Mythological continents in the history of other nations

Hello everyone here. At our work in the company "Arguments" we are now exploring the ancient mythological continents and the big secret about its existence. This refers to those continents that probably existed, but sank because of powerful cataclysms. The same is about the civilizations that lived on them.
We are talking about Athlantis, Hyperborea, Lemuria and Pacifis (Mu Continent).
I want to know opinion here. What do you think about the possibility of the existence of such continents? After all, official science considers this to be almost absolute nonsense, awkwardness and fantasy. But I have a different point of view, and therefore I learn in details the mythology of different nations. Many ancient documents are saying about these mysterious lands. I think, it wasn`t possible to make a fantasy in the ancient times. Fantasy genre appeared only in XIX century.

Best wishes to all.
Alex

Not sure what you mean by the last sentence. I don't think it's accurate that fantasy has only been around since the 19th century (even though it may have been codified as aproper genre only recently) - in addition to proper myth, people have been making stuff up since the beginning of time (hence, for example, fairy tales).

I think the most logical explanation is myths based on real events in the distant past, such as flood catastrophes around the world, and the sea reclaiming large stretches of land (e.g. Doggerland) at the end of the last ice age.

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Many ancient documents are saying about these mysterious lands. I think, it wasn`t possible to make a fantasy in the ancient times. Fantasy genre appeared only in XIX century.

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Plato would have words sir seeing as his Atlantis is a complete fiction made up for his allegorical purposes out of whole cloth. Clearly you are also unread in say Aristophanes.

Apart from the other legendary civilizations mentioned in the thread, I think Lemuria would be more of a hypothesis/theory than a legend to be honest.

Well, it's not clear about Atlantis. Really. It was never found. Even the Azores do not have any ruins. Although everything is possible under water. But there is more information about Lemuria or the continent of Mu. However, about Hyperborea was mentioned more than once in ancient Greek myths. As for the Pacific Ocean, many tribes living on different islands have repeatedly stated that there was once a large land there. In addition, Japan generally has a unique artifact, the Yonaguni underwater complex.
https://i114.fastpic.ru/big/2021/011...582d98c0c9.jpg
There were discovered pyramids, statues, arches, roads. Only the scientific community for some reason does not interfere. The complex is studied only by the Japanese.

Fantasy has existed ever since people started telling stories. It's just called mythology.

Traditionally, it's taught that Hyperborea would be a continent in the north, but there are several theories about where the continent would actually be. One of the most popular theories tries to connect Hyperborea with the Eurasian Steppes, in the Dzungarian Gate to be more precisely.

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Originally Posted by athanaric

Not sure what you mean by the last sentence. I don't think it's accurate that fantasy has only been around since the 19th century (even though it may have been codified as aproper genre only recently) - in addition to proper myth, people have been making stuff up since the beginning of time (hence, for example, fairy tales).

I think the most logical explanation is myths based on real events in the distant past, such as flood catastrophes around the world, and the sea reclaiming large stretches of land (e.g. Doggerland) at the end of the last ice age.

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Sometime between 7900 and 7300 BCE, a massive tsunami hit a section of the coast of what is now Israel. The wave was as high as 40 meters (131 feet) and swept as far as 3.5 kilometers inland (2.17 miles). The local Neolithic settlements were completely destroyed, and there isn't really any sign of habitation in the area for about 2000 years thereafter despite there being plenty of human activity nearby. It seems hard to believe that a tsunami would have made the region uninhabitable, so why the long gap? Cultural memory maybe.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

In addition, Japan generally has a unique artifact, the Yonaguni underwater complex.
https://i114.fastpic.ru/big/2021/011...582d98c0c9.jpg
There were discovered pyramids, statues, arches, roads. Only the scientific community for some reason does not interfere. The complex is studied only by the Japanese.

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That's because all the geologists who have looked at it believe it formed naturally. There are a lot of pictures of it on the internet that are either fake or have been taken from a specific angle in order exaggerate the aspects that make it look potentially man-made.

