Atlantis 1159 BC Tsunami Evidence Reported from Spain

It is good to see other scientistsjumping onto the idea that Atlantis was situated in the delta of the Guadalquivir River(Seville) in Spainand was eliminated by the tsunami triggered by the 1159 BC eruption of Hekla inIceland.  This scientist reports on both the deltaicmaterial and the existence of a related series of cities to the north.

The only difficulty I have withthis report is the omission of the name of the German scientist (Rainer Kuhne)who published the first article three years ago.  It is all a bit too much self promotional.

It does not matter.  The point is that the idea is gainingsupporters and we will see many others jump on it as they start digging up BronzeAge sites in Spain.  It will also mean that every delta site in Western Europe will need to be investigated as well asprospects on the North American seaboard.

The tsunami not only wiped outsea side communities who profited most from the Bronze Trade but also buried alot of their remains at the same time. Thus deltaic subsidence could easily have locked up artifacts.

Lost city of Atlantis,swamped by tsunami, may be found

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/lost-city-atlantis-swamped-tsunami-may-found-20110312-083617-132.html

By Zach Howard | Reuters – Sat, 12 Mar, 201111:36 AM EST

NORTHAMPTON, Mass (Reuters) - A U.S.-led research team may have finallylocated the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believedswamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.

"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher RichardFreund told Reuters.

"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 milesinland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, aUniversity of Hartford, Connecticut, professor who lead an international teamsearching for the true site of Atlantis.

To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of asuspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain.There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe thatthey pinpointed the ancient, multi-ringed dominion known as Atlantis.

The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used acombination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology tosurvey the site.

Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of"memorial cities," built in Atlantis' image by its refugees after thecity's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof andconfidence, he said.

Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland andbuilt new cities there, he added.

The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in "FindingAtlantis," a new National Geographic Channel special.

While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the"twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confidentAtlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain's southern coast.

"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which givesit a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot moresense," Freund said.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,600 years ago,describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are byyou called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity.Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focusedon the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the bestpossible sites for the city.

Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says.One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November, 1755.

Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands ofyears. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only knownhistorical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the islandhe called Atlantis "in a single day and night... disappeared into thedepths of the sea."

Experts plan further excavations are planned at the site where theybelieve Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in centralSpain150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to dateartifacts.

Has a University of Hartford Professor Found the Lost City of Atlantis?

Dr. Richard Freund to be featured in a National Geographic Channelfilm; public invited to preview on Wednesday.

By SusanSchoenberger   March 8, 2011

http://avon.patch.com/articles/has-a-university-of-hartford-professor-found-the-lost-city-of-atlantis-2

Spend a little time with Dr. Richard Freund of the Universityof Hartford, and you might be convinced that the lost city of Atlantis is buried deep within a swamp in southern Spain.

Freund, who directs the university's Greenberg Center for JudaicStudies, worked with a team of Spanish, American and Canadian scientists toexamine a muddy swamp in Spain that was first noted as a possible location forAtlantis by a German scientist looking at satellite photos in 2003.

Freund's 2009 expedition and his team's findings are outlined in thenew National Geographic Channel film called "Finding Atlantis," whichhas its premiere on March 13 at 9 p.m. In advance of the premiere, the Greenberg Center will host a screening of the filmat 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 9, at the university's Wilde Auditorium, and thepublic is invited.

Google Earth as a tool of archeology

So how did Freund, who is known for his excavations into historic sitesin the Middle East as outlined in his book"Digging Through the Bible," get involved in trying to find the famedlost city?

It began in 2003 with the report from the German scientist, who sawwhat looked like a circular structure with a straight line attached to it in asatellite photo that included the Parque National Coto de Donana, a vast swampyarea south of Seville.

 "Google Earth is one of the great archaeological toolstoday," Freund said of the satellite image. Pointing to the circularimpression, he said: "That doesn't happen naturally."

Over the next few years, others conjectured that the structures visibleon the satellite images were similar to the island of three concentric circleswith only one entrance in and out described by Plato in his accounts ofAtlantis, written in about 360 B.C. Plato also placed Atlantis near the"Pillars of Hercules," known today at the Strait of Gibraltar, whichconnects the Atlantic Oceon to the Mediterranean Sea.

Through the swamp is now more than 100 miles from the Mediterranean,Freund postulated that the area once could have been situated on an open baythat was silted in by a tsunami or another natural disaster.

"I've become an expert in places that have become silted in,"Freund said.

Scientists were challenged, though, in doing any excavation inside theswampy national park. The ground was covered in water for 11 months of theyear, and even in August and September, the water table was very high, Freundsaid.

'An MRI for the ground'

Since 1995, Freund has been using a technology more commonly used inoil and gas exploration to examine sites before excavation.

"We map the subsurface," he said. "It's like an MRI forthe ground."

Freund and his team brought their equipment to the site during thearea's driest months, August and September, in 2009.

"By shooting electricity into the ground, we're able todistinguish between different types of material," he said."This typeof technology can map the entire subsurface instead of digging. ... It's a formof non-invasive archaeology."

What the team found in its subsurface mapping was a pattern at regularintervals — also something that doesn't occur naturally. It made sense toFreund, based on Plato's account, that the whole city could have been buried bya cataclysmic event and covered over in mud.

The National Geographic film also examines other sites around the worldthat claim to be the remnants of Atlantis, including one in Greece. But Freund believes thatAtlantis would have to be near the Straits of Gibraltarbecause of Plato's meticulous description.

"This quacks like a duck and looks like a duck," he said,adding that National Geographic told him "you've got the bestevidence."

In addition to the advanced scientific mapping and carbon dating oncores of material that confirmed human activity at the site about 4400 yearsago, colleagues on Freund's team found two figurines on the first and seconddays of their trip that are "Astartes," or images of a widely knownPhoenician goddess.

"What if Atlantis was located in Spainand the origin of civilization didn't happen in the Middle East but happened inSpain?"Freund said he asked himself. "I think that the Atlanteans are the parentsof the Phoenicians."

Following the stones

Freund also theorized that if Atlantis was destroyed rapidly, anysurvivors would have paid tribute by building smaller scale versions of it, asother several other early civilizations had done with their holy sites.

He took a trip with a Spanish scientist to view ancient sitessurrounded by several concentric moats and eventually traveled to a museum thatcontained many examples of "standing stones" with a symbol that lookssimilar to Plato's drawings of Atlantis.

"There are more than 100 of them, and they come from all differentplaces in the area," Freund said.

The similarity of the stones convinced Freund that the survivingAtlanteans had built tributes to their destroyed city throughout Spain.

"In crime, you follow the money," he said. "Inarchaeology, you follow the stones."

So what's next for Freund? A trip this summer to a "very largeartificial mound on the coast of Israel" that could be theoldest Phoenician port ever found.

Freund also has a new book coming out called "Digging ThroughHistory: From Atlantis to the Holocaust."