The Antediluvian World
by
Ignatius Donnelly
Part 6 out of 8
If, then, the original seat of the Hebrews and Phœnicians was the Garden
of Eden, to the west of Europe, and if the Phœnicians are shown to be
connected, through their alphabets, with the Central Americans, who
looked to an island in the sea, to the eastward, as their
starting-point, the conclusion becomes irresistible that Atlantis and
the Garden of Eden were one and the same.
The Pyramid.--Not only are the Cross and the Garden of Eden identified
with Atlantis, but in Atlantis, the habitation of the gods, we find the
original model of all those pyramids which extend from India to Peru.
This singular architectural construction dates back far beyond the birth
of history. In the Purânas of the Hindoos we read of pyramids long
anterior in time to any which have survived to our day. Cheops was
preceded by a countless host of similar erections which have long since
mouldered into ruins.
If the reader will turn to page 104 of this work he will see, in the
midst of the picture of Aztlan, the starting-point of the Aztecs,
according to the Botturini pictured writing, a pyramid with worshippers
kneeling before it.
Fifty years ago Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," placed
artificial tumuli, pyramids, and pagodas in the same category,
conceiving that all were transcripts of the holy mountain which was
generally supposed to have stood in the centre of Eden; or, rather. as
intimated in more than one place by the Psalmist, the garden itself was
situated on an eminence. (Psalms, chap. iii., v. 4, and chap. lxviii.,
vs. 15, 16, 18.)
The pyramid is one of the marvellous features of that problem which
confronts us everywhere, and which is insoluble without Atlantis.
The Arabian traditions linked the pyramid with the Flood. In a
manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library, and translated by Dr.
Sprenger, Abou Balkhi says:
"The wise men, previous to the Flood, foreseeing an impending Judgment
from heaven, either by submersion or fire, which would destroy every
created thing, built upon the tops of the mountains in Upper Egypt many
pyramids of stone, in order to have some refuge against the approaching
calamity. Two of these buildings exceeded the rest in height, being four
hundred cubits, high and as many broad and as many long. They were built
with large blocks of marble, and they were so well put together that the
joints were scarcely perceptible. Upon the exterior of the building
every charm and wonder of physic was inscribed."
This tradition locates these monster structures upon the mountains of
Upper Egypt, but there are no buildings of such dimensions to be found
anywhere in Egypt. Is it not probable that we have here another
reference to the great record preserved in the land of the Deluge? Were
not the pyramids of Egypt and America imitations of similar structures
in Atlantis? Might not the building of such a gigantic edifice have
given rise to the legends existing on both continents in regard to a
Tower of Babel?
How did the human mind hit upon this singular edifice--the pyramid? By
what process of development did it reach it? Why should these
extraordinary structures crop out on the banks of the Nile, and amid the
forests and plains of America? And why, in both countries, should they
stand with their sides square to the four cardinal points of the
compass? Are they in this, too, a reminiscence of the Cross, and of the
four rivers of Atlantis that ran to the north, south, east, and west?
"There is yet a third combination that demands a specific notice. The
decussated symbol is not unfrequently planted upon what Christian
archæologists designate 'a calvary,' that is, upon a mount or a cone.
Thus it is represented in both hemispheres. The megalithic structure of
Callernish, in the island of Lewis before mentioned, is the most perfect
example of the practice extant in Europe. The mount is preserved to this
day. This, to be brief, was the recognized conventional mode of
expressing a particular primitive truth or mystery from the days of the
Chaldeans to those of the Gnostics, or from one extremity of the
civilized world to the other. It is seen in the treatment of the ash
Yggdrasill of the Scandinavians, as well as in that of the Bo-tree of
the Buddhists. The prototype was not the Egyptian, but the Babylonian
crux ansata, the lower member of which constitutes a conical support for
the oval or sphere above it. With the Gnostics, who occupied the
debatable ground between primitive Christianity and philosophic
paganism, and who inscribed it upon their tombs, the cone symbolized
death as well as life. In every heathen mythology it was the universal
emblem of the goddess or mother of heaven, by whatsoever name she was
addressed--whether as Mylitta, Astarte, Aphrodite, Isis, Mata, or Venus;
and the several eminences consecrated to her worship were, like those
upon which Jupiter was originally adored, of a conical or pyramidal
shape. This, too, is the ordinary form of the altars dedicated to the
Assyrian god of fertility. In exceptional instances the cone is
introduced upon one or the other of the sides, or is distinguishable in
the always accompanying mystical tree." (Edinburgh Review, July, 1870.)
If the reader will again turn to page 104 of this work he will see that
the tree appears on the top of the pyramid or mountain in both the Aztec
representations of Aztlan, the original island-home of the Central
American races.
The writer just quoted believes that Mr. Faber is correct in his opinion
that the pyramid is a transcript of the sacred mountain which stood in
the midst of Eden, the Olympus of Atlantis. He adds:
"Thomas Maurice, who is no mean authority, held the same view. He
conceived the use to which pyramids in particular were anciently applied
to have been threefold-namely, as tombs, temples, and observatories; and
this view he labors to establish in the third volume of his 'Indian
Antiquities.' Now, whatever may be their actual date, or with whatsoever
people they may have originated, whether in Africa or Asia, in the lower
valley of the Nile or in the plains of Chaldea, the pyramids of Egypt
were unquestionably destined to very opposite purposes. According, to
Herodotus, they were introduced by the Hyksos; and Proclus, the Platonic
philosopher, connects them with the science of astronomy--a science
which, he adds, the Egyptians derived from the Chaldeans. Hence we may
reasonably infer that they served as well for temples for planetary
worship as for observatories. Subsequently to the descent of the
shepherds, their hallowed precincts were invaded by royalty, from
motives of pride and superstition; and the principal chamber in each was
used as tombs."
The pyramidal imitations, dear to the hearts of colonists of the sacred
mountain upon which their gods dwelt, was devoted, as perhaps the
mountain itself was, to sun and fire worship. The same writer says:
"That Sabian worship once extensively prevailed in the New World is a
well-authenticated fact; it is yet practised to some extent by the
wandering tribes on the Northern continent, and was the national
religion of the Peruvians at the time of the Conquest. That it was also
the religion of their more highly civilized predecessors on the soil,
south of the equator more especially, is evidenced by the remains of
fire-altars, both round and square, scattered about the shores of lakes
Umayu and Titicaca, and which are the counterparts of the Gueber dokh
mehs overhanging the Caspian Sea. Accordingly, we find, among these and
other vestiges of antiquity that indissolubly connected those long-since
extinct populations in the New with the races of the Old World, the
well-defined symbol of the Maltese Cross. On the Mexican feroher before
alluded to, and which is most elaborately carved in bass-relief on a
massive piece of polygonous granite, constituting a portion of a
cyclopean wall, the cross is enclosed within the ring, and accompanying
it are four tassel-like ornaments, graved equally well. Those
accompaniments, however, are disposed without any particular regard to
order, but the four arms of the cross, nevertheless, severally and
accurately point to the cardinal quarters, The same regularity is
observable on a much smaller but not less curious monument, which was
discovered some time since in an ancient Peruvian huaca or
catacomb--namely, a syrinx or pandean pipe, cut out of a solid mass of
lapis ollaris, the sides of which are profusely ornamented, not only
with Maltese crosses, but also with other symbols very similar in style
to those inscribed on the obelisks of Egypt and on the monoliths of this
country. The like figure occurs on the equally ancient Otrusco black
pottery. But by far the most remarkable example of this form of the
Cross in the New World is that which appears on a second type of the
Mexican feroher, engraved on a tablet of gypsum, and which is described
at length by its discoverer, Captain du Paix, and depicted by his
friend, M. Baradère. Here the accompaniments--a shield, a hamlet, and a
couple of bead-annulets or rosaries--are, with a single exception,
identical in even the minutest particular with an Assyrian monument
emblematical of the Deity. . . .
"No country in the world can compare with India for the exposition of
the pyramidal cross. There the stupendous labors of Egypt are rivalled,
and sometimes surpassed. Indeed, but for the fact of such monuments of
patient industry and unexampled skill being still in existence, the
accounts of some others which have long since disappeared, having
succumbed to the ravages of time and the fury of the bigoted Mussulman,
would sound in our ears as incredible as the story of Porsenna's tomb,
which 'o'ertopped old Pelion,' and made 'Ossa like a wart.' Yet
something not very dissimilar in character to it was formerly the boast
of the ancient city of Benares, on the banks of the Ganges. We allude to
the great temple of Bindh Madhu, which was demolished in the seventeenth
century by the Emperor Aurungzebe. Tavernier, the French baron, who
travelled thither about the year 1680, has preserved a brief description
of it. The body of the temple was constructed in the figure of a
colossal cross (i. e., a St. Andrew's Cross), with a lofty dome at the
centre, above which rose a massive structure of a pyramidal form. At the
four extremities of the cross there were four other pyramids of
proportionate dimensions, and which were ascended from the outside by
steps, with balconies at stated distances for places of rest, reminding
us of the temple of Belus, as described in the pages of Herodotus. The
remains of a similar building are found at Mhuttra, on the banks of the
Jumna. This and many others, including the subterranean temple at
Elephanta and the caverns of Ellora and Salsette, are described at
length in the well-known work by Maurice; who adds that, besides these,
there was yet another device in which the Hindoo displayed the
all-pervading sign; this was by pyramidal towers placed crosswise. At
the famous temple of Chillambrum, on the Coromandel coast, there were
seven lofty walls, one within the other, round the central quadrangle,
and as many pyramidal gate-ways in the midst of each side which forms
the limbs of a vast cross."
In Mexico pyramids were found everywhere. Cortez, in a letter to Charles
V., states that he counted four hundred of them at Cholula. Their
temples were on those "high-places." The most ancient pyramids in Mexico
are at Teotihuacan, eight leagues from the city of Mexico; the two
largest were dedicated to the sun and moon respectively, each built of
cut stone, with a level area at the summit, and four stages leading up
to it. The larger one is 680 feet square at the base, about 200 feet
high, and covers an area of eleven acres. The Pyramid of Cholula,
measured by Humboldt, is 160 feet high, 1400 feet square at the base,
and covers forty five acres! The great pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, is 746
feet square, 450 feet high, and covers between twelve and thirteen
acres. So that it appears that the base of the Teotihuacan structure is
nearly as large as that of Cheops, while that of Cholula covers nearly
four times as much space. The Cheops pyramid, however, exceeds very much
in height both the American structures.
