Atlantis, The Antediluvian World

phonetic alphabet, or a system of signs representing the sounds of human s

t back from nation to nation, and form to form, until we reach the Egyptians, and the ar

s." (Lenormant and Cheval, "Anc. Hist. of the East," vol. ii., p. 208.) "The gods" were, doubtless, their highly civili

by Thouth, or Thoth, otherwise called 'the first Hermes,' in which we clearly see that both the Phoenicians and Egyptians referred the invention to a perio

), was a son of Zeus and Maia, a daughter of Atlas. This is the same Maia wh

mmond, in his "

en some of the graphic systems employed by those nations, than by supposing hieroglyphical writing, if I may be allowed the term, to have been in use a

y Rawlin

e been pursued in Chaldea, and as we can actually trace its progress in Egypt, that we can hardly hes

accretion of ages; it must have risen step by step from picture-writing through an intermediate condition like that of the Chinese, where each word or thing was represented by a separate sign. The fact that so ol

oldt

tical writing, the Phoenician as well as the Semitic characters are to be regarded as a phonetic alphabet that has originated from pictorial writing; as one

"Prehistoric N

have substituted a phonetic alphabet for the hieroglyphics as it gradually grew to this eminence; while isolated Egypt, less affected by the p

, shaped like our V or Y, the two forms being used at first indifferently: they added the X sign; they converted the t of the Phoenicians into th, or theta; z and s into signs for double consonants; they turned the Phoenician y (yod) into i (iota). The Greeks converted the Phoenician alphabet, which was partly consonantal, into one purely phone

H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, Z. If we are to trace out resemblan

ian alphabet? It cannot be the Chinese alphabet, which has more signs than words; it cannot be the cuneiform alphabet of A

east, that is, from the direction of Atlantis. The Mayas succeeded to the Colhuas, whose era terminated one thousand years before the time of Christ; from them they received their alphabet. It has come to us through Bishop Landa, one of the ea

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rom "North Amer. of

iption and explanation of the phonetic alphabet of the Mayas. Landa's manuscript seems to have lain neglected in the library, for little or nothing was heard of it until it was discovered by the French priest Bras

as are one of the most conservative peoples in the world. They still adhere with striking pertinacity to the language they spoke when Columbus landed on San Salvador; and it is believed that that language is the same as the one inscribed on the most ancient monuments of their country. Se?or Pimental says of them, "The Indians have preserved

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Alph

enician, it will be astonishing if we find resemblances between any of the Maya letters and the European forms, even though we concede that they are related. If we find decided

or instance, the letter pp in Landa's alphabet, ### : here are evidently the traces of a face. The same appear, but not so plainly, in the sign for x, which is ### . Now, if we turn to the ancient hieroglyphics upon the monuments of Central America, we will find the human face appearing in a great many of them, as in the following, which we copy f

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y and carefully elaborated-were placed in the hands of a busy, active, commercial people, such as were the Atlanteans, and afterward the Phoenicians, men with whom time was valuable, the natural tendency would be to simplify

alphabet represented by this figure, ### ; now, as it takes less time to make a single stroke than a double one, this would become in time ### . We turn now to the archaic Greek and the old Hebrew, and we find the letter h indicated by this sign, ### , precisely the Maya letter h simplified. We turn to the archaic Hebrew, and we find ### . Now it is known that the Phoenicians wrote from right to left, and just as we in writing from left to right slope our letters to the right, so did the Phoenicians s

incidence. If it is, it is certainly r

the central part of this combination, the figure ### ; where does that come from? It is clearly taken from the heart of the original figure wherein it appears. What does this prove? That the Atlanteans, or Mayas, when th

