Jacques Collina-Girard
Spartel Island
Spartel Island also known as the Majuan Bank, was situated just west of the Strait of Gibraltar and according to Jacques Collina- Girard was the site of Atlantis. There is little doubt that before the last deglaciation Spartel was dry land.
Marc-Andre Gutscher from the University of Brest has added some support to Collina-Girard's theory based on his interpretation of new bathymetric data and is prepared to debate the viability of human habitation on Spartel around 9600 BC. According to Gutscher a large earthquake hit the island 12,000 years ago. Furthermore, there is also evidence of at least eight subsequent earthquakes, each of which could have resulted in a drop of the seafloor by several metres.
Accordingly Gustcher speculated that Spartel circa 9600 BC could have been 40 metres higher than expected. However, at this early date he would not expect the Bronze Age civilisation described by Plato to have existed on the island and that his sonar investigation did not reveal any suggestion of an extinct civilisation.
Gustcher subsequently withdrew his support for a Spartel Atlantis(a). However, Collina-Girard continues to advocate the idea, expanding on his views in a 2009 book[0999], L'Atlantide retrouvée? Enquête scientifique autour d'un mythe.
Further criticism of Collina-Girard's theory has been voiced by Alain Moreau(b).
(a) http://archaeology.about.com/od/controversies/a/atlantis05_3.htm
*(b) http://www.mondenouveau.fr/continents-disparus-les-fausses-atlantides-antarctique-ile-du-cap-spartel-partie-4/* (link broken Oct. 2017)
Tagged Alain Moreau, Bronze Age, earthquake, Jacques Collina-Girard, Majuan Bank, Marc-Andre Gutscher, Spartel Island, Straits of Gibraltar
Kühne, Dr. Rainer Walter
Dr. Rainer Walter Kühne was born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1970 and has a PhD in Physics (Dortmund 2001). He has proposed a modification of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), which predicts a second kind of photon ('magnetic photon') and a second kind of light ('magnetic photon rays'). He has also offered evidence for the existence of a rotating universe. He lectured in the Institute of Physics at Dortmund University.
Kühne had studied Plato's Atlantis story and concluded that many of its elements are fictional although based on three historical but unconnected sources. For example, on the basis of Plato's description of the Acropolis at the time of the 'Atlantean' war that it can be dated to around 1200 BC, not 9600 BC. He linked the Atlantean war with the invasion of the 'Sea Peoples' recorded by the Egyptians and locates Atlantis in Andalusia in Southern Spain and places its capital in the valley of the Guadalquivir, south of Seville. Satellite photos of this same area have recently revealed rectangular structures surrounded by parts of concentric circles with dimensions similar to Plato's description of Atlantis. Werner Wickboldt, a teacher, who lives in Braunschweig (Kühne's birthplace) announced the discovery of these features on January 8th 2003. These structures include a rectangle of size 180 meters x 90 meters (Temple of Poseidon?) and a square of length 180 meters (Temple of Poseidon and Cleito?). Concentric circles surround these two rectangular structures, so that the site closely resembles Plato's description of the Atlantean capital. However, the dimensions of this location are approximately 20% larger than Plato's figures, so Kühne has suggested that the unit of measurement used by Plato, the stade, may have been greater than usually accepted.
Kühne also proposes that Tartessos can be identified as the biblical Tarshish and is the model for Plato's Atlantis(d).
It was a surprise to many when, in their June 2004 edition[429], the highly respected journal Antiquity published details of this discovery and Kühne's interpretation(a).
To add a bit of spice to Kühne's investigations, he, together with Jacques Collina-Girard, has been accused of plagiarism by Georgeos Diaz-Montexano(b).
An outline of Kühne's theories, in English, is also available on the Internet(c).
(a) http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/kuhne/ (if offline, see Archive 2081)
(b) http://www.elistas.net/lista/odiseo/archivo/msg/179/
(c) http://www.beepworld.de/members62/rwk_atlantis/
(d) http://vixra.org/pdf/1104.0035v1.pdf
Tagged Acropolis, Andalusia, Antiquity, Atlantis, Georgeos Diaz Montexano, Jacques Collina-Girard, Plato, Rainer Walter Kühne, Sea Peoples, stade, Tarshish, Tartessos, Werner Wickboldt
Gutscher, Marc-André
Marc-André Gustier is an American-born geophysicist at the University of Western Brittany. He addressed the 2005 Atlantis Conference on the subject of Spartel Island, now submerged just beyond the Strait of Gibraltar , but above sea level during the last Ice Age. Prof. Jacques Collina-Girard had proposed Spartel as a possible location for Atlantis four years earlier. Gutscher subsequently(a) withdrew his support for a Spartel Atlantis.
Gutscher's theory was attacked on the grounds that no advanced civilisation existed 12,000 years ago. Although Gutscher retracted his earlier position, Collina-Girard has stubbornly continued to espouse his views, expanding his argument in a 2009 book[0752].
Tagged 2005 Atlantis Conference, Ice Age, Jacques Collina-Girard, Marc-Andre Gutscher, Spartel Island
Diaz-Montexano, Georgeos
Georgeos Diaz–Montexano (1966- ) is the nom de plume of Cuban born Jorge Diaz Sanchez. He has been exploring off the coast of southern Spain and Gibraltar for evidence of Atlantis. He is the founder of the Civilisations Origins Scientific Society and is a leading advocate for the Afro-Iberian location theory. He contends that Atlantis was only partially submerged and that parts of it, which remained above water, are now to be found in south west Spain and northern Morocco.
