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Plato's Atlantis -- Made Up or Based on Fact?


MissionAtlantis

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Slim, to be honest, I'm not sure on the masks or India. The Tatenan link I did get into before, definitely an Underworld of a kind.

It's interesting what Homer has Hera say:

Hera mentions twice in Iliad book xiv her intended journey "to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Oceanus, whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanus

Whence the Gods have risen.

The whole original titans idea really twists my melon. Cronos was the youngest so how old must Oceanus have been? :wacko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(mythology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanomachy

I don't know about the India connection either but Indonesia is a more likely possibility. Why do titans have weak legs or serpent legs?

Interestingly enough, the Hindus associate this sort of stuff — this vitreous "seafroth" — with Krishna and Balarama, the archetypes of Hercules and Atlas. Balarama is the alias of the Serpent Shesha, whose name means (in Sanskrit) "residue" and, more exactly, the kind of foam such as ambergris or pumice stone thrown over the beaches by the seas. The whole story is a clever allegory of the explosion of Mt. Atlas, the World’s Pillar, ejecting the huge amounts of pumice stone and fly ash that covered the soil and the seas of Atlantis, and choking out all its paradisial forms of life.

The Titans — and Atlas in particular — were likened to Serpents (or Dragons), and to "weak-legged", anguipedal, Civilizing Heroes such as Erychthonios, Cadmus, Hercules, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, etc..

All such indeed derive from the Nagas ("Serpent-people", "Dragons") of India and Indonesia, as we argue elsewhere.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlantida_2b.htm

From the same link it talks about the Vijra as being the flail of the Gods that drives evolution. Interesting! :geek:

As we just said, myths work at several levels, and a parallel such as the Atlantean one is just a facet of God’s myriad aspects. In other words, volcanoes are manifestations of God’s power, the weapon he often chooses to castigate the nations and to force Evolution to follow its course. The Hindus call this force by the name of vajra, a Sanskrit word meaning both "hard as diamond", as well as "thunderbolt". The vajra is the thunderbolt weapon used by almighty gods such as Baal (Hercules’s archetype), Zeus, Indra, Haddad, and a myriad others. In fact, God is neither the vajra nor the volcano, but the force behind it, its impeller and wielder.

For the vajra is indeed the flail of the gods, the Celestial weapon He uses in order to quicken Evolution and to stir Nature into action, in the endless parade of life forms that characterizes Life. Perhaps all this has a purpose in the divine conscience, though I don’t really know for sure. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Catastrophism is God’s way, if He indeed has any. Moreover, it is also Nature’s way, let no one doubt it. The ancients well knew that, and so do I, having learnt from them. For instance, they often portrayed the vajra as a flail or a lash, or even a hammer or a mace wielded by the god in order to stir Nature into action.

Gods like Christ are not the only ones to die and to rise again from the dead. By the way, Christ too is the wielder of the "iron rod", the hardest of metals being a metaphor for "diamond" and, hence, for the vajra. Christ was preceded by many aliases, and the conception of "dying-resurrecting" gods akin to the Sun of Justice dates from oldest antiquity.

Among the many archetypes of Christ we can mention, offhand, Osiris, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Shiva, Kronos, Saturn, Dionysos, Serapis, Mithra and, of course, Krishna, in his infinite series of avatars, and Hercules, the great hero, in his fiery apotheosis that figured the Atlantean Conflagration.

Here is an extensive look at Zeus. You may have reat it but I didn't realize what a massive presence he really was.

http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/Cook2.htm

Where was he born again? Zagreus wasn't it or was that Dionysus, maybe Zeus was Crete. I do see Zeus as being a relatively new cult coming in from the north round about uh.. between 4,000-3,000bce orignally as a tribal god that was developed more by the Minoans. If it was Zagreus you could say that would put him in Sumer but I'd personally lean more towards Zeus Ammon and Amon Ra as having a connection. Crete and Egypt were likely in contact from an early time though I have no source to support that right now.

There are the tridents carved into the labrys at Knossos so if Zeus was the dominant cult who were these Poseidon led groups attacking them at Thera. I suspect they were a combination of north africans and cannanites who also had a foothold in Egypt but they were increasingly defeated by the cult of Zeus as it regrouped under the Myceneans with reenforcements coming from the north. Make any sense?

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What tradition? There is absolutely no evidence of the story existing prior to Plato's telling nor, again, that Solon even knew anything about it.

Except that there isn't any evidence that the Egyptians knew it, by any name. Not in the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom nor the New Kingdom.

The only reason to take the story as fact is because you want it to be.

cormac

and he told us an ancient tradition

Whatever then.

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Maybe the names of individuals often shed light on the meaning behind the story.

For example Atlas comes from the root of 'to endure'.

Lapetus the father of Atlas has the meaning 'piercer'.

Noah means 'rest' or 'comfy'.

http://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus/53-plato?start=2

http://www.world-mysteries.com/11500yearsago.pdf

http://jsp.sagepub.com/content/19/4/277.abstract

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/diss%20defense%20chart.pdf

Basically the tale of Atlantis could in one way correspond with the sea peoples. Therefore I don't think greekk myth should be read in isolation. If for convenience sake we break it down into the two main cults, them being Zeus and Poseidon then we may find parallels elsehwere. They will not fit perfectly but they could help.

