© 2018 Commodore Robert Stanley Bates, United States Merchant Marine
© 2018 The Urantia Book Fellowship
© 2018 Batek Marine Publishing
Plato’s legendary account of a sunken island civilization that he called Atlantis—or what some call Eden—has fascinated adventurers for centuries. But the sophisticated archeological search for this lost culture as had to wait for our time, with its digital technology and advanced underwater research capabilities.
Recent efforts to find the vanished island have, I believe, culminated in two exciting underwater surveys in the Eastern Mediterranean that were staged in 2004 and 2006. Each of these expeditions uncovered tantalizing evidence, and both were initiated by Urantia Book students looking for what they believe are the remnants of the First Garden.
In this essay, I argue that our search for this pre-historic civilization may now be narrowed to sunken land adjacent to the island of Cyprus, a virtual underwater continent that geologists located decades ago. In recognition of the likely confluence of the two great legends of Atlantis and Eden, I call the ongoing archeological research into this sunken continent the Eden-Atlantis Project.
The main purpose of this essay is to offer you a thorough review of recently obtained archeological evidence pointing to this Eastern Mediterranean location for Eden-Atlantis. Please note before we go further: This essay offers a digest of a short book, The Eden- Atlantis Project, that is available at my website, http://www.edenatlantisproject.org; color versions of the images in this piece are available in the book and at this website.
My ultimate objective is to provide a novel explanation of the data acquired in the 2004 and 2006 expeditions. I offer this new interpretation not only because I played a vital part in both efforts, but because I have spent almost 15 years in ongoing reflection on our findings. This intensive focus has inspired me over these many years to embark on a journey to a wide variety of related geological and historical sources that provide support to my revised interpretation. The result today is that I believe we may have uncovered, without realizing it, unmistakable human infrastructure on this landmass that was submerged in the eastern Mediterranean at a very distant time. In particular, the data resulting from our 2006 sub-bottom profiler (SBP) survey yielded some unexpected results that have not been previously understood: It points to the existence of at least two very large human-built artifacts that were able to survive war, flooding, and violent tectonic plate activity in pre-historic times. As I will show, this new data significantly increases our knowledge about human activities on this sunken continent, and if my interpretation is correct, it points to the need for a third expedition to this site.
¶ The Story of Eden in The Urantia Book
The most specific information about what I call the Eden-Atlantis legend can be found, of course, in The Urantia Book, which purports to describe the site of the original Eden on the basis of its claim that the biblical story of Adam and Eve refers to an actual historic event. The Urantia Revelation provides a detailed narrative of the life of Adam and Eve, which it states is offered to the modern world as a corrective to the distorted ideas handed down in Genesis.
Most notably for our purposes, the UB reveals the physical location of what it names as the “First Garden of Eden,” calling it: “… a long narrow peninsula—almost an island—projecting westward from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea .” [UB 73:3.1] It continues: “The coast line of this land mass was considerably elevated, and the neck connecting with the mainland was only twenty-seven miles wide at the narrowest point. The great river that watered the Garden came down from the higher lands of the peninsula and flowed east through the peninsular neck to the mainland and thence across the lowlands of Mesopotamia to the sea beyond.” [UB 73:3.4]
The Urantia text further states: “At the center of the Edenic peninsula was the exquisite stone temple of the Universal Father, the sacred shrine of the Garden.” [UB 73:5.1] Mention of a central hill (i.e., the general location of this temple), as well as mound-building activity, is provided in the following narrative: “Adam and Eve were escorted to the formal reception on the great mound to the north of the temple. This natural hill had been enlarged and made ready for the installation of the world’s new rulers.” [UB 74:2.5] As we continue on, consider the possibility of a link between this enlarged “great mound” and the “hill of no great size” that is “covered” as mentioned by Plato.
The Urantia Book further states concerning the infrastructure of Eden: “The sanitary arrangements of the Garden were far in advance of anything that had been attempted theretofore on Urantia. The drinking water of Eden was kept wholesome by the strict observance of the sanitary regulations designed to conserve its purity…” [UB 73:5.3] Most important for our investigation is this statement: “Before the disruption of the Adamic regime a covered brick-conduit disposal system had been constructed which ran beneath the walls and emptied into the river of Eden almost a mile beyond the outer or lesser wall of the Garden .” [UB 73:5.4]
It is also worth noting that in The Urantia Book version of this story, Eden-Atlantis met a similar fate as that described in other narratives about Atlantis: “…in connection with the violent activity of the surrounding volcanoes and the submergence of the Sicilian land bridge to Africa, the eastern floor of the Mediterranean Sea sank, carrying down beneath the waters the whole of the Edenic peninsula.” [UB 73:7.1] In addition, previous to its sinking, catastrophic warfare had emptied out the peninsula of its original inhabitants. [UB 75:5.1]
Because of the detailed and potentially verifiable information it provides, a student of The Urantia Book named Robert Sarmast chose to explore the physical location given in The Urantia Book. Before his two historic expeditions in 2004 and 2006, he claimed in a widely reviewed book that this location “conformed to 48 out of 50” clues about Atlantis provided by Plato. This site, he said, was one mile down in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea between Cyprus and Syria.
I believe that the features reported not only by The Urantia Book and the Bible, but also by other ancient narratives such as the well-known Sumerian text known as Enki and the World Order and Plato’s account of Atlantis in his dialogues Critias and Timaeus, point us to the likely location of the Eden-Atlantis site and the need for advanced archeological research in this area. According to my interpretation of the sources and also the writings of Sarmast, this research will take us back to a time when this island was above water and habitable.