Señor Garcia y Cubas thinks the pyramids of Teotihuacan (Mexico) were
built for the same purpose as those of Egypt. He considers the analogy
established in eleven particulars, as follows: 1, the site chosen is the
same; 2, the structures are orientated with slight variation; 3, the
line through the centres of the structures is in the astronomical
meridian; 4, the construction in grades and steps is the same; 5, in
both cases the larger pyramids are dedicated to the sun; 6, the Nile has
"a valley of the dead," as in Teotihuacan there is "a street of the
dead;" 7, some monuments in each class have the nature of
fortifications; 8, the smaller mounds are of the same nature and for the
same purpose; 9, both pyramids have a small mound joined to one of their
faces; 10, the openings discovered in the Pyramid of the Moon are also
found in some Egyptian pyramids; 11, the interior arrangements of the
pyramids are analogous. ("Ensayo de un Estudio.")
It is objected that the American edifices are different in form from the
Egyptian, in that they are truncated, or flattened at the top; but this
is not an universal rule.
"In many of the ruined cities of Yucatan one or more pyramids have been
found upon the summit of which no traces of any building could be
discovered, although upon surrounding pyramids such structures could be
found. There is also some reason to believe that perfect pyramids have
been found in America. Waldeck found near Palenque two pyramids in a
state of perfect preservation, square at the base, pointed at the top,
and thirty-one feet high, their sides forming equilateral triangles."
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 58.)
Bradford thinks that "some of the Egyptian pyramids, and those which
with some reason it has been supposed are the most ancient, are
precisely similar to the Mexican teocalli." ("North Americans of
Antiquity" p. 423.)
And there is in Egypt another form of pyramid called the mastaba, which,
like the Mexican, was flattened on the top; while in Assyria structures
flattened like the Mexican are found. "In fact," says one writer, "this
form of temple (the flat-topped) has been found from Mesopotamia to the
Pacific Ocean." The Phœnicians also built pyramids. In the thirteenth
century the Dominican Brocard visited the ruins of the Phœnician city of
Mrith or Marathos, and speaks in the strongest terms of admiration of
those pyramids of surprising grandeur, constructed of blocks of stone
from twenty-six to twenty eight feet long, whose thickness exceeded the
stature of a tall man. ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 144.)
"If," says Ferguson, "we still hesitate to pronounce that there was any
connection between the builders of the pyramids of Suku and Oajaca, or
the temples of Xochialco and Boro Buddor, we must at least allow that
the likeness is startling, and difficult to account for on the theory of
mere accidental coincidence."
PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.
The Egyptian pyramids all stand with their sides to the cardinal points,
while many of the Mexican pyramids do likewise. The Egyptian pyramids
were penetrated by small passage-ways; so were the Mexican. The Pyramid
of Teotihuacan, according to Almarez, has, at a point sixty-nine feet
from the base, a gallery large enough to admit a man crawling on hands
and knees, which extends, inward, on an incline, a distance of twenty
feet, and terminates in two square wells or chambers, each five feet
square and one of them fifteen feet deep. Mr. Löwenstern states,
PYRAMIDS OF TEOTIHUACAN.
according to Mr. Bancroft ("Native Races," vol. iv., p. 533), that "the
gallery is one hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height
to over six feet and a half as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well
is over six feet square, extending (apparently) down to the base and up
to the summit; and that other cross-galleries are blocked up by débris."
In the Pyramid of Cheops there is a similar opening or passage-way
forty-nine feet above the base; it is three feet eleven inches high, and
three feet five and a half inches wide; it leads down a slope to a
sepulchral chamber or well, and connects with other passage-ways leading
up into the body of the pyramid.
THE GREAT MOUND, NEAR MIAMISBURG, OHIO.
In both the Egyptian the American pyramids the outside of the structures
was covered with a thick coating of smooth, shining cement.
Humboldt considered the Pyramid of Cholula of the same type as the
Temple of Jupiter Belus, the pyramids of Meidoun Dachhour, and the group
of Sakkarah, in Egypt.
GREAT PYRAMID OF XCOCH.
In both America and Egypt the pyramids were used as places of sepulture;
and it is a remarkable fact that the system of earthworks and mounds,
kindred to the pyramids, is found even in England. Silsbury Hill, at
Avebury, is an artificial mound one hundred and seventy feet high. It is
connected with ramparts, avenues (fourteen hundred and eighty yards
long), circular ditches, and stone circles, almost identical with those
found in the valley of the Mississippi. In Ireland the dead were buried
in vaults of stone, and the earth raised over them in pyramids flattened
on the top. They were called "moats" by the people. We have found the
stone vaults at the base of similar truncated pyramids in Ohio. There
can be no doubt that the pyramid was a developed and perfected mound,
and that the parent form of these curious structures is to be found in
Silsbury Hill, and in the mounds of earth of Central America and the
Mississippi Valley.
We find the emblem of the Cross in pre-Christian times venerated as a
holy symbol on both sides of the Atlantic; and we find it explained as a
type of the four rivers of the happy island where the civilization of
the race originated.
We find everywhere among the European and American nations the memory of
an Eden of the race, where the first men dwelt in primeval peace and
happiness, and which was afterward destroyed by water.
We find the pyramid on both sides of the Atlantic, with its four sides
pointing, like the arms of the Cross, to the four cardinal points-a
reminiscence of Olympus; and in the Aztec representation of Olympos
(Aztlan) we find the pyramid as the central and typical figure.
Is it possible to suppose all these extraordinary coincidences to be the
result of accident? We might just as well say that the similarities
between the American and English forms of government were not the result
of relationship or descent, but that men placed in similar circumstances
had spontaneously and necessarily reached the same results.
CHAPTER VI.
GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS.
Money is the instrumentality by which man is lifted above the
limitations of barter. Baron Storch terms it "the marvellous instrument
to which we are indebted for our wealth and civilization."
It is interesting to inquire into the various articles which have been
used in different countries and ages as money. The following is a table
of some of them:
Articles of Utility.
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| India | Cakes of tea. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| China | Pieces of silk. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Abyssinia | Salt. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Iceland and Newfoundland | Codfish. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Illinois (in early days) | Coon-skins. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Bornoo (Africa) | Cotton shirts. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Russia | Skins of wild animals. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| West India Islands (1500) | Cocoa-nuts. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Massachusetts Indians | Wampum and musket-balls. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Virginia (1700) | Tobacco. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| British West India Islands | Pins, snuff, and whiskey. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Central South America | Soap, chocolate, and eggs. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Romans | Cattle. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Greece | Nails of copper and iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| The Lacedemonians | Iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| The Burman Empire | Lead. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Russia (1828 to 1845) | Platinum. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Rome (under Numa Pompilius) | Wood and leather. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Rome (under the Cæsars) | Land. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Carthaginians | Leather. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Ancient Britons Cattle, | slaves, brass, and iron. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| England (under James II.) | Tin, gun-metal, and pewter. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| South Sea Islands | Axes and hammers. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
Articles of Ornament.
+-------------------------------+----------------+
| Ancient Jews | Jewels. |
+-------------------------------+----------------+
| The Indian Islands and Africa | Cowrie shells, |
+-------------------------------+----------------+
Conventional Signs.
+----------------+----------------------------+
| Holland (1574) | Pieces of pasteboard. |
+----------------+----------------------------+
| China (1200) | Bark of the mulberry-tree. |
+----------------+----------------------------+
It is evident that every primitive people uses as money those articles
upon which they set the highest value--as cattle, jewels, slaves, salt,
musket-balls, pins, snuff, whiskey, cotton shirts, leather, axes, and
hammers; or those articles for which there was a foreign demand, and
which they could trade off to the merchants for articles of
necessity--as tea, silk, codfish, coonskins, cocoa-nuts, and tobacco.
Then there is a later stage, when the stamp of the government is
impressed upon paper, wood, pasteboard, or the bark of trees, and these
articles are given a legal-tender character.
When a civilized nation comes in contact with a barbarous people they
seek to trade with them for those things which they need; a
metal-working people, manufacturing weapons of iron or copper, will seek
for the useful metals, and hence we find iron, copper, tin, and lead
coming into use as a standard of values--as money; for they can always
be converted into articles of use and weapons of war. But when we ask
bow it chanced that gold and silver came to be used as money, and why it
is that gold is regarded as so much more valuable than silver, no answer
presents itself. It was impossible to make either of them into pots or
pans, swords or spears; they were not necessarily more beautiful than
glass or the combinations of tin and copper. Nothing astonished the
American races more than the extraordinary value set upon gold and
silver by the Spaniards; they could not understand it. A West Indian
savage traded a handful of gold-dust with one of the sailors
accompanying Columbus for some tool, and then ran for his life to the
woods lest the sailor should repent his bargain and call him back. The
Mexicans had coins of tin shaped like a letter T. We can understand
this, for tin was necessary to them in hardening their bronze
implements, and it may have been the highest type of metallic value
among them. A round copper coin with a serpent stamped on it was found
at Palenque, and T-shaped copper coins are very abundant in the ruins of
Central America. This too we can understand, for copper was necessary in
every work of art or utility.
All these nations were familiar with gold and silver, but they used them
as sacred metals for the adornment of the temples of the sun and moon.
The color of gold was something of the color of the sun's rays, while
the color of silver resembled the pale light of the moon, and hence they
were respectively sacred to the gods of the sun and moon. And this is
probably the origin of the comparative value of these metals: they
became the precious metals because they were the sacred metals, and gold
was more valuable than silver--just as the sun-god was the great god of
the nations, while the mild moon was simply an attendant upon the sun.
The Peruvians called gold "the tears wept by the sun." It was not used
among the people for ornament or money. The great temple of the sun at
Cuzco was called the "Place of Gold." It was, as I have shown, literally
a mine of gold. Walls, cornices, statuary, plate, ornaments, all were of
gold; the very ewers, pipes, and aqueducts--even the agricultural
implements used in the garden of the temple--were of gold and silver.
The value of the jewels which adorned the temple was equal to one
hundred and eighty millions of dollars! The riches of the kingdom can be
conceived when we remember that from a pyramid in Chimu a Spanish
explorer named Toledo took, in 1577, $4,450,284 in gold and silver.
("New American Cyclopædia," art. American Antiquities.) The gold and
silver of Peru largely contributed to form the metallic currency upon
which Europe has carried on her commerce during the last three hundred
years.
Gold and silver were not valued in Peru for any intrinsic usefulness;
they were regarded as sacred because reserved for the two great gods of
the nation. As we find gold and silver mined and worked on both sides of
the Atlantic at the earliest periods of recorded history, we may fairly
conclude that they were known to the Atlanteans; and this view is
confirmed by the statements of Plato, who represents a condition of
things in Atlantis exactly like that which Pizarro found in Peru.
Doubtless the vast accumulations of gold and silver in both countries
were due to the fact that these metals were not permitted to be used by
the people. In Peru the annual taxes of the people were paid to the Inca
in part in gold and silver from the mines, and they were used to
ornament the temples; and thus the work of accumulating the sacred
metals went on from generation to generation. The same process doubtless
led to the vast accumulations in the temples of Atlantis, as described
by Plato.
