160 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
here that the Temple of Poseidon was later erected, together with the imperial
palace nearby.
Poseidon sired five sets of twin sons on the native woman, and named the
island after their firstborn, Atlas. These children and their descendants formed
the ruling family for many generations, and built the island into a powerful state,
primarily through mining. The completed city is described in some detail, with
emphasis on the kingdom’s political and military structures. Although their hold-
ings kept expanding in all directions, the Atlanteans were a virtuous people ruled
by a beneficent, law-conscious confederation of monarchs. In time, however, they
were corrupted by their wealth and became insatiable for greater power. The
Atlanteans built a mighty military machine that stormed into the Mediterranean
World, conquering Libya and threatening Egypt, but were soundly defeated by
Greek forces and driven back to Atlantis.
Kritias breaks off abruptly when Zeus, observing the action from Mount
Olympus, convenes a meeting of the gods to determine some terrible judgement
befitting the degenerate Atlanteans.Kukulcan
The Mayas’ version of the “Feathered Serpent,” known throughout Middle
America as the leading culture-bearer responsible for Mesoamerican civilization.
According to their epic, the Popol Vuh, he was a tall, light-eyed, bearded, blond
(“his hair was like corn silk”) visitor from his homeland, a great kingdom across the
Atlantic Ocean. It reports that he arrived at the shores of Yucatan on a “raft of
serpents,” perhaps a ship decorated with serpentine motif, or as Dr. Thor Heyerdahl
suggested, a vessel whose reed hull twisted in the waves like writhing snakes.
Kukulcan was accompanied by a group of wise men who taught the natives
astrology-astronomy, city-planning, agriculture, literature, government, and the
arts. He put an end to human and animal sacrifice, saying that the gods accepted
only flower offerings. Unfortunately, the Mayan words for “flower” and “human
heart” were almost indistinguishable, and the Mayas eventually returned to
human sacrifice and ritual removal of the heart. Kukulcan was much beloved and
built the first cities in Yucatan. In time, however, he got into political trouble of
some kind, and disgraced himself through drunkenness and sexual excesses, the
common course of civilizers alone (or almost) among so-called primitive natives.
He was forced to leave, much to the distress of most people. They wept to see him
board his ship again, but he promised that either he himself or his descendant
would come back someday. With that, he sailed, not to his homeland in the east,
but into the Pacific Ocean, toward the setting sun.
Kukulcan was doubtless an important, though not the only nor necessarily the
first, culture-bearer from Atlantis, probably before the final destruction of that city,
because the Mayas’ account makes no mention of any natural disaster. They por-
trayed him in temple art as a figure supporting the sky , the archetypical Atlas. In any
case, Kukulcan represents the arrival of Atlantean culture-bearers in Middle America.