From the Eye of Africa to the Floating Island of Atlantis in the Sargasso Sea E-Book

Vito de la Vera

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 87

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

One's search can sometimes go from one extreme to another. l and my fellows start off on our voyage researching a lost culture that had evolved at the Eye of Africa in Mauritania. When the Sahara had dried at the end of the Holocene Maximum the peoples of the western part of the Saharan savanna had congregated here and by a nearby river to escape the desert. Much like what happened in Egypt in the Eastern Sahara. These people gathered here evolved their own culture and started to sail out into the Atlantic finding the North Atlantic gyre becoming adept seafarers. What we found was that more drying and other disasters struck this culture, causing them to increasingly take to the sea and evolving floating islands in their dwindling rivers delta. In the end these islands took completely to the sea along with the entire culture becoming seaborne. What became clear to us from following the trail of this culture to Bermuda, the Azores and Madeira was that they had moved their floating islands to the calm waters of the Sargasso Sea building of floating culture here. We find that this oceanic culture had had contact with the bronze age cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean and been part of the trade network that sustained the bronze age cultures. This oceanic culture built on floating islands in the middle of the world ocean had been the basis of the myth of a great ocean kingdom that disappeared in a cataclysmic disaster. Thus, being the actual Atlantis described by Plato. Finally, we uncover that there is a clear connection between the fall of this culture of Atlantis and the sea peoples that arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean during the bronze age collapse.

Leseprobe

Indholdsfortegnelse

EYE OF AFRICA, MAURETANIA

BERMUDA

THE AZORES

PORTO SANTOS ISLAND, MADEIRA

THE SARAGASSO SEA

EYE OF AFRICA, MAURETANIA

We were cruising along on a desert road in Mauritania. L’Aguila had been left moored in the harbor of Nouakchott. I did not often venture this far inland from my beloved yacht that has brought me so far and wide, but the trail had led us here on the road into the Sahara. Angelo was at the steering wheel. Thankfully, as I do not like driving that much.

Our findings had led us here much to my surprise. I had not expected our journey to research some rock carvings on the Canary and Cape Verde islands would lead us ashore and into the Sahara, but it soon became clear that we had stumbled onto something important. Maybe just as important as my search for the Whale culture that started in Greenland and brought me to the Pacific in search of the lost land of Mu.

The Petroglyphs on the Canary Islands had clearly shown what is known as the Eye of Africa or sometimes the Eye of the Sahara. Another common name is the Richat Structure. This clearly round geological ring structure is very visible from space and the Petroglyphs showed a very good depiction of it along with the coast of Africa. It was clear that these ancient people of the Canary and Cape Verde islands had come from the area of the Eye of Africa, so to learn more we now had to go there. Thankfully the petroglyphs showed us where to look specifically as the Eye is very large.

From what I have gathered until now some form of civilization must have arisen in and around the eye in the drying period that came at the end of the African humid period during the Holocene maximum. As the Sahara grasslands of the Holocene Maximum started to dry up and turn to desert, the population of the vast Saharan steppe started to gather near the major rivers, where the land was still lush, as we know from the Nile, where the ancient Egyptian civilization grew forth from the people, who made the Nile valley their home. Only the Nile is still there, but the late Saharan grasslands had many more rivers and lakes that are today long gone, but existed for a long time even after the African humid period.

The river fed from a lake further inland from the Richat structure and the mountain range of which the Eye is part must also have received precipitation that led into this river system. The river then ran into a delta system in what is now the desert coastline of northern Mauritania. From here the Richat culture could then sail up to the Canary Islands and down to Cape Verde explaining our findings there. The Eye itself would most likely have supported a number of internal lakes and rivers making it excellent for settling and quite a defensive stronghold if threatened from the outside. The river below could then have provided extra farmland, but in the Eye, there must also have been internal farmland in a wetter period!

It seems plausible that a culture could have developed here at around the same time as the Egyptians developed around the Nile. They might even have had contact with each other through caravans across the desert. Both civilizations would then have had their origin in the peoples of the Saharan savanna during the Holocene maximum and started their development into more evolved cultures during the drying that created the Sahara Desert. The main difference being that the culture of the Eye was cut short by the drying up of the river that is gone today, while the Nile continued flowing in Egypt. Thus, the culture of the Eye would have died out in its early stages, while Egypt continued to develop.

