220 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
Phaeacia
In the Odyssey, Calypso gives the hero sailing directions to Phaeacia. Her in-
structions are according to another set of Atlantises, the Pleiades, and indicate a
currently blank area of the Atlantic Ocean between Madeira and the Strait of
Gibraltar. Atlantologists have discovered no less than 56 details that Homer’s
Phaeacia shares with Plato’s Atlantis, leaving little doubt that the same island is
indicated by both names.
The king of Phaeacia was Alkynous, a male derivative of the Pleiadian Atlantis,
Alkyone. His capital was Scherie, virtually a mirror-image of Atlantis, including
bronze-sheeted walls, interconnecting causeways, and a centrally located Temple
of Poseidon, from whom he and his royal family claimed direct descent, just as
mentioned in Kritias. Like the Atlantean kings, he sacrificed bulls to the sea-god.
The island of Phaeacia was described as remote, mountainous, agriculturally
prosperous, with a year-round temperate climate and abundant natural springs of
hot and cold water. Its inhabitants were rich in copper and gold, exceptional mariners,
manufacturers of purple dye for royal robes, and the descendants of Titans—the
same details Plato accords to the Atlanteans.
Some Phaeacian names cited by Homer, in addition to King Alkynous, are
identifiably Atlantean, such as Eurymedusa (see “Gorgons”) and Amphialus,
Plato’s Atlantean king, Ampheres. Interestingly, Homer identifies himself as the
Phaeacian bard, Demodocus, “whom the Muse loved above all others, though she
mingled good and evil in her gift, stealing his sight, but granting him sweetness of
song.” Investigators have interpreted Homer’s one and only appearance in either
theIliad or the Odyssey as a self-declaration of his Atlantean descent.
His Phaeacian description of Atlantis, while so like Plato’s in numerous
particulars, is more detailed. Readers learn about the sumptuous palace and its
surrounding garden, together with information about the Atlanteans themselves,
to an extent not covered in the Dialogues.
Their counterpart is the Odyssey, and,
combined, they flesh out an in-depth
portrait of Atlantis during its cultural
zenith.Phaethon
In Greek myth, the Deluge survived
by Deucalion and Pyrrha was supposedly
triggered by Phaethon, mentioned in
Plato’s account of Atlantis. Phaethon
was the illegitimate son of Helios, the
god who drove the chariot of the sun
across the heavens each day. Phaethon
forced his reluctant father to hand overThe uppermost chamber of Chichen Itza’s Pyramid
of Kukulcan is decorated with the faded images of
four bearded men holding up representations of the
sky, like so many Atlases.