Now, as the Atlanteans carried on an immense commerce with all the
countries of Europe and Western Asia, they doubtless inquired and traded
for gold and silver for the adornment of their temples, and they thus
produced a demand for and gave a value to the two metals otherwise
comparatively useless to man--a value higher than any other commodity
which the people could offer their civilized customers; and as the
reverence for the great burning orb of the sun, master of all the
manifestations of nature, was tenfold as great as the veneration for the
smaller, weaker, and variable goddess of the night, so was the demand
for the metal sacred to the sun ten times as great as for the metal
sacred to the moon. This view is confirmed by the fact that the root of
the word by which the Celts, the Greeks, and the Romans designated gold
was the Sanscrit word karat, which means, "the color of the sun." Among
the Assyrians gold and silver were respectively consecrated to the and
moon precisely as they were in Peru. A pyramid belonging to the palace
of Nineveh is referred to repeatedly in the inscriptions. It was
composed of seven stages, equal in height, and each one smaller in area
than the one beneath it; each stage was covered with stucco of different
colors, "a different color representing each of the heavenly bodies, the
least important being at the base: white (Venus); black (Saturn); purple
(Jupiter); blue (Mercury); vermillion (Mars); silver (the Moon); and
gold (the Sun)." (Lenormant's "Ancient History of the East," vol. i., p.
463.) "In England, to this day the new moon is saluted with a bow or a
courtesy, as well as the curious practice of 'turning one's silver,'
which seems a relic of the offering of the moon's proper metal."
(Tylor's "Anthropology", p. 361.) The custom of wishing, when one first
sees the new moon, is probably a survival of moon-worship; the wish
taking the place of the prayer.
And thus has it come to pass that, precisely as the physicians of
Europe, fifty years ago, practised bleeding, because for thousands of
years their savage ancestors had used it to draw away the evil spirits
out of the man, so the business of our modern civilization is dependent
upon the superstition of a past civilization, and the bankers of the
world are to-day perpetuating the adoration of "the tears wept by the
sun" which was commenced ages since on the island of Atlantis.
And it becomes a grave question--when we remember that the rapidly
increasing business of the world, consequent upon an increasing
population, and a civilization advancing with giant steps, is measured
by the standard of a currency limited by natural laws, decreasing
annually in production, and incapable of expanding proportionately to
the growth of the world--whether this Atlantean superstition may not yet
inflict more incalculable injuries on mankind than those which resulted
from the practice of phlebotomy.
PART V.
THE COLONIES OF ATLANTIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE CENTRAL AMERICAN AND MEXICAN COLONIES.
The western shores of Atlantis were not far distant from the West India
Islands; a people possessed of ships could readily pass from island to
island until they reached the continent. Columbus found the natives
making such voyages in open canoes. If, then, we will suppose that there
was no original connection between the inhabitants of the main-land and
of Atlantis, the commercial activity of the Atlanteans would soon reveal
to them the shores of the Gulf. Commerce implies the plantation of
colonies; the trading-post is always the nucleus of a settlement; we
have seen this illustrated in modern times in the case of the English
East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. We can therefore readily
believe that commercial intercourse between Atlantis and Yucatan,
Honduras and Mexico, created colonies along the shores of the Gulf which
gradually spread into the interior, and to the high table-lands of
Mexico. And, accordingly, we find, as I have already shown, that all the
traditions of Central America and Mexico point to some country in the
East, and beyond the sea, as the source of their first civilized people;
and this region, known among them as "Aztlan," lived in the memory of
the people as a beautiful and happy land, where their ancestors had
dwelt in peace for many generations.
Dr. Le Plongeon, who spent four years exploring Yucatan, says:
"One-third of this tongue (the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the
dialect of Homer to America? or who took to Greece that of the Mayas?
Greek is the offspring of the Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval? . .
. The Maya is not devoid of words from the Assyrian."
That the population of Central America (and in this term I include
Mexico) was at one time very dense, and had attained to a high degree of
civilization, higher even than that of Europe in the time of Columbus,
there can be no question; and it is also probable, as I have shown, that
they originally belonged to the white race. Dêsirè Charnay, who is now
exploring the ruins of Central America, says (North American Review,
January, 1881, p. 48), "The Toltecs were fair, robust, and bearded. I
have often seen Indians of pure blood with blue eyes." Quetzalcoatl was
represented as large, "with a big head and a heavy beard." The same
author speaks (page 44) of "the ocean of ruins all around, not inferior
in size to those of Egypt" At Teotihuacan he measured one building two
thousand feet wide on each side, and fifteen pyramids, each nearly as
large in the base as Cheops. "The city is indeed of vast extent . . .
the whole ground, over a space of five or six miles in diameter, is
covered with heaps of ruins--ruins which at first make no impression, so
complete is their dilapidation." He asserts the great antiquity of these
ruins, because be found the very highways of the ancient city to be
composed of broken bricks and pottery, the débris left by earlier
populations. "This continent," he says (page 43), "is the land of
mysteries; we here enter an infinity whose limits we cannot estimate. .
. . I shall soon have to quit work in this place. The long avenue on
which it stands is lined with ruins of public buildings and palaces,
forming continuous lines, as in the streets of modern cities. Still, all
these edifices and balls were as nothing compared with the vast
substructures which strengthened their foundations."
We find the strongest resemblances to the works of the ancient European
races: the masonry is similar; the cement is the same; the sculptures
are alike; both peoples used the arch; in both continents we find
bricks, glassware, and even porcelain (North American Review, December,
1880, pp. 524, 525), "with blue figures on a white ground;" also bronze
composed of the same elements of copper and tin in like proportions;
coins made of copper, round and T-shaped, and even metallic candlesticks.
Dêsirè Charnay believes that he has found in the ruins of Tula the bones
of swine, sheep, oxen, and horses, in a fossil state, indicating an
immense antiquity. The Toltecs possessed a pure and simple religion,
like that of Atlantis, as described by Plato, with the same sacrifices
of fruits and flowers; they were farmers; they raised and wove cotton;
they cultivated fruits; they used the sign of the Cross extensively;
they cut and engraved precious stones; among their carvings have been
found representations of the elephant and the lion, both animals not
known in America. The forms of sepulture were the same as among the
ancient races of the Old World; they burnt the bodies of their great
men, and enclosed the dust in funeral urns; some of their dead were
buried in a sitting position, others reclined at full length, and many
were embalmed like the Egyptian mummies.
When we turn to Mexico, the same resemblances present themselves.
The government was an elective monarchy, like that of Poland, the king
being selected from the royal family by the votes of the nobles of the
kingdom. There was a royal family, an aristocracy, a privileged
priesthood, a judiciary, and a common people. Here we have all the
several estates into which society in Europe is divided.
There were thirty grand nobles in the kingdom, and the vastness of the
realm may be judged by the fact that each of these could muster one
hundred thousand vassals from their own estates, or a total of three
millions. And we have only to read of the vast hordes brought into the
field against Cortez to know that this was not an exaggeration.
They even possessed that which has been considered the crowning feature
of European society, the feudal system. The nobles held their lands upon
the tenure of military service.
But the most striking feature was the organization of the judiciary. The
judges were independent even of the king, and held their offices for
life. There were supreme judges for the larger divisions of the kingdom,
district judges in each of the provinces, and magistrates chosen by the
people throughout the country.
There was also a general legislative assembly, congress, or parliament,
held every eighty days, presided over by the king, consisting of all the
judges of the realm, to which the last appeal lay
"The rites of marriage," says Prescott, "were celebrated with as much
formality as in any Christian country; and the institution was held in
such reverence that a tribunal was instituted for the sole purpose of
determining questions relating to it. Divorces could not be obtained
until authorized by a sentence of the court, after a patient hearing of
the parties."
Slavery was tolerated, but the labors of the slave were light, his
rights carefully guarded, and his children were free. The slave could
own property, and even other slaves.
Their religion possessed so many features similar to those of the Old
World, that the Spanish priests declared the devil had given them a
bogus imitation of Christianity to destroy their souls. "The devil,"
said they, "stole all he could."
They had confessions, absolution of sins, and baptism. When their
children were named, they sprinkled their lips and bosoms with water,
and "the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin
that was given it before the foundation of the world."
The priests were numerous and powerful. They practised fasts, vigils,
flagellations, and many of them lived in monastic seclusion.
The Aztecs, like the Egyptians, had progressed through all the three
different modes of writing--the picture-writing, the symbolical, and the
phonetic. They recorded all their laws, their tribute-rolls specifying
the various imposts, their mythology, astronomical calendars, and
rituals, their political annals and their chronology. They wrote on
cotton-cloth, on skins prepared like parchment, on a composition of silk
and gum, and on a species of paper, soft and beautiful, made from the
aloe. Their books were about the size and shape of our own, but the
leaves were long strips folded together in many folds.
They wrote poetry and cultivated oratory, and paid much attention to
rhetoric. They also had a species of theatrical performances.
Their proficiency in astronomy is thus spoken of by Prescott:
"That they should be capable of accurately adjusting their festivals by
the movements of the heavenly bodies, and should fix the true length of
the tropical year with a precision unknown to the great philosophers of
antiquity, could be the result only of a long series of nice and patient
observations, evincing no slight progress in civilization."
"Their women," says the same author, "are described by the Spaniards as
pretty, though with a serious and rather melancholy cast of countenance.
Their long, black hair might generally be seen wreathed with flowers,
or, among the richer people, with strings of precious stones and pearls
from the Gulf of California. They appear to have been treated with much
consideration by their husbands; and passed their time in indolent
tranquillity, or in such feminine occupations as spinning, embroidery,
and the like; while their maidens beguiled the hours by the rehearsal of
traditionary tales and ballads.
"Numerous attendants of both sexes waited at the banquets. The balls
were scented with perfumes, and the courts strewed with odoriferous
herbs and flowers, which were distributed in profusion among the guests
as they arrived. Cotton napkins and ewers of water were placed before
them as they took their seats at the board. Tobacco was them offered, in
pipes, mixed with aromatic substances, or in the form of cigars inserted
in tubes of tortoise-shell or silver. It is a curious fact that the
Aztecs also took the dried tobacco leaf in the pulverized form of snuff.
"The table was well supplied with substantial meats, especially game,
among which the most conspicuous was the turkey. Also, there were found
very delicious vegetables and. fruits of every variety native to the
continent. Their palate was still further regaled by confections and
pastry, for which their maize-flower and sugar furnished them ample
materials. The meats were kept warm with chafing-dishes. The table was
ornamented with vases of silver and sometimes gold of delicate
workmanship. The favorite beverage was chocolatl, flavored with vanilla
and different spices. The fermented juice of the maguey, with a mixture
of sweets and acids, supplied various agreeable drinks of different
degrees of strength."
It is not necessary to describe their great public works, their floating
gardens, their aqueducts, bridges, forts, temples,
COMMON FORM OF ARCH, CENTRAL AMERICA.
palaces, and gigantic pyramids, all ornamented with wonderful statuary.
