Atlantis

[Qoais]

I believe M.A.D. speaks in a pigdin form of Olde Gaelic. Then "Anglicized". Could be wrong though.

There is a strong tradition of Gaelic speaking, singing and fiddling on Cape Breton Island. Although the language was dying out, there has been a recent revival of interest among many in the island in keeping this alive. The best-known proponent of Gaelic on the island is the remarkable singer Mary Jane Lamond. She has a true gift of being able to sing Gaelic songs in the original acoustic style, or energize them in rock arrangement that can fire up any crowd and its all great music. Here are some albums to get your started exploring this tradition.

Interestingly, many Cape Breton fiddlers credit the particular rhythms of their playing to the rhtythms of the spoken Gaelic language. They argue that younger fiddlers who don't learn Gaelic will never get the sound and rhythm right. Fiddlers who are said to most embody this flavor include Alex Francis MacKay and Dave MacIsaac.

http://www.sfcelticmusic.com/Capebret/cb_gaelic_singing.htm

If I'm right, Jaylemurph owes me a paycheque.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Qoais

[Abramelin]

I believe M.A.D. speaks in a pigdin form of Olde Gaelic. Then "Anglicized". Could be wrong though.

There is a strong tradition of Gaelic speaking, singing and fiddling on Cape Breton Island. Although the language was dying out, there has been a recent revival of interest among many in the island in keeping this alive. The best-known proponent of Gaelic on the island is the remarkable singer Mary Jane Lamond. She has a true gift of being able to sing Gaelic songs in the original acoustic style, or energize them in rock arrangement that can fire up any crowd and its all great music. Here are some albums to get your started exploring this tradition.

Interestingly, many Cape Breton fiddlers credit the particular rhythms of their playing to the rhtythms of the spoken Gaelic language. They argue that younger fiddlers who don't learn Gaelic will never get the sound and rhythm right. Fiddlers who are said to most embody this flavor include Alex Francis MacKay and Dave MacIsaac.

http://www.sfcelticm...lic_singing.htm

If I'm right, Jaylemurph owes me a paycheque.

There are Gaelic people in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but when they talk and/or write English, I can understand them perfectly, even with their heavy accents.

But M.A.D. probably is a French speaker (Cape Breton is French/Canadian, right???)

EDIT:

The island's residents can be grouped into five main cultures; Scottish, Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Irish, and English, with respective languages Gaelic, Mi'kmaq, French, and English. English is now the primary spoken language, though Mi'kmaq, Gaelic and French are still heard.

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

Edited December 31, 2009 by Abramelin

[jaylemurph]

I believe M.A.D. speaks in a pigdin form of Olde Gaelic. Then "Anglicized". Could be wrong though.

If I'm right, Jaylemurph owes me a paycheque.

Short of massive intake of beer, that's the best suggestion I've heard. But I lived in Scotland for years, and can recognize Gaelic (at least when I hear it) and Scots English, neither of which reminds me of MAD. Also, the intelligibility of what he writes changes massively from post to post. Sometimes, it's almost rational, other times, it's virtually incomprehensible, which leads me to suspect alcohol, frankly.

I know he doesn't speak French. I'm reasonably fluent in the language, and have posted in it just to see if he would respond to that, and he won't or can't. The way his responses are spelled and structured makes me doubt he speaks French, anyway.

And he's pointedly said he's not Micmaq, so I'm not inclined to think he speaks their language as a first tongue if he's not a member of the tribe -- even then, his writing doesn't read as Algonquin-influenced.

You can tell I've thought far too much about this. I think it's UM's own Unexplained Mystery. Why go looking for Ancient Atlantean Overlords when you've got this!

--Jaylemurph

[Qoais]

It seems I've ruffled some feathers by asking Jim Allen some questions on his theory and although he has deigned not to discuss with me anymore, it seems I've perturbed him and in his opinion, I find his theory ......wanting! Man my head is swelling - and I never ever did read that book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" :D

Jim Allen's response.

For the benefit of other readers my point is that I was happy to answer questions about Plato’s Atlantis and the relationship between his descriptions and what is now a region of what is now called Bolivia, which is quite different to degenerating into pointless arguments, repeating the same thing over and over again with every word of Plato being pedantically adhered to and many assumptions made when clearly we can’t answer many points of Plato’s text because we simply have no information, and the fact is that many of the ancient peoples did not write textual histories and when they did, their work was often destroyed by other invading and conquering forces.