I think that the cult of Zeus albeit in a different form was the mainsay of egyptian religion. Therefore we would be unsurprised to find any direct mention of an Atlantis like place. However, if we look at the enemies of Egypt we may start to find things in common with the cult of Poseidon.

Chariots of the Hyksos, possibly the Hittites and hebrews. Ok I better justify that. How's about titan as it may derive from Al Shaitan or Leviathan. Metaphorically it seems like the titans became the figures of chaos, Poseidon being included with them though he was actually an Olympian. The cult of Zeus on the other hand represented order. Thus we find a common parallel eith Set as chaos and Osiris as order. It could also have a close connecion to the tower of Babel. If these are all seen as metaphors for the collapse of one way of life to be replaced by the new and different the Atlantis fits very well. The archetypal tale of destruction but importantly rebirth because though the titans are defeated they are not destroyed and continue to tutor and watch over mankind even though hey have lost control of civilization.

Good link on titans. My head is mangled from trying to see from these different angles and I expect a hefty amount of criticism for this. :alien:

http://members.tripod.com/~HX_Scheherazade/gods.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples

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Amenti to me seems like Amen, then I saw it mentioned that it is like Amen, the hidden God.

Amun/Amen seemed to sound like God to me here:

As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of the Hyksos rule, the victory accomplished by pharaohs worshiping Amun was seen as a champion of the less fortunate. Consequently, Amun was viewed as upholding the rights of justice for the poor.[1] By aiding those who traveled in his name, he became the Protector of the road. Since he upheld Ma'at (truth, justice, and goodness) ,[1] those who prayed to Amun were required, first, to demonstrate that they were worthy by confessing their sins. Votive stela from the artisans village at Deir el-Medina record:

[Amun] who comes at the voice of the poor in distress, who gives breath to him who is wretched..You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes at the voice of the poor; when I call to you in my distress You come and rescue me...Though the servant was disposed to do evil, the Lord is disposed to forgive. The Lord of Thebes spends not a whole day in anger; His wrath passes in a moment; none remains. His breath comes back to us in mercy..May your ka be kind; may you forgive; It shall not happen again.

Maybe he really is God and that's why we say Amen at the end of The Lord's Prayer.

I don't think Amun is Zeus, no matter what the Greeks thought and many of them didn't think he was Zeus, they say he was Pan, which I agree with.

How about that, here you can see that the title Amun can mean Lord.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yS7jHfvNuVEC&pg=RA1-PA105&lpg=RA1-PA105&dq=Amun+Pan&source=bl&ots=x3w44axBRC&sig=n74gYVmQ2lFztouzPfxb_2jg9_I&hl=en&ei=KpykTOafOsLJcc66qP8N&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Amun%20Pan&f=false Page 105

The few notes on that page are interesting. Plutarch says Pan, the All is Amun.

Aristotle explains the absence of the Moon in Arcadia.

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Amenti to me seems like Amen, then I saw it mentioned that it is like Amen, the hidden God.

Amun/Amen seemed to sound like God to me here:

As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of the Hyksos rule, the victory accomplished by pharaohs worshiping Amun was seen as a champion of the less fortunate. Consequently, Amun was viewed as upholding the rights of justice for the poor.[1] By aiding those who traveled in his name, he became the Protector of the road. Since he upheld Ma'at (truth, justice, and goodness) ,[1] those who prayed to Amun were required, first, to demonstrate that they were worthy by confessing their sins. Votive stela from the artisans village at Deir el-Medina record:

[Amun] who comes at the voice of the poor in distress, who gives breath to him who is wretched..You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes at the voice of the poor; when I call to you in my distress You come and rescue me...Though the servant was disposed to do evil, the Lord is disposed to forgive. The Lord of Thebes spends not a whole day in anger; His wrath passes in a moment; none remains. His breath comes back to us in mercy..May your ka be kind; may you forgive; It shall not happen again.

Maybe he really is God and that's why we say Amen at the end of The Lord's Prayer.

I don't think Amun is Zeus, no matter what the Greeks thought and many of them didn't think he was Zeus, they say he was Pan, which I agree with.

How about that, here you can see that the title Amun can mean Lord.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yS7jHfvNuVEC&pg=RA1-PA105&lpg=RA1-PA105&dq=Amun+Pan&source=bl&ots=x3w44axBRC&sig=n74gYVmQ2lFztouzPfxb_2jg9_I&hl=en&ei=KpykTOafOsLJcc66qP8N&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Amun%20Pan&f=false Page 105

The few notes on that page are interesting. Plutarch says Pan, the All is Amun.

Aristotle explains the absence of the Moon in Arcadia.