SECTION OF THE TREASURE-HOUSE OF ATREUS AT MYCENAE
We find a strong resemblance between the form of arch used in the
architecture of Central America and that of the oldest buildings of
Greece. The Palenque arch is made by the gradual overlapping of the
strata of the building, as shown in the accompanying cut from Baldwin's
"Ancient America," page 100. It was the custom of these ancient
architects to fill in the arch itself with masonry, as shown in the
picture
ARCH OF LAS MONJAS, PALENQUE, CENTRAL AMERICA
on page 355 of the Arch of Las Monjas, Palenque. If now we took at the
representation of the "Treasure-house of Atreus" at Mycenæ, on page
354-one of the oldest structures in Greece--we find precisely the same
form of arch, filled in in the same way.
Rosengarten ("Architectural Styles," p. 59) says:
"The base of these treasure-houses is circular, and the covering of a
dome shape; it does not, however, form an arch, but courses of stone are
laid horizontally over one another in such a way that each course
projects beyond the one below it, till the space at the highest course
becomes so narrow that a single stone covers it. Of all those that have
survived to the present day the treasure-house at Atreus is the most
venerable."
The same form of arch is found among the ruins of that interesting
people, the Etruscans.
"Etruscan vaults are of two kinds. The more curious and probably the
most ancient are false arches, formed of horizontal courses of stone,
each a little overlapping the other, and carried on until the aperture
at the top could be closed by a single superincumbent slab. Such is the
construction of the Regulini-Galassi vault, at Cervetere, the ancient
Cære." (Rawlinson's "Origin of Nations," p. 117.)
It is sufficient to say, in conclusion, that Mexico, under European
rule, or under her own leaders, has never again risen to her former
standard of refinement, wealth, prosperity, or civilization.
CHAPTER II.
THE EGYPTIAN COLONY.
What proofs have we that the Egyptians were a colony from Atlantis?
1. They claimed descent from "the twelve great gods," which must have
meant the twelve gods of Atlantis, to wit, Poseidon and Cleito and their
ten sons.
2. According to the traditions of the Phœnicians, the Egyptians derived
their civilization from them; and as the Egyptians far antedated the
rise of the Phœnician nations proper, this must have meant that Egypt
derived its civilization from the same country to which the Phœnicians
owed their own origin. The Phœnician legends show that Misor, from whom,
the Egyptians were descended, was the child of the Phœnician gods Amynus
and Magus. Misor gave birth to Taaut, the god of letters, the inventor
of the alphabet, and Taaut became Thoth, the god of history of the
Egyptians. Sanchoniathon tells us that "Chronos (king of Atlantis)
visited the South, and gave all Egypt to the god Taaut, that it might be
his kingdom." "Misor" is probably the king "Mestor" named by Plato.
3. According to the Bible, the Egyptians were descendants of Ham, who
was one of the three sons of Noah who escaped from the Deluge, to wit,
the destruction of Atlantis.
4. The great similarity between the Egyptian civilization and that of
the American nations.
5. The fact that the Egyptians claimed to be red men.
6. The religion of Egypt was pre-eminently sun-worship, and Ra was the
sun-god of Egypt, Rama, the sun of the Hindoos, Rana, a god of the
Toltecs, Raymi, the great festival of the sun of the Peruvians, and
Rayam, a god of Yemen.
7. The presence of pyramids in Egypt and America.
8. The Egyptians were the only people of antiquity who were
well-informed as to the history of Atlantis. The Egyptians were never a
maritime people, and the Atlanteans must have brought that knowledge to
them. They were not likely to send ships to Atlantis.
9. We find another proof of the descent of the Egyptians from Atlantis
in their belief as to the "under-world." This land of the dead was
situated in the West--hence the tombs were all placed, whenever
possible, on the west bank of the Nile. 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 cases,
on the west bank of the Nile, the Nile was crossed; where they were on
the eastern shore the procession passed over a sacred lake." (R. S.
Poole, Contemporary Review, August, 1881, p. 17.) In the procession was
"a sacred ark of the sun."
All this is very plain: the under-world in the West, the land of the
dead, was Atlantis, the drowned world, the world beneath the horizon,
beneath the sea, to which the peasants of Brittany looked from Cape Raz,
the most western cape projecting into the Atlantic. It was only to be
reached from Egypt by crossing the water, and it was associated with the
ark, the emblem of Atlantis in all lands.
The soul of the dead man was supposed to journey to the under-world by
"a water progress" (Ibid., p. 18), his destination was the Elysian
Fields, where mighty corn grew, and where he was expected to cultivate
the earth; "this task was of supreme importance." (Ibid., p. 19.) The
Elysian Fields were the "Elysion" of the Greeks, the abode of the
blessed, which we have seen was an island in the remote west. The
Egyptian belief referred 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 this strong conviction? Surely it must be a
survival of an ancient belief which flowed in the very veins of the
race." (Contemporary Review, 1881, p. 19.) It was based on an universal
tradition that under "an immense ocean," in "the far west," there was an
"under-world," a world comprising millions of the dead, a mighty race,
that had been suddenly swallowed up in the greatest catastrophe known to
man since he had inhabited the globe.
10. There is no evidence that the civilization of Egypt was developed in
Egypt itself; it must have been transported there from some other
country. To use the words of a recent writer in Blackwood,
"Till lately it was believed that the use of the papyrus for writing was
introduced about the time of Alexander the Great; then Lepsius found the
hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus-roll on monuments of the twelfth
dynasty; afterward be found the same sign on monuments of the fourth
dynasty, which is getting back pretty close to Menes, the protomonarch;
and, indeed, little doubt is entertained that the art of writing on
papyrus was understood as early as the days of Menes himself. The fruits
of investigation in this, as m 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 Egyptologist must teach him to reverse the observation
of Topsy, and to '`spect that nothing growed,' but that as soon as men
were planted on the banks of the Nile they were already the cleverest
men that ever lived, endowed with more knowledge and more power than
their successors for centuries and centuries could attain to. Their
system of writing, also, is found to have been complete from the very
first. . . .
"But what are we to think when the antiquary, grubbing in the dust and
silt of five thousand years ago to discover some traces of infant
effort--some rude specimens of the ages of Magog and Mizraim, in which
we may admire the germ 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 that, before Noah was
cold in his grave, his descendants were adepts in construction and in
the fine arts, and that their achievements were for magnitude such as,
if we possess the requisite skill, we never attempt to emulate? . . .
"As we have not yet discovered any trace of the rude, savage Egypt, but
have seen her in her very earliest manifestations already skilful,
erudite, and strong, it is impossible to determine the order of her
inventions. Light 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 they possessed it is matter of fact. We never find
them without the ability to organize labor, or shrinking from the very
boldest efforts in digging canals and irrigating, in quarrying rock, in
building, and in sculpture."
The explanation is simple: the waters of the Atlantic now flow over the
country where all this magnificence and power were developed by slow
stages from the rude beginnings of barbarism.
And how mighty must have been the parent nation of which this Egypt was
a colony!
Egypt was the magnificent, the golden bridge, ten thousand years long,
glorious with temples and pyramids, illuminated and illustrated by the
most complete and continuous records of human history, along which the
civilization of Atlantis, in a 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 almost to a
point, we can still see the swarming multitudes, possessed of all the
arts of the highest civilization, pressing forward from out that other
and greater empire of which even this wonderworking Nile-land is but a
faint and imperfect copy.
Look at the record of Egyptian greatness as preserved in her works: The
pyramids, still in their ruins, are the marvel of mankind. The river
Nile was diverted from its course by monstrous embankments to make a
place for the city of Memphis. The artificial lake of Mœris was created
as a reservoir for the waters of the Nile: it was four hundred and fifty
miles in circumference and three hundred and fifty feet deep, with
subterranean channels, flood-gates, locks, and dams, by which the
wilderness was redeemed from sterility. Look at the magnificent
mason-work of this ancient people! Mr. Kenrick, speaking of the casing
of the Great Pyramid, says, "The joints are scarcely perceptible, and
not wider than the thickness of silver-paper, and the cement so
tenacious that fragments of the casing-stones still remain in their
original position, notwithstanding 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." Denon says, "It is
hardly possible to believe, after having seen it, in the reality of the
existence of so many buildings collected on a single point--in their
dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction
required, and in the incalculable expense of so much magnificence." And
again, "It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him
to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally
yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake." There were lakes and
mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. "The cathedral of Notre
Dame at Paris could be set inside one of the halls of Karnac, and not
touch the walls! . . . The whole valley and delta of the Nile, from the
Catacombs to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs,
pyramids, and pillars." Every stone was covered with inscriptions.
The state of society in the early days of Egypt approximated very
closely to our modern civilization. Religion consisted in the worship of
one God and the practice of virtue; forty-two commandments prescribed
the duties of men to themselves, their neighbors, their country, and the
Deity; a heaven awaited the good and a hell the vicious; there was a
judgment-day when the hearts of men were weighed:
"He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before his judgment-seat."
Monogamy was the strict rule; not even the kings, in the early days,
were allowed to have more than one wife. The wife's rights of separate
property and her dower were protected by law; she 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 embraced an oath not to contract any other
matrimonial alliance. The wife's status was as high in the earliest days
of Egypt as it is now in the most civilized nations of Europe or America.
Slavery was permitted, but the slaves were treated with the greatest
humanity. In the confessions, buried with the dead, the soul is made to
declare that "I have not incriminated the slave to his 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 picture represents torture inflicted
upon them; while the representation of a sea-fight shows them saving
their drowning enemies. Reginald Stuart Poole says (Contemporary Review,
August, 1881, p. 43):
"When we consider the high ideal of the Egyptians, as proved by their
portrayals of a just life, the principles they laid down as the basis of
ethics, the elevation of women among them, their humanity in war, we
must admit that their moral place ranks very high among the nations of
antiquity.
"The true comparison of Egyptian life is with that of modern nations.
This is far too difficult a task to be here undertaken. Enough has been
said, however, to show that we need not think that in all respects they
were far behind us."
Then look at the proficiency in art of this ancient people.
They were the first mathematicians of the Old World. Those Greeks whom
we regard as the fathers of mathematics were simply pupils of Egypt.
They were the first land-surveyors. They were the first astronomers,
calculating eclipses, and watching the periods of planets and
constellations. They knew the rotundity of the earth, which it was
supposed Columbus had discovered!
"The signs of the zodiac were certainly in use among the Egyptians 1722
years before Christ. One of the learned men of our day, who for fifty
years labored to decipher the hieroglyphics of the ancients, found upon
a mummy-case in the British Museum a delineation of the signs of the
zodiac, 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 equinox of that year. This was done, and a diagram furnished by
parties ignorant of his object, which showed that on the 7th of October,
1722 B.C. the moon and planets occupied the exact point in the heavens
marked upon the coffin in the British Museum." (Goodrich's "Columbus,"
p. 22.)