We have said many times that we know that on the face of it, Plato’s date does not make sense because he gives the same date for the founding of Atlantis/Athens as he does for the war that ended Atlantis.

I have also offered already the explanations that since in ancient times both solar and lunar calendars were in use, perhaps the date had been calculated in lunar months which would bring it down to known events. Or perhaps the date had been set back in the remote past by Plato to give what he thought was more credibility for his readers. Either way we don’t know the date, either of the war which Plato described or of the end of Atlantis so various explanations are only offered as possibilities.

We should consider the initial opening description of Atlantis, that it was

Timaeus

for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent [25a] over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean.

Critias [108e] the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes

Timaeus , [25d] But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished;

So in the opening description, Atlantis was an island larger than Libya and Asia combined and it lay in the Atlantic Ocean, in front of or as Desmond Lee says, “opposite” the Pillars of Hercules.

But then it disappeared due to earthquakes and floods in a single day and night.

We know from modern geology that there is no sunken continent in the Atlantic Ocean. So that leaves the possibility that Plato’s very long and detailed geographic description is based upon the large continent which still exists there opposite the Pillars of Hercules and which today is called America.

We can specifically identify the region he talked about since he tells us it was in the centre of the whole island, next to the sea, had a rectangular configuration, was enclosed by mountains, was high above sea level and in that region were found the metals gold, silver, tin and orichalcum.

In the centre of the level rectangular plain 50 stades from the sea was a small mountain enclosed by rings of land which was the home of the sea-god called Poseidon in Greek.

And that describes perfectly a region which today since the year 1825 has been called Bolivia.

It even includes a volcanic mountain with circular rings of land which has been destroyed by earthquakes and floods just like Plato described.

Where is the problem with that? The problem is that people are unwilling to accept that anyone in ancient times could have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and also that in later parts of the story, Plato introduces other elements into the description which seem improbable for the Bolivian location, like 10,000 chariots and a fleet of 1200 ships. We know that. But as I said already, Plato wasn’t writing a history book, he was using some information he had as the core material for a story about a great power which he considered necessary to have in order to show how it could be defeated by his own imaginary version of Athens governed by philosopher kings.

So there are bound to be parts of the story that have been elaborated upon or added to by Plato.

When we go back to the fundamentals, the name of the country was Atlantis.

Bury trans

[113c] even so Poseidon took for his allotment the island of Atlantis…

Poseidon … begat five pairs of twin sons …and when he had divided all the island of Atlantis into ten portions, … And to all of them (the sons) he gave names, giving to him that was eldest and king the name after which the whole island was called and the sea spoken of as the Atlantic, because the first king who then reigned had the name of Atlas.

Although Plato says particularly more so in the other translated versions that Atlantis was named after the first son, Atlas, in the above Bury translation, Bury states that both Atlantis and Atlas were named from the same source word. I have already given an explanation of how we are looking for a place called Atlantis and the actual name of this part of South America is called Andes from the local word Antis meaning copper. Yet that’s not good enough for Qoais who completely ignores the explanation and twists it around to say quote “Plato said the mountain range was Atlas - named after a son of a god not a metal.”

He didn’t. He said the name of the whole country was Atlantis. And in any case, “atl” is another native American word meaning “water”.

Having identified the region as a part of modern day Bolivia, we find there a metal which conforms to Plato’s description of Orichalcum.

Critias 114E (Bury trans) which are extracted by mining, and also that kind which is now known only by name but was more than a name then, there being mines of it in many places of the island,--I mean “orichalcum,” which was the most precious of the metals then known, except gold.

116c orichalcum which sparkled like fire

116c(Jowett trans) flashed with the red light of orichalcum.

I already offered the explanation as to how the “orichalcum” could be a naturally occurring alloy found in the Andes called “tumbaga” which is an alloy of gold and copper. When the copper is dissolved from the surface it has the appearance of pure gold. So if gold is the most valuable metal, then surely a metal which looks like gold and feels like gold would be the second most valuable metal, especially when it was similarly used to plate walls and floors just like Plato described it. Furthermore, since the amounts of gold relative to copper can vary, the metal can often have a more red appearance, just like mentioned in the Jowett translation.

But that’s not good enough for Qoais, who says “but since no one knows what it really was because according to Plato it doesn't exist anymore, you are assuming that tumbaga IS orichalcum. That's 2 assumptions. One, that orichalcum still exists, and two, that it's tumbaga.

Answer, yes, I can make those assumptions because this metal is still found today in the Andes, has a large part of the history of the Andes, was so valuable that the Conquistadors killed the local inhabitants and stole literally tons of it, then when they melted it down they were disappointed to find it was an alloy and not pure gold after all!