Nice thought Puzz. I often hit a dead end when researching Pan and it had my non-senses twitching like mad. Apparently there were many Pans, they were called panes and may have become synonymous with satyrs. There is the saltman of Iran but I had taken it to be about the wild and lustful cults of Arcadia that were at heart similar to wicca or something. Altough I think you could be on to something I can't believe that Pan had any connection to Amon Ra of Egypt. 'All is hidden' yes because it is quite shavistic or monistic at least and it fits with my view. Who knows, could be.

http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/pan.htm

You do have amon sort of in pandamonium but I prefer to think that Amon is a prefix or suffix that means hidden. Saying it after prayer still invokes what is to sacred to speak perhaps. I have also considered before the connection to the vedic AUM

Isn't there a myth with Ra that Isis found his secret name? Maybe that has some explanation for why he became Amon Ra.

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Maybe the names of individuals often shed light on the meaning behind the story.

For example Atlas comes from the root of 'to endure'.

Lapetus the father of Atlas has the meaning 'piercer'.

Noah means 'rest' or 'comfy'.

http://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus/53-plato?start=2

http://www.world-mysteries.com/11500yearsago.pdf

http://jsp.sagepub.com/content/19/4/277.abstract

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/diss%20defense%20chart.pdf

Basically the tale of Atlantis could in one way correspond with the sea peoples. Therefore I don't think greekk myth should be read in isolation. If for convenience sake we break it down into the two main cults, them being Zeus and Poseidon then we may find parallels elsehwere. They will not fit perfectly but they could help.

I think that the cult of Zeus albeit in a different form was the mainsay of egyptian religion. Therefore we would be unsurprised to find any direct mention of an Atlantis like place. However, if we look at the enemies of Egypt we may start to find things in common with the cult of Poseidon.

Chariots of the Hyksos, possibly the Hittites and hebrews. Ok I better justify that. How's about titan as it may derive from Al Shaitan or Leviathan. Metaphorically it seems like the titans became the figures of chaos, Poseidon being included with them though he was actually an Olympian. The cult of Zeus on the other hand represented order. Thus we find a common parallel eith Set as chaos and Osiris as order. It could also have a close connecion to the tower of Babel. If these are all seen as metaphors for the collapse of one way of life to be replaced by the new and different the Atlantis fits very well. The archetypal tale of destruction but importantly rebirth because though the titans are defeated they are not destroyed and continue to tutor and watch over mankind even though hey have lost control of civilization.

Good link on titans. My head is mangled from trying to see from these different angles and I expect a hefty amount of criticism for this. :alien:

http://members.tripod.com/~HX_Scheherazade/gods.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples

Many are on the Olympians side too and have a place in the new generation of Gods. My head is getting very mangled now.. :wacko:

I think the word comes from the native name of the mountain which is Douris, maybe PIE related durus=hard and then it relates to Greek endure, so the Greeks called the mountains Atlas, which meant the same as the name in Berber. The mountain itself would be described as hard, enduring and it would then seem the North African natives spoke a form of PIE language...

Edit to add: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=endure

There is alternate writings of Atlas being a King of Mauritania, an expert astrologer.

A euhemerist origin for Atlas was as a legendary Atlas, king of Mauretania, an expert astronomer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology)

Remember in that Sanchuiathon writings it said how real people were given appelations like this, a mountain. Perseus revealed Medusa's head to Atlas turning him to stone according to Ovid, so his telling could be the cross-over from a person to a mountain Titan...

To add more confusion, Atlas is often a doublet for Coeus, we don't hear much of him but he is the actual celestial axis - Polus. The celestial Pole.

He is the father of Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo and also Asteria, whose is mother of Hecate.

In Greek mythology, Coeus (Ancient Greek: Κοῖος, Koios) was one of the Titans, the giant sons and daughters of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). His equivalent in Latin poetry—though he scarcely makes an appearance in Roman mythology—[1] was Polus,[2] the embodiment of the celestial axis around which the heavens revolve. Like most of the Titans he played no active part in Greek religion—he appears only in lists of Titans—[3] but was primarily important for his descendants.[4] With his sister, "shining" Phoebe, Coeus fathered Leto[5] and Asteria.[6] Leto copulated with Zeus (the son of fellow Titans Cronus and Rhea) and bore Artemis and Apollo.

Along with the other Titans, Coeus was overthrown by Zeus and other Olympians. After the Titan War, he and all his brothers were banished into Tartarus by Zeus

When Coeus was banished to Tartarus, that is the Celestial Axis fell to the Underworld (?), Atlas took his place to keep the chaos from resuming...

Edited by The Puzzler
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Sorry, not me.

I can add to the nightmare though... B)

Because it sounds alot like when I could also place her and the Europeans in the Canaries in the OLB thread. The Lady of the Underworld, the Lady of Hel, the Lady who guards the gates of Hel oops the Underworld.

I just burnt myself earlier and cursed "friggin' hell", you know, like ****g hell but nicer to say in front of the children...so then I realised what I said, Frigg In Hel. A curse word to a Christian based people.

Not quite, And I don't think you'd be quite so quick to use "frig" if it were still the common word it used to be, as used most famously in translations of the works of the Marquis De Sade.

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Amenti to me seems like Amen, then I saw it mentioned that it is like Amen, the hidden God.