They had clocks and dials for measuring time. They possessed gold and
silver money. They were the first agriculturists of the Old World,
raising all the cereals, cattle, horses, sheep, etc. They manufactured
linen of so fine a quality that in the days of King Amasis (600 years
B.C.) a single thread of a garment was composed of three hundred and
sixty-five minor threads. They worked in gold, silver, copper, bronze,
and iron; they tempered iron to the hardness of steel. They were the
first chemists. The word "chemistry" comes from chemi, and chemi means
Egypt. They manufactured glass and all kinds of pottery; they made boats
out of 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
beat. 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 surgery, only attempted by us in the most recent
times. "The papyrus of Berlin" states that it was discovered, rolled up
in a case, under the feet of an Anubis in the town of Sekhem, in the
days of Tet (or Thoth), after whose death it was transmitted to King
Sent, and was then restored to the feet of the statue. King Sent
belonged to the second dynasty, which flourished 4751 B.C., and the
papyrus was old in his day. This papyrus is a medical treatise; there
are in it no incantations or charms; but it deals in reasonable
remedies, draughts, unguents and injections. The later medical papyri
contain a great deal of magic and incantations.
"Great and splendid as are the things which we know about oldest Egypt,
she is made a thousand times more sublime by our uncertainty as to the
limits of her accomplishments. She presents not a great, definite idea,
which, though hard to receive, is, when once acquired, comprehensible
and clear. Under the soil of the modern 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 to be repetitions of things Egyptian, and other things known to
have been Egyptian being by every advance in knowledge carried back more
and more toward the very beginning of things. She shakes our most rooted
ideas concerning the world's history; she has not ceased to be a puzzle
and a lure: there is a spell over her still."
Renan says, "It has no archaic epoch." Osborn says, "It bursts upon us
at once in the flower of its highest perfection." Seiss says ("A,
Miracle in Stone," p. 40), "It suddenly takes its place in the world in
all its matchless magnificence, without father, without mother, and as
clean apart from all evolution as if it had dropped from the unknown
heavens." It had dropped from Atlantis.
Rawlinson says ("Origin of Nations," p. 13):
"Now, in Egypt, it is notorious that there is no indication of any early
period of savagery or barbarism. All the authorities agree that, however
far back we go, we find 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 builds the temple of
Phthah at Memphis. . . . We see no barbarous customs, not even the
habit, so slowly abandoned by all people, of wearing arms when not on
military service."
Tylor says (" Anthropology," p. 192):
"Among the ancient cultured nations of Egypt and Assyria handicrafts had
already come to a stage which could only have been reached by thousands
of years of 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 modern artificer. . . . To see gold jewellery of
the highest order, the student should examine that of the ancients, such
as the Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan."
The carpenters' and masons' tools of the ancient Egyptians were almost
identical with those used among us to-day.
There is a plate showing an Aztec priestess in Delafield's "Antiquities
of America," p. 61, which presents a head-dress strikingly Egyptian. In
the celebrated "tablet of the cross," at Palenque, we see a cross with a
bird perched upon it, to which (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
one bird there are two, not on the cross, but immediately above it. In
both cases the hieroglyphics, though the characters are of course
different, are disposed upon the stone in much the same manner.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 61.)
Even the obelisks of Egypt have their counterpart in America.
Quoting from Molina ("History of Chili," tom. i., p. 169), McCullough
writes, "Between the hills of Mendoza and La Punta is a pillar of stone
one hundred and fifty feet high, and twelve feet in diameter."
("Researches," pp. 171, 172.) The columns of Copan stand detached and
solitary, so do the obelisks of Egypt; both are square or four-sided,
and covered with sculpture. (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 60.)
In a letter by Jomard, quoted by Delafield, we read,
"I have recognized in your memoir on the division of time among the
Mexican nations, compared with those of Asia, some very striking
analogies between the Toltec characters and institutions observed on the
banks of the Nile. Among these analogies there is one which is worthy of
attention--it is the use of the vague year of three hundred and
sixty-five days, composed of equal months, and of five complementary
days, 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
the Egyptians--they intercalated an entire year of three hundred and
seventy-five days every one thousand four hundred and sixty years. ...
The fact of the intercalation (by the Mexicans) of thirteen days every
cycle that is, the use of a year of three hundred and sixty-five days
and a quarter--is a proof that it was borrowed from the Egyptians, or
that they had a common origin." ("Antiquities of America," pp. 52, 53.)
The Mexican century began on the 26th of February, and the 26th of
February was celebrated from the time of Nabonassor, 747 B.C., because
the Egyptian priests, conformably to their astronomical observations,
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 Mexicans Nemontemi,
or useless, and on them they transacted no business; while the
Egyptians, during that epoch, celebrated the festival of the birth of
their gods, as attested by Plutarch and others.
It will be conceded that a considerable degree of astronomical knowledge
must have been necessary to reach the conclusion that the true year
consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours (modern
science has demonstrated that it 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
period of time, to its true relation to the seasons. Both were the
outgrowth of a vast, ancient civilization of the highest order, which
transmitted some part of its astronomical knowledge to its colonies
through their respective priesthoods.
Can we, in the presence of such facts, doubt the statements of the
Egyptian priests to Solon, as to the glory and greatness of Atlantis,
its monuments, its sculpture, its laws, its religion, its civilization?
In Egypt we have the oldest of the Old World children of Atlantis; in
her magnificence we have a testimony to the development attained by the
parent country; by that country whose kings were the gods of succeeding
nations, and whose kingdom extended to the uttermost ends of the earth.
The Egyptian historian, Manetho, referred to a period of thirteen
thousand nine hundred years as "the reign of the gods," and placed this
period at the very beginning of Egyptian history. These thirteen
thousand nine hundred years were probably a recollection of Atlantis.
Such a lapse of time, vast as it may appear, is but as a day compared
with some of our recognized geological epochs.
CHAPTER III.
THE COLONIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
If we will suppose a civilized, maritime people to have planted
colonies, in the remote past, along the headlands and shores of the Gulf
of Mexico, spreading thence, in time, to the tablelands of Mexico and to
the plains and mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, what would be more
natural than that these adventurous navigators, passing around the
shores of the Gulf, should, sooner or later, discover the mouth of the
Mississippi River; and what more certain than that they would enter it,
explore it, and plant colonies along its shores, wherever they found a
fertile soil and a salubrious climate. Their outlying provinces would
penetrate even into regions where the severity of the climate would
prevent great density of population or development of civilization.
The results we have presupposed are precisely those which we find to
have existed at one time in the Mississippi Valley.
The Mound Builders of the United States were pre-eminently a river
people. Their densest settlements and greatest works were near the
Mississippi and its tributaries. Says Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p.
110), "The navigable streams were the great highways of the Mound
Builders."
Mr. Fontaine claims ("How the World was Peopled") that this ancient
people constructed "levees" to control and utilize the bayous of the
Mississippi for the purpose of agriculture and commerce. The Yazoo River
is called Yazoo-okhinnah--the River of Ancient Ruins. "There is no
evidence that they had reached the Atlantic coast; no authentic remains
of the Mound Builders are found in the New England States, nor even in
the State of New York." ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 28.) This
would indicate that the civilization of this people advanced up the
Mississippi River and spread out over its tributaries, but did not cross
the Alleghany {sic} Mountains. They reached, however, far up the
Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, and thence into Oregon. The head-waters
of the Missouri became one of their great centres of population; but
their chief sites were upon the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In
Wisconsin we find the northern central limit of their work; they seem to
have occupied the southern counties of the State, and the western shores
of Lake Michigan. Their circular mounds are found in Minnesota and Iowa,
and some very large ones in Dakota. Illinois and Indiana were densely
populated by them: it is believed that the vital centre of their
colonies was near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The chief characteristic of the Mound Builders was that from which they
derived their name-the creation of great structures of earth or stone,
not unlike the pyramids of Mexico and Egypt. Between Alton and East St.
Louis is the great mound of Cahokia, which may be selected as a type of
their works: it rises ninety-seven feet high, while its square sides are
700 and 500 feet respectively. There was a terrace on the south side 160
by 300 feet, reached by a graded way; the summit of the pyramid is
flattened, affording a platform 200 by 450 feet. It will thus be seen
that the area covered by the mound of Cahokia is about as large as that
of the greatest pyramid of Egypt, Cheops, although its height is much
less.
The number of monuments left by the Mound Builders is extraordinarily
great. In Ohio alone there are more than ten thousand tumuli, and from
one thousand to fifteen hundred enclosures. Their mounds were not cones
but four-sided pyramids-their sides, like those of the Egyptian
pyramids, corresponding with the cardinal points. (Foster's "Prehistoric
Races," p. 112.)
The Mound Builders had attained a considerable degree of civilization;
they were able to form, in the construction of their works, perfect
circles and perfect squares of great accuracy, carried over the varying
surface of the country. One large enclosure comprises exactly forty
acres. At Hopetown, Ohio, are two walled figures--one a square, the
other a circle--each containing precisely twenty acres. They must have
possessed regular scales of measurement, and the means of determining
angles and of computing the area to be enclosed by the square and the
circle, so that the space enclosed by each might exactly correspond.
"The most skilful engineer of this day would find it difficult," says
Mr. Squier, "without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate
square of the great dimensions above represented, measuring, as they do,
more than four-fifths of a mile in circumference. . . . But we not only
find accurate squares and perfect circles, but also, as we have seen,
octagons of great dimensions."
They also possessed an accurate system of weights; bracelets of copper
on the arms of a skeleton have been found to be of uniform size,
measuring each two and nine-tenth inches, and each weighing precisely
four ounces.
They built great military works surrounded by walls and ditches, with
artificial lakes in the centre to supply water. One work, Fort Ancient,
on the Little Miami River, Ohio, has a circuit of between four and five
miles; the embankment was twenty feet high; the fort could have held a
garrison of sixty thousand men with their families and provisions.
Not only do we find pyramidal structures of earth in the Mississippi
Valley very much like the pyramids of Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, but a
very singular structure is repeated in Ohio and Peru: I refer to the
double walls or prolonged pyramids, if I may coin an expression, shown
in the cut page 375.
GRAND WAY NEAR PIKETON, OHIO.
The Mound Builders possessed chains of fortifications reaching from the
southern line of New York diagonally across the country, through Central
and Northern Ohio to the Wabash. It would appear probable, therefore,
that while they
WALLS AT GRAN-CHIMU, PERU.
advanced from the south it was from the north-east the savage races came
who drove them south or exterminated them.