Recent archeological findings from around the Mediterranean also support the idea that this area was inhabited and settled in very far distant times. Remarkable new archeological evidence and lingering pools of genetics depart from the previous views that only Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers lived in the surrounding lands during that time frame. For example, in the June 2016 edition of Discover magazine, an article reported that: “About 100,000 years ago tall, long-limbed humans lived in the caves of Qafzeh, east of Nazareth, and Skhul, on Israel’s Mount Carmel. Their remains suggest a surprisingly sophisticated people defying the conventional timeline of Homo sapiens ’ migration “out of Africa.”[1] In addition, a plethora of evidence from around the Mediterranean should be considered. This evidence includes unexplained cave drawings in Spain and France as far distant as over 30,000 years, as well as regions that bordered the eastern Mediterranean Sea in those prehistoric days—such as present-day Egypt and most notably the very remarkable findings at the Golbeki Tepi archaeological site in modern- day Turkey—all of which point to the likelihood of highly intelligent inhabitants of a local advanced civilization. Fortunately, scientists have discovered a sunken continent in that general neighborhood, and this land is an excellent candidate for the location of the original source-civilization that branched out and blossomed around that region thousands of years before the times of Sumeria and Egypt.
¶ Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent
The foregoing is a lot to absorb. But to a large extent these various claims fit together comfortably when we look more closely at the candidate for the physical venue of the Eden-Atlantis story, to which we now turn. This area is generally called the Levantine Basin by geologists, and the part of the Levantine Basin that is of greatest interest to us is what I like to call Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent.
Again, the general location of our venue is the eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to the many marine geophysicists who have studied it for decades, we now know a lot about this region. Of special note in this connection is the work of John K. Hall, PhD. In 1970, Hall became the first marine geophysicist to work for the Geological Survey of Israel. He founded the Israel National Bathymetric Survey to map the seas around Israel, and his work continued for 35 years. In his 2005 work, Geological Framework of the Levant,[2] he explains that this underwater region sits at the junction of three tectonic plates.
The Levantine Basin is traditionally the deep basin at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The region hosts the junction of three plates, whose interaction has produced complex structures. Because of its relative remoteness, and the uneasy relationships between the seven national entities along its littoral, the area was not easy to investigate. However, the probing since the 1970s has shown that the basin is filled with a great quantity of sediments (12 meters or more), and that the nature of its underpinnings is not simple. Many investigators have studied the area. Some have returned again and again to this problematic place.
According to Hall, this area has been studied using the tools of bathymetry, gravity, magnetics, seismic reflection, seismic refraction, teleseismic investigations, and submarine geology based on coring, drilling, and dredging. In the passage that follows the one quoted above, Hall refers to Robert Sarmast’s research, which is in large part based on the work of a Russian geologist named Malovitskiy:
The region’s recent history also seems to beckon. From the pioneering study of our colleague Ya’akov Petrovitch Malovitskiy[3] (1978) who proposed on the basis of seismic investigations that the Levantine Basin was a sunken continent, we advance to recent extrapolations (Sarmast, 2003) regarding the ‘finding’ of Atlantis at depths of 1,500 m between the West Tartus Ridge and the Gelendzhik Rise, based upon a computer analysis of the Russian Research Vessel (R/V) Strakhov’s multibeam soundings.
The target area of our research sits at the point of convergence of the Anatolian, Arabian, and African plates, as shown in Figure 2. This region is located on that part of the African Plate that is wedged between Cyprus, Syria, and Lebanon. According to geologists, for millions of years the African plate has been sliding down (or “subducting’) beneath the Anatolian Plate while also being subjected to pressures from the Arabian Plate. The result over time has been significant tectonic instability in this area.
We read in the Urantia text that “violent” volcanic activity at the juncture of these plates, combined with a massive tectonic shift further to the west near present-day Sicily, caused this area to sink far beneath the waves. If true, this event was a tectonic calamity. In fact, it may have caused (or was caused by) the so-called Great Flood that is referred to in many ancient myths that we noted earlier. This pre-historic flood may have occurred when, according once again to the Urantia text: “…in connection with the violent activity of the surrounding volcanoes and the submergence of the Sicilian land bridge to Africa, the eastern floor of the Mediterranean Sea sank, carrying down beneath the waters the whole of the Edenic peninsula.” [UB 73:7.1]
This sunken land that I call Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent became the focus of study in the 1990s by the previously mentioned American explorer, author, and _Urantia Book student, Robert Sarmast. He wrote and lectured in those years on his theories about Atlantis, postulating the existence of an extraordinary civilization at this location. As I mentioned, he also had in mind—but did not mention publicly— The Urantia Book ’s statements about the location of Eden. When not speaking to audiences of Urantia Book students, Sarmast switched out Eden for Atlantis; like him, I think of the two as identical, but unlike him I am prepared to refer to the Urantia material publicly.
In 2003 Sarmast published Discovery of Atlantis,[4] which makes the case that Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent is the lost continent of Atlantis (and implicitly Eden). Among his most striking claims of evidence was the digital reconstruction of the sunken continent shown below in Figure 3 that’s based on data chosen from among the many scientific surveys of this region to which the geologist Hall refers.
To support his thesis, Sarmast mounted a privately funded exploratory expedition in 2004, drawing financial support from a large number of Urantia Book students, with the aim of probing the surface of the sunken content using a research technology known as side-scan sonar. The second edition of his book in 2006 incorporated the results of this survey, after which Sarmast led a widely publicized expedition in November 2006 that was funded, filmed, and broadcast by The History Channel.
¶ The First Expedition in 2004
Initially, Sarmast planned the 2004 expedition based on bathymetric data that Hall had published in 1994. The data had originally been acquired by the Russian R/V Academik Nikolaj Strakhov and Sarmast used it to generate the image in Figure 3. The Strakhov’s expeditions, which were completed in 1987 and 1990, used a sonar technique known as bathymetric multibeam scanning. Sarmast received this raw data, which he then sent for analysis to marine geophysicist Patrick Lowry at the Scotia Group in Dallas, Texas. Lowry returned 3-D graphic images that presented a fairly detailed map of Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent. Lowry “computerized” the lowering of the water level in that end of the Mediterranean Sea (using as a template from the R/V Strakhov’s scans), allowing Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent to emerge. It became when the sea level was lowered 1500 meters, or about one mile, as seen in Figure 3.
