Introduction: A Lost Civilization 9
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The Atlantis Encyclopedia is a result of more than two decades of continuous study
and international travel. It began in 1980, when I started picking up clues to the lost
civilization in locations from the ruins of Troy and Egypt’s desert pyramids, to Morocco’s
underground shrine and Britain’s Stonehenge, beyond to the mountaintop city of Peru
and a ceremonial center in the jungles of Guatemala. My quest took me to Polynesia’s
cannibal temple, the seldom seen solar monuments of Japan’s remote forests, and the
golden pillar of Thailand. I sought out credible proof in my own country, traveling from
coast to coast, finding telltale evidence—among the world’s most northerly pyramids,
in Wisconsin; at Ohio’s Great Serpent Mound; and in the ruins of North America’s
oldest city, in Louisiana. I participated in diving expeditions to the Bahamas, Yucatan,
the Canary Islands, the Aegean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. Decades of these on-site
explorations was combined with research in the libraries of the world and the shared
wisdom of devoted colleagues to produce this unique volume.
Of the estimated 2,500 books and magazine articles published about the lost civili-
zation,The Atlantis Encyclopedia is the only one of its kind. It is an attempt to bring
together all the known details of this immense, continually fascinating subject, as well
as to provide succinct definitions and clear explanations. It is a handbook of Atlantean
information for general readers and specialists alike. Everything one wants to know
about Atlantis is here in short form. It is a source for students of archaeology, myth,
and prehistory.
Unlike most other books on the subject, The Atlantis Encyclopedia offers fewer
theories and more facts. Areas of interest include geology, astronomy, and oceanogra-
phy, but with strong emphasis on the folk traditions of numerous peoples around the
world who preserved memories of a great flood that destroyed an ancestral island of
memorial splendor. These elements have never been presented together before in a
single volume. In so doing, the common threads that weave European and Near Eastern