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THE MYSTERY OF ATLANTIS
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that Atlantis really existed and that at least part of this
continent was in that very area.
sunken
Also, if Atlantis had never existed, we would have to invent it
to explain the many mysteries that are totally unexplainable otherwise.
First, there is the mythological mystery. How is it that
the gods of nearly all civilizations around the world came from
the sea,
like the Mayan god Kukulcan, after he had descended
from the skies? His sarcophagus, which seems to have been discovered
in Palenque, in southern Mexico, has the shape of a fish.
The god Oannes emerged every day from the deep sea to teach
the Sumerians assembled on the shore in order to listen and
learn. We could also ask how come the gods arriving on the
American continent always came from the east, while the gods
coming to Europe always arrived from the west, all indications
of one central Atlantic origin long since forgotten.
Then we have the mystery of the Atlantic dialects comparable
to the dialects of the Mediterranean: a group of rough, guttural
dialects still spoken, from the Guanche dialect of the Azores
and the Canary Islands to the many tongues of unknown origin
spoken between Morocco and Ireland. And the impossiblesounding
names, even more dijBBcult to write in our Greek-Latin
alphabet, consisting of letters that we use very little, like x and z,
found in places inhabited by the Bretons, the Basques, the Gaels,
the Andalusians, and the Berbers. AU of these mysterious languages
are related to the Guanche dialect and dialects all the
way across the Azores and the Canary Islands to the Mayan
lands of the Yucatan with its areas of ancient religious centers
like Chichen Itza, Izamal, Tzebtun, Uxmal, Uxul, Yaxuna or
Oxkintok.
There is the story of the Basque missionary, who arrived to
plow the Fields of the Lord in Yucatan and discovered that the
best way to make himself clear to the local Indians was to talk to
them in his native tongue! Some day, when we decipher the mysterious
ancient inscriptions found in the Azores and the Canary
Islands, we might learn more about these languages, too. Even
the Basques themselves are an unsolved enigma. Tall and strong,
they have all the characteristics of the Cro-Magnon people who
emerged suddenly about 65,000 years ago, while the lesser Neanderthal
man continued to exist for a while longer. Could the Cro-