Atlantis

The Burial Mound of Tartessos

'Island between the Seas'

Atlantis' location is easily seen by anyone with a computer.

In 'classic' Google Maps, select TERRAIN view and look half way between Seville, Spain, and the Atlantic coast.

What you see is a terrain anomaly, or a plateau, made up of a 13+ Km diameter circular mound with abutments to the east and north. The elevation of both Isla Mayor and Isla Minima is 6M (15ft), per Wikipedia.

I propose that this plateau is the ancient city Tartessos, or Atlantis, made up of Isla Mayor, Isla Minima (these combined make up the circular walled city), along with Isla Menor and the aforementioned abutments.

The Tartessians built their walls of stone and probably back-filled with dredgings from activities upriver (irrigation, boat navigation channels?). This is why it still stands today, it was built as a strong defensive structure.

Tartessos was the 'island between the seas'; meaning it lay between the ocean and a 'sea', just up river called Lake Baetis. Look at the large basin behind Atlantis and it is easy to see this ancient lake, extending to Alcolea del Rio or possibly even further to Lora del Rio. Seville and several other high points were islands in this lake strung out along the mountain side of the lake.

Beyond Lake Baetis the Guadalquivir continued for another 100+ Km up the river valley. But Roman maps show this area (the entrance bay, the city and Lake Baetis) as a huge bay called Ligustino. Atlantis lay here submerged after its disappearance.

For more on this protohistoric city; Tartessos, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_pre-Roman_Iberian_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Iberia

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Portuguese_history

1000BC:

Emergence of Tartessian society in the territory of modern Andalusia.

Development of Tartessos, the first Iberian State mentioned in writing sources. Tartessos was a centralized Monarchy brought about under Phoenician influence and maintained commercial relations with the area of modern Algarve, inhabited by the Cynetes or Cunetes, and Portuguese Estremadura.

900BC:

Foundation of the Phoenician colony of Gadir (modern Cádiz) near Tartessos. Contrary to myth, there is no record of Phoenician colonies west of the Strait of Gibraltar^{[citation needed]}, even though there might have been some voyages of discovery. Phoenician influence in what is now Portuguese territory was done through cultural and commercial exchange with Tartessos.

700BC:

Strong Tartessian influence in the area of modern Algarve.

600BC:

Fall of Tartessos.

500BC

Urban bloom of Tartessian influenced Tavira.

Tartessos disappears suddenly, probably destroyed by the Carthaginians as revenge of the Tartessian alliance with the Greeks during the battle of Alalia, in the coast of Corsica. The Turdetanians become their successors, although with a strong Carthaginian influence.

I have collected various writings which support this theory adding my comments separately in parenthesis;

Best explanation of its location I found in an interesting article at:

http://diversiones-pmart.blogspot.com/2007/02/la-localizacin-de-tartessos-1.html

"The most complete description of Tartessos is located in the verses of the Maritime Ora Avieno, transcribed in a series of data collected also an author, Punic surely VI century BC., contemporary therefore, of the events he describes and witnessed personally. poem data, which appear in the sixth century BC., are: Tartesos is on an island in the Gulf of its name, which empties into the river Tartessos, which bathes its walls, after passing through the lake Ligustinus. The river forms at its mouth several mouths, three of which are on the east and four at noon, which bathe the city. Trading in heavy waters tin particles , and takes a metal rich city of Tartessos. Nearby are the Mount of Tartesios filled with forests, and Mount Argentario, located on the lagoon Ligustina, whose slopes shining tin. Tartesos The city is linked by a four-day journey to the region of the Tagus, or Sado, and another five with Mainake, where the rich have an island Tartesios consecrated by its inhabitants to Noctiluca. The eastern boundary of the domain of tartesios was, at times, in the region of Murcia and Huelva in western (Ora Maritima, 54, 100, 179, 223, 225, 265, 284, 291, 296, 308, 428, 436). "

According Avieno, Tartessos is a city located on an island between the arms of the Betis River, at its mouth, just after Lake Ligustinus ("Lacus Ligustinus"). It is next to the mountain of silver (Argentum Mons).

From Wikipedia (Cadiz):

The city was originally founded as Gadir (Phoenician גדר "walled city") by the Phoenicians from Tyre, who used it in their trade with Tartessos, a city-state believed by archaeologists to be somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, about thirty kilometres northwest of Cadiz. (Its exact location has never been firmly established.)

(Probably established to trade with those inside another walled city, just up the coast, inside a bay.)

One of the city's notable features during antiquity was the temple dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart. (Melqart was associated with Hercules by the Greeks.) According to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the temple was still standing during the 1st century. Some historians, based in part on this source, believe that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth of the pillars of Hercules.

This is 25 Years old but related:

From: http://www.jstor.org/stable/505217

Survey of Archaeological Research on Tartessos

American Journal of Archaeology © 1987 Archaeological Institute of America

Abstract:

In this paper a synthesis of Spanish archaeological studies and excavation reports providing evidence for the famed Tartessos is presented. In contrast to earlier investigations based solely on philological sources, the problem of Tartessos is examined from an archaeological point of view, summarizing research conducted systematically over the past 25 years. The archaeological materials investigated in Portugal and Spain allow the reconstruction of the problematic pre-Colonial Late Bronze Age Phase (900-750 B. C.) and the much better known Orientalizing Phase (750-550 B. C.). The trade routes established by Phoenicians and Greeks within the Iberian Peninsula and across the Mediterranean present Tartessos as an El Dorado of early commerce. The accumulation of silver necessary for the development of coinage in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean may have had its origin in the silver mines of Huelva in Spain where important metallurgical activity is verified from the ninth century B. C. onwards. The oldest epigraphic alphabet in the Iberian Peninsula is reviewed within the context of Tartessian necropoli excavated in southern Portugal. Stelae with engraved Herzsprung shields, indicating elements of Tartessian funerary ritual, are also discussed. The recent discovery of fine Greek ware dated from 600-550 B. C. supports the identification of ancient Tartessos with the modern city of Huelva.

