This is an extract from a small book of mine titled: “A brief and realistic approach to the wanderings of Odysseus”, which was published in 2023 in Greek: https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9786185693046-metaxas-georgios-risos-mia-suntomi-kai-realistiki-proseggisi-stis-periplaniseis-tou-odussea-337605
A fundamental knowledge of Odyssey is necessary.
(Book numbers are always referring to Odyssey rhapsodies, except when Iliad is specifically mentioned).
Homeric texts taken from: http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/homer/odyssey5html.html
There are of course authors like Tim Severin, who on the other hand maintain that Odysseus never sailed to the west further than the Ionian sea, and most of his adventures took place into the Aegean sea. Anyway, we must keep in mind that Homer implies that Odysseus was transported by a Phaeacian ship to Ithaca during one night, a claim that gave rise to the assumption that the land of Phaeacians was the present day Corfu island (see also the title: “Where was the land of Phaeacians”, in this blog).
There are indeed some indications of Greek (or more appropriately “Mediterranean”)
presence in the American continent a couple of millennia BCE, probably with the
goal to extract copper near the Canadian – US border, and specifically in the
south coast of lake Superior. In support of this theory, a study of haplogroup X (maternal, or mtDNA) distribution
has found genetic correlation between the American Indians of that area with
populations of the east Mediterranean, especially those around the Aegean sea
and particularly of the Druze people! (fig. 1). Another haplogroup (T, an mtDNA as well) is encountered mostly (25%) among the native North American Cherokees,
but also in Egypt (see study: «Anomalous Mitochondrial DNA Lineages in the Cherokee» of Dr Donald Yates).
Figure 1. The distribution
of haplogroup X. A haplogroup is a part of the DNA where mutations of genes
(tiny segments of the DNA) that occurred during very long periods of time can
be traced back (in location and time) and give an indication of the track, a
particular group of our ancestors had followed up to its final destination. Maternal or mtDNA is most useful in this research as it is not affected by the mixing of genes that happens in each generation. It
is obvious that people with haplogroup X genes have moved from East
Mediterranean to North America not through Asia and the Bering passage,
as the main groups that populated the American continent did, but through
Scotland, Faroe islands and Iceland. This migration took place in two waves,
the first around 30.000 YBP (years before present) and the second 12.000 YBP. (Credits: Quora.com)
Of course such a voyage would have been
extremely difficult and hazardous in that era, but there are certain indications
in “Moralia” of Plutarch (“About the face on the moon” passages 941-942) that
was not impossible. Anyway, the war ships in the Aegean during bronze age were
not much different (and indeed more robust) from the long ships of Vikings who have reached North
America in the year 1000 AD.
Tools found in the southern part of the
Greek island of Crete in 2010, have been dated more than 100.000 years old and are
pushing further back the age where open sea navigation is considered possible, even by taking
into account the somewhat smaller distance of Crete to mainland Greece in that era, because of
the lower sea level by about 140m.
On the other hand, the 1st ce. AD geographer Strabo, although
aware of the fact that the Earth is a globe, didn’t seem to know about the
existence of a continent between Europe and Asia (Geographica A’ 4.6).
A bold hypothesis, is that there were not the bronze age Minoan or
Phoenician sailors who first reached America, but Atlanteans, who escaped their
sinking land (at least some of them) by sailing to the west and to the east, spreading
a common culture. That is, if Plato is
right about Atlantis as described in “Timaeus” and in the incomplete “Critias”,
and this is a big “if”, as the whole story could very well have been a moral allegory
about arrogance and the subsequent nemesis (rightful punishment), as not a
single archeological evidence is found from this supposedly advanced and
powerful civilization living in a huge land.
That said, the best (and
our only) guide is Plato himself, who clearly puts the land of Atlantis (a very
big island) outside the “Pillars of Hercules” (present day Gibraltar), a well known
landmark in the ancient world, that was even more impressive that it is today
because of the much lower sea level (60-80m lower in 10.000 BCE, than today). The best candidate for Atlantis is the area around the Azores, these islands
been probably what is left after the sinking of mainland Atlantis. A second candidate is the Doniana region in southwest Spain, just north of Cadiz (fig. 2). It is also possible that mainland Atlantis lay in front of our eyes all the time, been the Iberian peninsula (an “island” for the ancient Greeks, the term “peninsula” only been used after the 5th ce. BCE), while the destroyed (submerged or deluged) city
of Atlantis was replaced by the rich ancient city of Tartessos, known also by
the Biblical name of Tarshish. So perhaps the land of Atlantis was not sunk after
all, but the city by the same name was swept by a giant tsunami. Recent
findings (early 2019) indicate that the Iberian peninsula enjoyed milder climatological
conditions that the rest of Europe during the last Ice Age that ended 12.000
YBP, so it may have been privileged with a civilization that was well advanced
in comparison to its neighbors.
