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World-Mysteries.com
presents
Guest Writers:
Frank Joseph
The Destruction of Atlantis
By Frank Joseph
An essay regarding "The Destruction of Atlantis" (by the author).
Although some Atlantologists concluded that the Great Flood was caused by a
celestial event,
not until 1997 did the scientific community generally concede that a
killer-comet was responsible for the demise of Bronze Age Civilization. During a
three-day symposium in July, leading astronomers, geologists and climatologists
met in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, England, at an international conference
of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies. Speakers included such notables as
astrophysicist Mark E. Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory, in Northern
Ireland; Marie-Agnes Courty, a geologist from the French Center for Scientific
Research; and Bas Van Geel, a paleo-ecologist at the University of Amsterdam.
Many of the one hundred participants came from as far afield as Japan, North
America and Australia.
Their consensus was that an abundance of physical and cultural evidence
confirmed that periodic close encounters of a large comet from the 5th
Millennium B.C. to the early 11th Century B.C. were responsible for several eras
of wide-spread destruction on the Earth's surface, including the forced end of
the Bronze Age. Swedish physicist, Lars Franzen (University of Goeteborg) and
archaeologist Thomas B. Larsson (University of Umea) pointed out that general
cooling, extreme precipitation, followed by catastrophic flooding before 1000
B.C. were earmarks of a celestial cataclysm. They concluded, "it is
obvious that these events were sudden and occurred world-wide". They
mentioned a particularly sharp change in climate, a steep drop in temperatures
and simultaneous rise in wet conditions, noticeable in Europe, the Americas, the
Near East, as far north as Alaska and south to the Antarctic, circa 1,200 B.C.
Lake levels increased drastically, in some cases (Turkey's Lake Van) as much as
240 feet. Larsson said the abrupt rise in lake levels has been verified in
Sweden (Federsee), Ireland (Loughnashade), the United States (Great Salt Lake),
Canada (Wald sea Basin), Bolivia (Titicaca) and Argentina (Lago Cardiel).
Franzen told how Swedish, English and Irish oak bog preserve a record of extreme
and sudden rainfall around 1,000 B.C. At Steng Moss, in Northumberland, there
was a six-fold increase in peat moss accumulation.
While such finds are generally unknown to the public, they have long been
recognized by climatologists as leading conditions of the Plenard Period, from
1250 to 1000 B.C., when Earth's climate sharply deteriorated. World temperatures
suddenly fell nearly two degrees Centigrade and rainfall was prodigious. British
anthropologist, Richard Desborough, said of the Plenard Period, "the changes
that came about were little short of fantastic. The craftsmen and artists seem
to have vanished almost without a trace: there is little new stone construction
of any sort, far less any massive edifices; the metal workers' techniques revert
to primitive, and the potter, except in the early stages, loses his purpose and
inspiration; and the art of writing is forgotten. But the outstanding feature is
that by the end of the 12th Century B.C., the population appears to have
dwindled to about one-tenth of what it had been little over a century before.
This is no normal decline, and the circumstances and events obviously have a
considerable bearing on the nature of the subsequent Dark ages, and must be in
part at least a cause of its existence". Franzen and Larsson locate the focus of
the Bronze Age catastrophe in the the vicinity of Atlantis itself. "We even
suggest that relatively large asteroids or comets (c. 0.5 km diameter) hit
somewhere in the eastern Atlantic, possibly at the shelf of the Atlantic west
coast of Africa/Europe ... mainly affecting the Mediterranean parts of Africa
and Europe, but also globally". As our planet turned on its axis, the proto-Encke
Comet, Oljato, bombarded every region in a world-wide swath from above the
Equator to below the Arctic Circle, according to the comet's inclining angle to
the Earth. Passing over the Caribbean, it fired down an object one mile
across. Moving a hundred times the velocity of a 9 m.m. bullet, the asteroid
plunged through the water to explode on the sea floor with an explosive force
equal to one million megatons of TNT, excavating a crater on the submarine
bottom 900 feet deep. The resulting 1,000-foot wall of water swept inland as far
as Alabama killing every living thing in its path and set off volcanoes from the
Antilles to El Salvador.
