230 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
appeared to sire the nine tribes of Lithuania. Elements of this deeply prehistoric
myth are mirrored in the Genesis deluge (the rainbow) and Deucalion flood
(repopulating the world from stones). These considerations affirm that the
Pramzimas’ version was likewise drawn from the same Atlantean tradition.The Prince of Atlantis
A 1929 novel by American author Lillian Elizabeth Roy, who associated the
decline of Atlantis with the lowering of both moral standards and immigration
barriers.Psonchis
Cited by the Roman historian Plutarch, in his Lives, Psonchis appears in
Plato’s account as an Egyptian high priest who narrated the story of Atlantis for
his Greek guests. “Psonchis” may be the Greek rendition of a priest or servant
of “Sakhmis,” a name for the Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet, even though Psonchis
belonged to the Temple of Neith. The two represented similar conceptions, and
could have been syncretic versions of the same deity. Sekhmet, a variant of
Hathor, was characterized as the celestial fire, a “shooting star,” that consumed
Atlantis and immediately preceded its cataclysmic inundation. If the Psonchis
inKritias was indeed attached to the worship of Sekhmet, Plato’s version of
Atlantis appears all the more credible.Punt
A distant land of great wealth and friendly natives visited by several, large-
scale mercantile expeditions from dynastic Egypt. Although conventional
Egyptologists have long assumed Punt was Somalia, their supposition has been
proved incorrect by both the expeditions’ recorded sailing times (three years was
too long a period for round-trip voyages from Egypt to East Africa) and the non-
African goods imported. Moreover, Senemut, the Egyptian admiral in charge of a
commercial fleet making for Punt, recorded the changing positions of the stars, as
his ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope, at the bottom of Africa, on a westerly
heading. After 608 B.C., Pharaoh Nekau II sponsored a circumnavigation of
Africa, which similarly took three years.
“Punt” appears to have actually been a term used to define the foreign ex-
pedition itself, not any particular land visited during the course of a single,
extended voyage. The “country of Punt” was actually known as “Hathor’s Land,”
after the goddess of fiery destruction from the sky associated in the Medinet Habu
wall texts with the sinking of Neteru, that is, Atlantis. Hathor, in fact, was hailed
as “Lady of Punt.” Although the most famous voyage to Punt was ordered by