Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World

at the Egyptians were

s," which must have meant the twelve gods of Atlan

to which the Phoenicians owed their own origin. The Phoenician legends show that Misor, from whom the Egyptians were descended, was the child of the Phoenician gods Amynus and Magus. Misor gave birth to Taaut, the god of letters, the inventor of the alphabet

s of Ham, who was one of the three sons of Noah who esca

n the Egyptian civilization an

the Egyptians cla

od of Egypt, Rama, the sun of the Hindoos, Rana, a god of the Toltecs, Raymi

of pyramids in E

istory of Atlantis. The Egyptians were never a maritime people, and the Atlanteans mu

The constant cry of the mourners as the funeral procession moved forward was, "To the west; to the west." This under-world was beyond the water, hence the funeral procession always crossed a body of water. "Where the tombs were, as in most c

rizon, beneath the sea, to which the peasants of Brittany looked from Cape Raz, the most western cape projecting into the Atlantic.

ed to a real country; they described its cities, mountains, and rivers; one of the latter was called Uranes, a name which reminds us of the Atlantean god Uranos. In connection with all this we must not forget that Plato described Atlantis as "that sacred island lying beneath the sun." Everywhere in the ancient world we find the minds of men looking to the west for the land of the dead. Poole says, "How then can we account for thi

oped in Egypt itself; it must have been transported there from so

he art of writing on papyrus was understood as early as the days of Menes himself. The fruits of investigation in this, as in many other subjects, are truly most marvellous. Instead of exhibiting the rise and progress of any branches of knowledge, they tend to prove that nothing had any rise or progress, but that everything is referable to the very earliest dates. The experience of the Egyptologis

that has since developed into a wonderful art-breaks his shins against an article so perfect that it equals if it does not excel the supreme stretch of modern ability? How shall we support the theory if it come to our knowledge

ght may yet be thrown upon her rise and progress, but our deepest researches have hitherto shown her to us as only the mother of a most accomplished race. How they came by their knowledge is matter for speculation; that t

over the country where all this magnificence and power were d

en the parent nation of whi

great procession of kings and priests, philosophers and astronomers, artists and artisans, streamed forward to Greece, to Rome, to Europe, to America. As far back in the ages as the eye can penetrate, even where the perspective dwindles almos

standing the lapse of so many centuries, and the violence by which they were detached." Look at the ruins of the Labyrinth, which aroused the astonishment of Herodotus; it had three thousand chambers, half of them above ground and half below-a combination of courts, chambers, colonnades, statues, and pyramids. Look at the Temple of Karnac, covering a square each side of which is eighteen hundred feet. Says a recent writer, "Travellers one and all appear to have been unable to find words to express the feelings with which these sublime remains inspired them. They have been astounded and overcome by the magnificence and the prodigality of workmanship here to be admired. Courts, halls, gate-ways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic figures, sculptures, rows of sphinxes, are massed in such profusion that the sight is too much for modern comprehension

ip of one God and the practice of virtue; forty-two commandments prescribed the duties of men to themselves, their neighbors, their c

ng out the h

is judgm

was "the lady of the house;" she could "buy, sell, and trade on her own account;" in case of divorce her dowry was to be repaid to her, with interest at a high rate. The marriage-ceremony

master," There was also a clause in the commandments "which protected the laboring man against the exaction of more than his day's labor." They were merciful to the captives made in war; no pict

the principles they laid down as the basis of ethics, the elevation of women among them, their hu

far too difficult a task to be here undertaken. Enough has been said, however,

oficiency in art of

pupils of Egypt. They were the first land-surveyors. They were the first astronomers, calculating eclipses, and watching th

iac, and the position of the planets; the date to which they pointed was the autumnal equinox of the year 1722 B.C. Professor Mitchell, to whom the fact was communicated, employed his assistants to ascertain the exact position of the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on the

earthenware; and, precisely as we are now making railroad car-wheels of paper, they manufactured vessels of paper. Their dentists filled teeth with gold; their farmers hatched poultry by artificial heat. They were the first musicians; they possessed guitars, single and double pipes, cymbals, drums, lyres, harps, flutes, the sambric, ashur, etc.; they had even castanets, such as are now used in Spain. In medicine and surgery they had reached such a degree of perfection that several hundred years B.C. the operation for the removal of cataract from the eye was performed among them; one of the most delicate and difficult feats of surg

country are hid away thousands and thousands of relics which may astonish the world for ages to come, and change continually its conception of what Egypt was. The effect of research seems to be to prove the objects of it to be much older than we thought them to be-some things thought to be wholly modern having been proved t

ys ("A, Miracle in Stone," p. 40), "It suddenly takes its place in the world in all its matchless magnificence, without father, w

("Origin of N

d in Egypt no rude or uncivilized time out of which civilization is developed. Menes, the first king, changes the course of the Nile, makes a great reservoir, and build

"Anthropolog

progress. In museums still may be examined the work of their joiners, stone-cutters, goldsmiths, wonderful in skill and finish, and in putting to shame the

the ancient Egyptians were almost ide

h (or to the cross) two priests are offering sacrifice. In Mr. Stephens's representation from the Vocal Memnon we find almost the same thing, the difference being that, instead of an ornamented Latin cross, we have a crux commissa, and instead of

Egypt have their co

ne one hundred and fifty feet high, and twelve feet in diameter." ("Researches," pp. 171, 172.) The columns of Copan stand detached and sol

mard, quoted by D

, equally employed at Thebes and Mexico-a distance of three thousand leagues.... In reality, the intercalation of the Mexicans being thirteen days on each cycle of fifty-two years, comes to the same thing as that of the Julian calendar, which is one day in four years; and consequently supposes the duration of the year to be three hundred and sixty-five days six hours. Now such was the length of the year among th

tions, had fixed the beginning of the month Toth, and the commencement of their year, at noon on that day. The five intercalated days to make up the three hundred and sixty-five days were called by the

t consists of three hundred and sixty-five days and five hours, less ten seconds); and a high degree of civilization was requisite to insist that the year must be brought around, by the intercalation of a certain number of days in a certain

yptian priests to Solon, as to the glory and greatness of Atlantis, i

a testimony to the development attained by the parent country; by that country whose kings were

ced this period at the very beginning of Egyptian history. These thirteen thousand nine hundred years were probably a recollectio