44 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
he described belonged to another city that preceded Athens at the same location
during pre-classical times. This represents an internal dating of the war to the late
Bronze Age (15th to 12th centuries B.C.) and the heyday of Mycenaean Greece.
There is abundant archaeological evidence for the Atlanteans’ far-ranging
aggression described by the Egyptian priest. Beginning in the mid-13th century
B.C., the Balearic Isles, Sardinia, Corsica, and western Italy were suddenly overrun
by helmeted warriors proficient in the use of superior bronze weapons technology.
At the same time, Libya was hit by legions of the same invaders described by the
Greek historian Herodotus (circa 500 B.C.) as the “Garamantes.” Meanwhile,
Pharaoh Merenptah was defending the Nile Delta against the Hanebu, or “Sea
Peoples.” His campaigns coincided with the Trojan War, in which the Achaeans
(Mycenaean Greeks) defeated the Anatolian kingdom of Ilios and all its allies.
Among them were 10,000 troops from Atlantis, led by General Memnon. These
widespread military events from the western Mediterranean to Egypt and Asia Minor
comprised the Atlantean War described in Timaeus.
It is possible, however, that Atlantean aggression was not entirely military but
more commercial in origin. Troy, while not a colony of Atlantis, was a blood-
related kingdom, and the Trojans dominated the economically strategic
Dardanelles, gateway to the Bosphorous and rich trading centers of the Black
Sea. It was their monopoly of this vital position that won them fabulous wealth. In
fact, it appears that the Atlanteans founded an important harbor city in western
coastal Anatolia just prior to the Trojan War (see Attaleia). But the change of
fortunes in Asia Minor also won them the animosity of the Greeks, who were
effectively cut off from the Dardanelles. This was the tense economic situation
that many scholars believe actually led to the Achaean invasion of Troy.
The abduction of Helen by Paris, if such an event were not merely a poetic
metaphor for the “piracy” of which the Trojans were accused, was the dramatic
incident that escalated international tensions into war—the last straw, as it were,
after years of growing animosity. Thus, the victorious Greeks portrayed the de-
feated Atlanteans as having embarked upon an unprovoked military conquest, when,
in reality, both opposing sides were engaged in economic rivalry, through Troy, for
control of the Bosphorous and its rich markets. These commercial causes appear
more credible than the otherwise unexplained military adventure supposedly
launched by the Atlanteans in a selfish conquest of the Mediterranean World, as
depicted in Timaeus. On the other hand, our pro-Atlantean example of historical
revision is at least partially undermined by the Atlanteans’ unquestionable aggression
against Egypt immediately after their defeat at Troy and again, 42 years later.
(See Memnon)Atlanteotl
An Aztec (Zapotec) water-god who “was condemned to stand forever on the
edge of the world, bearing upon his shoulders the vault of the heavens” (Miller
and Rivera, 4). This deity is practically a mirror image in both name and function