188 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
configuration of an elongated building. Moselles Shoals lies in the same waters
with the Bimini Road, but the structures are wholly unlike one another, although
they may share a common Atlantean identity. As of this writing, Moselles
Shoals has received only a fraction of the attention won by the more famous
Road, but concerted investigation there could prove surprisingly rewarding for
Atlantologists.
(See Bimini Road)Mu
A Pacific civilization, also known as Lemuria,Kahiki,Ku-Mu waiwai,Horai,
Hiva,Haiviki,Pali-uli, Tahiti, and Rutas, that flourished before Atlantis. Far
less is known about Mu, but its influence from Asia through the Pacific to the
western coasts of America appears to have been prodigious, particularly in
religion and art. References to Mu appear among hundreds of often very
diverse and otherwise unrelated societies affected by its impact, including
Tibet, Easter Island, Olmec Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, Japan, pre-
Inca Peru, and so on.
Atlantis and Mu engaged in some cultural interchange, but the peaceful
Lemurians mostly regarded imperialist Atlanteans with a veiled mixture of dread
and contempt. For their part, the Atlanteans looked down on the people of Mu
as members of a backward but colorful and even spiritually valuable, although
pre-civilized, society. There were no “cities,” as such, in Mu, but ceremonial
centers appeared across the land. Unlike the concentric designs favored by
Atlantean architects, monumental construction in Mu was squared and linear,
with less spiritual emphasis on the sky (Atlantean astrology) than on Mother
Earth. Maritime skills were high, but long voyages were mostly conducted for
missionary work.
Nothing in the numerous traditions related to Mu suggests a military of
any kind. Its society was unquestionably theocratic, similar perhaps to Tibetan
Buddhism, which is, in any case, descended from Mu, with additional alien
religious and cultural influences. Also unlike Atlantis, Mu may have actually
been “continental,” or, at any rate, a large, mostly flat landmass approaching
the size of India, located in the Philippine Sea, southwest of China.
The destruction of Mu is not as well attested as the Atlantean catastrophe,
although both events seem to have been generated by a related cause—namely,
a killer comet that made repeated, devastating passes near the Earth with increas-
ingly dire consequences for humanity, from the 16th through 13th centuries B.C.
A particularly heavy bombardment of meteoritic material around 1628 B.C. may
have ignited volcanic and seismic forces throughout the Pacific’s already unstable
“Ring of Fire” to bring about the demise of Mu. In Hawaiian myth, a fair-haired
people who occupied the islands before the Polynesians and built great stone
structures are still remembered as “the Mu.”