It will be interesting to see what we find when we arrive at the Eye. How far might they have developed before the Sahara Desert ended their civilization? And why did it also disappear on the Canary and Cape Verde Islands as only a few petroglyphs remain of their people there? That is what we hope to answer when we arrive at our destination. Hopefully, the rock carving maps that we found on the Canary Islands will lead us to useful findings as former archaeological expeditions to the Richat structure have failed to make any findings beyond stone tools and indications of Neolithic cultures. This does not mean that nothing is there, as the Eye is vast and one needs to know where to look. We hope that we know where to look!

We now drive alongside the edge of the highland of which the Eye is part. It is a desolate dry landscape burnt by the sun. It is a long drive and we have stayed the night quite a number of times along the way, but finally, we are arriving at our destination at the curved rim of the gigantic eye. Now we only need to go to the general area that we are shown to by our pictures of the petroglyphs. It is quite an impressive sight to arrive at this large regular structure in this highland ridge. We do not know what to expect, but we find a way into the Eye itself through its outer rim. It is a good thing that our vehicle is very well suited for rough terrain.

We arrive at the coordinates that we have calculated from the rock-carved map and step out of the car. First thing is to set up camp. Angelo and Elena start to set up the tents, while I unpack the car and bring the luggage to them. We three are a good team and have the camp up in no time. As it is late, we settle for supper and decide to start out exploring first thing in the morning.

After a good night's sleep, we commence exploring the area. It seems that there are ancient dried-out lake beds in the area. The Eye is well suited to retain water inside its ridges. The lakes must have once been fed by precipitation from evaporation from the river that must once have flowed near the Eye. This would have been an excellent and stable water supply for the people who once lived here and the ridges also provided cool shade from the sun, which would have lessened evaporation from inside the eye once the water had fallen there.

Only when the river was completely gone would this interior water system have lost its source of replenishment and slowly dried up, but it is quite possible that the culture of the Eye could have survived for quite some time after the loss of the river.

Firstly, we would need to find some trace of this culture, however. We started to look around the rock faces on the interior ridge in the hope of finding some petroglyphs like the ones we found on the Canary and Cape Verde Islands.

Our search was not met with much success from the onset. The rock walls seemed rather nondescript with little to be found. If there had been a civilization here, it had not left much of a mark. The only thing that struck a note was how level the rock floor seemed to be. Almost like it had been cleared to make a foundation, but there were no traces of buildings, only rocks that had fallen to the floor and sand that had accumulated on it.

Strange that the culture of the Eye should not have left any buildings? It did not make sense. Even if the Eye had been abandoned, where were the leftovers usually left by a culture? This was not like the whale culture of Greenland and the Pacific that had been built from ice and with products that had disappeared in the sea. A culture here at the Eye would have been based on stone as a material. Why was it then so empty?

Maybe our reading of the petroglyphs on the islands had been wrong. But even there, little else than the rock carvings had been there. As I mused over our lack of findings, Elena brought our attention to a ledge not that far above us. We all looked up at it. The rock wall behind it did look uncannily smooth, and as soon as we knew it was there, it could be seen from all of the surrounding area.

It did not take us long to decide that it was worth a look. Only we needed to get up there. Fortunately, Angelo is an excellent climber, so he quickly got his climbing gear and started his ascent. It did not take him long to get up there, and shortly after, he yelled, Heureka! He had found petroglyphs.

He threw down a rope ladder that he brought up with him, and Elena and I also ascended to the ledge. It was true! The entire surface of the wall behind the ledge was full of petroglyphs. We had found a library of the people of the Eye. We quickly noted the same round petroglyph of the Richat Structure that we had found on the islands. The regular circles of the Eye of the Sahara made for beautiful and recognizable petroglyphs.

There were a series of these petroglyphs that seemed to show a progression of the development of the culture in the Eye, with the grasslands of the surroundings receding more and more, giving way to the desert. This also showed the culture establishing itself within the Eye and evolving more and more.

Petroglyphs of buildings were also abundant, which caused wonder as ruins were completely absent in all directions. It was very strange that none were here. The rock-carved maps also showed the river that passed the Eye and, in the hinterland, a huge lake was carved out.

It is speculated that a large lake there, and in many other places in the Sahara, existed during the African Humid Period, along with a huge version of what is today, Lake Chad. The carvings made a clear case that this lake had truly been there further in from the Richat Structure. This lake would have been able to maintain the river and a water system for a long time after the drying of the Sahara had begun.