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| An Early Map of Atlantis |
Most people are familiar with Atlantis, the sunken
continent, first written about by Plato. Supposedly situated in the
Mediterranean Sea and inhabited by a war-like people, they embarked on a naval siege of ancient Athens. Due to its
superior political system, ancient Athens, Plato’s “ideal state,” was able to
repel the invasion. The Gods, angered by the hubris of the Atlanteans, withdrew
their favor and Atlantis submerged into the sea. While Plato’s story centered
around an ideal political system and the arrogance of nations and their
eventual demise, the mythical aspects of the lost continent caught the public’s
imagination, and many attempts were made to locate this place. Fascination
continues to this day, with a continuing cottage industry of books, films and
comic books based on this legend.
Lost continents and civilizations have a long
history, with stories and legends appearing in many cultures and places. Often,
these catch the imagination of a people because they combine myth with national
identity. One of these is Kumari Kandam, a lost continent supposedly drowned in
the Indian Ocean, and the original home of the Tamil people of South India and
named after the Hindu goddess Kanya Kumari. While belief in Kumari Kandam was a
long history, it became more prominent in the twentieth century, as part of a
popular revival of Tamil culture, which coincided with the ending of colonial
rule in India. Supposedly ruled entirely by women who chose their husbands and
enjoyed full property rights, it is said to be the origin of Tamil ‘Sangams’,
or literary traditions, and seen as an ideal ancient civilization, excelling in
all arts and sciences and the cradle of Tamil culture.
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| La Morte D'Arthur by James Archer (1860) |
A similar idea forms the basis of Avalon, a lost
island west of England. Featured in the tales of King Arthur, it appeared first
in the Historia Regum Britanniae, Lord
Geoffrey Monmouth’s account of early British history. He mentioned it as the
place where King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was forged. This mythical island
was seen as a type of paradise, where fruits and flowers grew profusely, and
ideal human behavior was exhibited. For a long time, it was believed that
Avalon was the home of model and original English culture, no doubt inspired by
the ideals of chivalry, courage, romance and gallantry displayed by King Arthur
and his court, including his ideal wife Guinevere and the knight Lancelot.
Inspiring the imagination to this day, Camelot, the name of the King’s court,
and Merlin, the court magician, remain popular literary prototypes.
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| The Island of Thule (surrounded by whales) |
Further to the north lies Thule, an island variously
located near Shetland or Norway. Appropriately, it is a land of eternal
sunshine. First appearing in Greek epics, it supposedly exists in the frozen
seas well north of Britain. Inhabited by blue-painted people who are expert
warriors, it grows barley in the summer and provides honey, from which the
inhabitants make mead, an intoxicating liquor, evidently, a gift from the gods.
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| Maui holds up the Sky |
On the other side of the globe, in the Pacific, lies
the island of Hawai’iki (not to be confused with Hawai’i,) the legendary home
of the Maori people. Its actual location has never been confirmed, as
appropriately enough, it is seen as a physical as well as a spiritual place.
Greatly important to the Maoris, it is the subject of many of their songs,
stories and cultural lessons. As an indication of its significance, many Maoris
trace their genealogies, from the original man and woman to the current
generation, to that island. It is also the home of the Polynesian gods,
including the trickster demigod Maui, famous throughout the Pacific, and a
character in the Disney movie, Moana. Its central importance to Maori culture
can be appreciated by the understanding that it is the place from which every
person (soul) comes, and where each returns.
Finally, the lost continent of Lemuria actually has
a quasi-scientific background. When the
zoologist Phillip Sclater, in 1864, noticed similarities between mammals and
fossils in both Madagascar and India, he proposed a continent, now disappeared,
which once connected the two lands. He named it Lemuria, after the small
monkey-like mammals found in both countries. Strangely enough, there seems to be concrete
evidence for this theory. Plate tectonics, which describe the drift of
continents, posits that Africa and India were, at one point, part of a super
continent named Gondwana. Furthermore, in 1999,
drilling by a research vessel in
the Indian Ocean discovered evidence of
a large island which was submerged about 20 million years ago by rising sea
levels. In 2015, researchers from South Africa, studying the island of
Mauritius, came across geological formations that strongly suggest that the
island is the above-ocean part of a much-larger, now-sunken, land mass.
Culturally, the famous theosophist and mystic Helena Blavatsky of the
late eighteenth century, considered to be the mother of modern spirituality, provided
Lemuria with a mythical history as the
home of an ancient, highly-evolved people, after which it became popularized in
the public’s imagination.