But in 2003, the R/V Le Suroît from L’Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), surveyed the same area using a later generation of bathymetric multibeam scan technology, thereby acquiring data that provided greater resolution of the ocean floor.[5] (Bathymetric multibeam technology uses a sonar device that emits fan-shaped pulses down toward the seafloor across a wide angle that is perpendicular to the path of the sensor as it moves through the water.) In July of 2004, Sarmast contacted a principal investigator at IFREMER for permission to access their more definitive data (along with their much better navigational information), and requested data for an area fifteen nautical miles square around the mound in the center of Figure[4:1].
Notably, the well-defined ridges that appeared in the center (based on the multibeam bathymetric IFREMER data), seemed to support Sarmast’s claim that some sort of megalithic structures existed within the black square in figure[4:2].
An enlarged graphical display of this structure is provided in Figure 5, which depicts what appears to be a 3700-meter-long, narrow, regular, linear Y-formation in the northern part of the area. In addition, just to the south was a 2800-meter-long irregular low tabular mound about 110 meters high and varying between 500 to 800 meters wide. Also in evidence are scarp-like features half way up the mound, leading off to both the eastern and western sides. (A scarp is a very steep bank or slope.) This general area became the primary target of both the 2004 and 2006 expeditions. Bear in mind, however, that the height of these features are magnified ten-fold to enhance them for study.
The information from the IFREMER multibeam sonar scans provided excellent orientation for Sarmast’s first expedition in November of 2004, offering precise latitude and longitude coordinates for specific points on the major features to be studied. With such accurate coordinates it was possible to obtain useful side-scan images of the central mound and the linear ridges.
The ship used for the 2004 expedition was the motor vessel (M/V) Flying Enterprise. Captain Duncan MacKenzie, a husky South African with years of sea service, was the ship’s master for this voyage. Given my decades of previous experience with research and commercial voyages of this kind, I was in the role of expedition leader. The ship was perfectly suited for our purpose; in fact it qualifies as a medium-size research vessel with winches, cranes, and an A-frame for the deployment of our underwater probe attached to a coaxial cable.
The images acquired from the 2004 expedition using the side-scan sonar provided the first close look at the ridges and the summit of the central mound as seen in Figure 5 above. In particular, these images offered more accurate measurements of the ridges, showing a uniform width of approximately 30 meters and a fairly constant gradient from west to east, descending from a height of 10 meters down to the seabed surface, as shown in Figure 11. These findings confirmed our hypothesis that these formations cannot be of natural origin. As noted, no other formations in the entire area resembled those of the two ridges.
The tracks along which the side-scan sonar traces were recorded over the ridges and central mound were documented in Figure 7 by team member Axel Schoeller. Schoeller first laid grid lines along an axis of our intended courses over the central mound. The base line for the ridges was labeled “Wall 1” and a parallel scan line to the north was labeled “1-175” indicating it was 175 meters distant from the “Wall 1” line. The use of a minus sign in the figure means “north of” Wall 1, while the plus sign for scans on the central mount indicates “south of” a datum mark (not shown on the chart because it is off the north end of the chart) by the number of meters from that datum point indicated by the numbers following the “3+.”
The images produced by the side-scan sonar lines in Figure 7 are associated with the same line number next to those images in Figure 8. They provided the historical first close look at the ridges and the summit of the central mound. The line numbers and the associated images will be frequently referred to in the text that follows.
The 3700-meter-long ridge formation first received attention from Lowry in early September 2004 when the data from the R/V Le Suroît were obtained from IFREMER and sent to him. Except for Sarmast, no one prior to that time reported any significance attached to that anomaly. At first, Lowry was of the opinion that the slump on the face of the associated mound and the transverse ridges at the foot of the mound fit the classical depiction of a natural slump—that is, the accumulation of material from a landslide off the front side of the mound as seen in Figure 10. Later we will consider a much different interpretation of these features that results from the data acquired in the 2006 expedition.
¶ The Second Expedition in 2006
Robert Sarmast’s first expedition caught the attention of media around the world, including favorable coverage in CNN, the BBC, and ABC News. As a result of all of this positive publicity, the rights to a second expedition were purchased in 2006 by The History Channel. They funded and filmed an elaborate program that launched Josh Bernstein’s popular 2007 series called Digging for the Truth.
The History Channel’s documentary about Sarmast’s second expedition is entitled: Atlantis–New Revelations. The History Channel personnel did exhaustive research for the two-hour documentary. They covered all the latest Atlantis theories in the program and disposed of alternate theories that had no merit regarding the location of Atlantis. The primetime program first aired in January 2007 and it especially highlighted the work of Sarmast and his team.
Notwithstanding his lack of experience, Sarmast made the executive decision that he would be expedition leader in 2006. The ship used for that expedition was the 41 meter long M/T EDT Argonaut (Figure 11) operated by EDT Towage and Salvage Co., our previous provider based in Limassol, Cyprus.[6] This time, more advanced equipment was used in addition to side-scan sonar, most notably a sub-bottom profiler (SBP)—an instrument that uses echo sounding, like sonar, to map the strata as deep as 30 meters below the surface of the sea bed. Another instrument known as a depth sounder, which is crucial for guiding the towfish, was also on board. Only five tracks were planned for the 2006 expedition, as shown in Figure 12. The plan was to crisscross as much as the area as possible with both side-scan and SBP during the 72 hours that were allotted for the trip. The first and longest line was designed to capture the cross section of both branches of the ridges and the central mound.
Unlike the tracks surveyed during the 2004 expedition, the first line in 2006 was designed to create a cross- sectional view of the ridges and the hill, intersecting them at nearly a ninety degree right-angle. In 2004, the lines went parallel to the hill and the ridges so that the towfish depth would require only small changes during the survey of each line. We felt in 2004 that it was too risky, due to the uneven terrain, to require the constant change of the tow fish’s depth. (See the inset in Figure 12 above and Figure 19 below for changes in elevation along Line 1 in the 2006 expedition.) But with the towfish streaming about a mile astern in the 2006 effort, the ship’s depth sounder would have made it possible to anticipate the required depth changes of the towfish as it traversed the irregular sea bottom. But as fate would have it, we suffered several highly disruptive technical problems during the 2006 expedition. And they were not amenable to emergency repair as in the previous expedition, when we had serious problems because of a heavy rain squall on the first day.