Amun/Amen seemed to sound like God to me here:

As the Egyptians considered themselves oppressed during the period of the Hyksos rule, the victory accomplished by pharaohs worshiping Amun was seen as a champion of the less fortunate. Consequently, Amun was viewed as upholding the rights of justice for the poor.[1] By aiding those who traveled in his name, he became the Protector of the road. Since he upheld Ma'at (truth, justice, and goodness) ,[1] those who prayed to Amun were required, first, to demonstrate that they were worthy by confessing their sins. Votive stela from the artisans village at Deir el-Medina record:

[Amun] who comes at the voice of the poor in distress, who gives breath to him who is wretched..You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes at the voice of the poor; when I call to you in my distress You come and rescue me...Though the servant was disposed to do evil, the Lord is disposed to forgive. The Lord of Thebes spends not a whole day in anger; His wrath passes in a moment; none remains. His breath comes back to us in mercy..May your ka be kind; may you forgive; It shall not happen again.

Maybe he really is God and that's why we say Amen at the end of The Lord's Prayer.

I don't think Amun is Zeus, no matter what the Greeks thought and many of them didn't think he was Zeus, they say he was Pan, which I agree with.

How about that, here you can see that the title Amun can mean Lord.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yS7jHfvNuVEC&pg=RA1-PA105&lpg=RA1-PA105&dq=Amun+Pan&source=bl&ots=x3w44axBRC&sig=n74gYVmQ2lFztouzPfxb_2jg9_I&hl=en&ei=KpykTOafOsLJcc66qP8N&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Amun%20Pan&f=false Page 105

The few notes on that page are interesting. Plutarch says Pan, the All is Amun.

Aristotle explains the absence of the Moon in Arcadia.

Etymology

Amen, meaning so be it, is of Hebrew origin. The word was imported into the Greek of the early Church from the Jewish synagogue. From Greek, amen entered the other Western languages. According to a standard dictionary etymology, amen passed from Greek into Late Latin, and thence into English.

The Hebrew word amen derives from the Hebrew verb ʼāmán, a primitive root. Grammarians frequently list ʼāmán under its three consonants (aleph-mem-nun), which are identical to those of ʼāmēn (note that the Hebrew letter א aleph originally represented a glottal stop sound, which functioned as a consonant in the morphology of Hebrew).This triliteral root means to be firm, confirmed, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe.

Popular among some theosophists,proponents of Afrocentric theories of history, and adherents of esoteric Christianity is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (which is sometimes also spelled Amen). Some adherents of Eastern religions believe that amen shares roots with the Sanskrit word, aum. There is no academic support for either of these views. Note that the Hebrew word, as noted above, starts with aleph, while the Egyptian name begins with a yodh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen

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Nice thought Puzz. I often hit a dead end when researching Pan and it had my non-senses twitching like mad. Apparently there were many Pans, they were called panes and may have become synonymous with satyrs. There is the saltman of Iran but I had taken it to be about the wild and lustful cults of Arcadia that were at heart similar to wicca or something. Altough I think you could be on to something I can't believe that Pan had any connection to Amon Ra of Egypt. 'All is hidden' yes because it is quite shavistic or monistic at least and it fits with my view. Who knows, could be.

http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/pan.htm

You do have amon sort of in pandamonium but I prefer to think that Amon is a prefix or suffix that means hidden. Saying it after prayer still invokes what is to sacred to speak perhaps. I have also considered before the connection to the vedic AUM

Isn't there a myth with Ra that Isis found his secret name? Maybe that has some explanation for why he became Amon Ra.

As the cult of Amun grew in importance, Amun became identified with the chief deity who was worshipped in other areas during that period, Ra-Herakhty, the merged identities of Ra and Horus. This identification led to another merger of identities, with Amun becoming Amun-Ra. In the Hymn to Amun-Ra he is described as "Lord of truth, father of the gods, maker of men, creator of all animals, Lord of things that are, creator of the staff of life."[5] By then Ra had been described as the father of Shu, Tefnut, and the remainder of the Ennead, so Amun-Ra likewise, became identified as their father.

Ra-Herakhty had been a solar deity and this nature became ascribed to Amun-Ra as well, Amun becoming considered the hidden aspect of the sun during the night, in contrast to Ra-Herakhty as the visible aspect during the day. Amun clearly meant the one who is hidden. This complexity over the sun led to a gradual movement toward the support of a more pure form of deity.

But Amun was a deity before he became Amon-Ra so perhaps it is the earlier form of him...

But the description given above of Amon-Ra sounds like God to me. Lord of Truth, father of the Gods, maker of men, creator of all animals, Lord of things that are, creator of the staff of life.

From PAGAN WORDS TO AVOID lol - from who? :ph34r:http://shekinahlifecenter.com/PAGAN_WORDS.html

AMEN

The Hebrew of the Old Testament reveals to us that the Scriptural Hebrew word (which means: so be it, or verily, or surely) is "Amein" and not "Amen." Likewise, the Greek equivalent in the Greek New Testament is pronounced: "Amein." The Egyptians, including the Alexandrians, had been worshiping, or been acquainted with, the head of the Egyptian pantheon, Amen-Ra, the great sun-deity, for more than one thousand years B.C. Before he was known as Amen-Ra, he was known as Amen among the Thebans.

