164 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
sacked and its sacred souvenir lost, but memory of it persisted with the relocation
of various Thai capital cities, each one erecting a simulacrum of the original pillar.
In 1782, King Rama I, who traced his royal descent from the lost motherland of
Mu, erected a ceremonial column at the precise center of the city. The original La
Mu-ang was so ancient, however, no efforts succeeded to preserve it against decay,
and it was eventually replaced with a replica by Rama VI. Today’s Bangkok Lak
Mu-ang is continually decorated with gold-leaf by anyone wishing to pay homage to
their country’s sacred center. The shrine itself is decorated with symbols and images
of the Lemurian homeland from which the column was brought so long ago, such as
stylized swastikas and scenes of a tropical island suggestive of the land of Mu itself.
The small shrine in which it stands is an elaborate pavilion with intricate gold-inlayed
doors and is set, untypically, below ground level in a sunken court, suggesting the
undersea condition of the civilization from which the pillar was taken.
The name recurs at important monumental sites in Thailand: Mu-ang Fa
Daet, Ban Mu-ang Fai, Mu-ang semay, and Mu-ang Bon, where the original Lak
Mu-ang may have been installed by immigrants from Mu.
(See Thens)Lam Abubia
The “Age Before the Flood,” preserved by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes
from their Sumerian predecessors, it described a highly advanced land of wise
men and sorcerers who ruled the world until a natural catastrophe annihilated
their oceanic kingdom. Only a few survivors managed to reach Mesopotamia,
where they worked with native residents to build civilization anew.Lankhapura
In ancient Hindu tradition, the capital of a great empire believed to have been
swallowed by the sea toward the end of the Treta yuga, 1621 or 1575 B.C.
Lankhapura’s demise corresponds with the cataclysmic eruption of Thera, in the
Aegean, and the penultimate destruction of Atlantis.Lapita People
An archaeological term for a sophisticated culture that flourished throughout
the western Pacific for 1,000 years after 1500 B.C. The Lapita People are associated
with the survivors of Mu, who dispersed after its destruction in the 16th century B.C.Lara
Along with thousands of other refugees, he escaped the late fourth-millennium
B.C. seismic upheavals of Atlantis to settle with his wife, Balma, in Ireland, where
these earliest Atlantean immigrants were known as the Fomorach. Lara was the
son of their leader, Fintan.