The first of the problems in the 2006 effort was very distressing. Shortly after the towfish was launched, the signal suddenly stopped transmitting. The crew had no choice but to retrieve the towfish to find out why. The expedition team was soon able to determine that, due to operator error, the paying out of the coaxial cable took place at an excessive rate of speed. This careless method of deployment of the tow fish resulted in knots in the cable, and even snapped the internal wiring. About five hours and 50 meters of cable were lost.
Additional operator error as well as equipment failure resulted in the loss of even more data and valuable time during the succeeding attempts to survey along Line 1. In fact, the problem of equipment failure was alone debilitating. At the end of the voyage, Lowry reported that two vital instruments were never operational during the entire trip, namely: (1) the Ultra Short Base Line (USBL) responder that locates the position of the towfish and adjusts for its GPS position, and (2) the depth sounder which measures the distance between the keel of the ship and the sea bottom below. Without those instruments it becomes extremely difficult to anticipate the optimum depth of the towfish because the operator is unable to determine the GPS position of the towfish along the track line.
The beam that emanates from the SBP and penetrates the sea floor is only about three degrees wide. One of its functions is to average the data received as the tow fish proceeds along its path. The detailed images from the SBP data are of the greatest definition when the tow fish is as close as possible to the submerged target of interest. With the depth sounder inoperative, it became very difficult for the technicians who were operating the towfish to closely skim the bottom. If the towfish were too high above the bottom, the three degree beam would cover such a large area that it would provide little or no definition as it averages everything below it that the beam reaches. On the other hand, if the towfish were too close to the target, it would be in danger of striking the bottom, providing no data at all and causing damage to the tow fish and the cable. Without anticipating the depth at which the towfish should be operated at any given moment, I surmise that it was sheer luck that the one image we have of a ridge was captured along Line 1. It also appears, after the fact, that the towfish may have collided with the outer ridge along Line 1 which resulted in a loss of signal during its transit of that ridge. To make matters worse, the exact location of the image that was captured remains unknown because the USBL was inoperative. Fortunately, we had a means of estimating the positions of the towfish as it crossed the two ridges along Line 1.
Sailing with key equipment inoperative is attributable to faulty installation by the charterer, EDT Towage and Salvage Co., Ltd. In a case like this, as in the 2004 voyage, this expedition should have been declared “off hire” and the contract time for the charter suspended until the deficiencies were corrected. Unfortunately, the USBL responder and the depth sounder could not be tested in port prior to getting underway; they were discovered to be inoperative only after having put to sea. An USBL can only be tested when the tow fish is deployed in the water, and the harbor is too shallow to test the depth sounder. Given this dilemma, it is also unfortunate that the expedition leader, Robert Sarmast, made the decision to not go “off hire” and return to port for repairs.
As a result of Sarmast’s decision, the time charter came to an end without having corrected the serious technical problems, and only a partially successful attempt to survey Line 1 had been completed by the close of the expedition. Fortunately, SPB data for one of the two ridges had been obtained, and we will now turn to an analysis of that image.
Previous to the 2006 expedition, the face of the mound with its obvious main and minor scarps—as well as the transverse ridges associated with it—gave the appearance of a natural slump or landslide, as we noted in Figure 10. But significantly, the main result of the 2006 expedition dispels that idea—at least according to my reading of the data that resulted from the one and only line of SBP data we had acquired along Line 1. The SBP image in Figure 13 provides an excellent cross-sectional look at the ridge closest to the central mound. (Recall that the SBP can trace features up to 30 meters below the surface.)
When the images were received, Lowry drew in the lines of each continuous stratum in different colors as seen in Figure 13. In his final conclusion, provided on site during the filming of the expedition, he concluded that the ridges were natural formations. He stated on camera in The History Channel documentary that the ridges were not influenced by man, and concluded that: “Those ridges are cored by something natural, not manmade.”[7] His analysis, and the way it was framed in the closing moments of the documentary, seemed to set to rest the hypothesis that the ridges were the consequence of human engineering. Lowry’s conclusion has gone unchallenged until the new interpretation I will now provide.
¶ Questioning the Results of The 2006 Expedition
Lowry’s assessment that the linear ridges were, in effect, only the natural result of a geological upward thrust still leaves us with crucial unanswered questions. The following list arises when one closely observes the ridges, the mound, and other previously obtained images of various features that we will soon examine in detail:
- What combination of events and forces caused these up-thrust ridges to appear so uniformly linear over several thousand meters? Why are they so well-shaped, as if they had direction and purpose?
- Further, why are these ridges so unique in this entire region?
- Is there any evidence that the formation of the ridges, now covered in silt, was ever influenced by human activities?
- Is the nature of the slump on the face of the mound typical of the effect produced by a natural landslide? Or might it be further evidence of human activity?
- Is there any location in this region that may indicate the source of material for brick making? Is there any evidence of artifacts remaining that were constructed of brick?
Our crucial premise has been that Malovitskiy’s Continent sunk in relatively recent times. If we can accept that premise, then the discovery of well-engineered structures on the ocean bottom would lead one to wonder whether Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent really does fit with the old myths about Atlantis or Eden. In other words, we logically come face-to-face with the ultimate question, the one that subsumes the more specific questions above: Are the ridges and mound we see at this location purely a creation of nature according to the claim of Lowry, or was their formation somehow influenced by unknown indigenous people who occupied the land when it was a verdant peninsula?
Let us return to the image returned by the SBP as shown in Figure 13. As noted, their appearance of continuity, gradient, linearity, and the lack of any other formations like them in the surrounding area, leads to the notion that humans were involved in their creation. Unfortunately, none of these observations constitute sufficient proof by themselves, although they do point to the need for further analysis.