Over North America, the comet let loose a barrage that blasted a nuclear-like
event in the Ohio Valley and triggered off a hellish series of volcanic
outbursts in Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. Cosmic bomb-loads falling across
the Pacific Ocean raised roaring walls of water to obliterate whole island
populations. In the Hawaiian Islands of Lanai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu, deposits
of unconsolidated coral were placed nearly a thousand feet above the coast by a
monstrous wall of water. Tsunamis are gigantic waves set in motion by submarine
earthquakes, but they never begin to approach the 1,000-foot high swell that was
necessary to over-top the Hawaiian Islands. Only a wave caused by the plunge
of a large meteorite or asteroid could have attained such enormous proportions.
Approaching Asia, Oljato conjured volcanic and seismic devastation throughout
Japan and eastern Russia. The face of China was obscured by catastrophic storms
of corrosive ash-fall, as nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere combined with
nitric acid released by the relentless impacts of celestial debris thousands of
miles away. India and the Middle East were tormented with geologic violence from
the merciless onslaught high overhead. But Europe and the Near East, the cradle
of Western Civilization, were the special targets of Comet Oljato. As it passed
over Anatolia, the moment of "the Fire from Heaven" had arrived. A veritable
deluge of flame descended in waves of thunder from out of the sky.
Hattusas, capital of the mighty Hittite Empire, erupted in a fiery holocaust.
Hundreds of cities and towns with hundreds of thousands of their residents all
across Asia Minor were abruptly incinerated. Burned in great flashes of flame
were the commercial centers of Palestine and the Syrian fortresses. Unrelenting
earthquakes smashed Pharaoh's monumental temples to smoking ruin, while the
divine wrath threatened Lower Egypt with death by fire. Libya, her once-fertile
neighbor, was seared into a barren desert.
Across the Aegean Sea, the people of Crete fled for their lives into the high
mountains to escape the flaming, quaking doom of their cities and towns below.
In mainland Greece, the light of civilization went out, replaced by a worse glow
from the hundreds of her settlements, citadels, palaces and temples girdled in
high flames. Coastal cities and harbors had their conflagrations quenched by
over-powering floods scarcely less devastating. The same sea which nourished
their inhabitants for a thousand years had become their murderer.
Several large rivers which converge in the Hungarian Plain, suddenly spilled
over their banks to deluged this vast area of low-lying land. The entire region
was inundated with the ferocious flood that wiped out a prosperous Bronze Age
culture. It had come, in the words of Swedish archaeologist, Adolf Aberg, to "an
unexpected end, after which the country is without any discoverable sign of
occupation and seems deserted".
Europe's largest fire consumed the Black Forest down to the Swiss Alps. A
counterpart to the ash-fall inundating China fell on Britain, killing the
majority of all living things there. The worst was yet to come. Leaving the
continent in flames, Comet Oljato dispatched a salvo of cosmic bombs hurtling at
20,000 miles per hour toward the ocean.
Breaking the sound-barrier each in turn, they filled the vast chambers of the
sky with reverberating thunders. At least one meteorite hit the geologically
sensitive Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It suddenly awoke like the enraged Midgaard
Serpent of Norse myth. Sea-quakes rose in 500-foot tsunamis crashing 150 miles
per hour across the face of the deep. Volcanos roared in furious choruses of
streaming magma and piling cloud-banks of ash from Ascension and Candlemas in
the South Atlantic to Hekla in Iceland. Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and
Lanzarote in the Canaries exploded with flames to rival heaven's, as the nearby
coast of North Africa writhed in seismic anguish. Stabbing like sharp pain
through a raw nerve, geologic violence shot along the length of the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge and across the fault boundary separating the Eurasian from African plates
to which it was connected and on which the island of Atlantis was situated.
A trembler moving close to the speed of sound struck the submarine foundations
of Atlantis, detonating the sacred mountain. Unable to vent the sudden force of
so much erupting magma, one wall of the volcano blasted out laterally. An
inconceivable rush of sea rushed into the gaping wound, where the extremes of
water and fire combined to implode the entire island. The opulent, powerful,
corrupt capital, with most of its screaming inhabitants, sank to the bottom of
the ocean it dominated for centuries --- the same ocean to which it had given
its own name.