According to Funk and Wagnall's Standard College Dictionary, AMEN was the god of life and procreation in Egyptian mythology, and later identified with the Sun-god as the supreme deity and called "Amen-Ra." Smith's Bible Dictionary and Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought agree.

Our Saviour Yahushua calls Himself "the Amein" in Revelation 3:14. One might ask: Have we been misled to invoke the name of the Egyptian sun-deity at the end of our prayers?

PRESENTED IN REVELATIONS 22:21

KJV - Amen

ISR - Amên (pronounced Ah-mein)

Uh, yeah, I think so.

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Abramelin.

Since the Hebrews spent much time in Egypt and their religion only developed from their time there it is not infeasible that they took the concept from them at all imo.

I saw your etymology, yep, maybe it transfers through in the different language, say, in Hebrew they took the name of Yamanu while in Egypt and they pronounced it aman, which to them meant a maker of men, a so be it kind of God. Firm, faith, believe. The hidden. A belief in the hidden. Pretty much what faith is too.

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Not quite, And I don't think you'd be quite so quick to use "frig" if it were still the common word it used to be, as used most famously in translations of the works of the Marquis De Sade.

We like the word here in that form, my father in law has a beauty of fishermans song, it goes: friggin' in the riggin' cause there's um....frigg all else to do...lol

I know it means the cruder form of word that's why I replaced it with it, but isn't that weird how it matches up with Hell so nicely since Frigg was a Goddess and they were all Pagan doers of evil deeds, in the eyes of the Church. Not to mention the replacement of the word itself.

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Abramelin.

Since the Hebrews spent much time in Egypt and their religion only developed from their time there it is not infeasible that they took the concept from them at all imo.

I saw your etymology, yep, maybe it transfers through in the different language, say, in Hebrew they took the name of Yamanu while in Egypt and they pronounced it aman, which to them meant a maker of men, a so be it kind of God. Firm, faith, believe. The hidden. A belief in the hidden. Pretty much what faith is too.

Ending a prayer with "so be it" seems more logical than with "hidden one" or "maker of men" or with "God".

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LOL, did you check this link http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=frig ? And that's kind of an official site, but if I post what it says, 'there will be stars'...

Btw, it would be nice if the ancient Meso Americans had a mythical land called 'Morning Land'.

Europe is said to have gotten it's name by the Greek 'Europa', but another explanation says it got it's name from the Semitic word for 'evening', Erev.

And... are you suggesting there must be 3 underworlds because Atlantis City had 3 rings???

I can see that the North Sea may have been one and maybe one in the Atlantic, Atlantis area and at the Canaries, yes, all circa 10,000BC to 8500BC. I came to a similar conclusion when I spun my brain around somewhat that each flood is a water circle on Atlantis. Not because, but it might have a connection.

The Europa thing is intriguing but I'll have to leave it for tomorrow now, I haven't forgotten the Goddess of the Underworld either...

I'll quickly edit this post before someone jumps on me for wanting archaeological evidence, the catastrophe at the Canaries would be c. 6500BC not 8,500BC, when Teide is thought to have erupted.

Edited by The Puzzler
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Ending a prayer with "so be it" seems more logical than with "hidden one" or "maker of men" or with "God".

The hidden one can be whatever you want him to be. The Jehovahs will teach you that Gods name Yahweh means whatever, I thought that was great, whatever...in the context of, whatever you want him to be, why, because he's hidden, we can't see him.

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Abramelin.

Since the Hebrews spent much time in Egypt and their religion only developed from their time there it is not infeasible that they took the concept from them at all imo.

I saw your etymology, yep, maybe it transfers through in the different language, say, in Hebrew they took the name of Yamanu while in Egypt and they pronounced it aman, which to them meant a maker of men, a so be it kind of God. Firm, faith, believe. The hidden. A belief in the hidden. Pretty much what faith is too.

Judaism, from its nascent stages onward, contains only snippets of ancient Egyptian religion. We see it preserved in some prayers and passages of the Old Testament, and at times the similarities are remarkable, leading one to realize that ancient Egypt did indeed influence Judaism. However, the degree of influence is usually exaggerated, and often dramatically so. Judaism is not an offshoot of ancient Egyptian religion, and infact the early Hebrews were clearly much more influenced by their Canaanite kin and by other neighboring religions such as the form of Zoroastrianism practiced by the Persian elite. Concepts of monotheism were much more influenced by Zoroastrianism than by ancient Egyptian religion, for example. It wasn't even until the post-exilic period that Judaism seems to have abandoned henotheism for true monotheism.

The name of the god Amun is unrelated to the Hebraic declaration of "Amen." Our very spelling of the Egyptian god's name and the variants in spelling (e.g., Amun, Amen, Amon) derive from the fact that the true vowels of the name are lost to us. The most we can do is reconstruct the consonants and weak consonants as seen in the transliterated 'imn. Indeed, our rendering of Amun or Amen or Amon may be considerably different from how it sounded in pharaonic Egypt, depending on how vowels were prefixed, inserted, and suffixed.