Let’s turn back for clues to what the Urantia text states about this area: “…in connection with the violent activity of the surrounding volcanoes and the submergence of the Sicilian land bridge to Africa, the eastern floor of the Mediterranean Sea sank, carrying down beneath the waters the whole of the Edenic peninsula. ” [UB 73:7.1] If indeed Malovitskiy’s continent sank to its present level in this or in some other manner (such as that suggested by Plato), we can be sure that in calculable subducting forces caused the catastrophic collapse and descent of the land. At the same time, a second and related inference is quite reasonable: There must have been resisting forces acting in the opposite direction that caused formation of the unusual ridges. In fact, according to statements made by Patrick Lowry in the documentary, the ridge seen in Figure 13 confirms the presence of strong up-thrusting forces, presumably during the sinking of the land, but conceivably also sometime after. In Figure 13 that is reproduced at the top of Figure 14, Lowry’s tracings of strata lines in various colors of ink shows how the strata had welled up. (Please see color versions of all images at http://www.edenatlantisproject.org.)
Aside from the aforementioned characteristics displayed by the ridges, when viewed in cross section, there is an additional anomaly apparent in this cross- sectional image: An unlikely change in the direction of the concavity in Lowry’s colored strata lines can be seen near the center of the ridge (in the upper image in Figure 14.) This change should have alerted him to an unexpected variance in the process of the formation of the ridge. Let me to put it this way: If the up-thrust forces were acting only in an unimpeded natural seismic event, the strata lines probably would have been uniformly concave downward. But they are not. The direction of the strata changes from an expected concave downward to concave upward near the center of the lines drawn, and then returns to concave downward. To my mind, we can examine the strata immediately below the downward deflection, and perhaps the reason for the deflection might become apparent.
Now, let’s examine the illustration at the bottom of Figure14. Note that I have added four brighter strata lines below the deflected strata drawn by Lowry and I have juxtaposed my new version of the image with Lowry’s earlier work on the same image just above it. The additional lines reveal a telltale anomaly: They clearly indicate a well-defined impediment to the up-thrusting ridge. These additional lines show the location and size of the implied resistance, as indicated by the white arrow. Also note that this variance appears about 15 meters below the top of the silt-covered ridge. This is significant, because according to Hall’s report cited earlier: “…the probing since the 1970s has shown that the basin is filled with a great quantity of sediments (12 meters or more)…”
These observations have led me to a new hypothesis about the nature of the impediment and how it can be interpreted within the context of a discussion of the purpose, direction, position, length, breadth, and height of the ridges.
¶ A Revealing New Interpretation of the Ridges
Can it really be true that this sunken land that sits one mile down was once inhabited by an advanced but pre-historic civilization? To answer this crucial question, we will need to examine any and all evidence of artifacts indicating the presence of human engineering.
We can start with the aforementioned fact that the Y-formation of ridges is unnaturally straight and narrow over a very long distance and that there is no other natural formation of this type in the area. Because of their anomalous features, it follows that these ridges could very well be the result of a fairly sophisticated engineering effort. In particular, the regular width and gradually diminishing height of the ridges point to a “surgical” removal of the earth’s crust along the ridges’ path. Further, I argue that the amount of earth removed must have been sufficient to permit the up-thrust forces to break through the crust and erupt into their present state of uniform width and height and long, straight extension.
The simplest form of construction to accommodate that effect is, I believe, a uniformly dug ditch. This trench would need to be of sufficient width and depth to enable the up-thrust forces to break through the earth’s crust. This interpretation points to a rather mundane but very distinctive form of human engineering: the aforementioned “covered brick-conduit disposal system” that the Urantia text describes as part of the infrastructure of the Edenic civilization. We are told that this conduit was created for the health and welfare of the population as a sewage drainage system.
We can infer that the construction of such a conduit system required some civil engineering far in advance for its time. In order to prepare for building a subterranean conduit, not only would a ditch have to be dug, but also a footing would have to be created. The ditch would have to be of sufficient depth and width to accommodate a brick structure with working room for its construction. At first glance, it would probably look as if these ancient residents were building a canal, but unlike a canal, it would have to be constructed with sufficient gradient to permit a flow from its origins to its terminus. The width and depth of this canal-like ditch would likely be uniform, and one can only imagine the primitive way in which earth was removed to create such a major undertaking. In terms of geology, the significant point here is that there would be just enough etching of the earth’s crust by the uniformly dug ditches to permit an upward release of material through this narrow, man-made channel caused by the force of the up-thrusting subterranean material. The upwelling along sections of this excavation may have continued until the energy dissipated or the conduit disappeared sufficiently below the surface due to its gradient. In either event, there is no visible indication that the up-thrust continued farther to the east or the west beyond what we can see in the images.
Once the work of digging canal-like ditches was in progress, we can speculate that the fabrication of bricks was a primary requirement, whether molded at a quarry or manufactured somewhere in the area. Possible quarry sites have been identified on the sunken continent at various stages of this study and will be discussed later.
The two visually striking branches of the system that we see in Figure 10 rising from the basin’s surface come together in a “Y” formation at the base of the mound. The two ridges meet a tan acute angle in the “Y” formation in such a way that, I believe, the effluent could commingle and flow easily toward a terminus.
During the sinking process of the floor and the upward heaving of material through the ditches, it may be that the conduit was crushed. But even if some or all of it were crushed, the deflection of Lowry’s lines of strata in Figures 13 and 14 nevertheless would be unaffected because the building material would have been much denser than that of the surrounding dirt.
To further support this observation, there is additional evidence in the images from the SBP. The black stratum line at the bottom of the ditch, which is collinear with the bright line I added just above the tip of the white arrow probably reveals the location of the base of the conduit system. It is of such dense material that the energy from the probing sonic beam was unable to completely penetrate and record the strata immediately below. There appears to be a notable attenuation of the SBP signal below the bright red line representing the bottom or crushed remains of the conduit. Also note that below that line, the strata are fairly uniformly concave downward in the up-thrust, which is the how the upper portion would appear had it not been for the denser impediment to the rising material.