Finally, some of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt were in fact settled by the Egyptians in a part of the land under their control – today it’s called Palestine. The other inhabitants of that coast were called Phoenicians who were said to have originated from the Red Sea, and the Red Sea is also thought sometimes to have been another name for the Atlantic, meaning presumably the sea from which the red men came.

The fact that Thor Heyerdahl was unable to satisfactorily build a reed boat to cross the Atlantic does not prove the ancients could not cross the Atlantic, it only shows that the boat was not build using the correct methodology, and Heyerdahl himself knew that the ancients coated the reed boats with a mixture of Bitumen, Pitch and Oil, but he never applied it. So the boat was incorrectly built to begin with.

http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,22457.150.html

[Qoais]

Can someone help me with the second last paragraph? I take it he is implying that the Red Skinned People of S. America, voyaged across the ocean to Egypt, then moved up and into Palestine. Is that right?

I don't think I've ever heard of Red Skinned people in Palestine, but then, I live in Canada and don't hear much!! I think myself, from some of the depictions on the walls in Egypt, that there was some bronze skinned people, but were they white and tanned, or were they an admixture of some sort?

Edited December 31, 2009 by Qoais

[Qoais]

Wikipedia

Orichalcum is a metal mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably the story of Atlantis as recounted in the Critias dialogue, recorded by Plato. According to Critias, orichalcum was considered second only to gold in value, and was found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times. By the time of Critias, however, it was known only by name. In numismatics, orichalcum is the golden-colored bronze alloy used for the sestertius and dupondius coins.

The name derives from the Greek ορείχαλκος, oreichalkos (from όρος, oros, mountain and χαλκός, chalkos, copper or bronze), meaning "mountain copper" or "mountain metal". The Romans transliterated "orichalcum" as "aurichalcum", which was thought to literally mean "gold copper". It has been alternatively held to be a gold/copper alloy, a copper-tin or copper-zinc brass, or a metal no longer known. The Andean alloy tumbaga fits the same description, being a gold/copper alloy. However, in Vergil's Aeneid it was mentioned that the breastplate of Turnus was "stiff with gold and white orachalc" and it has been theorised that it is a mix of gold and silver, though it is not known for certain what orichalcum was.

In later years, "orichalcum" was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite or brass. However, these are difficult to reconcile with the text of Critias, because he states that the metal was "only a name" by his time, while brass and chalcopyrite continued to be very important through the time of Plato until today. For that reason, other authors on the subject conclude that orichalcum is either the gold-copper alloy tumbaga, or possibly amber.

Amber is not a metal and wasn't mined.

How does one find out who posted a Wiki article?

I thought alloys were man-made. Does nature mix metals also?

Edited December 31, 2009 by Qoais

[jules99]

I thought alloys were man-made. Does nature mix metals also?

Hi Qoais;

Gold and silver are found as a natural alloy;

1. (obsolete) amber, Amber.

2. An alloy of gold and silver, used by the ancients; now specifically a natural alloy with between 20 and 50 per cent silver.

1.

* 1995, Paul T. Craddock, Early Metal Mining and Production, page 111:

*

* :Native gold almost always contains silver in amounts varying widely between 5 and 50 per cent. This natural alloy is known as electrum although in classical antiquity where the word originated it seems to have been used for an artificial alloy of the two metals.

*

* 2002, Philip Ball, The Elements: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2004, p. 45:

*

* :A natural alloy containing more than 20 per cent silver is called , and was regarded by the ancients as a different metal from gold.

* German silver plate.

edited to include link;

http://www.allwords.com/word-electrum.html

Edited December 31, 2009 by jules99

[Black Hound]

Atlantis is real

Beg your pardon but I think it is nothhing more than a legend,verbally passed on from generattion to generation. Nice to think it did exist, just like any fantasy like Santa the Easter Bunny, or the "virgin birth". Well maybe not Santa.

[cormac mac airt]

Can someone help me with the second last paragraph? I take it he is implying that the Red Skinned People of S. America, voyaged across the ocean to Egypt, then moved up and into Palestine. Is that right?

I don't think I've ever heard of Red Skinned people in Palestine, but then, I live in Canada and don't hear much!! I think myself, from some of the depictions on the walls in Egypt, that there was some bronze skinned people, but were they white and tanned, or were they an admixture of some sort?

That would appear to be his contention. The origin of the name "Red Sea" has nothing to do with the Red Skinned People (Native Americans), more likely it is in reference to the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum found there.

