Ancient Mysteries & Atlantis (cont.)
By David Sproull

Uncovering Atlantis: Evidence of a lost chapter in human history

Source http://utopianist.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Atlantis-empire.jpeg

The idea of an Atlantis, a lost civilization forgotten to history is an exciting and alluring concept, but is an advanced civilization predating our own even plausible?

Is it nothing more than a form of intellectual temerity to posit these ideas, flying in the face of not only conventional understanding, but also decades of peer reviewed research.?

There is also the problem of the fantasy hued image of Atlantis that popular culture such as television and comic books has ingrained in our minds. It is admittedly difficult not to imagine some dome covered sub-sea Utopian metropolis with technology advanced far beyond our own, much less that of the ancients.

It is in someways understandable, if not wholly admirable why some might meet such concepts with derision.

Some of the ideas regarding mankind's distant past can become a challenge to accept for even the most open minds.

What if, however we step away from a ludicrous definition of advanced and instead posit the existence of not a single city, but an entire coastal civilization, that while not flying around in hover chairs are highly adept as builders, mathematicians and philosophers, and while not providing absolute material evidence , providing enough anecdotal and investigative evidence to suggest that a lost civilization older than our own is plausible, and possibly even likely.

Thanks to the efforts and decades of tenacious research by people like author and historical sleuth Graham Hancock we have a rich pool of resources and material describing how a fully formed civilization much older than our own could have formed, and where to go look for evidence if mainstream archeology ever had the will and the mandate to do so.

One such line of evidence which we will take a brief look at here is to take a look at how the ancients told their own story and see how some remarkable cultural congruences that while not proof unto themselves, pave a clear path towards the possibility of a lost civilization.

The possibility of Atlantis.

The civilizers

As we look to uncover and unlock the mysteries of the ancient past are we so resigned to view the ancient people's own stories of their beginnings as nothing more than myth and folklore so as to render their own stories, their own testament to their place in history as invalid?

What if we took these stories as neither pure myth nor literal account, but rather as a story that is and has become heavily mythologized, but is also at it's core, based on true factual events.

What are the stories ancient peoples and cultures tell about themselves, and how human beings began to use technology, and to follow and explore moral codes, a time when humankind first became civilized.

These are the stories in summary of four ancient people.

Prometheus The first legend we will explore is also one of the better known, which is the tale of Prometheus who belongs to a race of giants called Titans who preceded the Olympian Gods. In the legend Prometheus (who's name means forethought) is cast as a benefactor to mankind, running afoul of the Olympian gods and incurring the wrath of Zeus by stealing fire in a fennel stalk and giving it to human kind. For his trouble Prometheus is chained to a mountain where a giant eagle eats his liver, only to have the liver regenerate and the process start over again, until he is eventually unbound by the demigod Heracles and redeemed.	The punishment of Prometheus, Source: http://artpuzzlesgallery.com/
Nanabozho Often appearing as a rabbit, this shape shifting trickster spirit is sent by Gitche Manitou (The Great Spirit) to teach men, as well as naming the plants and animals. Nanabozho is also credited with teaching humankind how to fish and to write as well as passing on the Midewiwin, the secret sacred knowledge of the medicine men of the Anishinabe people, as well as the use of hieroglyphs. It is also Nanabozho who is said to have stolen fire from the weasels to give to mankind.	Nanabozho pictograph, Mazinaw Rock, Bon Echo Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada Source: By D. Gordon E. Robertson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or G
Kukulcan Portrayed as both feathered snake god as well as an epic hero, Kukulcan (who is also associated with Quetzalcoatl) is credited with rising from the ocean and teaching the Toltec people such things as fishing and healing and the laws by which they lived.	Source: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/4905056796_252ccc1342.jpg
Osiris Osiris is well known as one of the chief Gods of ancient Egypt as lord of the underworld and of rebirth, as is signified by his being portrayed as having green skin. He is also one of the first Pharaohs of Egypt in a legendary time considered ancient by the ancient Egyptians themselves that was called Zep Tepi.(First Time). It is said that during this golden age Osiris taught the Egyptian people beer making, agriculture and the laws by which they were to live.	Source: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/4905056796_252ccc1342.jpg

A common thread

In each of these myths and legends we are told of how human beings were taught or given the rules and skills and technology (as symbolized by fire) to become and to be civilized. In each of these stories it is not an internally driven evolution, but rather of one in which mankind is a recipient of knowledge and help from a higher power.

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Spreading_homo_sapiens.jpg

Some have gone so far as to suggest that this 'higher power' were actually extra terrestrial beings shaping and guiding human history.

While this can not be absolutely ruled out at this point, as it is a very big universe, it does make sense to explore more earthbound options, that are no less exciting.

The first and most obvious explanation is that this is simply a retelling and recycling of the events of the agrarian revolution the very nascent period of the rise of civilization as orthodox academia understands it.

This would seem to make sense, except for the fact that the agrarian revolution happened around 7000-10000 years ago. The ancestors of North America's human population has already passed through Beringia no less than two thousand years prior to that.

The Paleolithic North Americans had left before the party started, and yet here they are telling similar stories to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, although they are separated by thousands of kilometers and thousands of years.

This would suggest that if these legends and myths are being based on a commonly shared historical reality then we have to push the timeline back to before human beings crossed the land bridge from present day Siberia.

The only other option is that each of these cultures spontaneously generated remarkably similar stories completely and utterly independent of each other.

While, just as with the alien hypothesis this is not impossible, it is hard to imagine how this could be proven.

Unless one is unwilling to accept any deviation from the orthodox timeline a common root source is much more tenable than multiple spontaneous generations of these stories.

This points very clearly to the possibility of civilization being much older than we believe it to be.

The possibility of Atlantis.

Atlantis Proven

Has this article proven the existence of Atlantis, or at least the concept that human civilization is much older than we had previously thought?

Far from it. As appealing and convincing as many of these arguments, and many more like them are, they are still largely circumstantial and anecdotal. They do not offer proof in the purest sense of the word.

What we do have here, however is a body of evidence that strongly points to the plausibility of these theories and mechanisms by how they might work.

In short, what we have here is a real legitimate mystery of the human story that is valid and worthwhile of the time and resources needed for proper exploration.

See page 3 for 'The Fall of the Kingdom of Atlantis: Envisioning a Lost Civilization in a Upper Paleolithic Context'