Impact place (option 1. and 2.) in Tyrrhenian Sea or in Ionian Sea

THE KINGDOM OF ATLANTIS

The epoch of Atlantis started when it was awarded to one of the »gods«, Poseidon. The island boasted natural resources and beauty, later also urban towns and an imposingly built metropolis, the royal city. Part of the metropolis with the temple of Poseidon and the royal palace of Atlant, the oldest Poseidon’s son, was surrounded by three concentric sea channels. Inhabitants of Atlantis raised walls around the channels and »placed towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in«.

The kingdom of Atlantis encompassed the Balkan Peninsula (Greek regions and the Dinarides) and the Apennine Peninsula up to Tyrrhenia (named Tuscany today) and reached down to Malta and Crete in the south. This territory of the kingdom »was greater in extent than Libya and Asia«. The period of expansion in the Mediterranean was marked by the conflicts and wars between the forces of Atlantis and ancient Athenians, who were much like the Atlanteans the descendants of »the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived«.

Plato indirectly speaks about the law-abiding kings of Atlantis and their divine nature which gradually disappeared by procreating with mortals. Due to genetic identity and co-dependency of mortals and immortals, the number of human elements in the »god’s« seeds increased. The final situation on Atlantis was represented by »the domination of the human ethos« and the beginning of wars for the throne, such as the battle with ancient Athenians. Critias speaks about the military force of kings »which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Sea, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable«. During the wars »there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea«. Solon also heard that »there was a time, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven …«

In Solon’s era the phrase »the city which now is Athens« referred to parts of Greece, Dalmatia, southern Italy and Albania.

ATLANTIS AND THE ADRIATIC BASIN

There are interesting similarities between Critias’ statements about Atlantis and the characteristics of the Adriatic Basin:

Critias spoke about a plateau which »was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch«. The Adriatic Basin (the Adriatic plain) actually has a form of a rectangle whose opposite sides go from north to south and from west to east.

The Atlanteans used stone for building: »one kind was white, another black, and a third red«. White and black stone is still quarried on Island Brač (Croatia) and red stone in the Bay of Kotor (Montenegro).

»There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island.« The remnants of elephant skeletons have been found in central and southern Italy as well as on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea close to Island Pag and Dramlje near the town of Crikvenica (Croatia). The skeletons date back to the Pleistocene, more than 9000 years before Hannibal’s march with elephants to Rome.

The Atlanteans dug and melted ores as well as mined and used orichalcum or brass – a copper-zinc alloy. The territory along the Adriatic Basin is rich in ores and minerals, including copper and zinc. There are many forests as well as rivers and cold- and thermal water springs.

In the vicinity of the sunken island, there are unique inland seas on Mljet (Croatia), the island of underground dwellings, caves and mud-lakes. Up until 9000 BC the inland seas contained fresh water.

Jabuka and Brusnik are two of the 1185 islands in the Adriatic Sea which were formed when lava flow reached the sea. Along with Island Palagruža, which is of partial volcanic origin, they form the »Adriatic volcanic triangle«.

The Mediterranean and the Central European regions which were devastated by the sinking and destruction are undoubtedly sources of great archaeological treasures. Some of the treasures are attributed to the Neolithic period and the Mediterranean impresso-ceramic culture. The ruins of ancient castles (Amantia, Meteon, Daorson, Asseria etc.) are ascribed to the Iron Age and the Hellenistic culture. The remnants from the buildings of the Atlantean kingdom, which were scattered across a huge area during the cataclysm, are proof of existence of this incomprehensible and unimaginable culture. The examples of »scattered« artefacts are stone balls in Bosnia, a bronze sky disk in Nebra, a statue of Venus in Willendorf which is over 20,000 years old etc.


Statues of Venus: from Willendorf, Vinča, Tripolye, Murska Sobota ...

This group also includes the unique monumental stone blocks or the so-called stećaks, which are spread throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, southern Croatia, western Montenegro and southwestern Serbia. The most typical and impressive examples of scattered artefacts are stećak tombstones – commonly known but still unexplained monolithic stones in Bosnia and its surrounding areas.

There are 69,356 stećaks recorded on 3,162 locations. Most of them, 59,593 or 86 per cent, are in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because their number is so high, they are associated with the Bosnian Church and the medieval state of Bosnia. But even though stećaks were mainly used for the graves of members of the Bosnian Church, it is strange that not even one »djed« – the highest priest in the hierarchy of this church – was found buried under one of the stećaks.

Locations and density of necropoleis with stećaks

In the first zone with the radius of 200 kilometers, where the necropolises are the most numerous and widespread, heavy sarcophagi and high, prism-shaped stećaks are predominant. This zone includes regions of southern Dalmatia, southern Herzegovina and western Montenegro.

In the second zone with the radius up to 300 kilometers, where there are still many necropolises which are unevenly distributed, stećaks in the shape of sarcophagi, prisms, slabs and columns are predominant. This zone consists of Dalmatian Zagora, western Herzegovina, central and eastern Bosnia, northern Montenegro and southwestern Serbia.

The third zone with the radius of up to 350 kilometers, where the necropolises are scarce, smaller sarcophagi, slabs and columns prevail. This zone consists of the Šibenik-Knin county in Croatia, northern Bosnia and western Serbia.

Zones in circular sector

The fall of an asteroid triggered natural forces: earthquakes, tsunamis, the sinking. Most parts of Europe and northern Africa were flooded by the sea. The destructive wave washed over Atlantis from the south - southwest to the north.

The consequences of the floods are manifested in alluvial material and layers of silt, sand and other materials on the broader region of southern Italy, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the bottom of the Adriatic Sea. The alluvia of small stones agglutinated with sand and clay and created breccia and a conglomerate, sedimentary stone which can be found in the mountainous parts of Albania, Bosnia and Croatia, along with fossilized sea organisms.

A tsunami scattered the stone blocks across a circular sector area. The areas closer to the sea were more exposed to the destructive forces of the giant waves, so more stone blocks, which were also bigger in size, were scattered there. In the Dinaric region most stone blocks or necropolises with stećaks were situated on the south side and on mountain slopes facing the sea.

The center of the circular sector is part of the tectonic fabric of the Adriatic micro plate in the southern part of the Adriatic Sea.

The stone blocks–monuments cut in a certain period and space are legacy and indigenous treasure of the kingdom of Atlantis. Stone blocks–stećaks which were later hewn and decorated with inscriptions and reliefs are legacy of the culture from the Bosnian Church era. As monuments and as stećaks they are a valuable treasure from both prehistoric and medieval times. They are silent witnesses of an ancient cataclysm and artefacts of two cultures.

Before the sinking the South Adriatic Basin and Palagruža Sill in the Adriatic Sea was the original location of the stone blocks–monuments. This area in the sea is where sunken Atlantis, the cradle of our civilization, has been lying for a hundred and more centuries.


And then...

Critias speaks about the city and the environs of the ancient palace nearly in the words of Solon »and now I must endeavour to represent the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work«. 

2^nd International Conference, 10-11 November 2008 - Athens, Greece