If we combine the evidence of the top-down images of the ridges in Figure 5 with the cross-sectional images of the up-thrusts in Figure 14, we can make a prima facie case for the existence of the conduit system. If these are, indeed, identifiable archaeological features on Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent, the Eden-Atlantis legend may finally have a venue in prehistory on which to base future research. Unfortunately, the venue is not on dry land as we wish it could be. Nevertheless, the 2006 expedition yielded sufficient evidence to consider the ridges to be a conduit system. When we combine this with our other sources, I believe the case can be made for that of working subterranean brick conduits. This engineered artifact could very well be the oldest major remnant of any civilization on earth.
¶ A New Interpretation of the Mound
The case for the engineered subterranean conduit system alone could well be enough evidence to support the hypothesis that an advanced civilization lived on the surface of Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent when it was a dry peninsula. But the mound can offer even more evidence of human involvement.
Recall that Lowry had offered the opinion in 2004 that the slump on the face of the mound and the transverse ridges at the foot of the mound, when taken together, fit the classical depiction of a natural slump—a landslide. He gave no further explanation of the slump on camera at the end of the 2006 expedition. But the evidence I have now offered may be a game changer. My improved description of the nature of the ridges’ seismic up-thrusts based on empirical evidence allows us to logically separate the ridges and the slump into distinct features that are independent of each other. Separating these two features invites us to look elsewhere for an explanation of the true nature of the mound. A closer look at the slump on the face of the mound as seen in Figures 5 and 10 reveals that it lacks the classic features of a landslide as shown below in Figure 15 (top image). On our mound (bottom image) we observe no foot, no cracks, and no discernible surface of rupture or separation. The only visible parts of this slump are, in my estimation, the crown, the main scarp, and the two minor scarps. Also, the ridges as a whole are unlike the classic transverse ridges of a typical landslide.
I offer an alternative explanation for this anomalous hill: I contend that this feature is evidence of a ceremonial mound. Archaeologists and anthropologists have long known that the building of ceremonial mounds by indigenous people all over the world often entails some form of earthwork enhancement of natural hills. (In the more advanced versions of such ceremonial platforms, they build actual pyramids or ziggurats from stone, erecting them from the ground up.) Often, such an earthen enhancement to a natural hill is intended to give these early peoples an elevated surface for holding gatherings and rituals; in other cases, elaborate mounds encompass burial sites. With sufficient material and an abundance of labor, an ordinary hill can be turned into ceremonial site by squaring up its sides and extending the length of the elevated section in one or both directions.
As the millennia go by, seismic events or flooding and erosion can obviously lead to the disintegration of an enhanced ceremonial mound. Logically, earthwork enlargement erected around a natural hill would be first of its features to falter. Bear in mind that the height of all the images shown here is exaggerated by a factor of ten, so the actual amount of material involved is considerably less than suggested by those exaggerated images. At the correct scale, the slump on this hill would be hardly more than a crumbled man-made dirt façade, the remnants of mound- building activity—the simple artifact to which The Urantia Book refers in Paper 73.
An important alternate description of this feature, or what Plato called “Acropolis Hill,” can be found in the Critias (112): “The layout of the city was as follows: The Acropolis was different from what it is now. Today it is quite bare of soil which was all washed away in one appalling night of flood, by a combination of earthquakes and the third terrible deluge…Before that, in earlier days… it was covered with soil and for the most part level.” Here Plato also reports that there was a mound “of no great size” that was for the most part level at the top, but that the part covered up with soil (presumably by the inhabitants), was eventually reduced by earthquakes and washed away by floods.
Plus, other curiosities can be found on (what we have taken to be) the enlarged man-made platform at the top of the mound. The IFREMER bathymetric scans suggest an interesting anomaly: what appears to be three coplanar, collinear, circular segments—that is, three circular features hundreds of feet across of nearly equal size that are directly adjacent to one another.
This feature, if it is truly present, sharply differentiates the central mound from the mud volcanoes that dot this landscape. Mud volcanoes in the area have a single depression in the center of their cones. In addition, they do not cluster in groups to form uniformly continuous tabular mounds as shown here and in Figure 4.
Circular arcs on the top of the mound in the IFREMER scans are somewhat discernible in Figure 17 (top image). The side-scan sonar images from the 2004 expedition tempt us to think that these are due to actual physical circular features around the summit as seen in the bottom image. That the circumference of some of these circles extends beyond the remains of the platform in some places suggests that the natural surface of the top of the hill had been enlarged to accommodate each fully circular feature, after which the enhanced area fell away. Additional studies are essential to establish the true nature of these circular features.
Certainly modern technology is poised to thoroughly investigate those features.
¶ The Great River and the South Side of the Mound
One of the byproducts of the SBP scan is a graph compiled during the 2006 expedition called the “Path Profile.” It shows the elevation of the sea bed during the transit along Line 1.This gives us a picture of the south side of the central mound (the right hand side of Figure 21) and reveals a much smaller scarp at the -1500 meter level. Its cause may be the same as that on the north side: the dramatic shifting of the tectonic plates and all that followed.
A major feature at the foot of the south side of the mound is a deep concave depression below the -1600 meter level in Figure 20.In studying Figure 4, there is an obvious line of what appears to be a river bank on the south side of the mound that extends left to right for thousands of meters in both directions. An examination of the IFREMER bathymetric scans throughout the area yields no similar feature that could be interpreted as a continuous river bank. And, the literature about this peninsula leaves no doubt that an important river meandered through the land, as I recount below.
First of all, let’s turn to Sumerian writings. In Enki and the New World Order we are told that one of the ways Lord Enki got around his island paradise was by water. His mode of transportation is by an oar-propelled barge, which is evidently capable of navigating the river as well as a complex of canals and smaller waterways in the great marshes.
