Atlantis and the Silver City (26 page)

The case for the Atlantis Empire stretching even farther into colonies on the North American mainland seems strong. Certainly this was indicated by Plato. The various possibilities are covered elaborately by other authors and web sites. Many unexplained archaeological finds have been discovered, including a controversial one from West Virginia in North America, known as the “Grave Creek Tablet.” It is engraved with three rows of letters that are undisputedly akin to ancient Iberian ones. Each row is separated by ruled lines in the manner that is more or less exclusive to those found in the Algarve.
⁸⁰

Apart from the growing number of archaeological finds, the native North Americans have numerous legends about their own ancestors or of immigrant peoples they have come into contact with. Typical is one from the Algonquian Indian tribe. They have preserved a legend of a disastrous great flood that was engulfing their original homeland. As they made their escape in more than a hundred boats, they watched their land being consumed by fire before
it sank. The survivors made landfall on the eastern seaboard of America and were the tribe’s ancestors. These and many other tribal myths may refer to more recent catastrophes rather than organized settlement by Atlanteans.

In writing this book, I have deliberately avoided mind-numbing amounts of detail and made it broad-brush, in an endeavor to provide enjoyable reading. There are plenty of signposts highlighting the detailed work of many specialists engaged in the Atlantis search. Anyone thirsting for more supporting information will find it in many books speculating on ancient civilizations in North America. It is sufficient here to note that it seems highly likely that, if there were active communities of Atlanteans on the Caribbean Islands, then there would inevitably have been colonies in America.

Recent research into the genetic DNA of Native Americans carried out by several prominent American universities has also resulted in some very interesting findings. Details of this are summarized in a recent newsletter on the ARE web site.
⁸¹
The researchers found that a small percentage of Native Americans have an unusual DNA marker only found in a few places elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East—and a small pocket in the Gobi Desert. The researchers claim to have proved that it was not the result of genetic mixing after Columbus, as the same DNA was found in a bone from an ancient American grave.

Scientifically, this DNA marker is known as Haplogroup X, and is particularly prevalent in Europe in the Basques. The main time of entry into America was between 12,000 and 10,000
B.C.
, and this matches the epoch given in some of Cayce’s own readings on the migration of groups to America from Atlantis.

At the time of the ARE article, the research was ongoing and not all of the native tribes had been tested, along with only a limited number of ancient remains. It did, however, appear to confirm that America was settled early and by many different racial groups, with waves of immigration at different times.

Reverting back to Europe, Plato said: “They held sway in our direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia” (clue 36).

If the Mediterranean basin was eventually annexed for the Atlantis Empire, it is a certainty that the civilization would also have spread to other parts of Portugal, particularly the Atlantic seaboard and so to Galicia, the current home of the Basques in northern Spain. There are several theories
about the origin of Olisippo, the ancient name for Lisbon, the current capital of Portugal. Intriguingly, one of Poseidon’s other sons was named Elasippo. If Cádiz (Gades) was named after its ruler—Gadeirus, Poseidon’s second-born son—maybe Elasippo was given the region around Lisbon (Lisboa in Portuguese). It provides yet another link with Plato’s clues.

Apart from the islands, the empire would have included North Africa from a very early stage. Given that Gadeirus ruled down to the Straits of Gibraltar, and the crossing from there to Morocco was very short, contact would have been inevitable.

Before 9500
B.C.
, the straits would have also been longer, due to the additional dry land stretching out into the Atlantic on both shores. Up to around that time, northwest Africa would also have been much more verdant. At the end of the ice age and global warming, the landscape dried out and agriculture would have become increasingly concentrated, some in the highlands of the Atlas Mountains, much as it is today—where the blond Berbers live.

Anyone visiting this latter region will still find inhabitants in some villages with distinctly Nordic features, similar to the Guanches. I have already mentioned Elena Wishaw’s belief that the Libyans, as these people were called in ancient times, were part of the population of southwest Iberia at some stage. She cited a town in the mountains behind Niebla where she was astonished to see so many tall blonds, men and women, with blue or gray eyes and distinctive features. I once regularly traveled the highway from Huelva to Seville, passing close to Niebla, always stopping at the same service station and café. Inevitably there was at least one tall, attractive Spanish girl who precisely fitted that description serving behind the counter. There is much more of this later, in the chapter on the people of Atlantis.

To sum up, the initial Atlantis territories would have been southwest Iberia, north Morocco, and, probably soon afterward, the Canary Islands. As they developed into a fully fledged maritime civilization, they spread across the Atlantic islands to the Caribbean, where they may only have had representation in the ruling class. From there, the tentacles would have spread into the Americas.

At some stage, as indicated by Plato, they also extended their supremacy eastward into the lands bordering the Mediterranean and at least some of its islands, but did not necessarily replace the indigenous populations. I have a
strong suspicion that the Minoans could well have represented a link from the original Atlanteans. If their Aegean islands had been once ruled by Atlanteans, then the kernel of their culture and maritime skills could have been preserved to blossom again thousands of years later. Don’t get excited, though: this is only a hunch prompted by the latest evidence suggesting the Minoans were a great trading power, sailing as far as the east coast of America and Canada. As in Atlantis, bulls also figured strongly in their culture.

It is difficult to make as strong a case for the empire as for the homeland, since Plato left us so little to base it on, just a few sentences. The circumstantial evidence does, however, indicate that he could have been correct. There seems little doubt that there was once an earlier, more sophisticated civilization on the Canary Islands. They had a form of writing and built pyramids, and the Spaniards attested to their intelligence. They embalmed their dead in much the same way as the Egyptians and, as you will read later, the Egyptians would appear to owe the very early founding of their culture to the Atlanteans.