From the Timaeus:

...for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together...

"In front of" here would appear to be rather specific, I would think. It doesn't say "beside" nor "across from" nor even "opposite". It specifically says "in front of". That pretty well rules out the Americas, IMO. My belief that Atlantis didn't exist aside, based on my own research, the further one gets from what Plato said about it the more ridiculous the claim that anything else being discussed IS Atlantis.

cormac

[Qoais]

I thought alloys were man-made. Does nature mix metals also?

Hi Qoais;

Gold and silver are found as a natural alloy;

1. (obsolete) amber, Amber.

2. An alloy of gold and silver, used by the ancients; now specifically a natural alloy with between 20 and 50 per cent silver.

1.

* 1995, Paul T. Craddock, Early Metal Mining and Production, page 111:

*

* :Native gold almost always contains silver in amounts varying widely between 5 and 50 per cent. This natural alloy is known as electrum although in classical antiquity where the word originated it seems to have been used for an artificial alloy of the two metals.

*

* 2002, Philip Ball, The Elements: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2004, p. 45:

*

* :A natural alloy containing more than 20 per cent silver is called , and was regarded by the ancients as a different metal from gold.

* German silver plate.

edited to include link;

http://www.allwords.com/word-electrum.html

Thanks Jules - this is what I was thinking for Amber - Amber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amber (or, technically, resinite) is fossilized tree resin (not sap), which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. ...

I also wondered to myself if the third metal was silver or nickel, alloyed with something that made it look reddish, and then the mine ran out.

[Qoais]

Trichodesmium erythraeum - does that stuff even live in the Red Sea? I read somewhere that the name for the Red Sea came from the water looking red from the reflection of sunset over the water.

What I really wanted to know was if anyone had information about red skinned people in Palestine.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Qoais

[cormac mac airt]

Trichodesmium erythraeum - does that stuff even live in the Red Sea? I read somewhere that the name for the Red Sea came from the water looking red from the reflection of sunset over the water.

What I really wanted to know was if anyone had information about red skinned people in Palestine.

Yes.

Why is the Red Sea called the Red Sea? Is it really Red?

No, the Red Sea is not always red, but sometimes it appears to be. The Red Sea got its name from a phenomenon caused by a type of algae called Trichodesmium Erythraeum, which is found in the sea. When these algae blooms die off the blue-green color of sea appears to change to reddish-brown color.

The Red Sea

What I really wanted to know was if anyone had information about red skinned people in Palestine.

Sounds like a question for kmt_sesh, I know he could give you the Egyptian take, but possibly could answer about Palestine as well. But what would be the significance, unless it could be shown that red-skinned specifically meant Native American?

cormac

[Swede]

Qoais - Not being familiar with Allen's "work", your postings are my first exposure to such. It would appear that he is following the classic "guidelines" of pseudo-science, i.e., drawing tidbits from disparate sources and wedging them together to support his hypothesis.

1) Note how he cherry-picks Plato to serve his ends.

2) Atl - Native American - Actually Nahuatl (Aztec), a subset of the Uto-Aztecan language group. This language group reaches into the western North American continent. Linguistics are not my forte, but one must question this association, especially in regards to the apparent lack of any other linguistic transfer.

3) Would one wish to question him in regards to parallel oral histories in the Bolivian region? And then judge his response?

4) Would one wish to question his evaluation of the archaeological evidence from the region in question?

5) Would one wish the author to present a SPECIFIC topographical map that would support his contentions?

6) Would one wish the author to, IN DETAIL, lay out the transfer route of goods from Bolivia to the eastern coast of South America? And what archaeological evidence supports this route/transfer?

I could go on, but you get the point. A critical analysis of works such as these can be most telling.

[Qoais]

Qoais - Not being familiar with Allen's "work", your postings are my first exposure to such. It would appear that he is following the classic "guidelines" of pseudo-science, i.e., drawing tidbits from disparate sources and wedging them together to support his hypothesis.

1) Note how he cherry-picks Plato to serve his ends.

2) Atl - Native American - Actually Nahuatl (Aztec), a subset of the Uto-Aztecan language group. This language group reaches into the western North American continent. Linguistics are not my forte, but one must question this association, especially in regards to the apparent lack of any other linguistic transfer.

3) Would one wish to question him in regards to parallel oral histories in the Bolivian region? And then judge his response?

4) Would one wish to question his evaluation of the archaeological evidence from the region in question?