Next, the Bible prominently mention a river associated with the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:10: “Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.” The prophet Ezekiel also spoke of seeing a river flowing from below the Temple in a vision, which happens to coincide with the location I propose—below the mound:
“The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was tricking from the south side.” (Ezekiel 47:1-2 NIV)
Not only do we find a river mentioned in Enki and the World Order and the Bible, but also in the Urantia text:
The coast line of this land mass was considerably elevated, and the neck connecting with the mainland was only twenty-seven miles wide at the narrowest point. The great river that watered the Garden came down from the higher lands of the peninsula and flowed east through the peninsular neck to the mainland and thence across the lowlands of Mesopotamia to the sea beyond. It was fed by four tributaries which took origin in the coastal hills of the Edenic peninsula, and these are the “four heads” of the river which “went out of Eden,” and which later became confused with the branches of the rivers surrounding the second garden. UB 73:3.4
The distance from the central mount to the coast of Syria is about fifty miles. At sometime in the distant past, Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent was presumably higher in elevation than the Syrian coast so that the great river could flow in an easterly direction, according to all accounts. As the African plate was subducting under the Anatolian plate, the whole of the Garden of Eden (or Atlantis if you prefer) sank, and the shore of Syria rose. At some point in this process, part of the river must have reversed it course and begun to flow back into the Mediterranean. That part of the river still remains today in the same place in Syria and still retains its name of old, the Kabir River or translated: the “Great River.”
¶ The Brick Builders of Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent
It must have been the case that the occupants of Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent were master builders with bricks. In Enki and the World Order, the master brick maker was revealed as Kulla and the master builder was called Mucdama; this text also gives the impression that these people had building methods that are in use today. We also saw that according to the Urantia account, bricks were used in numerous ways, as follows:
Before the disruption of the Adamic regime, a covered brick-conduit disposal system had been constructed which ran beneath the walls and emptied into the river of Eden almost a mile beyond the outer or lesser wall of the Garden. UB 73:5.4
The first task was the building of the brick wall across the neck of the peninsula. This once completed, the real work of landscape beautification and home building could proceed unhindered. UB 73:4.2
At the time of Adam’s arrival, though the Garden was only one-fourth finished, it had thousands of miles of irrigation ditches and more than twelve thousand miles of paved paths and roads. There were a trifle over five thousand brick buildings in the various sectors, and the trees and plants were almost beyond number. UB 73:5.2
The number of bricks required in this account reaches astronomical figures. We are told that the Edenites built houses, roads, sewer conduits, and temples with brick, and even built two 27-mile-long brick walls at the Garden’s entrance (containing the so-called twelve gates of Eden). Other uses of bricks are suggested in Enki and the World Order for the building of waterways, irrigation ditches, and controlling dikes.
The staggering number of bricks that would be required for such an undertaking would require a fairly large industrial area for extracting brick making material, presumably clay, for their manufacture. Consider in this connection the evolution of brick making from the simple mud brick to the kiln-fired brick. Firing the bricks made them water resistant so they could be used for waterways, and this must have been the case in the Urantia version of Eden.
Why, you may ask, do I pursue this issue of brick making in such detail? Because a survey of the area in the IFREMER bathymetric scans to the north-north-east of the central mound reveals an interesting discovery at some distance from the peninsula’s center. Here we see a large area, apparently excavated from the side of a hill, that displays two angular sides at virtual right angles to one another. I believe this gives the appearance of a quarry. (See Figure 21.) This area was far enough removed from what we believe were the residential, ceremonial, and agricultural areas of Eden so as not to interfere with those functions. Unfortunately, the site in Figure 21 was not visited during either of the 2004 and the 2006 expeditions, but should be one of the targets of a third expedition.
¶ Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Imagine hovering over a verdant and spacious peninsula that juts out into the eastern Mediterranean. Looking down, you see thousands of brick homes and miles of roads crisscrossing a spacious plain that is spread out in front of high mountains. Workers are manufacturing bricks, and others are using kiln-fired bricks to build even more roads and homes, while others are caring for animals and vast gardens or engaged in other communal activities. You can also see the central mount, which is studded with circular shrines and encircled by moats. As you peer out over the vast stretches of the plain, you can see its spider web of canals and ditches, including evidence of a largely underground conduit for a sewage system. You also observe a great tree-lined river flowing just behind the central mount. It is feeding several tributaries and canals and is busy with boats and barges that are engaged in commence or recreation as it flows over the horizon to the distant Persian Gulf.
I offer this vision, based on The Urantia Book ’s descriptions and other ancient writings, of Eden, for your inspiration. One can fill in many more details from the Urantia account. But for now, we have very basic but rather exciting archeological work to do in a third expedition.
Perhaps our first step is to consider the idea that the ridges, the visible evidence of the proposed brick conduit system that we have examined, are only a small part of a larger network. In fact, remnants of a system with interconnected conduits may still be in existence throughout Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent. If we continue to follow The Urantia Book ’s account, we could extrapolate the path of the main conduit by drawing a straight line in a northeastly direction. We’ve noted that his would lead to the conduit’s terminus miles away, somewhere near the Kabir River in Syria. If all of this is on the right track, there is an abundance of work to be accomplished in order to find other segments and develop a map of the conduit’s path. Extensive SBP surveys will be required to carry out this part of the research for the new expedition to come.
Another early step is to solve the nagging puzzle as to why the conduit system appears only at the foot of the mound. One explanation might be that the weight and mass of the mound, during the sinking of the land, created an additional dynamic of upward subterranean pressure in its immediate vicinity. As the mound settled deeper into the landscape with great force, presumably there would be a somewhat greater up-thrust around its base. To illustrate this effect, picture pushing your hand down in a pan full of mud with a steady pressure and observing the mud oozing between your fingers.
Remember that by all accounts, this area suffered devastating wars in which the remains of a great civilization were destroyed. Then, by happenstance, it eventually sank into the sea. It is unlikely however that invaders would have taken the time, or made the effort, to tear up a drainage system, or fill in a quarry or remove the earthworks of an enlarged central mound to simply conceal its history. In addition, we can expect that artifacts other than those gross features identified in this paper will also be found that would not have been carried off by the warring parties or destroyed by seismic activity.