In the teeth of initial fierce opposition, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there was once a significant maritime civilization in the Caribbean. Because the area did not conform to all of Plato’s clues, many people have been rightly skeptical about theories that it was the Atlantis homeland.

In researching and writing this chapter, I have attempted to connect the dots: from southwest Iberia, to the Gorringe Bank, to the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Azores, across to the Caribbean and so to America. My hypothesis complements other researchers’ work at different sites and Plato’s assertion of a vast empire stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar to a huge continent across the Atlantic. Are there enough tantalizing clues and discoveries for us to consider that Plato was right? I think so; how about you? The fact that, more than twenty-four hundred years ago, his information about the Atlantic islands and a great continent on the other side of the ocean was correct is, on its own, a powerful argument. He knew what he was writing about.

I was now confident that I had once and for all solved where Atlantis and the reaches of its empire had been, but there was still another mystery nagging at me. I felt sure that Silves must have been a great important city when the Phoenicians were trading with it from a base on the remnants of the outer embankment.

What was it?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Silver City

C
arlos Castelo, an expert on the ancient language of the Algarve region, provided the vital clue that I thought might solve the mystery of what the current site of Silves had been, circa twenty-six hundred years ago. In an interview with a Portuguese newspaper in 1996, he stated that he was convinced that Silves was known during the last millennium
B.C.
as “The Silver City.” He was not aware of the connection speculated on in this chapter, and his conclusion was based entirely on an exhaustive research of the forgotten script over many decades.

The current Portuguese word for silver is
prata
, but it was not always so. In old Irish, it is
zilver;
in Basque,
zila;
and in the Bible,
zilah
. Among the ancient names for Silves used at various periods by the mysterious Conii (Konii) people were Cilbe or Cilbes and, most significantly, Zilb, which meant “silver” in the old script. This throws open fascinating areas of speculation:

•  The exact location of the capital of the legendary King Arganthonius has never been established.

•  Arganthonius was fêted for being incredibly wealthy, with huge hoards of silver.

•  He was known as “The Silver King.”

•  His name was thought to have derived from the Greek word
argan,
meaning silver.

•  His fabulous capital was visited by Greek mariners, who were famously befriended by him.

•  A century or so before Plato wrote his Dialogues, the city that Plato described as being the Atlantis capital was known locally as “The Silver City” or “The City of Silver.”

What do you think? It is certainly another remarkable series of coincidences, and we could conclude that Arganthonius’s capital and Silves were, quite possibly, one and the same place.

Anyone harboring doubts should consider this: another of Plato’s clues, number 71, now assumes major significance. It indicates that the outside wall of the temple at the top of the Atlanteans’ citadel was covered in silver.

It was the highest visible wall and, as it encompassed or stood in front of the golden temple, it couldn’t be missed, reflecting the brilliance of the Algarve sun. As the sun traversed the sky from east to west, it was in front of the city for most of the day. Imagine the spectacular and unforgettable sight it would have presented. What an awe-inspiring effect it would have had on visitors seeing it for the first time—the silver-faced wall, topped by gold-tipped pinnacles, reflecting the sun like a giant mirror. There could hardly have been a better reason for it being known, even then, as “The Silver City.”

Perhaps the reason Arganthonius’s capital has yet to be identified is because, as in the search for Atlantis, the Algarve region of the southern Iberian coast has never been given the consideration it deserves. It was an extremity of Europe about which little was known or recorded, yet the answers that authors of more than two thousand books on Atlantis have strived to find have been sitting under our noses all the time. Could the same be true for Arganthonius’s capital city?

In earlier chapters, I have already presented some detailed arguments as to why this was way to the west of Cádiz and, in Chapter Twelve, why Seville could be ruled out.

There has been recent speculation that Huelva could have been the elusive capital, but it is close to Cádiz and, although King Arganthonius eventually conquered Cádiz, for them to have existed so close together for any length of time is inconceivable. In recent years, archaeologists have unearthed a large number of pottery fragments from a site in Huelva. They are a mixture of Phoenician and Greek and are thought to date from the first half of the last millennium
B.C.
This resulted in claims that Huelva existed as a city at that time and is, therefore, one of the oldest cities in Europe—perhaps even the capital of Tartessos.

This seems a rather extravagant claim based on the evidence. It was already thought to have been a Phoenician trading base and could well have housed a ceramic factory and distribution point for imports, supplying their other bases in the area; then the Greeks could have continued using it after their demise. This would have made a lot more sense than transporting all the pots and storage jars needed for the considerable trade all the way from the eastern Mediterranean. Substantial remnants of pottery would, therefore, hardly be surprising and are not evidence for the existence of a grand city. As explained in the earlier chapter on metals, the area would have been of great importance in the sale and export of the products from the mines back up the Rio Tinto. Elena Wishaw, however, thought the evidence pointed to the ancient ports close to Huelva—Moguer and Palos—as being the center of export activity. This would have left Huelva relatively free for the Phoenicians and, maybe earlier, the Minoans to set up a trading post.

A more likely contender for Arganthonius’s capital could have been Niebla: but Kolaios, the Greek mariner mentioned earlier who was blown off course and ended up at the capital, would have made port at Palos at the mouth of the Rio Tinto—not Niebla, which was much farther upriver.

Estoi, or Conistorgis, as it was probably known then, could be considered as a possibility, but that would not correspond with the silver clues from Carlos Castelo and Plato. The fact that Arganthonius’s capital was never recorded by ancient chroniclers implies that it was hidden and in a region that was not so well visited by merchants and sailors as the Atlantic coast closer to Gibraltar.