* * *
--- Copies of "The Destruction of Atlantis" (264 pgs, color
photograph section) are available for $18.00 from
www.InnerTraditions.com and
from Amazon.com
Copyright 2007 by Frank Joseph
All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission.
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The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden
Fall of the Legendary Civilization (Paperback)
by Frank Joseph
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Robert G. Bauval, author of The Orion Mystery and
Message of the Sphinx
Definitely a can't-put-downer and must-read book for the
enthusiast of ancient mysteries.
Robert G. Bauval, author of The Orion Mystery and Message of
the Sphinx : "Intrepid globetrotter, researcher, and writer
extraordinaire, Frank Joseph takes the reader on a tour in
search of Atlantis. Enjoy with him the alchemical thrill of
transforming dramatic legend into historical reality and
experience his passion and dedication as he unravels this
age-old story. Definitely a cant-put-downer and must-read book
for the enthusiast of ancient mysteries."
Review
Andrew Collins, author of From the Ashes of Angels and Gateway
to Atlantis : A valuable addition to the study of lost
civilizations and ancient maritime exploration. Essential
reading for all true Atlantologists.
J. Douglas Kenyon, editor, Atlantis Rising
magazine : "Like a hot new detective story surrounded by dusty
tomes, The Destruction of Atlantis shines brightly amid the
dim and dull fare from the cloistered towers of academe and
elsewhere."
Dr. Robert R. Hieronimus, Host of 21st-Century
Radio, author of Founding Fathers, Secret Societies : "'Where
will it all end?' people wonder. For the answer, let them look
to Atlantis. On a scale of one to ten, I give this book a
9.95. This book should be a standard-issue text in all high
school and college history courses. It will stand the test of
time."
David Hatcher Childress, author of Atlantis & the
Power System of the Gods and the Lost Cities series : "The
Destruction of Atlantis is an extensively researched volume
that takes on the reality of Atlantis in a conservative and
well-reasoned approach. It deserves to be part of every
Atlantis library."
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Other Books by Frank Joseph
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The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in
America before Columbus (Paperback)
by Frank Joseph
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Book Description
The story of a mysterious southern Illinois
treasure cave and its proof of the presence of Africans in North
America long before Columbus.
• Includes over 100 photographs of the artifacts
discovered.
• Re-creates the historic voyage of King Juba and
his Mauretanian sailors across the Atlantic to rebuild their
society in the New World.
• Explains the mystery of the Washitaws, a tribal
group of African origin, first encountered by the Lewis and
Clark Expedition.
In 1982 Russell E. Burrows, a treasure hunter in
southern Illinois, stumbled on a cache of ancient weapons,
jewels, and gold sarcophagi in a remote cave. There also were
stone tablets inscribed with illustrations of Roman-like
soldiers, Jews, early Christians, and West African sailors.
These relics fueled a bitter controversy in the archaeological
community regarding their authenticity, leading Burrows to
destroy the entrance to the cave.
Researching more than 7,000 artifacts removed from
the cave before it was sealed, Frank Joseph explains how these
objects came to be buried in the middle of the United States. It
started with Cleopatra, whose daughter was made queen of the
semi-independent realm of Mauretania, present-day Morocco, which
she ruled with her husband, King Juba II. Following the
execution of their son, Ptolemy, by Emperor Caligula, the
Mauretanians rebelled against their Roman overlords and made
their way into what is now Ghana. There they constructed a fleet
of ships for a transatlantic voyage to a land where they hoped
to rebuild their kingdom safe from Roman rule. They took with
them a great prize unsuccessfully sought by two Roman emperors:
Cleopatra's golden treasure and King Juba's encyclopedic library
of ancient wisdom.
Fully illustrated with many previously unpublished
photographs of artifacts retrieved from the southern Illinois
site, The Lost Treasure of King Juba is a compelling story that
could force us to rethink the early history of our nation and
the possibility that Africans arrived on our continent nearly
fifteen centuries before Columbus.
"The Lost Treasure of King Juba" --- with 115 photos and illistrations of the
Cave's artifacts --- is available from amazon.com
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Opening the Ark of the Covenant
by Frank Joseph and
Laura Beaudoin
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There are no Coincidences
by Frank Joseph
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