Parts of Chapter 8
Decoding Atlantis
After many years, the language of written documents become encoded. Encoding takes place because terms change and become outdated, typographical errors cause confusion, and the truth may be distorted by misinformation, politics, and religion. Also, Plato's story of Atlantis seems to be encoded with mythology, but it can be decoded. It can be decoded because of the description Plato gave of certain landscapes and terrain features. Also, in this case, technology allows us to look back and determine that what we understood to be two facts about Atlantis were incorrect assumptions. With modern technology, we can say with 100% certainty that a continent the size of Libya (Africa) and Asia put together did not sink into the Atlantic Ocean. Also, all we have to do is reread Plato's description of the city to realize that the three circular moats around the island of Atlantis were bridged-over sometime later. Also, we have found that the white sandy soil of Florida (Myakka) may be artificial. With this in mind, we can ask, "Is the continent Plato described as the Atlantis Kingdom still standing as North America?"
Fortunately, Plato gave enough details about the continent of Atlantis, its country, its plain, and its cities for accurate decoding to take place. We can use that information to match the terrain features in the story with sites in the Americas. Also, in examining the land, we find that the people of Atlantis left their signature on the land with temples, waterways, and landscapes.
In considering Plato's claim regarding Atlantis, ask yourself the following questions: How could Plato have described certain terrain features without a map of America or without secondhand knowledge of the Americas? Could a large tsunami have created the conditions that made Europeans think that Atlantis sank?
In decoding the different descriptions of Atlantis, realize that some terms may have different meaning today than they had 11,500 years ago: plain, plateau, peninsula; island, continent, island continent; hill, mountain; deluge, flood, tsunami, upheaval; submerged, sunk; canal, channel; temple, pyramid. Also, the seven continents were sometimes referred to as the seven islands.
Atlantis and Florida's State Soil – Myakka Fine Sand
It was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia.
Atlantis: Decoding the Country
Atlantis is referred to by several confusing names: a boundless continent, a continent, a country, a city, and a small island also called Atlantis. After decoding, you will find that all the names apply. The boundless continent held two continents, South America and North America. Atlantis was North America and Mexico. It was divided into ten different countries including Atlantis the country. The country of Atlantis had a huge plain and a plateau. The plain of Atlantis is now Florida; the plateau is the Yucatan. The largest city of the country was called the Grand City of Atlantis. The second largest was called the royal city of Atlantis. The royal city of Atlantis is now Tampa. The grand city of Atlantis is now Mexico City. The small island of Atlantis was located within the royal city. It is now Harbour Island in Tampa. The buildings and people of the royal city were destroyed, but the land remains intact. The islands and waterways built by the people of Atlantis are still there. They also left behind subdivisions sculptured into the landscape.
Plato:
"The whole country was said by him to be 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 [Appalachians] , which descended towards the sea. It was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island [continent] looked towards the South, and was sheltered from the North.
The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which [still] exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.
I will now describe the plain [Florida], as it was fashioned by nature and by the labors of many generations of kings through long ages. It was, for the most part, rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch [Indian River]. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless, I must say what I was told.
It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea.
Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to 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. [The canals are still used today.]
Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth—in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader for the men who were fit for military service. The size of a lot was a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to their districts and villages.
[Note: There was also a vast multitude of people in America before Columbus arrived. According to some sources, there were 500 different nations in America.]