The name "Amen" does not mean "maker of men." It means "Hidden One." As a generic noun the ancient Egyptian 'imn simply means "hidden." To the Egyptians this god was both knowable and unknowable, both mysterious and intimate. I needn't go into a discourse on this but you get the idea. We may not know the true pronunciation but the meaning, definitely yes. More importantly, there is no evidence that the Egyptian "Amun" and the Hebraic "Amen" are cognates. No linguistic studies of which I am aware would support this argument, as frequently as it is brought up by laypeople who are perhaps over-enthusiastic to tie in Judaism with pagan Egypt.

I can see how you might argue the similar "hidden" nature of Amun and Yahweh, but this does not imply or support a real connection. By their very nature and by the ways their cults were developed and practiced, Amun and Yahweh are significantly different in almost every meaningful way.

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The hidden one can be whatever you want him to be. The Jehovahs will teach you that Gods name Yahweh means whatever, I thought that was great, whatever...in the context of, whatever you want him to be, why, because he's hidden, we can't see him.

Must be my crappy English, but I think you don't get my point.

When someone says, "I hope that one day there will be peace and harmony the world over and all politicians will be locked up", then another could say , "I'll say amen to that".

Why is that?

It has nothing to do with any name of God, it's something of an agreement between the two people, 'so be it'.

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The hidden one can be whatever you want him to be. The Jehovahs will teach you that Gods name Yahweh means whatever, I thought that was great, whatever...in the context of, whatever you want him to be, why, because he's hidden, we can't see him.

As an addendum to my previous post, I just noticed this one of yours. I should stress that the word 'imn as well as the name of the god in Egypt, does not necessarily imply physically hidden, as in unseeable. It suggests more of the spiritual than the physical. The word "hidden" is about as close as we can come in English to translate 'imn, and it doesn't do the job very well. That is the case with many ancient Egyptian words, especially pertaining to worship and religion (hence the clumsy ways we are forced to translate words like kA, bA, and ax).

The "hidden" nature of Yahweh is something altogether different and stems from early Judaism's dislike of iconographical worship. It's not the same in ancient Egypt, where iconographical worship was the main throughout pharaonic history. The god Amun, for example, was depicted in wall paintings, temple reliefs, stelae, statuary, and a myriad of other forms from the New Kingdom on. Those Egyptians loved their icons, and to them the physical form and appearance of Amun was very familiar and knowable.

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I though Yahweh meant "I Am."

Where am I wrong?

Harte

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I though Yahweh meant "I Am."

Where am I wrong?

Harte

It does. You're not wrong.

cormac

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I think we all are getting a bit offtopic, something which I was already afraid of when I started about 'Amenti', LOL.

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As the only reason you, I or anyone else even talks about Atlantis is because Plato mentions it in his dialogues, we don't get to pick and choose what we WANT to be relevant, nor do we get to reinterpret what he said to suit our fancy. What he wrote is all there is and it's descriptive of a Bronze Age culture. Anything else is someone else's story.

cormac

I'll say 'amen' to that...

:tu:

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I though Yahweh meant "I Am."

Where am I wrong?

Harte

You're not but think about it... I am.. what? I am what? The name is hidden. This is the sort of logic wise that you have to trawl through if you wanna imagine the more speculative possibilities. That is possibilities of what Plato meant, not what actually happened. Capiche?

Cormac, no offense buddy but I am picturing you with a dalek like voice this evening. I sympathize with you having to read my drivel but seriously, you yourself have said I'm sure that Plato was not a historian but a philosopher. Surely therefore this should be taken into account.

I think Atlantis can be interpreted with different layers of meaning. The one hand it probably is a vague reference to the fall of Thera isn't it? Bronze age so you should be satisfied it may not have met all the established criteria but maybe that was intentional. The other alternative, among many is that he was alluding to some primordial imagined world that collapsed due to hubris. Looking at his theory of forms should prove useful in the genuine pursuit.

The Theory of Forms (also known as the Theory of Ideas) was the centrepiece of Plato’s philosophy. It is essentially the belief that everything on Earth is an inferior copy of an original, supreme and heavenly master-copy. In effect, it amounts to a philosophical counterpart of the popular religious concept of the fallen paradise.

The classic example of the Theory of Forms is the concept of justice. On Earth, there is no single definition of justice, but rather a proliferation of systems which reflect differing human conceptions of what justice should be. Thus the typical Western idea of justice might differ considerably from that of the the Muslims. What then is ‘Justice’ with a capital ‘J’? Did it even exist? According to Socrates and Plato, Justice did exist, but not among the manifold copies of justice which had been invented by races of men here on Earth. Instead, true Justice was to be found in Heaven. It was literally an arche-type – a first type or original form. Hence the name given to this kind of Socratic and Platonic thinking – the Theory of Forms.