At Marietta, Ohio, we find a combination of the cross and pyramid., (See
p. 334, ante.) At Newark, Ohio, are extensive
CROSS AND PYRAMID MOUND, OHIO.
and intricate works: they occupy an area two miles square, embraced
within embankments twelve miles long. One of the mounds is a threefold
symbol, like a bird's foot; the central mound is 155 feet long, and the
other two each 110 feet it length. Is this curious design a reminiscence
of Atlantis and the three-pronged trident of Poseidon? (See 4th fig., p,
242, ante.)
The Mound Builders made sun-dried brick mixed with rushes, as the
Egyptians made sun-dried bricks mixed with straw; they worked in copper,
silver, lead, and there are evidences, as we shall see, that they
wrought even in iron.
Copper implements are very numerous in the mounds. Copper axes,
spear-heads, hollow buttons, bosses for ornaments, bracelets, rings,
etc., are found in very many of them strikingly similar to those of the
Bronze Age in Europe. In one in Butler County, Ohio, was found a copper
fillet around the head of a skeleton, with strange devices marked upon
it.
Silver ornaments have also been found, but not in such great numbers.
They seem to have attached a high value to silver, and it is often found
in thin sheets, no thicker than paper, wrapped over copper or stone
ornaments so neatly as almost to escape detection. The great esteem in
which they held a metal so intrinsically valueless as silver, is another
evidence that they must have drawn their superstitions from the same
source as the European nations.
Copper is also often found in this manner plated over stone pipes,
presenting an unbroken metallic lustre, the overlapping edges so well
polished as to be scarcely discoverable. Beads and stars made of shells
have sometimes been found doubly plated, first with copper then with
silver.
The Mound Builders also understood the art of casting metals, or they
held intercourse with some race who did; a copper axe it "cast" has been
found in the State of New York. (See Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p.
254, note.) Professor Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p. 259) also proves
that the ancient people of the Mississippi Valley possessed this art,
and he gives us representations of various articles plainly showing the
marks of the mould upon them.
A rude article in the shape of an axe, composed of pure lead, weighing
about half a pound, was found in sinking a well within the trench of the
ancient works at Circleville. There can be no doubt it was the
production of the Mound Builders, as galena has often been found on the
altars in the mounds.
It has been generally thought, by Mr. Squier and others, that there were
no evidences that the Mound Builders were acquainted with the use of
iron, or that their plating was more than a simple overlaying of one
metal on another, or on some foreign substance.
Some years since, however, a mound was opened at Marietta, Ohio, which
seems to have refuted these opinions. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, in a letter to
the American Antiquarian Society, thus speaks of it:
"Lying immediately over or on the forehead of the body were found three
large circular bosses, or ornaments for a sword-belt or buckler; they
are composed of copper overlaid with a thick plate of silver. The fronts
are slightly convex, with a depression like a cup in the centre, and
they measure two inches and a quarter across the face of each. On the
back side, opposite the depressed portion, is a copper rivet or nail,
around which are two separate plates by which they were fastened to the
leather. Two small pieces of leather were found lying between the plates
of one of the bosses; they resemble the skin of a mummy, and seem to
have been preserved by the salts of copper. Near the side of the body
was found a plate of silver, which appears to have been the upper part
of a sword scabbard; it is six inches in length, two in breadth, and
weighs one ounce. It seems to have been fastened to the scabbard by
three or four rivets, the holes of which remain in the silver.
"Two or three pieces of copper tube were also found, filled with iron
rust. These pieces, from their appearance, composed the lower end of the
scabbard, near the point of the sword. No signs of the sword itself were
discovered, except the rust above mentioned.
"The mound had every appearance of being as old as any in the
neighborhood, and was at the first settlement of Marietta covered with
large trees. It seems to have been made for this single personage, as
this skeleton alone was discovered. The bones were very much decayed,
and many of them crumbled to dust upon exposure to the air."
Mr. Squier says, "These articles have been critically examined, and it
is beyond doubt that the copper bosses were absolutely plated, not
simply overlaid, with silver. Between the copper and the silver exists a
connection such as, it seems to me, could only be produced by heat; and
if it is admitted that. these are genuine relies of the Mound Builders,
it must, at the same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult
art of plating one metal upon another. There is but one alternative,
viz., that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people
advanced in the arts, from whom these articles were obtained. Again, if
Dr. Hildreth is not mistaken, oxydized iron or steel was also discovered
in connection with the above remains, from which also follows the
extraordinary conclusion that the Mound Builders were acquainted with
the use of iron, the conclusion being, of course, subject to the
improbable alternative already mentioned."
In connection with this subject, we would refer to the interesting
evidences that the copper mines of the shore of Lake Superior had been
at some very remote period worked by the Mound Builders. There were
found deep excavations, with rude ladders, huge masses of rock broken
off, also numerous stone tools, and all the evidences of extensive and
long-continued labor. It is even said that the great Ontonagon mass of
pure copper which is now in Washington was excavated by these ancient
miners, and that when first found its surface showed numerous marks of
their tools.
There seems to be no doubt, then, that the Mound Builders were familiar
with the use of copper, silver, and lead, and in all probability of
iron. They possessed various mechanical contrivances. They were very
probably acquainted with the lathe. Beads of shell have been found
looking very much like ivory, and showing the circular striæ, identical
with those produced by turning in a lathe.
In a mound on the Scioto River was found around the neck of a skeleton
triple rows of beads, made of marine shells and the tusks of some
animal. "Several of these," says Squier, "still retain their polish, and
bear marks which seem to indicate that they were turned in some machine,
instead of being carved or rubbed into shape by hand."
"Not among the least interesting and remarkable relies," continues the
same author, "obtained from the mounds are the stone tubes. They are all
carved from fine-grained materials, capable of receiving a polish, and
being made ornamental as well as useful. The finest specimen yet
discovered, and which can scarcely be surpassed in the delicacy of its
workmanship, was found in a mound in the immediate vicinity of
Chillicothe. It is composed of a compact variety of slate. This stone
cuts with great clearness, and receives a fine though not glaring
polish. The tube under notice is thirteen inches long by one and
one-tenth in diameter; one end swells slightly, and the other terminates
in a broad, flattened, triangular mouth-piece of fine proportions, which
is carved with mathematical precision. It is drilled throughout; the
bore is seven-tenths of an inch in diameter at the cylindrical end of
the tube, and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the
cylinder subsides into the mouth-piece, when it contracts gradually to
one-tenth of an inch. The inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth
till within a short distance of the point of contraction. For the
remaining distance the circular striæ, formed by the drill in boring,
are distinctly marked. The carving upon it is very fine."
That they possessed saws is proved by the fact that on some fossil teeth
found in one of the mounds the striæ of the teeth of the saw could be
distinctly perceived.
When we consider that some of their porphyry carvings will turn the edge
of the best-tempered knife, we are forced to conclude that they
possessed that singular process, known to the Mexicans and Peruvians of
tempering copper to the hardness of steel.
We find in the mounds adzes similar in shape to our own, with the edges
bevelled from the inside.
Drills and gravers of copper have also been found, with chisel-shaped
edges or sharp points.
"It is not impossible," says Squier, "but, on the contrary, very
probable, from a close inspection of the mound pottery, that the ancient
people possessed the simple approximation toward the potter's wheel; and
the polish which some of the finer vessels possess is due to other
causes than vitrification."
Their sculptures show a considerable degree of progress. They consist of
figures of birds, animals, reptiles, and the faces of men, carved from
various kinds of stones, upon the bowls of pipes, upon toys, upon rings,
and in distinct and separate figures. We give the opinions of those who
have examined them.
Mr. Squier observes: "Various though not abundant specimens of their
skill have been recovered, which in elegance of model, delicacy, and
finish, as also in fineness of material, come fully up to the best
Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in many respects, a close
resemblance. The bowls of most of the stone pipes are carved in
miniature figures of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. All of them are
executed with strict fidelity to nature, and with exquisite skill. Not
only are the features of the objects faithfully represented, but their
peculiarities and habits. are in some degree exhibited. . . . The two
heads here presented, intended to represent the eagle, are far superior
in point of finish, spirit, and truthfulness, to any miniature carvings,
ancient or modern, which have fallen under the notice of the authors.
The peculiar defiant expression of the king of birds is admirably
preserved in the carving, which in this respect, more than any other,
displays the skill of the artist."
FROM THE MOUNDS OF THE OHIO VALLEY
Traces of cloth with "doubled and twisted fibre" have been found in the
mounds; also matting; also shuttle-like tablets, used in weaving. There
have also been found numerous musical pipes, with mouth-pieces and
stops; lovers' pipes, curiously and delicately carved, reminding us of
Bryant's lines--
"Till twilight came, and lovers walked and wooed
In a forgotten language; and old tunes,
From instruments of unremembered forms,
Gave the soft winds a voice."
There is evidence which goes to prove that the Mound Builders had
relations with the people of a semi-tropical region in the direction of
Atlantis, Among their sculptures, in Ohio, we find accurate
representations of the lamantine, manatee, or sea-cow--found to-day on
the shores of Florida, Brazil, and Central America--and of the toucan, a
tropical and almost exclusively South American bird. Sea-shells from the
Gulf, pearls from the Atlantic, and obsidian from Mexico, have also been
found side by side in their mounds.
The antiquity of their works is now generally conceded. "From the ruins
of Nineveh and Babylon," says Mr. Gliddon, "we have bones of at least
two thousand five hundred years old; from the pyramids and the catacombs
of Egypt both mummied and unmummied crania have been taken, of still
higher antiquity, in perfect preservation; nevertheless, the skeletons
deposited in our Indian mounds, from the Lakes to the Gulf, are
crumbling into dust through age alone."
All the evidence points to the conclusion that civilized or
semi-civilized man has dwelt on the western continent from a vast
antiquity. Maize, tobacco, quinoa, and the mandico plants have been
cultivated so long that their wild originals have quite disappeared.
"The only species of palm cultivated by the South American Indians, that
known as the Gulielma speciosa, has lost through that culture its
original nut-like seed, and is dependent on the hands of its cultivators
for its life. Alluding to the above-named plants Dr. Brinton ("Myths of
the New World," p. 37) remarks, 'Several are sure to perish unless
fostered by human care. What numberless ages does this suggest? How many
centuries elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many
more ere it had spread over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and
lost all resemblance to its original form?' In the animal kingdom
certain animals were domesticated by the aborigines from so remote a
period that scarcely any of their species, as in the case of the lama of
Peru, were to be found in a state of unrestrained freedom at the advent
of the Spaniards." (Short's "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 11.)
The most ancient remains of man found in Europe are distinguished by a
flattening of the tibia; and this peculiarity is found to be present in
an exaggerated form in some of the American mounds. This also points to
a high antiquity.
"None of the works, mounds, or enclosures are found on the lowest formed
of the river terraces which mark the subsidence of the streams, and as
there is no good reason why their builders should have avoided erecting
them on that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all the
others, it follows, not unreasonably, that this terrace has been formed
since the works were erected." (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p. 47.)
