without the ability to assess the vast range of information that was available from various cultures, modern researchers have been able to examine nearly every ancient text for clues about Atlantis. Modern scholars have made extensive studies of ancient records and have concluded that there are literally hundreds of hints about Atlantis and other significant details from Plato’s story that can be found in numerous texts and records.
One of the very best sources for these ancient records is the meticulous research presented by Andrew Collins in his 436-page book, Gateway to Atlantis. Collins found that the existence of Atlantis was “openly debated during the third century A.D. among the philosophers in the Platonic Academy attached to … Alexandria.” Collins also discovered many references to ancient voyages that seemed to have been made to the Americas and unknown islands even before Plato lived. A few of these will be summarized here.
In 425 B.C. a Carthaginian named Hanno made a voyage down the Atlantic coast of Africa with 60 ships. Hanno reported that a temple of Poseidon was found on an island off the coast of Africa. Around 8 B.C. the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote about mysterious islands called the Atlantides and mentioned that one of the sons (Atlas) of a Titan god ruled those islands. Siculus wrote of islands located well into the Atlantic Ocean, mentioning one “large and fruitful island” located “many” days sail from Africa. Siculus also chronicled an incident in which Phoenician mariners were pushed across the ocean by a storm and after many days landed on the “large, fruitful island.” Another Greek historian, Hellanicus, wrote about the Atlantides in a work he titled Atlantis, sometime around 400 B.C. Plutarch also mentioned the accidental discovery of islands across the Atlantic around 80 B.C. There are many other similar references in ancient texts and readers are referred to Collins’ book.
Despite consistent reports of strange islands lying well into the Atlantic Ocean, the people of the ancient world found the idea of Atlantis without definitive support. From the time of Plato to the 1500s, speculation on Atlantis was limited and was eclipsed by more important issues. The rise of Christianity, the fall of the Roman Empire, the struggles in Europe, plagues, and the ensuing dark ages plunged the world into a knowledge vacuum that persisted for centuries until the Renaissance. Then, with the “discovery” of the Americas, the idea that Atlantis might really have existed became an intriguing topic because many people believed Atlantis had been discovered!
The Americas and Atlantis
When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain in March of 1493 after his first voyage to the Americas, his news of a “New World” was electrifying. Yet Columbus had only visited the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola on this first trip. It wasn’t until his third voyage in 1498 that he made landfall in South America. He didn’t reach Central America until his fourth and final voyage in 1502. Although others (such as the Norse) had visited North America far earlier, this “new” landmass was only first widely reported in Europe by John Cabot in 1497. After the civilizations in Central and South America were conquered and the mound builder culture in North America was discovered, a new problem arose. Who were these natives that occupied this strange new world and where did they come from?
Plato’s story of Atlantis suddenly seemed to provide the solution. For example in the 1570s, the famous London-born astrologer and mathematician, Dr. John Dee, informed Queen Elizabeth I that the Americas had been Atlantis.
After Columbus’ discovery, rumors began spreading that he had taken several ancient maps with him. The maps showed large islands far into the Atlantic. The Bennicasa Map of 1482, for example, is one that many researchers believe Columbus used. This map depicts an island called Antilia to the far southwest of Gibraltar. Antilia was named by early Carthaginian explorers who claimed that it was a large island in the western Atlantic, but it has gone by several names and spelling variations. According to Andrew Collins, a 1367 chart depicted Antilia near the Azores, in the mid-Atlantic. But the island on the map is far too large to be the Azores and later maps placed Antilia much further to the southwest. Early Spanish explorers identified the West Indies as Antilia, and the similarity of the name to Atlantis has long been obvious to many people. The islands of the Caribbean, consisting of over 7,000 small and large islands including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Hispaniola, comprise the West Indies. But the most convincing link between that region and Atlantis was made during the exploration and excavations of the Maya and Aztec civilizations.
Excited by tales of travel in the Yucatan that were being widely published, in the 1860s a French monk, Charles Étinne Brasseur de Bourbourg, went to Guatemala. Brasseur soon discovered the Popol Vuh, a sacred history of the Mayan people, and subsequently published the first translation of it. Brasseur also came into possession of a native document called the Troano Codex, which had been removed from Central America by Cortez. As he translated the Troano Codex, Brasseur was stunned to learn that a cataclysm had taken place in Central America in 9937 B.C. Later in Mexico City, Brasseur found another native document, the Chimalpopoca Codex, which described a series of four natural disasters that took place in the region around 10,500 B.C. From his translation of the text, Brasseur surmised that the disasters were related to a shift in the earth’s axis. Because of the similarity of these events to Plato’s story of Atlantis, Brasseur reasoned that the people of the New World were descendants of survivors of Atlantis, and the advanced cultures of the Americas were remnants of Plato’s lost Atlantis. Brasseur’s Atlantis speculations were aided by a partnership with Augustus LePlongeon, who also traveled throughout the Yucatan.
Another Frenchman, Desiré Charnay, became obsessed with excavating Mexican and Yucatan ruins after arriving there in the late 1860s. Charnay found massive basalt statues at Tula that looked almost otherworldly. Reasoning they were from Atlantis, he called the huge figures “Atlantean,” a term that is used to describe them even today. Charnay then visited Palenque where he became intrigued by the story of Votan, allegedly a bearded white man who came to the area after a disaster destroyed his island homeland to the east. Votan, it was said, began the Maya civilization. Today, most scholars believe that the legends of the Maya god Votan (also called Kukulcan), the Aztec and Toltec god Quetzalcóatal, and the Incas’ Viracocha (also called Thunupa) are all variations of the same story. These legends parallel some Native American tribal lore of their ancestors coming from the east after fleeing a disastrous flood that hit their island.
“Atlantean” figures at Tula, Mexico. Photo—Greg Little, 1979.
In Gateway to Atlantis, Collins traced the story of Votan back to Cuba, which he asserts was the main island of Atlantis. Collins also noted that Votan traveled up the Yucatan coastline and when he reached the first large river, turned inland. He then established a major city, which has long been thought to be Palenque. In a 2004 interview on the video documentary The Yucatan Hall of Records, Collins said he now believes that the river Votan traveled was the Usumacinta and that the present day Mayan ruins at Piedras Negras, Guatemala, may well mark the place where his city was established. As stated in Chapter 1, Piedras Negras is believed to be the site where one of the Atlantean Halls of Records was hidden.
Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis
In his two books, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) and Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883), Ignatius Donnelly forever linked the Mid-Atlantic and the Americas to Atlantis. Donnelly was educated as a lawyer and, from 1863-1869 served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota. When he lost the 1870 reelection, he became a newspaper editor and was later elected to the state legislature. Between 1878 and 1880, Donnelly completed the Atlantis manuscript, working from notes and information he gathered from the Library of Congress. It was an immediate best-seller and became the definitive book on the subject.
Donnelly’s book was widely praised and even