5) Would one wish the author to present a SPECIFIC topographical map that would support his contentions?

6) Would one wish the author to, IN DETAIL, lay out the transfer route of goods from Bolivia to the eastern coast of South America? And what archaeological evidence supports this route/transfer?

I could go on, but you get the point. A critical analysis of works such as these can be most telling.

In my own thread over there, I did mention that even if one accepted the possibility that Bolivia was Atlantis, one would have to show if Bolivia was technologically up to speed for all the tasks required to make continuous journeys over the ocean. I mentioned Hayerdhal's boat and of course Hayerdhal didn't make the boat properly!! I COULD have nailed him with a lot of things but I don't want to look like I AM totally negative. I've tried to say that if the man thinks he has discovered Atlantis he is in for a lot worse thrashing than just little ole me asking a few questions. Won't he be ticked if someone mounts an expedition and claims the find for themselves!!! I accused him of cherry picking and that's why he got his back up in the first place. He has changed the time line to lunar months to suit his theory , which to me, really puts it all out of whack because then the history of Greece and Athens would have to be figured in lunar months and that for sure, just don't figure no how.

I'm going to use the questions you posted Swede - alrighty?

Edited January 1, 2010 by Qoais

[Swede]

In my own thread over there, I did mention that even if one accepted the possibility that Bolivia was Atlantis, one would have to show if Bolivia was technologically up to speed for all the tasks required to make continuous journeys over the ocean. I mentioned Hayerdhal's boat and of course Hayerdhal didn't make the boat properly!! I COULD have nailed him with a lot of things but I don't want to look like I AM totally negative. I've tried to say that if the man thinks he has discovered Atlantis he is in for a lot worse thrashing than just little ole me asking a few questions. Won't he be ticked if someone mounts an expedition and claims the find for themselves!!! I accused him of cherry picking and that's why he got his back up in the first place. He has changed the time line to lunar months to suit his theory , which to me, really puts it all out of whack because then the history of Greece and Athens would have to be figured in lunar months and that for sure, just don't figure no how.

I'm going to use the questions you posted Swede - alrighty?

Go for it gal! The response will be interesting.

[Qoais]

Will you explain #2 for me a bit Swede? What difference does it make if the language reaches up into the western part of North America and what association are we questioning? Between N. and S. America? What do you mean by lack of linguistic transfer?

[jaylemurph]

Will you explain #2 for me a bit Swede? What difference does it make if the language reaches up into the western part of North America and what association are we questioning? Between N. and S. America? What do you mean by lack of linguistic transfer?

Languages that come into contact with each other enough for words to be traded back and forth do not merely exchange one single word between them, nor is that trade merely one way.

Nor do they, for that matter, exchange morphemes rather than entire words -- atl is not a whole word, any more than the -s that ends sisters or -cess- in the words, process, recess or cessation. Nor (as a general rule) do languages trade back and forth core vocabulary words.

The only sort of person who would try to pawn off that sort of lexical borrowing is either a) completely ignorant of the linguistic data he's trying to pawn off and not fit to knowledgeably trade on it or deliberately trying to deceive his audience into buying whatever huey he's attempting to sell. There are no other options.

--Jaylemurph

[The Puzzler]

But jaylemurph, it's in the Pegasus Galaxy.

cormac

Nah, I say it's Earth itself now...

My new thread Atlantis is Earth -

I don't want to go off topic on some of the other Atlantis threads that have gone in other directions and maybe should have posted this in the Spirituality section but I touched on this once before and was mislead and backed off it but I believe this is the true meaning of the story of Atlantis, so here goes, one last time...

In Timaeus it has this sentence as told by the character Timaeus himself:

Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures;

In Critias we have this, a description of Poseidon creating Atlantis:

which he turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre,

Co-incidence? I think not...

[cormac mac airt]

Except that in both Timaeus and Critias Plato specifically describes Atlantis as an island, bigger than Libya and Asia. Libya would have been understood as the known inhabited coastal areas of North Africa and Asia would have been understood as the known areas of Asia Minor/Turkey and possibly the Levant. Nothing remotely approaching global proportions. Also, nowhere in Greek or Roman mythology is Atlantis or Atlantic ever used as a name for the Earth.

cormac

[The Puzzler]

Except that in both Timaeus and Critias Plato specifically describes Atlantis as an island, bigger than Libya and Asia. Libya would have been understood as the known inhabited coastal areas of North Africa and Asia would have been understood as the known areas of Asia Minor/Turkey and possibly the Levant. Nothing remotely approaching global proportions. Also, nowhere in Greek or Roman mythology is Atlantis or Atlantic ever used as a name for the Earth.

cormac

The known world in Plato's time is no where near as large as we know it now, think of it as the small round 3 continent piece you always see in ancient maps, that looks to be larger than Libya and Asia combined...

