It is good to see other scientists
jumping onto the idea that Atlantis was situated in the delta of the Guadalquivir River
(Seville ) in Spain
and was eliminated by the tsunami triggered by the 1159 BC eruption of Hekla in
Iceland
The only difficulty I have with
this report is the omission of the name of the German scientist (Rainer Kuhne)
who published the first article three years ago. It is all a bit too much self promotional.
It does not matter. The point is that the idea is gaining
supporters and we will see many others jump on it as they start digging up Bronze
Age sites in Spain Western Europe will need to be investigated as well as
prospects on the North American seaboard.
The tsunami not only wiped out
sea side communities who profited most from the Bronze Trade but also buried a
lot of their remains at the same time.
Thus deltaic subsidence could easily have locked up artifacts.
Lost city of Atlantis
By Zach Howard | Reuters – Sat, 12 Mar, 2011
11:36 AM EST
NORTHAMPTON, Mass (Reuters) - A U.S.-led research team may have finally
located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed
swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.
"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher Richard
Freund told Reuters.
"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles
inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, a
University of Hartford, Connecticut, professor who lead an international team
searching for the true site of Atlantis.
To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of a
suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz , Spain
The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a
combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to
survey the site.
Freund's discovery in central Spain
Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland and
built new cities there, he added.
The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in "Finding
Atlantis," a new National Geographic Channel special.
While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the
"twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confident
Atlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain
"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives
it a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot more
sense," Freund said.
Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,600 years ago,
describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by
you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity.
Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused
on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best
possible sites for the city.
Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says.
One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon
Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of
years. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only known
historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island
he called Atlantis "in a single day and night... disappeared into the
depths of the sea."
Experts plan further excavations are planned at the site where they
believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in central
Spain
Has a University of Hartford Professor Found the Lost City of Atlantis
Dr. Richard Freund to be featured in a National Geographic Channel
film; public invited to preview on Wednesday.
Spend a little time with Dr. Richard Freund of the University
of Hartford, and you might be convinced that the lost city of Atlantis is buried deep within a swamp in southern Spain
Freund, who directs the university's Greenberg Center for Judaic
Studies, worked with a team of Spanish, American and Canadian scientists to
examine a muddy swamp in Spain that was first noted as a possible location for
Atlantis by a German scientist looking at satellite photos in 2003.
Freund's 2009 expedition and his team's findings are outlined in the
new National Geographic Channel film called "Finding Atlantis," which
has its premiere on March 13 at 9 p.m. In advance of the premiere, the Greenberg Center
Google Earth as a tool of archeology
So how did Freund, who is known for his excavations into historic sites
in the Middle East as outlined in his book
"Digging Through the Bible," get involved in trying to find the famed
lost city?
It began in 2003 with the report from the German scientist, who saw
what looked like a circular structure with a straight line attached to it in a
satellite photo that included the Parque National Coto de Donana, a vast swampy
area south of Seville.
"Google Earth is one of the great archaeological tools
today," Freund said of the satellite image. Pointing to the circular
impression, he said: "That doesn't happen naturally."
Over the next few years, others conjectured that the structures visible
on the satellite images were similar to the island of three concentric circles
with only one entrance in and out described by Plato in his accounts of
Atlantis, written in about 360 B.C. Plato also placed Atlantis near the
"Pillars of Hercules," known today at the Strait of Gibraltar, which
connects the Atlantic Oceon to the Mediterranean Sea.
Through the swamp is now more than 100 miles from the Mediterranean,
Freund postulated that the area once could have been situated on an open bay
that was silted in by a tsunami or another natural disaster.
"I've become an expert in places that have become silted in,"
Freund said.
Scientists were challenged, though, in doing any excavation inside the
swampy national park. The ground was covered in water for 11 months of the
year, and even in August and September, the water table was very high, Freund
said.
'An MRI for the ground'
Since 1995, Freund has been using a technology more commonly used in
oil and gas exploration to examine sites before excavation.
"We map the subsurface," he said. "It's like an MRI for
the ground."
Freund and his team brought their equipment to the site during the
area's driest months, August and September, in 2009.
"By shooting electricity into the ground, we're able to
distinguish between different types of material," he said."This type
of technology can map the entire subsurface instead of digging. ... It's a form
of non-invasive archaeology."
What the team found in its subsurface mapping was a pattern at regular
intervals — also something that doesn't occur naturally. It made sense to
Freund, based on Plato's account, that the whole city could have been buried by
a cataclysmic event and covered over in mud.
The National Geographic film also examines other sites around the world
that claim to be the remnants of Atlantis, including one in Greece Gibraltar
because of Plato's meticulous description.
"This quacks like a duck and looks like a duck," he said,
adding that National Geographic told him "you've got the best
evidence."
In addition to the advanced scientific mapping and carbon dating on
cores of material that confirmed human activity at the site about 4400 years
ago, colleagues on Freund's team found two figurines on the first and second
days of their trip that are "Astartes," or images of a widely known
Phoenician goddess.
"What if Atlantis was located in Spain
and the origin of civilization didn't happen in the Middle East but happened in
Spain
Following the stones
Freund also theorized that if Atlantis was destroyed rapidly, any
survivors would have paid tribute by building smaller scale versions of it, as
other several other early civilizations had done with their holy sites.
He took a trip with a Spanish scientist to view ancient sites
surrounded by several concentric moats and eventually traveled to a museum that
contained many examples of "standing stones" with a symbol that looks
similar to Plato's drawings of Atlantis.
"There are more than 100 of them, and they come from all different
places in the area," Freund said.
The similarity of the stones convinced Freund that the surviving
Atlanteans had built tributes to their destroyed city throughout Spain
"In crime, you follow the money," he said. "In
archaeology, you follow the stones."
So what's next for Freund? A trip this summer to a "very large
artificial mound on the coast of Israel
Freund also has a new book coming out called "Digging Through
History: From Atlantis to the Holocaust."
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