Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
We find the double-spiral figure upon a shell ornament found on the
breast of a skeleton, in a carefully constructed stone coffin, in a
mound near Nashville, Tennessee.
Lenormant remarks ("Anc. Civil.," vol. ii., p. 158) that the bronze
implements found in Egypt, near Memphis, had been buried for six
thousand years; and that at that time, as the Egyptians had a horror of
the sea, some commercial nation must have brought the tin, of which the
bronze was in part composed, from India, the Caucasus, or Spain, the
nearest points to Egypt in which tin is found.
Heer has shown that the civilized plants of the lake dwellings are not
of Asiatic, but of African, and, to a great extent, of Egyptian origin.
Their stone axes are made largely of jade or nephrite, "a mineral which,
strange to say, geologists have not found in place on the continent of
Europe." (Foster's "Prehistoric Races," p. 44.)
Compare this picture of a copper axe from a mound near Laporte, Indiana,
with this representation of a copper axe of the Bronze Age, found near
Waterford, Ireland. Professor Foster pronounces them almost identical.
Compare this specimen of pottery from the lake dwellings of Switzerland
with the following specimen from San José, Mexico. Professor Foster
calls attention to the striking resemblance in the designs of these two
widely separated works of art, one belonging to the Bronze Age of
Europe, the other to the Copper Age of America.
+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| FRAGMENT OF POTTERY, LAKE | FRAGMENT OF POTTERY, SAN JOSÉ, |
| NEUFCHATEL, SWITZERLAND. | MEXICO. |
+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
These, then, in conclusion, are our reasons for believing that the
Bronze Age of Europe has relation to Atlantis:
1. The admitted fact that it is anterior in time to the Iron Age
relegates it to a great antiquity.
2. The fact that it is anterior in time to the Iron Age is conclusive
that it is not due to any of the known European or Asiatic nations, all
of which belong to the Iron Age.
3. The fact that there was in Europe, Asia, or Africa no copper or tin
age prior to the Bronze Age, is conclusive testimony that the
manufacture of bronze was an importation into those continents from some
foreign country.
4. The fact that in America alone of all the world is found the Copper
Age, which must necessarily have preceded the Bronze Age, teaches us to
look to the westward of Europe and beyond the sea for that foreign
country.
5. We find many similarities in forms of implements between the Bronze
Age of Europe and the Copper Age of America.
6. if Plato told the truth, the Atlanteans were a great commercial
nation, trading to America and Europe, and, at the same time, they
possessed bronze, and were great workers in the other metals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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