Jacques Collina-Girard who, the following year also opted for the Strait of Gibraltar and more specifically Spartel Island mirrored Montexano's theory on the location of Atlantis, first expressed publicly in April 2000. Intense rivalry exists between the two men as is evident from the content of Diaz-Montexano's websites.
More recently Diaz-Montexano has also accused Dr. Rainer W. Kühne of plagiarism(a) and for good measure threw in a few unkind words about Robert Sarmast and his identification of Cyprus as the location of Atlantis. His online debates in various forums with other writers have been frequently marred by acrimony.
Diaz-Montexano has studied the earliest versions of the Atlantis story and published a considerable amount of controversial material on the Internet relating to the accuracy of the Platonic texts that we use today. Unfortunately, the English version of this work has been poorly translated from the Spanish leaving a monolingual such as myself unable to clearly understand what has been written. One of the most interesting comments(b) from Diaz-Montexano relate to his study of a 16th century translation of Critias that in his view indicate that 9,000 was NOT the number of years recorded by Solon. His firm conclusion is that Atlantis was destroyed between 1500BC and 1300BC.
Diaz-Montexano has also unearthed a number of ancient Spanish works including a Chronicle of Zaragoza that he maintains includes a number of obvious references to a Spanish connection with Atlantis(c) . Unfortunately, once again, the quality of his English makes any clear reading very difficult. The only 'Chronicle of Zaragoza' that I could locate was a two-page document covering the period 450–568 AD that is totally unrelated to the Atlantis question. Nevertheless, it does appear that he has discovered information that may have an important bearing on the resolution of the Atlantis mystery.
Without wishing to detract from any work that Diaz-Montexano has done, it may be no harm to point out that while he has been free with his accusations of plagiarism, he himself has been accused of fraudulently misleading the public regarding his academic qualifications(d).
In August 2012 he published the first volume of a large six-volume work, ATLANTIS <> TARTESSOS. AEGYPTIUS CODEX. Epítome de la Atlántida Histórico-Científica, devoted to arguing the case for a Iberian Atlantis. Unfortunately, this huge undertaking is only available, at least initially, in Castilian Spanish. This promises to be an important addition to Atlantean literature and Diaz-Montexano is to be congratulated for his efforts.
The first volume begins with a critical overview of recent Atlantis theories such as those of Robert Sarmast (Cyprus) and Ulf Erlingsson (Ireland) and then proceeds to analyse the texts of ancient writers wherever they refer directly or indirectly to Atlantis. He cites the original Greek texts together with a modern (Spanish) translation. This first volume is also available as an inexpensive (€1.95) Kindle ebook. July 2015 saw the publication of another Kindle book by Diaz-Montexano entitled ATLÁNTIDA Historia y Ciencia (Atlantis: History and Science)[1105] together with a synopsis online(e).
Late in 2016 will see the broadcasting of a new documentary by National Geographic concerning Atlantis in the Mediterranean. Diaz-Montexano has already been interviewed in connection with this production as has Robert Ishoy. The exact focus of the show, if there is one, is still unclear, but the involvement of James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici as co-producers has widely publicised.
In conjunction with the filming of the new NG documentary, Diaz-Montexano has decided to publish, in English, the details of his Atlantis studies over the past decades. Available is the introduction and outline of the new book(f), NG National Geographic and the scientific search for Atlantis[1394] published in January 2017, in both English and Spanish, to coincide with the airing of the documentary at the end of that month.
(a) http://www.elistas.net/lista/odiseo/archivo/msg/179/
*(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20100118052529/http://www.campusanuncios.com/detcom-57723517X-New-Paleographical-Madrid.html
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20170607195216/http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Science/The_Atlantis_Chronicles_Forgotten._The_Hispano-Romans_authors._35096.html*
(d) http://www.samizdata.net/mt/93uhdy736.cgi?entry_id=4856
*(e) See: Archive 2579 (English & Spanish)
(f) https://web.archive.org/web/20190517172152/http://atlantisng.com/en/*
Tagged Cyprus, Georgeos Diaz Montexano, Jacques Collina-Girard, James Cameron, Jorge Diaz Sanchez, Kindle, Morocco, National Geographic, plagiarism, Rainer W. Kühne, Robert Ishoy, Robert Sarmast, Simcha Jacobovici, Spain, Strait of Gibraltar, Ulf Erlingsson
Dendl, Jörg (t)
Jörg Dendl was born in 1964 and studied ancient history at the Friedrich Meinecke Institut. Dendl now works as a publisher, lecturer and writer, embracing a wide range of historical subjects. Among these is Plato's Atlantis, which he is convinced lay in the Atlantic. He would appear to support the theories of Collina-Girard who favours a location on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Dendl promotes his views on Atlantis on his interesting German language website(a). He also offers an extensive critique(b) of Augustus LePlongeon's wild claim that texts found at the pre-Columbian pyramid at Xochicalco in Mexico describe the destruction of Atlantis.
(a) http://www.dendlon.de
(b) http://www.dendlon.de/Atlantis.html
Tagged Augustus LePlongeon, Jacques Collina-Girard, Jörg Dendl, Strait of Gibraltar, Xochicalco