The truth behind Japan's mysterious 'Atlantis'

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

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Well, it's not clear about Atlantis. Really. It was never found

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Rather it is clear because it not even a myth there no historical olive pit to find, it never existed and it cannot found any more than the Death Star. (*). It is actual science fiction created by Plato for allegorical discourse. You will no more find it than you find the Cloud cuckoo land of Aristophanes again pure fiction.

* I allow a true cultureal myth might be a vastly altered recollection of an event in the past preserved through oral tradition and touched up as were over generations or a religion or similar. Not quite fiction because in either case people really believe it to be true no matter the origin. But Atlantis is not a myth but simply a fiction made up by Plato for his own purposes just as Cloud cuckoo land is for it author's ends.


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so why the long gap? Cultural memory maybe.

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Or maybe not a very many people and few political structures tied to claiming X space as their god given right and so no particular reason to drift back in?

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Originally Posted by sumskilz

Sometime between 7900 and 7300 BCE, a massive tsunami hit a section of the coast of what is now Israel. The wave was as high as 40 meters (131 feet) and swept as far as 3.5 kilometers inland (2.17 miles). The local Neolithic settlements were completely destroyed, and there isn't really any sign of habitation in the area for about 2000 years thereafter despite there being plenty of human activity nearby. It seems hard to believe that a tsunami would have made the region uninhabitable, so why the long gap? Cultural memory maybe.

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:hmm: That's an interesting question actually. Pompei's eruption happened less than 2000 years ago and was well registered in history, still it never really prevented people to live in the area nearby. Sure, Pompei and Ercolano have been abandoned, but as of today millions live within the area of influence of the Vesuvio and of the Phlegraean Fields, so it's hard to tell honestly.

Also OP you seem a bit light on the history of fiction

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Fantasy genre appeared only in XIX century

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I don't know what else you call either the Golden Ass or the war of Frogs and Mice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batrachomyomachia.

As for Yonaguni, I can tell right away that there is no definitive proof that these slabs are of natural origin. Too correct shape! I was just researching the Yonaguni artifact and came to the notice that these are the remains of ancient cities. Japanese scientists have the same opinion, and many of them are not amateurs, but serious people, researchers. As for the geologists, they are unlikely to be so detailed explorers of Yonaguni.

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Originally Posted by conon394

Or maybe not a very many people and few political structures tied to claiming X space as their god given right and so no particular reason to drift back in?

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That's thinking outside the box. Usually it's assumed that if a piece of land is a good place to settle, someone will settle there. Though what you describe, which I would largely summarize as identity based claims, have obviously played a significant role in historical territorial conflicts. Unfortunately, it's near impossible to investigate any such hypothesize so far back in prehistory, especially since we're trying to explain an absence of evidence.

Beit Shemesh was completely destroyed by Sennacherib in 701 BCE. It's pretty safe to assume that anyone there at the time was killed or taken into captivity. Sometime thereafter, a small group of people started living there again. They re-plastered the cistern that served as the city's main source of water on the tel. It was done by women, you can tell by feeling the shapes of their hands in the plaster. Also some little kid hands down lower. I don't know if that means anything about who it was that repopulated the city, but for some reason, everybody seems to assume they were Judahites, maybe people from the city who weren't present at the time of the siege. It could have been shortly after or maybe 50 years after. That's about the highest resolution you can get from stratigraphy. In any case, it didn't last long. Some time not long after 600 BCE, the people disappeared and the cistern was filled in with large stones and dirt. It would have been a big project, evidently done to prevent anyone from using it. The two theories are that it was either the Babylonians (circa 586 BCE) or neighboring Philistines from Ekron who didn't want to see another Judahite city grow up there. The reason I was reminded of this, is that while I've never heard anyone explicitly state as much, I suppose the assumption that the people who tried to rebuild it were local Judahites is based on them being who most likely had an attachment to the site.

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Originally Posted by Flinn

:hmm: That's an interesting question actually. Pompei's eruption happened less than 2000 years ago and was well registered in history, still it never really prevented people to live in the area nearby. Sure, Pompei and Ercolano have been abandoned, but as of today millions live within the area of influence of the Vesuvio and of the Phlegraean Fields, so it's hard to tell honestly.

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Yeah, it really doesn't fit the usual pattern archeologically, and I can't think of any historical example. Maybe a specific site being left empty, but not a large region.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

As for Yonaguni, I can tell right away that there is no definitive proof that these slabs are of natural origin.

