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NatGeo's Shameful Atlantis Documentary: More Atlantis-Bible Nonsense

3/14/2011

9 Comments

 
Last night (March 13), the National Geographic channel ran an hour long documentary chronicling the efforts of Hartford University archaeologist Richard Freund to find the lost city of Atlantis. The program, titled Finding Atlantis, presented a few intriguing finds and then spun those discoveries into a web of pseudoscience masquerading as science.

Freund, who previously appeared in a 2004 Nova special where he identified artifacts found in Israel as part of the legendary Temple treasure lost after the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, argues that a site on the southern coast of Spain is Plato’s Atlantis as well as the biblical city of Tarshish, a trading center mentioned briefly in the books of Chronicles, Kings, and elsewhere. Freund claims that the Spanish site conforms to Plato’s description of Atlantis because geophysical scans indicate that the city stood on an island surrounded by water, as Plato described.

Plato, however, said Atlantis was “larger than Libya and Asia together” (this island is not), and composed of several concentric rings with artificial canals connecting the rings of land in a riparian system (again, the Spanish site does not match). Finally, Plato claimed that the island was destroyed by an earthquake 9,000 years before Plato’s time (c. 9,400 BCE). Again, the Spanish site does not match. Initial radiocarbon dates place it anywhere from 5,000 to 2,400 years old.

Nevertheless, Freund believes that the circular shape of the site and the fact that it was possibly destroyed by a tsunami proves that the site was the legendary Atlantis, and he repeatedly emphasized how close the match was—close if you agree to change the facts that Plato wrote to “more plausible” versions. Doing so, of course, means that Freund is free to reconstruct an imaginary Atlantis of his own devising, one which is very different from Plato’s but which he can imaginatively recreate to match anything he happened to find on the ground.

I found especially ludicrous his attempt to explain a carving of a warrior holding a sword and a shield as a soldier “guarding” an aerial map of Atlantis, claiming the circular shield with its pattern of concentric circles, so very similar to other ancient shields, was really a 2,000-year-old remembered tradition of the layout of Atlantis! This in an age that did not make any other aerial maps! Earlier, Freund and his team were giddy with excitement after finding geometric-shaped rocks that they thought were the walls of Atlantis. They were completely natural in formation, but still Freund counted them as evidence on the grounds that Atlanteans “might” have built walls with them anyway—underwater, apparently, since they formed beneath the ocean.

There is no doubt, of course, that there is a real archaeological site buried in southern Spain. What it is exactly, we just don’t know. However, let us give Freund the benefit of the doubt and agree that everything he claims about its age and layout are true. What does this tell us? Nothing, actually. Freund can propose no method by which this fallen city is somehow remembered in street-level detail from Spain to Egypt to Plato over the course of thousands upon thousands of years without leaving a single trace in the records of Egypt or Greece or anywhere else. Not a single inscription, or papyrus, or statue, or vase painting. Nothing at all from 5,000 BCE until 360 BCE when Plato wrote the Timaeus and the Critias, the first ever mention of Atlantis. By this standard, we must take the Cyclopes, the Odyssey, the Underworld, and the Golden Fleece as true people and events, too, since they are amply better documented in the ancient record.

Most disturbing, I think, is Freund’s attempt to argue that Atlantis was really the biblical city of Tarshish. This is the entirety of what is known of Tarshish, from 2 Chronicles 9:21: “every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” (This is repeated in Kings 10:22). Obviously, Freund said, this is Atlantis because both Tarshish and Atlantis dealt in “metals,” the only ancient cities, he said, to do so. This is patently false, since other ancient sites, like Colchis on the Black Sea, were famous for their metalworking. Incidentally, southern Spain boasts neither apes (native to sub-Saharan Africa), nor peacocks (native to India and parts of sub-Saharan Africa), nor ivory (Africa again). This kind of Bible-mongering serves little purpose except to try to rope in Atlantis as confirmation of the Bible’s literal truth—something Freund inadvertently emphasizes when using biblical terminology such as the “holy of holies” when describing decidedly non-Hebrew sites. It is no coincidence that Richard Freund’s specialty is biblical archaeology and Judaic studies, not Classical, Bronze Age, or Neolithic archaeology.

But let us grant him his point and pretend that Atlantis is Tarshish. If this is true, then we have a contradiction. Tarshish traded with the Israelites during the reign of Solomon, traditionally around the tenth century BCE. This is thousands of years after Plato’s Atlantis sunk beneath the waves (9400 BCE), and at least a thousand years off from the proposed dates when the Spanish site was destroyed (possibly around 2000 BCE). Never mind that the books of Chronicles and Kings were likely composed no earlier than 560 BCE, at which time Tarshish must still have been an active port—one still in operation when Jonah tried to sail there in the Book of Jonah (composed c. 500 BCE). So Tarshish and Atlantis, like Schrodinger’s cat, both exist and do not exist, are active and destroyed, simultaneously. The only way to make the two into one is to change Plato, and once you change Plato you are no longer looking for “Atlantis” but are instead naming whatever you find in honor of Plato’s fictional allegory.