(Huelva has been mistakenly identified with Tartessian wealth in the absence of any evidence as to its capital.)

Avienus Ora Maritima

Sea Coasts (lines 80-107)

The orb of the spreading earth lies extensively, and a wave in turn surrounds the earth. But in the area from the Ocean where the deep salt water inserts itself so that here the swell of our sea extends far, there is the Atlantic gulf Here is the city Gadir, formerly called Tartessus. Here are the columns of persistent Hercules, Abila and Calpe. The latter is on the left of the mentioned land; Abila is neighbor to Libya. They resound with the harsh north wind, but remain firm in their places. Here rises the head of a projecting ridge, which more ancient age' called Oestrymnis, and the lofty mass or rocky height completely faces the warm south wind.

Under the head of this promontory, the Oestrymnic bay lies open for the natives. In it the islands called Oestrymnides stretch themselves out. They lie widely apart and are rich in tin and lead. There is much hardiness in the people here, a proud spirit, an efficient industriousness. They are all constantly concerned with commerce. They ply the widely troubled sea and swell of monster-filled Ocean with skiffs of skin. For these men do not know how to fashion keels with pine or maple. They do not follow out yachts, as the custom is, from fir trees. Rather they always marvellously fit out boats with joined skins and often run through the vast salt water on leather.

Sea Coasts (lines 241-272)

Next there is a promontory of a temple and at a distance, a place which has an ancient Greek name, the citadel of Geron. For we have received the report that once upon a time Geron was named from it. Here over a long distance, is the shore of the Tartessian bay. From the river named above to these locales itis a journey of one day for boats. Here is the town Gadir, for it means in the language of the Carthaginians "fenced-in place." It was formerly called Tartessus. In ancient times, it was a large and wealthy state, now it is poor, now it is small, now it is abandoned, now a heap of ruins.

FROM PLATO'S TIMAEUS (from "The Antediluvian World" by Ignatius Donnelly)

On the side toward the sea, and in the center of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the center of the island, at a distance of about fifty stadia (one stadia=606 feet), there was a mountain, not very high on any side.

(Describing fertile plain in front of city, and the low hill NW of city.)

All these and their descendants were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia (Italy).

(Describing the islets in Baetis Lake and, how through their alignment with the Phoenicians, that their 'empire' extended into the Mediterranean.)

And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones were raised considerably above the water.

(Canal from the ocean bay through the fertile plain to the front gate)

Enough of the plan of the royal palace. Crossing the outer harbors, which were three in number, you would come to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all sorts night and day.

(This is the wall from the inland lake Baetis around to the city's ocean entry channel or eastern half of city wall.)

I have repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts about the ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must endeavor to describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country. The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre of the island two thousand stadia; the whole region of the island lies toward the south, and is sheltered from the north.

(Describing the 'upcountry'; Lake Baetis and further up the river valley, mountains to the north with rivers emptying into the lake, and gauging a length of the full river valley.)

I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated during many ages by many generations of kings. It was rectangular, and for the most part straight and oblong; and what it wanted of the straight line followed the line of the circular ditch.

(Again describing the fertility of the bay area in front of the city built up to the entry channel and the ditch which surrounds the city.)

It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain, and touching the city at various points, was there let off into the sea. From above, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and again let off into the ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city.

(Extensive channeling to allow commerce up and down the river valley.)

Of the combatants on the one side the city of Athens was reported to have been the ruler, and to have directed the contest; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of the islands of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, once had an extent greater than that of Libya and Asia; and, when afterward sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean.

(Literally, where it had been was now a mud flat.)

MY OBSERVATIONS ON THE STRUCTURE:

The main city's walls are circular on the NW and SE quadrants, but the NE and SW walls are a 1/4 of a 12-sided polygon.

There appears to be a gouge located just south of the western most point (Brazo de la Torre)...it is also the only irregularity visible anywhere in the layout (except front gate-southernmost point). Could this gouge be where a tidal wave impacted?

Note also that every wall of the footprint is perfectly aligned N-S or E-W (excluding nicks and nubs).

Northern abutments look to serve 2 functions;

The northeastern are obvious; water management. Water flowed in, through and around this city, making it an 'island'.

The northwestern abutment was probably built into the hill approaching from the NW...more temples?

The Guadiamar River also flowed to the city from the northwest.

From Lake Baetis 3 channels of water flowed to the east and 4 into the top...

Eastern-extending abutments could be suburbs; additional space for temples and statues of the famous or royal residencies?

Atlantis' fate is tied to the Baetic plate. This tectonic plate is being shoved northward into the mountains. As this occurs it rocks and shifts, rising and dropping with seismic activity. This shifting or dropping of the plate, would connect an area that was once an inland lake to the ocean creating a huge bay.

Mik Thompson-September 2012