We have given some illustrations showing the similarity between the
works of the Mound Builders and those of the Stone and Bronze Age in
Europe. (See pp. 251, 260, 261, 262, 265, 266, ante.)
The Mound Builders retreated southward toward Mexico, and probably
arrived there some time between A.D. 29 and A.D. 231, under the name of
Nahuas. They called the region they left in the Mississippi Valley "Hue
Hue Tlapalan"--the old, old red land--in allusion, probably, to the
red-clay soil of part of the country.
In the mounds we find many works of copper but none of bronze. This may
indicate one of two things: either the colonies which settled the
Mississippi Valley may have left Atlantis prior to the discovery of the
art of manufacturing bronze, by mixing one part of tin with nine parts
of copper, or, which is more probable, the manufactures of the Mound
Builders may have been made on the spot; and as they had no tin within
their territory they used copper alone, except, it may be, for such
tools as were needed to carve stone, and these, perhaps, were hardened
with tin. It is known that the Mexicans possessed the art of
manufacturing true bronze; and the intercourse which evidently existed
between Mexico and the Mississippi Valley, as proved by the presence of
implements of obsidian in the mounds of Ohio, renders it probable that
the same commerce which brought them obsidian brought them also small
quantities of tin, or tin-hardened copper implements necessary for their
sculptures.
The proofs, then, of the connection of the Mound Builders with Atlantis
are:
1. Their race identity with the nations of Central America who possessed
Flood legends, and whose traditions all point to an eastern, over-sea
origin; while the many evidences of their race identity with the ancient
Peruvians indicate that they were part of one great movement of the
human race, extending from the Andes to Lake Superior, and, as I
believe, from Atlantis to India.
2. The similarity of their civilization, and their works of stone and
bronze, with the civilization of the Bronze Age in Europe.
3. The presence of great truncated mounds, kindred to the pyramids of
Central America, Mexico, Egypt, and India.
4. The representation of tropical animals, which point to an intercourse
with the regions around the Gulf of Mexico, where the Atlanteans were
colonized.
5. The fact that the settlements of the Mound Builders were confined to
the valley of the Mississippi, and were apparently densest at those
points where a population advancing up that, stream would first reach
high, healthy, and fertile lands.
6. The hostile nations which attacked them came from the north; and when
the Mound Builders could no longer hold the country, or when Atlantis
stink in the sea, they retreated in the direction whence they came, and
fell back upon their kindred races in Central America, as the Roman
troops in Gaul and Britain drew southward upon the destruction of Rome.
7. The Natchez Indians, who are supposed to have descended from the
Mound Builders, kept a perpetual fire burning before an altar, watched
by old men who were a sort of priesthood, as in Europe.
8. If the tablet said to have been found in a mound near Davenport,
Iowa, is genuine, which appears probable, the Mound Builders must either
have possessed an alphabet, or have held intercourse with some people
who did. (See "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 38.) This singular
relic exhibits what appears to be a sacrificial mound with a fire upon
it; over it are the sun, moon, and stars, and above these a mass of
hieroglyphics which bear some resemblance to the letters of European
alphabets, and especially to that unknown alphabet which appears upon
the inscribed bronze celt found near Rome. (See p. 258 of this work.)
For instance, one of the letters on the celt is this, ###; on the
Davenport tablet we find this sign, ###; on the celt we have ###; on the
tablet, ###; on the celt we have ###; on the tablet, ###.
CHAPTER IV.
THE IBERIAN COLONIES OF ATLANTIS
At the farthest point in the past to which human knowledge extends a
race called Iberian inhabited the entire peninsula of Spain, from the
Mediterranean to the Pyrenees. They also extended over the southern part
of Gaul as far as the Rhone.
"It is thought that the Iberians from Atlantis and the north-west part
of Africa," says Winchell, "settled in the Southwest of Europe at a
period earlier than the settlement of the Egyptians in the north-east of
Africa. The Iberians spread themselves over Spain, Gaul, and the British
Islands as early as 4000 or 5000 B.C. . . . The fourth dynasty (of the
Egyptians), according to Brugsch, dates from about 3500 B.C. At this
time the Iberians had become sufficiently powerful to attempt the
conquest of the known world." ("Preadamites," p. 443.)
"The Libyan-Amazons of Diodorus--that is to say, the Libyans of the
Iberian race--must be identified with the Libyans with brown and grizzly
skin, of whom Brugsch has already pointed out the representations
figured on the Egyptian monuments of the fourth dynasty." (Ibid.)
The Iberians, known as Sicanes, colonized Sicily in the ancient days.
They were the original settlers in Italy and Sardinia. They are probably
the source of the dark-haired stock in Norway and Sweden. Bodichon
claims that the Iberians embraced the Ligurians, Cantabrians, Asturians,
and Aquitanians. Strabo says, speaking of the Turduli and Turdetani,
"they are the most cultivated of all the Iberians; they employ the art
of writing, and have written books containing memorials of ancient
times, and also poems and laws set in verse, for which they claim an
antiquity of six thousand years." (Strabo, lib. iii., p. 139.)
The Iberians are represented to-day by the Basques.
The Basque are "of middle size, compactly built, robust and agile, of a
darker complexion than the Spaniards, with gray eyes and black hair.
They are simple but proud, impetuous, merry, and hospitable. The women
are beautiful, skilful in performing men's work, and remarkable for
their vivacity and grace. The Basques are much attached to dancing, and
are very fond of the music of the bagpipe." ("New American Cyclopædia,"
art. Basques.)
"According to Paul Broca their language stands quite alone, or has mere
analogies with the American type. Of all Europeans, we must
provisionally hold the Basques to be the oldest inhabitants of our
quarter of the world." (Peschel, "Races of Men," p. 501.)
The Basque language--the Euscara--"has some common traits with the
Magyar, Osmanli, and other dialects of the Altai family, as, for
instance, with the Finnic on the old continent, as well as the
Algonquin-Lenape language and some others in America." ("New American
Cyclopædia," art. Basques.)
Duponceau says of the Basque tongue:
"This language, preserved in a corner of Europe by a few thousand
mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of, perhaps, a hundred
dialects constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were
universally spoken at a remote period in that quarter of the world. Like
the bones of the mammoth, it remains a monument of the destruction
produced by a succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its
kind, Surrounded by idioms that have no affinity with it."
We have seen them settling, in the earliest ages, in Ireland. They also
formed the base of the dark-haired population of England and Scotland.
They seem to have race affinities with the Berbers, on the Mediterranean
coast of Africa.
Dr. Bodichon, for fifteen years a surgeon in Algiers, says:
"Persons who have inhabited Brittany, and then go to Algeria, are struck
with the resemblance between the ancient Armoricans (the Brètons) and
the Cabyles (of Algiers). In fact, the moral and physical character is
identical. The Breton of pure blood has a long head, light yellow
complexion of bistre tinge, eyes black or brown, stature short, and the
black hair of the Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively hates strangers; in
both are the same perverseness and obstinacy, same endurance of fatigue,
same love of independence, same inflexion of the voice, same expression
of feelings. Listen to a Cabyle speaking his native tongue, and you will
think you bear a Breton talking Celtic."
The Bretons, he tells us, form a strong contrast to the people around
them, who are "Celts of tall stature, with blue eyes, white skins, and
blond hair: they are communicative, impetuous, versatile; they pass
rapidly from courage to despair. The Bretons are entirely different:
they are taciturn, hold strongly to their ideas and usages, are
persevering and melancholic; in a word, both in morale and physique they
present the type of a southern race--of the Atlanteans."
By Atlanteans Dr. Bodichon refers to the inhabitants of the Barbary
States--that being one of the names by which they were known to the
Greeks and Romans. He adds:
"The Atlanteans, among the ancients, passed for the favorite children of
Neptune; they made known the worship of this god to other nations-to the
Egyptians, for example. In other words, the Atlanteans were the first
known navigators. Like all navigators, they must have planted colonies
at a distance. The Bretons, in our opinion, sprung from one of them."
Neptune was Poseidon, according to Plato, founder of Atlantis.
I could multiply proofs of the close relationship between the people of
the Bronze Age of Europe and the ancient inhabitants of Northern Africa,
which should be read remembering that "connecting ridge" which,
according to the deep-sea soundings, united Africa and Atlantis.
CHAPTER V.
THE PERUVIAN COLONY.
If we look at the map of Atlantis, as revealed by the deep sea
soundings, we will find that it approaches at one point, by its
connecting ridge, quite closely to the shore of South. America, above
the mouth of the Amazon, and that probably it was originally connected
with it.
If the population of Atlantis expanded westwardly, it naturally found
its way in its ships up the magnificent valley of the Amazon and its
tributaries; and, passing by the low and fever-stricken lands of Brazil,
it rested not until it had reached the high, fertile, beautiful, and
healthful regions of Bolivia, from which it would eventually cross the
mountains into Peru.
Here it would establish its outlying colonies at the terminus of its
western line of advance, arrested only by the Pacific Ocean, precisely
as we have seen it advancing up the valley of the Mississippi, and
carrying on its mining operations on the shores of Lake Superior;
precisely as we have seen it going eastward up the Mediterranean, past
the Dardanelles, and founding Aryan, Hamitic, and probably Turanian
colonies on the farther shores of the Black Sea and on the Caspian. This
is the universal empire over which, the Hindoo books tell us, Deva
Nahusha was ruler; this was "the great and aggressive empire" to which
Plato alludes; this was the mighty kingdom, embracing the whole of the
then known world, from which the Greeks obtained their conception of the
universal father of all men in King Zeus. And in this universal empire
Señor Lopez must find an explanation of the similarity which, as we
shall show, exists between the speech of the South American Pacific
coast on the one hand, and the speech of Gaul, Ireland, England, Italy,
Greece, Bactria, and Hindostan on the other.
Montesino tells us that at some time near the date of the Deluge, in
other words, in the highest antiquity, America was invaded by a people
with four leaders, named Ayar-manco-topa, Ayar-chaki, Ayar-aucca, and
Ayar-uyssu. "Ayar," says Señor Lopez, "is the Sanscrit Ajar, or aje, and
means primitive chief; and manco, chaki, aucca, and uyssu, mean
believers, wanderers, soldiers, husbandmen. We have here a tradition of
castes like that preserved in the four tribal names of Athens." The
laboring class (naturally enough in a new colony) obtained the
supremacy, and its leader was named Pirhua-manco, revealer of Pir, light
(pu~r, Umbrian pir). Do the laws which control the changes of language,
by which a labial succeeds a labial, indicate that the Mero or Merou of
Theopompus, the name of Atlantis, was carried by the colonists of
Atlantis to South America (as the name of old York was transplanted in a
later age to New York), and became in time Pérou or Peru? Was not the
Nubian "Island of Merou," with its pyramids built by "red men," a
similar transplantation? And when the Hindoo priest points to his sacred
emblem with five projecting points upon it, and tells us that they
typify "Mero and the four quarters of the world," does he not refer to
Atlantis and its ancient universal empire?