; they are ### and ### ; now, if we apply the rule which we have seen to exist in the case of the Maya m to these figures, the essential characteristic found in each is the circle, in the first case pendant from the hieroglyph; in the other, in the centre of the lower part of it. And t

hus, ### and ### , and by exactly the same forms in the Egyptian hieroglyphics; in the Runic we have the circle in t

other set of

nother

(na) is ### ; in archaic Phoenician it comes still closer to the S shape, thus, ### , or in this form, ### ; we have but to curve these angles to approximate it very closely to the Maya n; in Troy this form was found, ### . The Samaritan makes it ### ; the old Hebrew ### ; the Moab stone inscription gives it ### ; the later Phoenicians simplified the archaic form still further, u

nd the serpent the sign for n in Central Am

-a sacred emblem found in the hair of their deities. We turn again to the valley of the Nile, and we find that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for k was a serpent with a convolution or protuberance in the middle, precisely as in the Maya, thus, ### ; this was transformed into the Egyptian letter ### ; the serpent and the protuberance reappear in one of the Phoenician forms of k, to wit, ### ; while in the Punic we have these forms, ### and ### . Now suppose a busy people trying to give this sign: instead of drawi

ved lines of the Maya t which give it something of the appearance of the numeral 8, repeated accurately in the Mediterranean alphabets; thus the Punic t repeats the Maya form almost exactly as ### and ### . Now suppose a busy people compelled to make this mark every day for a thousand years, and generally in a hurry, and the cross would soon be made without curving the lines; it would become X. But be

a foot or boot. If one were required to give hurriedly a rude outline of either of these, would he not represent it thus, ### ; and can we not conceive that this could have been in time modifie

yptian q we find it in this shape, ### ; we turn to the Ethiopian q (khua), and we find it ### , as qua, ### ; while the Phoenician comes still nearer the supposed Maya form in ### ; the Moab stone was ### ; the Himyaritic Arabian form became ### ; the Greek form was ### , which graduated into the Roman Q. But a still more striking proof of the descent of the Phoenician alphabet from the Maya i

d, thus, ### . This is precisely the form found by Dr. Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, ### . What is the Phoenician form for g as found on the Moab stone? It is ### . The Carthaginian Phoenicians gave it more of a rounded form, thus, ##

ut of the later Phoenician r formed thus, ### ; it would appear that the earliest Phoenician alphabet did not contain the letter r. But if we now turn to the Phoenician alphabet, we will find one of the curio

e this to its elements, we would use a figure like this, ### ; in time the tendency would be to shorten one of t

ly indicate the whole letter-we will have one of two forms, either a right-angled figure formed thus, ### , or an acute angle formed by joining the two lines which are unconnected, thus, ### ; and either of these forms brings us quite clos

while in the archaic Hebrew we have the same crescent figure as in the Maya, turned in the same direction, but accompanied by a line drawn downward, and to the left, thus, ### ; a similar form is also found in the Phoenician ### , and this in

e of the ancient Phoenician inscriptions the original Maya circles preserved in making the letter e, thus, ### ; then we find the old Greek form, ### ; the old Hebrew, ### ; and the later Phoenician, ### : w

The Samaritan i was formed thus, ### ; the Egyptian letter i is ### : gradually in all these the left-hand line was dropped, and we come to

### : the distinctive figure within the sign for m in the Maya is ### or ### . We see this repeated in the Egyptian hieroglyphics for m, ### , and ### , and ### ; and in the Chaldaic m, ### ; and in the Ethiopic ### . We find one form of th

some thing like this, ### or ### ; and this is very much like the x of the archaic Phoenician, ### ; or the Moab sto

somewhat similar sign is found in the body of the symbol for k, thus, ### , this would appear to be a simplification of ca, but turned downward. If now we turn to the Egyptian letters we find the sign k represented by this figure ### , simplified again into ### ; while the sign for k in the Phoenician inscription on the stone of Moab is ### . If now we turn to th

he ancient letters to the Maya alphabet. In some ca

ance, ta

, ### ; old Hebrew, #

the le

, ### ; old Hebrew, #

the le

ek, ### ; old Phoen

the le

oenician, ### and

the le

, ### ; Ethiopian, #

the le

; Pelasgian ### , Arcadi

this cannot

en these two sounds. In the oldest known form of the Phoenician alphabet, that found on the Moab stone, we find in the same way but one sign to express the d and t. D does not occur on the Etruscan monuments, t being used in its place. It would, therefore, appear that after the Maya alphabet passed to the Phoenicians they added tw

