning from the sea, they dug a canal 300 feet in width and one hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the upper most zone, making a passage from the sea upto this, which became a harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress" "Stadium" was a Greek unit of length which measured 610 feet.

Recent discoveries of unidentified ruins under the Atlantic Ocean where great stone roads or platforms were found fitted into place have given credence to the belief that Atlantis once existed. Members of a deep-sea expedition of the then USSR on board the "Academician Petrovsky", a research ship, photographed seafloors in the Atlantic in 1974, near Horseshoe Archipelago, 300 miles west of Gibraltar. The pictures taken on the summit of Ampere Seamount, rising from 10,000 feet within 200 feet of the suface of the sea, showed remarkable features like stone walls, the masonry block of the walls being upto 1.5 metres high, and the width of the walls being 75 cm the stone staircase cut into the cliff of which the five steps were clearly visible, and levelled off stone platform connected to another staircase. Subsequent expeditions have not only confirmed the finds but discovered more of the type over a wider area.

In 1981, an expedition along the underwater shelf off the Canary Islands disclosed large stone slabs set on the sea bottom at a depth of about 50 feet over an area of 900 sq feet. The stones appeared to be carefully set, and wide stone steps led down from the central pavement. An undersea wall, off the Moroccan coast, extending several miles in length, has also been discovered and photographed.

Besides the theory of the drowning of the Atlantis’ due to the rise in the sea level at the end of the last Ice age, the other theories given out for its sudden disappearance include violent earthquakes, seaquakes and volcanic explosions resulting in its sinking into the sea. The mid-Atlantic ridge, dividing the Atlantic into two almost equal parts, is the highest mountain range, under water, and is situated in the most active seismic zone. In the past few hundred years, there have been several known instances of the appearance and disappearance of islands in the Atlantic, due to the seismic activity of its oceanic floor. Thus, in 1622, the city of Villa Franca, capital of the Azorian island of Sao Maguel fell into the sea due to a sudden seismic convulsion. In 1811, a large volcanic island appeared in the Azores, was given the name Sambrina, and then disappeared into the sea after a few years.

It is also speculated that the advanced civilisation of the Atlantis had tapped unknown sources of energy specially those inherent in the tectonic plate movements which are responsible for earthquakes. Unwise utilisation of this source of energy might have led to its being destroyed in a major earthquake.

Whatever the truth about the Atlantis, the same is bound to be known with the application of modern day tools of research and discovery. Till then, it will remain in the realm of speculation, buried at the bottom of the Atlantic.