Manco, in the names of the Peruvian colonists, it has been urged, was
the same as Mannus, Manu, and the Santhal Maniko. It reminds us of
Menes, Minos, etc., who are found at the beginning of so many of the Old
World traditions.
The Quichuas--this invading people--were originally a fair skinned race,
with blue eyes and light and even auburn hair; they had regular
features, large heads, and large bodies. Their descendants are to this
day an olive-skinned people, much lighter in color than the Indian
tribes subjugated by them.
They were a great race. Peru, as it was known to the Spaniards, held
very much the same relation to the ancient Quichua civilization as
England in the sixteenth century held to the civilization of the empire
of the Cæsars. The Incas were simply an offshoot, who, descending from
the mountains, subdued the rude races of the sea-coast, and imposed
their ancient civilization upon them.
The Quichua nation extended at one time over a region of country more
than two thousand miles long. This whole region, when the Spaniards
arrived, "was a populous and prosperous empire, complete in its civil
organization, supported by an efficient system of industry, and
presenting a notable development of some of the more important arts of
civilized life." (Baldwin's "Ancient America," p. 222.)
The companions of Pizarro found everywhere the evidences of a
civilization of vast antiquity. Cieça de Leon mentions "great edifices"
that were in ruins at Tiahuanaca, "an artificial hill raised on a
groundwork of stone," and "two stone idols, apparently made by skilful
artificers," ten or twelve feet high, clothed in long robes. "In this
place, also," says De Leon, "there are stones so large and so overgrown
that our wonder is excited, it being incomprehensible how the power of
man could have placed them where we see them. They are variously
wrought, and some of them, having the form of men, must have been idols.
Near the walls are many caves and excavations under the earth; but in
another place, farther west, are other and greater monuments, such as
large gate-ways with hinges, platforms, and porches, each made of a
single stone. It surprised me to see these enormous gate-ways, made of
great masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long, fifteen
high, and six thick."
The capital of the Chimus of Northern Peru at Gran-Chimu was conquered
by the Incas after a long and bloody struggle, and the capital was given
up to barbaric ravage and spoliation. But its remains exist to-day, the
marvel of the Southern Continent, covering not less than twenty square
miles. Tombs. temples, and palaces arise on every hand, ruined but still
traceable. Immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a mile in
circuit; vast areas shut in by massive walls, each containing its
water-tank, its shops, municipal edifices, and the dwellings of its
inhabitants, and each a branch of a larger organization; prisons,
furnaces for smelting metals, and almost every concomitant of
civilization, existed in the ancient Chimu capital. One of the great
pyramids, called the "Temple of the Sun," is 812 feet long by 470 wide,
and 150 high. These vast structures have been ruined for centuries, but
still the work of excavation is going on.
One of the centres of the ancient Quichua civilization was around Lake
Titicaca. The buildings here, as throughout Peru, were all constructed
of hewn stone, and had doors and windows with posts, sills, and
thresholds of stone.
At Cuelap, in Northern Peru, remarkable ruins were found. "They consist
of a wall of wrought stones 3600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 high,
constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another
600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 high," making an aggregate height of
three hundred feet! In it were rooms and cells which were used as tombs.
Very ancient ruins, showing remains of large and remarkable edifices,
were found near Huamanga, and described by Cieça de Leon. The native
traditions said this city was built "by bearded white men, who came
there long before the time of the Incas, and established a settlement."
"The Peruvians made large use of aqueducts, which they built with
notable skill, using hewn stones and cement, and making them very
substantial." One extended four hundred and fifty miles across sierras
and over rivers. Think of a stone aqueduct reaching from the city of New
York to the State of North Carolina!
The public roads of the Peruvians were most remarkable; they were built
on masonry. One of the-se roads ran along the mountains through the
whole length of the empire, from Quito to Chili; another, starting from
this at Cuzco, went down to the coast, and extended northward to the
equator. These roads were from twenty to twenty-five feet wide, were
macadamized with pulverized stone mixed with lime and bituminous cement,
and were walled in by strong walls "more than a fathom in thickness." In
many places these roads were cut for leagues through the rock; great
ravines were filled up with solid masonry; rivers were crossed by
suspension bridges, used here ages before their introduction into
Europe. Says Baldwin, "The builders of our Pacific Railroad, with their
superior engineering skill and mechanical appliances, might reasonably
shrink from the cost and the difficulties of such a work as this.
Extending from one degree north of Quito to Cuzco, and from Cuzco to
Chili, it was quite as long as the two Pacific railroads, and its wild
route among the mountains was far more difficult." Sarmiento, describing
it, said, "It seems to me that if the emperor (Charles V.) should see
fit to order the construction of another road like that which leads from
Quito to Cuzco, or that which from Cuzco goes toward Chili, I certainly
think be would not be able to make it, with all his power." Humboldt
said, "This road was marvellous; none of the Roman roads I had seen in
Italy, in the south of France, or in Spain, appeared to me more imposing
than this work of the ancient Peruvians."
Along these great roads caravansaries were established for the
accommodation of travellers.
These roads were ancient in the time of the Incas. They were the work of
the white, auburn-haired, bearded men from Atlantis, thousands of years
before the time of the Incas. When Huayna Capac marched his army over
the main road to invade Quito, it was so old and decayed "that he found
great difficulties in the passage," and he immediately ordered the
necessary reconstructions.
It is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to give a detailed
description of the arts and civilization of the Peruvians.. They were
simply marvellous. Their works in cotton and wool exceeded in fineness
anything known in Europe at that time. They had carried irrigation,
agriculture, and the cutting of gems to a point equal to that of the Old
World. Their accumulations of the precious metals exceeded anything
previously known in the history of the world. In the course of
twenty-five years after the Conquest the Spaniards sent from Peru to
Spain more than eight hundred millions of dollars of gold, nearly all of
it taken from the Peruvians as "booty." In one of their palaces "they
had an artificial garden, the soil of which was made of small pieces of
fine gold, and this was artificially planted with different kinds of
maize, which were of gold, their stems, leaves, and cars. Besides this,
they had more than twenty sheep (llamas) with their lambs, attended by
shepherds, all made of gold." In a description of one lot of golden
articles, sent to Spain in 1534 by Pizarro, there is mention of "four
llamas, ten statues of women of full size, and a cistern of gold, so
curious that it excited the wonder of all."
Can any one read these details and declare Plato's description of
Atlantis to be fabulous, simply because he tells us of the enormous
quantities of gold and silver possessed by the people? Atlantis was the
older country, the parent country, the more civilized country; and,
doubtless, like the Peruvians, its people regarded the precious metals
as sacred to their gods; and they had been accumulating them from all
parts of the world for countless ages. If the story of Plato is true,
there now lies beneath the waters of the Atlantic, covered, doubtless,
by hundreds of feet of volcanic débris, an amount of gold and silver
exceeding many times that brought to Europe from Peru, Mexico, and
Central America since the time of Columbus; a treasure which, if brought
to light, would revolutionize the financial values of the world.
I have already shown, in the chapter upon the similarities between the
civilizations of the Old and New Worlds, some of the remarkable
coincidences which existed between the Peruvians and the ancient
European races; I will again briefly, refer to a few of them:
1. They worshipped the sun, moon, and planets.
2. They believed in the immortality of the soul.
3. They believed in the resurrection of the body, and accordingly
embalmed their dead.
4. The priest examined the entrails of the animals offered in sacrifice,
and, like the Roman augurs, divined the future from their appearance.
5. They had an order of women vowed to celibacy-vestal virgins-nuns; and
a violation of their vow was punished, in both continents, by their
being buried alive.
6. They divided the year into twelve months.
7. Their enumeration was by tens; the people were divided into decades
and hundreds, like the Anglo-Saxons; and the whole nation into bodies of
500, 1000, and 10,000, with a governor over each.
8. They possessed castes; and the trade of the father descended to the
son, as in India.
9. They had bards and minstrels, who sung at the great festivals.
10. Their weapons were the same as those of the Old World, and made
after the same pattern.
11. They drank toasts and invoked blessings.
12. They built triumphal arches for their returning heroes, and strewed
the road before them with leaves and flowers.
13. They used sedan-chairs.
14. They regarded agriculture as the principal interest of the nation,
and held great agricultural fairs and festivals for the interchange of
the productions of the farmers.
15. The king opened the agricultural season by a great celebration, and,
like the kings of Egypt, be put his hand to the plough, and ploughed the
first furrow.
16. They had an order of knighthood, in which the candidate knelt before
the king; his sandals were put on by a nobleman, very much as the spurs
were buckled on the European knight; he was then allowed to use the
girdle or sash around the loins, corresponding to the toga virilis of
the Romans; he was then crowned with flowers. According to Fernandez,
the candidates wore white shirts, like the knights of the Middle Ages,
with a cross embroidered in front.
17. There was a striking resemblance between the architecture of the
Peruvians and that of some of the nations of the Old World. It is enough
for me to quote Mr. Ferguson's words, that the coincidence between the
buildings of the Incas and the Cyclopean remains attributed to the
Pelasgians in Italy and Greece, "is the most remarkable in the history
of architecture."
OWL-HEADED VASES, TROY AND PERU
The illustrations on page 397 strikingly confirm Mr. Ferguson's views.
"The sloping jambs, the window cornice, the polygonal masonry, and other
forms so closely resemble what is found in the old Pelasgic cities of
Greece and Italy, that it is difficult to resist the conclusion that
there may be some relation between them."
Even the mode of decorating their palaces and temples finds a parallel
in the Old World. A recent writer says:
"We may end by observing, what seems to have escaped Señor Lopez, that
the interior of an Inca palace, with its walls covered with gold, as
described by Spaniards, with its artificial golden flowers and golden
beasts, must have been exactly like the interior of the house of
Alkinous or Menelaus--
"'The doors were framed of gold,
Where underneath the brazen floor doth glass
Silver pilasters, which with grace uphold
Lintel of silver framed; the ring was burnished gold,
And dogs on each side of the door there stand,
Silver and golden.'"
"I can personally testify" (says Winchell, "Preadamites," p. 387) "that
a study of ancient Peruvian pottery has constantly reminded me of forms
with which we are familiar in Egyptian archæology."
Dr. Schliemann, in his excavations of the ruins of Troy, found a number
of what he calls "owl-headed idols" and vases. I give specimens on page
398 and page 400.
In Peru we find vases with very much the same style of face.
I might pursue those parallels much farther; but it seems to me that
these extraordinary coincidences must have arisen either from identity
of origin or long-continued ancient intercourse. There can be little
doubt that a fair-skinned, light-haired, bearded race, holding the
religion which Plato says prevailed in Atlantis, carried an Atlantean
civilization at an early day up the valley of the Amazon to the heights
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