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Well, that's not really how science works. Are you familiar with any of the rationale for the mainstream view?

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

Too correct shape!

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These formed naturally:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.postimg.cc/QtCtCPVm/Pyrite-cubic-crystals.jpg

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

Japanese scientists have the same opinion

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No, mostly they don't, just the one guy.

Here is what the natural shoreline looks like nearby:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.postimg.cc/HLkmpyh1/Yonaguni-shoreline.jpg

The complexity of this issue lies in the fact that many artifacts that have hitherto raised questions are not investigated by official science. Of course, it's easy to just go and say that all this is of natural origin. But the other thing (more difficult) - to invest financially, research and study. The world is really full of the unexplored. Our planet has been studied by 7 or 10 percent. But 90 are solid riddles.Take, for example, the question of the pyramids in the Canary Islands. We can say that they were built by Guanches. There is even an insane version that the peasants did it as mounds. But why do they need such mounds? And most importantly, why were the exact same pyramids found in Mauritius? Nobody is researching buildings in Mauritius. They just stood there in the field between the villages. Unfortunately, the authorities of Mauritius do not give access to scientific expeditions there. But if you dig seriously, you could find some kind of connection. These pyramids are exactly like the buildings of Guimar in the Canary Islands. Why? After all, the Canaries are too far from Mauritius.So the mysterious continents with the same success could really exist.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

The complexity of this issue lies in the fact that many artifacts that have hitherto raised questions are not investigated by official science. Of course, it's easy to just go and say that all this is of natural origin. ...

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Its actually pretty easy to say "Lost continents are real". Its like saying "fire breathing reptiles are real" or "magic giants give you stuff if you say the right words" or "dating in your 30's is a doddle". Easy to say, fun to imagine, generally not real.

Its hard to build up a scientific apparatus with sound methodology like information sharing, peer review, agreed terminology and so on. Geology and oceanography as areas of scientific endeavour have been gradually accreting useful observations and theses to explain them for centuries. Dismissing their conclusions about this instance is easy, overcoming literally millennia-old traditions like "God(s) did it" is hard.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

So the mysterious continents with the same success could really exist.

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...but as other posters say, allowing for that possibility in the face of scientific argument to the contrary has the legitimacy of preparing air defences against the Death Star.

Lemuria was raised and sunk by western scholarship. A ghost of the idea lives on in wacky cults and nationalist bulldust only.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

Take, for example, the question of the pyramids in the Canary Islands. We can say that they were built by Guanches.

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We could, but that would be silly considering archeologists have found 19th and 20th century artifacts within them.

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Originally Posted by BagaturSasha

There is even an insane version that the peasants did it as mounds. But why do they need such mounds?

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They're agricultural terraces:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.postimg.cc/XJ6YSLNk/Canary-Terraces.jpg

The peasants removed stones from the areas they wanted to plant in and made dividing walls and retaining walls out of them. It would have been a huge pain to try to cultivate in ground filled with so many stones. If a loose field stone structure like that dated to before the Castilian conquest, it would show significantly more damage due to erosion.

From the Wikipedia page:

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Between 1991 and 1998, with the agreement of Thor Heyerdahl, multiple excavations of the site by archaeologists of the University of La Laguna (Departamento de Prehistoria, Antropología e Historia Antigua) took place. In 1996 the results of the 1991 excavation were presented at a colloquium (published in 1998), providing evidence for the dating of the pyramids.[6] According to the preceding geophysical Georadar-Survey eight locations adjacent to the pyramids, each with an area of 25 m², were investigated in layers down to the solid lava-floor. In doing so it was possible to establish three specific sediment layers. Starting from the top these were:

