Plato’s tale of Atlantis, told in Timaeus and Critias, has fascinated readers for over two millennia. Yet Plato was not writing in a vacuum. Across the world, from India to Mesopotamia, from Egypt to Tamil traditions, we find stories that sound strangely familiar. These are not “proofs” of Atlantis, but parallels—echoes of catastrophe, paradise, or vanished lands.
Kumari Kandam (Tamil Memory of a Sunken Land)
The Tamil tradition speaks of Kumari Kandam, a lost landmass once ruled by the Pandyan kings. Ancient Tamil texts like Silappatikaram and Kaliththokai describe Sangam academies—gatherings of poets—some of which were said to have been drowned by the sea. Later Puranic texts placed Kumari Kandam in the deep south, now swallowed by the ocean.
It was imagined as a vast territory divided into 49 regions, crossed by mountains with 48 peaks, irrigated by channels from four great rivers. Mining of gems and gold was central. Eventually, the land was said to have been “swallowed by the sea” (Katalkol).
In modern times, revivalists fused this myth with the Victorian hypothesis of Lemuria, a now-abandoned scientific theory about a sunken Indian Ocean continent. Tamil nationalists embraced it as ancestral memory. In my earlier article on Lemuria, I showed how Kumari Kandam became conflated with Lemuria and even Mu, giving the myth a global spin.
Atlantis echo: A golden civilization, irrigated plains, gem mines, destroyed by rising seas.
Kangdez (Iranian Fortress-Paradise)
Iranian epic literature preserves the memory of Kangdez (Fortress of Kang). In the Shāhnāmeh and Bundahishn, Kangdez appears as a miraculous walled city in the Far East. Slides highlight its placement: “at the far eastern ocean, about six months to a year’s voyage from Iran, near the equator, outside China, east of India.”
Descriptions of Kangdez include concentric rings of walls layered with metals and precious stones, plentiful waters, eternal springs, and places of play, silver and gold towers, and a great plain influenced by the sea’s tides with rivers flowing south from volcano-studded mountains.
Atlantis echo: Both traditions emphasize concentric fortifications, gleaming metals, abundance of water, and a paradisal yet precarious geography.
Neserser (Egypt’s Island of Osiris)
In the Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Nu), we encounter Neserser—“the Island of Fire” in the far East, where the sun rises. It is the dwelling place of Osiris (Ausares, Asar) and Thoth. The imagery is vivid: Osiris enthroned in the center of six or seven concentric circles on a sacred lake, a volcanic-like “island and lake of fire” dedicated to Ra, floods that reshape the landscape, and Thoth residing nearby, keeper of divine knowledge.
Later Egyptologists described these circles as “hidden after the flood.”
Atlantis echo: Here again are concentric circles, a sacred island, a great flood, and divine kingship.
Mount Nisir (Mesopotamian Flood Memory)
The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts a great flood, where Utnapishtim builds an ark. After seven days, the boat grounds on Mount Nisir. Slides add color: the land in the Far East was like paradise, with forested mountains, rivers, vast plains, noisy birds, cicadas, and monkeys screaming in the trees.
This imagery is tropical—not the dry Mesopotamian steppe, but a lush, equatorial realm. Some scholars note that “Nisir” is phonetically close to “Neserser” and even “Nusasura.”
Atlantis echo: The flood, the grounding of survivors on a mountain, the paradise-like tropical plain.
The Asuras and the Ahuras
In early Vedic India, the Asuras were not evil—Varuna, guardian of cosmic law and the waters, was chief among them. Later texts, however, cast the Asuras as enemies of the Devas, while Varuna retained dignity as a god of oceans.
In Iranian religion, the cognate term Ahura (as in Ahura Mazda) was elevated as the supreme god, while the Daevas (same root as Devas) became demons.
India (early Vedas): Asuras = powerful lords, led by Varuna
India (later): Asuras = demons
Iran: Ahuras = good, Daevas = bad
Assyria: Ashur = supreme deity
Egypt: Osiris (Asar, Asari) = supreme deity with concentric-circle symbolism
Atlantis echo: The Atlantean kings were “Poseidon’s sons.” Poseidon parallels Varuna/Baruna, lord of seas and boundaries. The name “Atlas” recalls “Asura/Ashur/Osiris.” We glimpse a very old naming web that Solon may have repurposed.
