T: Tahiti to Tyche 275
Tuatha da Danann
Variously translated as “Followers of the Goddess Danu,” the Celtic divine
patroness of water, or the “Magicians of the Almoners” (those who dispense
sacred wisdom), the Tuatha da Danann are described in medieval Irish chronicles,
such as the Annals of Clonmacnoise, as a “sea people.” Encyclopedist Anna Franklin
states that Danu was an Indo-European water-god, appropriate for an Atlantean
sea people. According to O’Brien, they arrived on the south coast of Ireland in
1202 B.C., closely coinciding with the final destruction of Atlantis; its late Bronze
Age date was not known in O’Brien’s time (1834).
The Tuatha da Danann’s Atlantean identity is further emphasized by a philo-
logical resemblance of their name to the Tuaoi, the sacred stone of Atlantis. They
may have represented the class of initiates responsible for its care or operation, as
implied by O’Brien’s interpretation of their name as “almoners.” He points out
that the Tuatha da Danann practiced the same religion as the Fomorach, an earlier
Atlantean people who settled in Ireland at the end of the 4th millennium B.C.
He competently argues that the strange, obelisk-like towers still found in Ireland
were erected by the Tuatha da Danann, citing the 10th-century Book of Leccan,
which tells of “the Tuathan tower.” Ruins of several such towers are found,
appropriately enough, in County Roscommon, at Moy-tura, where the Tuatha
da Danann decisively defeated their immediate predecessors, the Fir-Bolg. Known
more correctly as Moye-tureadh, the battle-area is translated as “the Field of
Towers.” Edgar Cayce mentioned that the Tuaoi stone was set up in a special
tower. Perhaps those erected in Ireland by the Tuatha da Danann (“Keepers of
the Tuaoi Stone”?) were raised after their prototype in Atlantis. Ireland’s Turoe
Stone, a granite omphalos, may signify a correlation between Cayce’s Tuaoi and
the Tuatha da Danann.
Interestingly, the three major cataclysms of Atlantis with their attendant migra-
tions in the late fourth and third millennia B.C. and Late Bronze Age are respectively
paralleled in Old Irish tradition of the Fomorach, Fir-Bolg, and Tuatha da Danann.
(See Fomorach, Fir-Bolg, Tuoai Stone)Tu l u m
The Mayas’ only walled ceremonial center is a Late Classic site overlooking
the Yucatan coast. Its walls feature sculpted images of the Diving God, repre-
senting survivors jumping into the water to escape the destruction of Valum.
This was the unseen Atlantic kingdom from which Votan—one of the Mayas’
overseas culture heroes—arrived on the coast of Yucatan. Tulum was raised to
commemorate his arrival, which signaled a new dawn for Mesoamerican civili-
zation. There is, moreover, a philological resonance between “Tulum” and
“Valum.” Both appear to be native versions, like the Toltecs’ “Tollan,” of the
Greek “Atlantis.” Votan, the Atlantean culture-bearer, is perhaps symbolized
by the Diving God himself.
(See Wotan)