1. A layer of thickness averaging 20 cm, consisting of humus-rich earth with many plant remains and roots; tracks from ploughing were clearly identifiable as were a broad spectrum of readily datable finds from the second half of the 20th century.
2. A layer of thickness averaging 25 cm, similar in composition to the first layer, however containing less humus and a larger amount of small stones; a large variety of finds which could be dated to the 19th and 20th century were found, of which an official seal from 1848 deserves particular mention.
3. A layer of thickness between 25 and 150 cm, composed out of small volcanic rocks, most likely put in place in one movement, which levelled the uneven stone underneath; the stones contained only very few finds, mostly a small number of pottery shards, of which some was local and some imported, both kinds were roughly estimated as belonging to the 19th century; the pyramids stand strategraphically directly on top of this bottom layer, therefore allowing only for an earliest date of construction of the pyramids within the 19th century.[7]

Furthermore, under the border edge of one of the pyramids, a natural lava cave was discovered. It had been walled up and yielded artefacts from the time of the Guanches. Since the pyramids lie stratigraphically above the cave, the Guanche finds from between 600 and 1000 AD can only support conclusions on the date of human use of the cave. The above survey indicates that the pyramids themselves cannot be older than the 19th century.[8]

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In any way, i respect all opinions and theories here, and of course critics opinion. So Thank you for your taking part in this conversation.
My opinion is different, but its only my opinion.

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They're agricultural terraces:

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Pretty much what would assume looking at them. Drive around SE Ideho and you see all kinds of things farmers make out of the stones from their fields - sometimes just piles, some who are bored or inspired make complex mounds or fences., sometimes Surprisingly the photo also look exactly like the landscaping of a dilapidated 1910 era botanical garden in Spokane that my wife's mother bought so she could restore it.

You will have laugh, but i`m still exploring these ancient civilizations and arthefacts at my work :D ))) For now learning the Tartess kingdom legacy. Its a really full of many secrets. And its can be connected with many mythology sources.

Thanks to Patrick Wyman's excellent Tides of History podcast, I've become fascinated by that hazy Neolithic period that might be responsible for some older myths. Locally, Indigenous Australians have stories of specific mountains exploding in fire, these mountains have been revealed more recently as being dead volcanoes that haven't erupted for between 10 and 20,000 years. The folk stories are very specific about which mountains exploded. Folk memories can last for surprisingly long periods of time under certain circumstances - even if the events that caused them are long lost and the context of the story has been upended.

What we have in stories of Atlantis or Hyperborea are more likely the result of fantasy storytelling by literate Bronze Age societies. Events such as floods are commonplace around the world. Even within the last few decades and centuries there have been flood events that have upended towns and cities and rendered land unliveable. It isn't such a stretch to see ancient stories written to include what for them would have been even less predictable and more shocking natural disasters. Particularly when you take into account the greater impacts of time and distance to worldviews in pre-industrial and Bronze Age societies. A flood that engulfed a small city 200 miles away from a Bronze Age writer, and 50 years before, would seem far more distant to them than something that happened in the 1960s, 4 hours drive away is for us - it would seem like another age.

To confuse events, as I inferred in my opening paragraph, as well as explaining events that were relatively recent to them, there is the possibility that Bronze Age writers were expanding on earlier folk stores and folk memories that are now lost to us. Bronze Age writers are a lot closer to the period referenced above at the end of the last glacial and the early Neolithic than we are. They were writing down stories of possible historic events in a way that is explainable within their terms of reference and world view. A Bronze Age Greek fisherman who drags up farming tools from under the Black Sea might rightly think that there must have been land there which sunk in some great disaster. Combine this with folk stories of floods from earlier times and earlier actual historic events and you have an easy setting for stories of Atlantis.

The landscape of much of the coastal world did change at the end of the last glacial period and the dawn of the Neolithic. Lands that were settled by people did end up under the sea - Doggerland is one place that has been mentioned, the Black Sea, Beringia, the Timor Sea and Sundaland are others which had extensive populations of people who were relatively settled and culturally diverse. They weren't grand cities in the Classical context, but they did have villages and community. It's unlikely that they lost their lands in great flood events, but rather gradual changes over several generations that would have left cultural impacts and lifestyle changes even without loss of life. And it's likely that these early Neolithic populations were culturally and maybe even genetically ancestral to some of the early non-literate proto-civilisations in places like the Ukraine and Anatolia, and this during the time preceding the establishment of larger more complex settlements.

So yeah, Atlantis is fantasy. No matter how many coincidentally straight rocks are fished up from under the sea. But that doesn't make the stories any less interesting.