The Theory of Forms concept finds its best illustration in Socrates’ story of the Upper Earth which is told in one of Plato’s works, Phaedo. The setting is Socrates’ final hours in an Athenian jail cell, where he entertains a group of visitors which includes two prominent members of the Pythagorean community. As he faces death by drinking hemlock, Socrates shares his vision of what happens to man upon death. The soul, he says, is evidently immortal and experiences a variety of fates on the other side. Whilst the majority of souls go to dwell in the Underworld (either for a while or permanently), a privileged few are allowed to ascend to an upper realm which is called ‘the true Heaven, the true Light and the true Earth’. This Upper Earth, says Socrates, stands in stark contrast to the familiar Earth down here. Everything in it is brighter and purer. The trees are greener, the plants are more beautiful, and the stones and minerals are absolutely perfect. In contrast, the Earth down here is a spoiled and corroded world of ugliness and disease, where even our most precious stones are but crude fragments of the heavenly originals.

In this myth, the Upper Earth (Heaven) symbolises what Platonic scholars like to call ‘the world of Forms’. It literally is a world, albeit a perfect one – the prototype of the world that we know. Hence the idea that it was ‘the true Earth’ which contained the archetypes (the Forms) for everything that existed down here on our own imperfect Earth.

http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/atlantis/plato.html

This is one of the areas where it seems to intercede with the thoughts of the jews. The images that titanomancy draw would not be out of place in the book of enoch or jasher imo so a connection is not beyond the realms of possibility. Even the Mahabharata has this war between old and new. Again none of these need be literal they just represent the changes of the times but in ways that are romanticized and glorified for posterity. Knowing where we came from is a valuable lesson for all especially if it is don't be too arrogant, our existence is fragile and subject to the will of unseen forces.

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I sympathize with you having to read my drivel but seriously, you yourself have said I'm sure that Plato was not a historian but a philosopher.

And in that context he was using the story of Atlantis to make a point, not to describe an historical event, evidence of which is non-existant.

I think Atlantis can be interpreted with different layers of meaning.

I think it can be interpreted only one way, the way Plato wrote it. Anything else is a pretense at knowing what Plato REALLY meant. I'm not that conceited, ARE YOU?

cormac

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Thanks again for that.

I still it's all reather open-ended really. Atlas did have glaciers when the map you gave should show. c. 20,000BC

In Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, many smaller mountain glaciers formed, especially in the Atlas, the Bale Mountains, and New Guinea.

It might be when the Nile was said to flow from Atlas to Egypt and join the other Nile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum

It could be this that creates the huge canal of Atlantis, by cutting the top of Africa off. If a river flowed from Atlas to the Nile it would have created an island of sorts at the top of North Africa.

I found this link up extremely interesting:

The word "Nile" comes from Greek Neilos (Νεῖλος), of unknown derivation. In the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥ'pī or iteru, meaning "great river", represented by the hieroglyphs shown on the left (literally itrw, and 'waters' determinative).[3] In Coptic, the words piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic) meaning "the river" (lit. p(h).iar-o "the.canal-great") come from the same ancient name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile

Hapy the Nile river God is the Great River OK, then the Pharoahs (phiaro) name means the river or the.canal-great.

Pharoah can mean the great canal, that is the Nile, the great river.

Maybe not so "open-ended" as you might infer. While the Atlas Mountains did see glacial formation during the LGM, the comparative water volume was, in contrast to the major ice sheets, notably insignificant.

Secondly, it would appear that you feel that your references support your interpretation. This would not appear to be the case. Unless I glossed over something, your referenced support of the Nile issue says nothing of the sort.

As to the wasting of the Atlas Mountain range "filling" the Richat Structure, a bit of study of the distances and topography may be in order. Are you now proposing that the rather minimal flowage from the southern component of the melting glaciers (Morocco) crossed some 1,000 miles of lower (and quite absorptive) soils/topography (with numerous drainages to the west/Atlantic and also east) only to flow uphill and fill the Mauritanian Richat? Please see below;

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/publications/africa/125/125/CA-Map3.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/publications/africa/125/125/CentralAfrica-Maps.HTML&usg=__0W6lutlPC66G3vZbQpeOlWmBHTM=&h=488&w=528&sz=176&hl=en&start=35&zoom=1&tbnid=OIPMmXy1HoeXKM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAfrica%2Btopography%2Bmap%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D613%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C912&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=124&vpy=184&dur=3829&hovh=216&hovw=234&tx=132&ty=113&ei=IimlTJiPJYPKnAfIlfCQAQ&oei=3yilTOTXAcOTnQfKlNyPAQ&esq=3&page=3&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:35&biw=1366&bih=613

You will have to (again) open up the low-res. Note the topography/erosional patterns to the immediate north. Google Earth would also be of assistance here.

For a broader topographical view:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/images/afs2_400w.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Claude_Allegre.html&usg=__zCiS5Jxy98u_Fsj5ynsLQMXywM8=&h=400&w=410&sz=78&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=lwtnJR7cZ7uISM:&tbnh=171&tbnw=168&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dafrica%2Btopographicical%2Bmap%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D613%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C228&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=657&vpy=165&dur=2601&hovh=222&hovw=227&tx=112&ty=113&ei=nTmlTKaPBtWQnAedpNGPAQ&oei=nTmlTKaPBtWQnAedpNGPAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&biw=1366&bih=613

As you can see, such a proposition is most unlikely. And, as you are likely quite aware, there would not appear to be any supporting archaeological evidence associated with the Richat.