Apparently Freund dropped in to an active Spanish archaeological investigation into an actual ancient city, ongoing since 2005, and has hijacked it to generate publicity for his research into the connection between Solomon and Atlantis to prove the Bible true. Here is what the Spanish anthropologist Juan Villarias-Robles told the Telegraph about Freund:

"Richard Freund was a newcomer to our project and appeared to be involved in his own very controversial issue concerning King Solomon's search for ivory and gold in Tartessos, the well documented settlement in the Donaña area established in the first millennium BC.

"He became involved in what we were doing and provided funding for probes through his connections with National Geographic and Associated Producers.

"He left and the film company told us the documentary would be finished in April or May. But we did not hear from him and are very surprised it has appeared so soon and makes such fanciful claims."

National Geographic should be ashamed to present such poor reasoning and Biblical nonsense as science, especially without a single skeptical or opposing viewpoint.

9 Comments
Jan link
3/14/2011 07:40:26 pm

I was just about to send you an email - I saw this yesterday and was quite disappointed in NG.

It's a shame this type of drivel was aired, even more that it was under National Geographic.

Where's BBC making fun documentaries refuting dumb hypotheses about Atlantis when we need them?

Thanks for the article, I'll happily repost it.

Reply
Jason Colavito
3/15/2011 03:26:40 am

Thanks, Jan. I probably should have also mentioned that according to the ancient historian Ephorus, Tartessos was still extant in the 4th century BCE when Plato was writing, so to top it off, Freund, who identifies Tarshish with Tartessos and both with Atlantis, apparently has Atlantis still existing at the time when Plato was writing about its destruction. Great science!

Reply
Bill Davidson link
3/23/2011 06:04:52 am

There was a German archaeologist named Adolph Shulten, who did some genuine archaeological work in Spain and who felt that Tarshish, or Gades, or Tartessos, was
probably the model for Atlantis. Tartessos
was known to the ancient Greeks, as it is
mentioned by the Greek historian, Herodotes ( 484-420 BCE )as being a far away land full of riches. Adolph Shulten felt that the modern City of Cadiz was probably near where the ancient city of
Tartessos was located. He never found any evidence of the lost city.

Reply
ming on mongo
8/13/2013 03:52:37 pm

So Jason, besides having a "website", and a strong "interest" in these kinda thangs, what are your credentials exactly? Are you a scientist, do you have a degree in archaeology.... or in fact have you ever even been to college? Because frankly the impression you leave here is that of some crass "dimestore debunker" just seeking attention, by exploiting the discoveries, hard work and research of real experts with years of professional training.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to just stick to "critiquing" things like Nessie and ancient aliens....

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/13/2013 11:37:01 pm

You're welcome to read my biography in the "About Jason" tab. I have a degree in archaeology, but I am not a scientist. I also have a degree in broadcast journalism and know how TV is made.

Whose research, exactly, am I exploiting? The scholar of Judaism who claims to pronounce on Greek prehistory after dropping by a Spanish site, or the actual Spanish researchers who have spent years studying that site professionally and told him he's full of hot air?

Reply
Ed Martel
1/2/2014 02:19:13 am

Jason has to make a living and his opinions are as good as Ming on mongo's. Oh Ming and Jason you are both wrong for not doing
Every thing you can to Dig The Hole.... For obvious reasons that the both of you can't see due your personal agendas! The question I want to know is who what where when the hole will be dug and how do I speed my money without involving these above idiots.

Jason Colavito link
1/2/2014 02:20:45 am

I don't make my living from this website or my books. I have an actual day job. This is hobby.

Jeremy
6/18/2015 05:58:59 pm

The idea of using Atlantis to prove the Bible is backwards is it not? Tarshish is mentioned more often in the Bible than stated here and also in many other non-canonical sources so it very likely existed somewhere because the Bible contains many historical facts. Discovery of Atlantis would probably disprove more of it than it would prove. On the other hand, proof that the Bible meant Atlantis when referencing Tarshish would add much more plausibility to the existence of Atlantis and Plato's account would be used merely as supporting evidence.

Reply
Anna H.
10/5/2016 09:20:34 pm

Um - why are you reading Plato literally? Most classical scholars do not. If you read the Timaeus (and the Critias), it becomes obvious that Plato is not relating this as factual history. Having said that, the story is detailed enough that it seems plausible that *something* happened *sometime* that was catastrophic enough to become folkloric memory in the region - and folkloric stories, myths, are good fodder for sophisticated philosopher-writers to mine for moral fables. George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and "I cannot tell a lie," etc.

Given that, why not examine the ruins of ancient cities destroyed by cataclysm to see if they might have contributed storyline DNA to Plato's Atlantis myth?

P.S. "Libya" and "Asia" did not mean the same thing in Plato's time that they mean to us. Libya was a small part of the North African coast, and Asia, something like Asia Minor.

Not supporting Richard Freund or this documentary, just making clear that Plato is not to be read literally, either by Atlantis supporters or debunkers.

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    • Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean >
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    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
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      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
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    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
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      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
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      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
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      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
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    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
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    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
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    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
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    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Eridu Genesis
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          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
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          • The Story of Setna
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          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
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        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
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          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
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        • The Book of Enoch
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        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
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        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
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          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
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          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
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          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Byzantine World Chronicle
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        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
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        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
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          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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