by Tesla » Wed May 27, 2015 1:10 am
LOST CITIES OF CENTRAL AMERICA
By Isabella Wick & Lawrence Diday
Considering the publishing dates, “Lost Cities” to 1984, this book has held up decently well over the years. It is heavy and smells of library. However, a number of the book’s maps and charts- despite most unofficial and attributed to artists, not atlases- have been torn out page by page, with the text remaining intact to the spine. Lovely.
The Submerged City of Atlantis
Atlantis, or the “Island of Atlas,” was an underwater utopia first mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato’s works “Timaeus” and “Critias”, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieged ancient Athens. In the story, Athens was able to repel the Atlantean attack, unlike any other nation of the (western) known world, supposedly giving testament to the superiority of Plato’s concept of a state. At the end of the story, Atlantis eventually falls out of favor with the gods and famously submerges into the Atlantic Ocean. Whether Plato knew of the existence for Atlantis or crafted a concept eerily similar by sheer chance is unknown. But references of, and relics believed to have originated from the city of Atlantis after it’s submersion when it sank out of history books and, surviving the ocean, entered a private utopian period marked with prosperity and discovery as proven by mysterious relics often found floating in the ocean. Another hypothesis includes that Atlantis sunk into the sea, settled on the ocean floor and only then, condemned by Poseidon, and sunk deeper into the earth’s core. Its current state and location are unknown.
The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several renaissance writers, such as Bacon’s New Atlantis and More’s Utopia. On the other hand, 19th century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato’s account as historical tradition, most notably in Donnelly’s Atlantis, The Antediluvian World. Plato’s vague indications of the time of the events- more than 1,000 years before his day – and the alleged location of Atlantis –Beyond the Pillars of Hercules – has led to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a Byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilization and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.
Lemuria, The Lost Continent
Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical ”lost land” variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept’s 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography. However, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics. Although sunken continents do exist – like Zealandia in the Pacific as well as Mauritia and the Kerguelen plateau in the Indian Ocean – there is no known geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria.
Though Lemuria is no longer considered a valid scientific hypothesis, it has been adopted by writers involved in the occult, as well as some Tamil writers of India. Accounts of Lemuria differ, but all share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of a geological, often cataclysmic change, such as pole shift. Several mythologies point to Lemuria as a sinner’s land, now removed fully from the surface as its people were undeserving of sun and sky.
The Lost City of Z
The Lost city of Z is the name given by Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, a British surveyor, to a city that he thought existed in the jungle of the Mato Grosse region of Brazil. This mysterious city is referenced in a document known as manuscript 512, housed at the national library of Rio de Janeiro by a Portuguese slave-hunter who claimed to have visited the city in 1753. Though the slave hunter did not provide a specific location, in the account, he described the city in great detail “The city was embedded deep in the earth, reachable only after hundreds of miles of a pathway underground. He claimed Z was once a home to the ancients, now empty in ruins with treasures and relics strewn throughout, and assumed the people dead from a widespread plague. Fawcett allegedly heard about this city in the early 1900’s and went to Rio de Janeiro to learn more and came across the earlier report. He was about to leave in search of the city when World War I intervened. In 1925, Fawcett, his son Jack and Raleigh Rimell disappeared in the Mato Grosse while searching for the lost city of Z.
Although the search for the lost city was made in the Mato Grosse, manuscript 512 was written after explorations made in the Sertao of the province of Bahia.
The quest of El Dorado
An alien indian, hailing from afar, who in the town of Quito did abide and neighbor claimed to be of Bogata. There having come, I know not by what way, did with him speak and solemnly announced a country rich in emeralds and gold.
Also, among the things which them engaged, a certain king, he told of, why disrobed upon a lake, was wont board a raft, to make oblations as himself had seen.
His regal form overspread with fragrant oil on which was laid a coat of powdered gold, from sole of foot, unto his highest brow, resplendent as the beaming of the sun.
Arrivals, without end, he further said, were there to make rich votive offerings of golden trinkets and of emeralds rare and divers other of their ornaments and worthy credence there things, he affirmed. The soldiers, light of heart and well content, then dubbed him El Dorado and the name by countless ways was spread throughout the world.
The Mythical Island covered in Mist
Brasil, also known as Hy-brasil or several other variants, is a phantom island said toile in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland. Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached. The putative island has similar roots to other mythical islands said to exist in the Atlantic, such as Atlantis, Saint Brendan's island, and the Isle of Mam.
"Half of page torn out
Nautical charts identified an island called "Bracile" west of Ireland in the Atlantic Ocean as far back as 1325, in a Port Olan chart by Angelion Dulcert. Later, it appeared as Insula de Brasil in the Venetian map of Andrea Bianco (1436), pictured above, attached to one of the larger islands of a group of islands in the Atlantic. This was identified for a time, with the modern island of Terceira in the Azores.
Expeditions left Bristol in 1480 and 1481 to search for the island, and a letter written by Pedro De Ayala, shortly after the return of John Cabot (from his expedition in 1497), reports that land found by Cabot had been "discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found Brasil."
In 1674, Captain John Nisbet claimed to have seen the island when on a journey from France to Ireland. He stated, the island was inhabited by large black rabbits and a magician who lived alone in a stone castle. Roderick O'Flaherty in a chorographical description of west Orh-Iar Connaught (1684)tells us "there is now living, Morogh Oley (Murrough Olaoi), who imagins he was personally on O'brasil for two days, and saw out of it the Isles of Aran, Golamhead*by letter mullen*, Irrosbeghill, and other places of the west continent he was acquainted with."
Hy-Brasil has also been identified with Porcupine bank, a shoal in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 kilometres (150 mi) west of Ireland and discovered in 1862.
Kevin
-Character: Douglas Rook
-Formerly known as Professor John Challenger
-Position: Rook for The Lady in White
"Time to feed the Crows"