.

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I've had my fun with Amen and Amun and Amon for now, so I'd like to return to the gist of the thread. Amen. :D

Specifically I'd like to address some issues brought up earlier. I think people too often bend to the mistake of taking Plato at his word, most especially the timeframe as provided for Atlantis: 9,000 years before Solon. This means that the events that occurred in the Atlantis tale would have to have taken place around 11,600 years ago. Whether or not people wish to turn a blind eye to this fact, the reality behind it cannot be ignored. No advanced civilization--indeed, no city-state or polity of any significant size--existed that far back in time. That is simply an unassailable fact: archaeological excavations conducted throughout the world, not just the Mediterranean, have yielded not a trace of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The fact that we are told the tale of Atlantis, "though strange, is certainly true," does not mean we should trip blindly into believing that. Plato was not writing history. Herodotus attempted it and got the ball rolling. Thucydides did a rather damn fine job of it. Plato, on the other hand, was writing allegory.

In essence Plato was simply following the Homeric model and placing Bronze Age technology into his story. Indeed, Homer was guilty of the same thing, mixing hoplite warfare and promachoi tactics side by side. Homer may have lived some 320 years before Plato, but both were men of the Iron Age and both were attempting to make facets of their tales recognizable to their "modern" audiences, while tossing in just enough of the exotic and archaic to lend a certain flavor.

For example, in Critias we are told that each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader to organize and prepare his troops and that each lot was to contribute to the production of chariots, "to make up a total of ten thousand chariots." Chariots were often regarded as exotic and archaic to the Greeks. They appear in The Iliad too, of course, but not in a way that chariots were likely to have been employed in any real battle strategy. Greeks never made much use of chariots in their own highly disciplined hoplite armies, and indeed there really was no place for them. The salient point here is, as I was stressing in a post some time ago, the penchant for Greek exaggeration. Ten thousand chariots? The largest empire in world history by that time was of course Persia, and while the Great King could field as many as 100,000 men, even Persia never possessed 10,000 chariots. This discrepancy should be obvious to anyone who is familiar with ancient battles in the Mediterranean world.

Puzzler brought up some points about there being no mention of bronze in the Atlantis tale. One could write an entire book about the Bronze Age and never once mention the word "bronze;" still, by the things discussed and the objects and technology explained, one would recognize at a glance that the people, technology, and places under discussion date to the Bronze Age. Obviously no great battle such as Atlantis occurred over 11,000 years ago, but enough of the discussion in Critias leads us to understand that Plato is speaking of the Bronze Age. Tellingly, however, brass is mentioned. Now, bronze was being manufactured in the Near East by or before 3000 BCE, but brass was not. At least not deliberately--a crude form of brass could result as a byproduct from bronze smelting. Admittedly I am not as well versed in brass production, but its manufacture does not predate bronze.

Puzzler also mentioned triremes. These are specifically mentioned in Critias. Puzzler suggested the mention of trireme "doesn't have to be a 3 tiered literal Trireme" (post 542). Well, yes, it does. Of course I have never read Critias in Classical Greek (although I am now taking up Classical Greek and hope to be able to in the years ahead), but if the Greek form of the word "trireme" appears, then it definitely refers to the three-tiered boat by that name. Athenians were masters of the maritime world and had specific terminology for different types of vessels. It would be akin to my talking about modern naval ships and using the term "corvette" when I really mean "destroyer."

This mention of triremes is also very telling. It's unlikely Plato was aware of the fact but the earliest triremes appeared on the Mediterranean only in the late sixth century BCE (Fagan 2005: 49), although some sources place their origin in the seventh century BCE. They were probably invented by the Phoenicians but were quickly adopted by the Greeks. Prior to the trireme, the main vessel of the Greeks was the pentekonter, so named because each required fifty men to man the oars. So here we have an Iron Age object forced into a Bronze Age context, a mistake for which we can certainly forgive Plato but not something one can ignore.

I'll wrap things up with a final thought, even though I had planned to write more. As usual, however, I've droned on long enough as it is. This might be one of the most important things to bear in mind when examining the veracity of the Atlantis tale. Prior to 600 BCE Athens was just another Greek city-state, a blot on the map of Attica, and certainly not one of the leading cities of the Hellenes (Billows 2010: 139). Plato was familiar with the Athens of his age, which was already withering away from notable status but which had met the Spartans in battle and had nearly bested them. Nearly, but not quite, as events turned out. But well familiar he was with the great heros of Marathon and the great defeat of Xerxes ten years after that. This is the Athens its citizens wanted to remember. It's not just that the Greek culture didn't even exist 9,000 or 10,000 or 11,000 years ago--it's that Athens itself could never had fielded an impressive army before the sixth century BCE.

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