50 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
9) The Atlanteans, responsible for the European Bronze Age, were the first
manufacturers of iron, as well.
While persuasive evidence for this last argument is scant, Donnelly’s identifi-
cation of the Atlanteans with the bronze-barons of the Ancient World is among
his most valid and important positions.
10) The Phoenician and Mayan written languages derived from Atlantis.
Phoenician letters evolved from trade contacts with the Egyptians, whose
demotic script was simplified by merchants in Lebanon. If Egyptian and Mayan
hieroglyphs are both Atlantean, they should be at least partially intertranslatable,
which they are not. Even so, they may have evolved into separate systems over the
millennia from a shared parent source in Atlantis, because at least a few genuine
comparisons, known as cognates, between the two have been made.
11) Atlantis was the original homeland of both the Aryan and the Semitic peoples.
What later became known as the so-called “Indo-Europeans” may have first
arisen on the Atlantic island, and the Atlanteans were unquestionably Caucasoid.
But such origins are deeply prehistoric, and any real proof is very difficult to
ascertain. More likely, the Atlanteans were direct descendants of Cro-Magnon
types, whose genetic legacy has been traced to the original inhabitants of the
Canary Islands, the native Guanches, direct descendants of Atlantis. Donnelly
mistakenly accepted the Genesis story of the Great Flood and related references
in Old Testament and Talmudic literature as evidence for Aryan (Japhethic), as
well as Semitic origins in Atlantis. In truth, the Hebrews incorporated some
ancient Gentile traditions, such as the Deluge, into their own mosaic culture. Even
so, the Phoenicians were in part descended from the invading “Sea Peoples” of
lost Atlantis in the early 12th century B.C.
It was the depredations of these Atlantean survivors-turned-privateers that
ravaged the shores of Canaan, thereby making possible a takeover of the Promised
Land by the Hebrews. They intermarried with the piratical Gentiles to produce
the mercantile Phoenicians. Their concentric capital at Carthage and prodi-
gious seafaring achievements were evidence of an Atlantean inheritance. These
influences, however, are after the fact (the destruction of Atlantis). Even so,
Edgar Cayce spoke of a “principle island at the time of the final destruction” he
called “Aryan.” Later, he described “the Aryan land” as Yucatan, where a yet-
to-be discovered Hall of Records contains original documents pertaining to
Atlantis.
12) Atlantis perished in a natural catastrophe that sank the entire island and
killed most of its inhabitants.
13) The relatively few survivors arrived in various parts of the world, where
their reports of the cataclysm grew to become the flood traditions of many
nations.
The late 19th-century publication of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World marked
the beginning of renewed interest in Atlantis, and is still among the best of its kind
on the subject.
(See Cayce)