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at while the Phoenician legends claim that Taaut invented the art of writing, yet they tell us that Taaut made records, and "delivered them to his successors and to foreigners, of whom one was Isiris (Os

rew, as in the Syriac, Sab?ic, Palmyrenic, and some other kindred writings, the vau takes the place of F, and indicates the sounds of v and u. F occur

phical Society" for December, 1880, p. 154, an interesting article pointing

lentini, represented by a footprint, and that path and footprint are prono

why should Egyptians, confined as they were to the valley of the Nile, and abhorring as they did the sea and sailors, write their U precisely like Landa's alphabet U in Central America? There is one other remarkable coincidence between Landa's and the Egyptian alphabets; and, by-the-way, the English and other Teutonic dialec

st between the Maya alphabet and the Egyptian signs-in the c, h, t, i, k, m, n, o, q, and s-eleven letters in all; in some cases, as in the n and k, the signs are identical; the k, in both alphabets, is not only a serpent, but a serpent with a protuberance or convolution in the middle! If we add to the above the b and u, referred to

ns of lines, angles, circles, and curves; when they have finished, they bring their alphabets together for comparison. Under such circumstances it is possible that out of the sixteen signs one sign might appear in both alphabets; there is one chance in one hundred that such might be the case; but there is not one chance in five hundred that this sign should in both cases represent the

ction between the Maya and the European alphabets, and that further discoveries of inscriptions in Europe

nlike the form of the Phoenician t used in writing, ### and ### ; we find also upon these monuments the letter o represented by a small circle, and entering into many of the hieroglyphs; we also find the tau sign (thus ### ) often repeated; also the sign which we have supposed to represent b,

pound words formed from the Maya alphabet, yet we can go far enough to see that they

instance, we have this figure as the representative of the month Mol ### . Here we see very plainly the letter ### for m, the sign ### for o; and we will po

ranch of the Mayas. They claim to be the first settlers of the country

resemblances have been found to exist between the Chiapenec languag

ns of Antiquity," p. 475) gives the following lis

| Chimah. | +-----------+------+------+ | King | Molo | Maloc. | +-----------+------+------+ | Name applied to Adam | Abagh | Abah. | +-----------+------+------+ | Afflicted | Chanam | Chanan. | +-----------+------+------+ | God | Elab | Elab. | +-----------+------+------+ | Sep

the Phoenician alphabet, we find equally surprising coincidences between the Chi

and, by means of the inscriptions upon the monuments of Copan and Palenque, deduce the alphabetical hieroglyph itself from an older and more ornate figure; we thus not only discover the relationship of the European alphabet to the American, but we trace its descent in the very mode in which reason tells us it must have been developed. All this proves that the similarities in question did not come from Phoenician

d America; but it must be remembered that if the Flood legends of Europe and Asia are worth anything they prove that the art of writing existed at the date of the Deluge, and that recor

"Our rabbins assert that Adam, our father of blessed memory, composed a book of precepts, which were delivered to him by God in Paradise." (Smith's "Sacred Annals," p. 49.) That is to say, the Hebrews preserved a tradition that the Ad-ami, the people of Ad, or Adlantis, possessed, while yet dwelling in Paradise, the art of writing. It has been suggested that without the use of letters it would have been impossible to preserve the many details as to dates, ages, and measurements, as of the ark, handed down to us in Genesis. Josephus, quoting Jewish traditions, says, "The births and deaths of illustrious men, between Adam and Noah, were noted down at the time with great accuracy." (Ant., lib. 1, cap. iii., see. 3.) Suidas, a Greek lexicographer of the eleventh century, expresses tradition when he says, "Adam was the autho