An island...yes, a person is often described as an island too are they not...Listen to SImon and Garfunkel's song I am a rock or Richard Clapton's song I am an island or I understand Barrack Obama said the phrase also..

I am an island. The Earth is made up of many people creating one large island...

Edited for typo

Edited January 1, 2010 by The Puzzler

[cormac mac airt]

The known world in Plato's time is no where near as large as we know it now, think of it as the small round 3 continent piece you always see in ancient maps, that looks to be larger than Libya and Asia combined...

An island...yes, a person is often described as an island too are they not...Listen to SImon and Garfunkel's song I am a rock or Richard Clapton's song I am an island or I understand Barrack Obama sais the phrase also..

I am an island. The Earth is made up of many people creating one large island...

The known world in Plato's time doesn't constitute the entire globe.

And again I'll restate what I told Qoais in an earlier post:

My belief that Atlantis didn't exist aside, based on my own research, the further one gets from what Plato said about it the more ridiculous the claim that anything else being discussed IS Atlantis.

Which is why, by and large, I tend to stay away from your Atlantis threads. You've admitted in the past that you have no singular belief. I submit to you that your belief in Atlantis changes more often the bed sheets in a Las Vegas brothel. In a few weeks, if not months time, you will be on to the next location for Atlantis. Again, looking for something that doesn't exist.

cormac

Edited January 1, 2010 by cormac mac airt

[The Puzzler]

Except that in both Timaeus and Critias Plato specifically describes Atlantis as an island, bigger than Libya and Asia. Libya would have been understood as the known inhabited coastal areas of North Africa and Asia would have been understood as the known areas of Asia Minor/Turkey and possibly the Levant. Nothing remotely approaching global proportions. Also, nowhere in Greek or Roman mythology is Atlantis or Atlantic ever used as a name for the Earth.

cormac

Also, I think getting away from standard Greek myth can find answers, after all, it was Critias grandfather that translated the name from Egyptian ones given...

El is generally seen as Cronus but check this out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_%28deity%29

A bilingual inscription from Palmyra (KAI. 11, p. 43) dated to the first century equates Ēl-Creator-of-the-Earth with the Greek god Poseidon. Going back to the eighth century BCE the bilingual inscription at Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains equates Ēl-Creator-of-the-Earth to Luwian hieroglyphs read as da-a-ś, this being the Luwian form of the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth.

Though Sanchuniathon distinguishes Poseidon from his Elus/Cronus, this might be a splitting off of a particular aspect of Ēl in a euhemeristic account. Identification of an aspect of Ēl with Poseidon rather than with Cronus might have been felt to better fit with Hellenistic religious practice, if indeed this Phoenician Poseidon really is Ēl who dwells at the source of the two deeps in Ugaritic texts.

Edited January 1, 2010 by The Puzzler

[Qoais]

Languages that come into contact with each other enough for words to be traded back and forth do not merely exchange one single word between them, nor is that trade merely one way.

Nor do they, for that matter, exchange morphemes rather than entire words -- atl is not a whole word, any more than the -s that ends sisters or -cess- in the words, process, recess or cessation. Nor (as a general rule) do languages trade back and forth core vocabulary words.

The only sort of person who would try to pawn off that sort of lexical borrowing is either a) completely ignorant of the linguistic data he's trying to pawn off and not fit to knowledgeably trade on it or deliberately trying to deceive his audience into buying whatever huey he's attempting to sell. There are no other options.

--Jaylemurph

Thank you Jaylemurph. If they don't trade the prefixes or the suffixes nor the core words, what DO they trade?

[Qoais]

Puzzler

Ea as Enki did indeed create mankind with his mother...

I thought it was his sister. (half sister)

Oh crap, now you've changed your post while I was posting this!!

Edited January 1, 2010 by Qoais

[cormac mac airt]

...it was Critias grandfather that translated the name from Egyptian ones given...

No. It was Plato who wrote that Critias claimed Solon enquired about the names, Dropides allegedly having the original writings. Basically a case of "I said that you said that he said that she said that they wrote something down". Show me an extant text of Solon or Dropides that will confirm any of this as anything other than a story of Plato's. Hell, show me an extant text of Solon or Dropides, period. It can't be done because there are none.

cormac