Figure 2. The location of the ancient city of Tartessos, that may have been
built in the place of the destroyed city of Atlantis. To the south is present
day Cadiz, the ancient Gadeira. Plato writes that the mainland of Atlantis is a plane with
southern orientation and is well protected from the north (Critias 118b), a
landscape strongly evoking the Iberian peninsula. North of Tartessos flows the
small river Rio Tinto (red river) who gets its color from the high
concentration (especially in the antiquity) of dissolved minerals of metals as
iron, gold, silver and copper. Plato compares the size of the island of
Atlantis with Libya (Africa) and Asia put together (Timaeus 24e), a claim that sounds
exaggerated even taking into account the
then limited knowledge about the size of these continents. But understandably, the figures given by Plato, as well as the claim that the city sunk overnight (Timaeus 25d), should
be not taken at face value. (Credit: pinterest.com)
According
to Plato, Atlantis sunk 9.000 years before Solon’s time (Timaeus 23e), so it
was around 9.500 BCE and it happened during a 24 hours period following of a
very strong earthquake. It is more plausible though, that it
took much longer to sink and it was eventually due to a gradual but quick rise of the
level of the sea towards the end of the Ice Age. Alternatively, the cause might be a tsunami created by
the collapse of an enormous glacial barrier holding a huge lake behind, or as a
result of the eruption of a submarine volcano in mid Atlantic, as in the Azores
ocean floor meet three major tectonic plates. Perhaps, the sequence of the events took place in the reverse order,
that is when Atlantis sunk in mid ocean because of an earthquake, the obstacle
in the circulation of the Gulfstream was lifted, so northern Europe stared to
heat up, the continental ice to melt and the sea level to rise. Historically, there is the evidence of the destructive earthquake and tsunami that in 1755 hit and practically destroyed
Lisbon, caused by a fault line extending from Azores to Gibraltar.
Anyway, some Atlanteans eventually manage to escape to the west and to the east
with the means of their time, as nowhere in Plato’s story there is evidence of
any particular or advanced technology, despite Edgar Cayce's "vision" in the ‘30s. So it seems more plausible that areas in
Europe and in the Americas, far away from each other were influenced by the
same civilization, than there was a direct communication between them. There
are indeed some interesting similarities between these extreme locations,
such as
the
designation of
12 zodiacs
(although
with
different
names),
some
carvings,
names
and
artifacts
(rather controversial)
and of course the existence of numerous pyramids (even with differences in the
construction style and intended use). There are nonetheless and
some striking differences,
as
the
ignorance
of
the
use of the wheel and the absence of horses and cattle in the Americas (having been extinct
long ago). By contrast, Plato writes about chariots and bulls in Atlantis, but all the same he writes about triremes and bronze artifacts, that historically have been conceived and produced
many millennia later that the supposedly time of Atlantis. So probably Plato
took the liberty to add details in his story (if not entirely fabricated!) to
make it more vivid. Anyway, it is most probable that the wheel didn’t exist
around Mediterranean 10 millennia BCE, and it was most impractical to transport
cattle in open boats in the ocean, for a long voyage. Even if, at the end, we are willing to accept Plato’s
story as true, we should consider that it has been narrated by an Egyptian
priest to Solon many millennia after the events took place
and the story had to be initially transmitted orally through generations of
Egyptians, so any quantitative information should be considered with a
significant margin for error.
According to some privately ventured archaeologists, as Atlantis remnants are considered some ruins in west Spain (Cancho Roano) about 200 km north of Seville, but also some rock
engravings in the Canary islands depicting concentric cycles with a
perpendicular entrance, as the city of Altantis is typically depicted. The general circular shape of ancient Carthage’s naval station, visible even today from Google Earth, also evokes Plato’s
description.
There is also a speculation that the story of Atlantis
could actually be the story of the eruption of Thera volcano (a rather small island
in the middle of the Aegean sea) around 1600 BCE, provided that all numbers given
by Plato be divided by 10, supposing a “convenient” error in the transcription
of the Egyptian priest’s narration to Solon (a hypothesis by profs Marinatos and Galanopoulos). We should further accept that Plato modified the story to make Atlanteans look arrogant and aggressive to emphasize the moral message of his story, because all findings about life in ancient Thera show a rather leisure and peaceful sea oriented life.
Another view is offered by professor of Geophysics S. Papamarinipoylos, who suggests that the "years" mentioned by the Egyptian priest were in fact lunar months, a type of calendar used exclusively by Egyptian priesthood. Then the years mentioned by Plato should be divides by 12.37, giving a date just after the Trojan war and amid the raids of the "Peoples of the Sea".
On the other hand, it is strange that Plato didn’t mention any comment of
the Egyptians about the eruption of the Thera volcano, whose part of the volcanic
ash and the tsunami that followed is proven to have reached Egypt. As a matter
of fact, the consequences should have been severe enough to make some
researchers propose this very eruption as the origin of the plagues of
Egyptians during Exodus (see article: «Biblical plagues really happened say scientists», of the electronic
edition of «The Telegraph», Mar. 27. 2010).
Finally, although the story about Atlantis it is more reasonable to be taken as a myth, at least until some real evidence emerges, some people may have eventually transferred civilization similar to that of the East Mediterranean to the North
America many millennia BP, but they could not possibly have been Odysseus and
his men.
PS. It is worth considering that as about Odysseus and his adventures there is only one primordial source, Homer, similarily for Atlantis there is only one primordial source, Plato.
G. Metaxas