Even before the physical evidence described in this essay was analyzed, Sarmast and others had suggested that Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent is the true location of Atlantis as described in Plato’s dialogs in the Critias and the Timaeus. But I have taken the additional step of following up on Sarmast’s undisclosed source, and have suggested that it is also the land that was once the biblical Garden of Eden or the so-called First Garden of Eden revealed in The Urantia Book. Others, such as the controversial Ignatius Donnelly, also suggested it could be both Eden and Atlantis—even without the benefit of knowing about Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent. Writing in his classic 1882 book, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, he states “…the conclusion becomes irresistible that Atlantis and the Garden of Eden were one and the same.”[8] He also stated that Atlantis “is not, as has been long supposed, a fable, but veritable history.” For our purposes here it can suffice to call it “Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent ”—the likely original home of some or all these legends and myths.
Much to his credit, Robert Sarmast did initiate two elaborate expeditions and did an extensive study to justify why Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent is the only logical place for the origins of the Eden-Atlantis story. In both of his editions of The Discovery of Atlantis, he analyses a plethora of ancient writings and contemporary research to show a one-to-one correspondence between what was present in that area long ago with Plato’s account of what was there. As noted, Sarmast identified nearly 50 “clues” offered by Plato about the characteristics of Atlantis and showed that almost all of them can be linked to Cyprus or to the sunken continent that we explored.
While on camera during the expedition in 2006, Sarmast and Lowry, unfortunately, were unable to make the case for the man-made remains of an extraordinary civilization. The analysis in this essay, taken together with the literary work of Sarmast and others, is intended to close that gap by giving a revised and more accurate geophysical study of Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent. It is amazing that humankind’s picture of this civilization shows up in stories that are thousands of years apart and in civilizations that span the globe: Enki and the World Order (over 5,000 years ago), Vishnu Purana, a Sanskrit text (over 4,000 years ago), Moses’ story in the Bible (over 3,400 years ago), Plato’s story of Atlantis as received from Solon (over 2,400 years ago), Manetho of Sebennytos translated Egyptian king’s list (2,250 years ago), Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (120 years ago), and The Urantia Book (63 years ago). Yet, this essay only scratches the surface of the evidence we now have of relatively advanced prehistoric cultures.
Plans for the third expedition include many additional side-scan and SBP surveys. It should also involve probing the area with a coring device to retrieve samples below the silt, and maybe a visit with a specialized submarine. The search for possible ruins on the tabular mound should also be under consideration for an expedition to this place. The plans for a new expedition also could include a submersible remote operating vehicle (ROV) to examine other sites on Malovitskiy’s Sunken Continent with even more sophisticated equipment. So far, this location seems to be the best bet for the Edenic-Atlantean myths of old. Only through future expeditions will this hypothesis about an undiscovered archaeological treasure trove of this mythical land be validated, once and for all.
Commodore Robert Stanley Bates , (USMM), BS, MS Commodore Bates is a 1960 graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy and served the next 22 years as a career officer which included a tour in Vietnam. In 1969, he earned a masters degree in mathematics at the University of Rhode Island. Upon retirement from the Coast Guard in 1982, he sat for his unlimited master’s license and commenced a second career in the U .S. Merchant Marine. He participated in the Cold War as captain on Ocean Surveillance Vessels and captain on a survey ship during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. During the following nine years, he served as captain on board the University of Rhode Island R/V ENDEAVOR and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute R/V OCEANUS for numerous sub-sea projects. Between tours at sea, he served on the adjunct faculty at the University of Connecticut, Avery Point Campus, the United States Coast Guard Academy and the STAR Center in Florida. In 2004, he was the expedition leader to the suspected site of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus. In 2006 he was the consultant to The History Channel for the second expedition. Since 1988 he has authored numerous articles in a variety of periodicals. In 1995, he founded Batek Marine, a maritime consulting firm. In 2011, he published the book: The Authority to Sail: The History of US Maritime Licenses and Documents. For more about his work on the Eden-Atlantis Project, go to: http://edenatlantisproject.org/.
¶ References
- Article obtained from The Fellowship site
¶ Notes
Sutcliffe, Theodora, “When Neanderthals Replaced Us,” Discover (June 2016), 64-66. ↩︎
Hall, John K.; Krašeninnikov, Valerij A.; Hirsch, Francis; Benjamini, Chaim; Flexer, Akiva: Introduction to Part III–Geological Framework of the Levant (Geological Survey Of Israel, 2005). ↩︎
Ya’akov Petrovitch Malovitskiy (1932–2002) is eulogized in Ya’akov Malovitskiy, Scientist and Man (by G. S. Struzhnok) as a remarkable geologist of Russia and the Soviet Union who enriched our knowledge of the inner structure of the planet with expertise in geophysics, oceanography, mineralogy and other scientific disciplines. (Russian Geological Society: Geologists in Russia, 25th Edition, Moscow 2012, pp 340-351) ↩︎
Sarmast, Robert, The Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus (Origin Press 2003, and First Source Publications, 2006). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
It should be note that Sarmast’s request used coordinates centered at 34° 51’ N, 35° 01’ E for the area he wanted to study. ↩︎
The scientific equipment on R/V Argonaut was as follows: The instrumentation consisted of the Edgetech Full Spectrum combined side-scan sonar/sub-bottom profiler (3,000 meter depth rated) with underwater full spectrum chirp processor, wide band dual frequency side-scan (120/410 KHz), wideband sub-bottom profiler (2-16KHz), with an Ultra Short Base Line (USBL) responder to locate the position of the towfish. Processing was initially available with a Coda DA200 Sonar Acquisition System combined with the Edgetech Interface, but was changed to the “Discover” system shortly before sailing. Also available was a DTS6000 deep-water drop camera system which was used in the last hours of the expedition. ↩︎
The statement is made in the program Atlantis–New Revelations, The History Channel documentary in Josh Bernstein’s series: Digging for the Truth (JWM Productions, 2006). ↩︎
Donnelly Ignatius, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1882) p 330. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/index.htm for Public Domain copy. ↩︎