“Atlas” and “Poseidon” as Borrowed Names
Plato openly said he borrowed names “to make the tale intelligible to his audience.” Thus Atlas and Poseidon may be Greek masks for older gods.
Atlas: The mountain-bearing Titan in Greek myth; but also linked to the root “Asura/Asar.”
Poseidon: God of seas and quakes, mirroring Varuna/Baruna/Vouruna—Indo-Iranian lords of waters and oaths.
These echoes suggest that Solon translated Near Eastern deities into Greek equivalents. The concentric rings, sacred kingship, and sea-lord all survive the translation.
The Garden of Eden
Finally, the Garden of Eden—a paradise watered by a river dividing into four: Tigris, Euphrates, Gihon, and Pishon. Genesis places Eden in the East, yet beyond ordinary geography. Some scholars argue Eden reflects older Mesopotamian “Dilmun” traditions—a far-off, pristine land. My 2015 article even suggested Kalimantan as Eden’s real-world counterpart.
Atlantis echo: Eden shares the archetype of a paradise lost—an ordered, fertile place destroyed or closed off after human transgression.
Gosong Gia and Nusantara Echoes
Slides mention Nusasura—possibly the “original name of Atlantis.” It combines nusa (island) and Asura. Old maps show names like Nusasira or Nisaira, perhaps distorted echoes. The Gosong Gia reef in the Java Sea is suggested as a drowned remnant. Even the people of Bawean Island hold myths of a sunken land.
Atlantis echo: If Atlantis lay in the Java Sea, Nusantara traditions like Nusasura may be its local survival in name.
Neserser, Punt, and Southeast Asia: The Egyptian Connection
Plato insists that his Atlantis story came from Egyptian priests at Sais, who told Solon the tale. If so, then the Egyptian worldview—their maps of trade, geography, and sacred memory—shaped what Plato inherited.
The Egyptians had firsthand knowledge of Southeast Asia, preserved in their accounts of the Land of Punt. Punt, described as the Ta Netjer or “land of the gods,” was not a vague myth but a real destination of repeated voyages, from Khufu to Rameses III. The great expedition of Hatshepsut (c. 1493 BCE) is famously carved on her temple walls, showing Egyptian ships sailing to Punt’s harbors.
Products: Gold, camphor (kapur barus), benzoin (kemenyan), cinnamon, ebony, nutmeg, short-horned cows, elephants, and macaques—all endemic to Sumatra and neighboring islands.
Architecture: Puntite houses on stilts match Sumatran and Enggano traditions.
People: Puntites depicted with lighter skin, straight noses, and Malay-style dress, jewelry, and weapons.
Names: Chief Parehu resembles Enggano names (Paraúha, Puríhio). His wife Ati recalls common Indonesian nicknames.
This is not coincidence—it is a cultural fingerprint.
Now let’s place this beside Neserser. The Book of the Dead speaks of Osiris enthroned at the center of six or seven concentric circles, on an island-lake in the far East. The imagery of circles, water, divine enthronement, and flood resonates directly with Plato’s Atlantis.
If the Egyptians already connected their cosmology to the far East—to Sumatra, the “land of origin”—then the parallels between Neserser and Atlantis may not be abstract at all. They may reflect Egypt’s sacred geography projected upon Southeast Asia.
The Thread of Transmission:
Egypt knew Sumatra as Punt—the source of incense, gold, and sacred products.
Neserser represented a circular, island-paradise of Osiris in the East.
Atlantis, as told by priests to Solon, may have drawn on this same Eastern sacred memory.
In this light, Atlantis is not a purely Mediterranean invention. It may encode Egypt’s knowledge of Southeast Asia, filtered through myth, memory, and Plato’s philosophy.
In the Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Nu), we encounter Neserser—“the Island of Fire” in the far East, where the sun rises. It is the dwelling place of Osiris (Ausares, Asar) and Thoth. The imagery is vivid: Osiris enthroned in the center of six or seven concentric circles on a sacred lake, a volcanic-like “island and lake of fire” dedicated to Ra, floods that reshape the landscape, and Thoth residing nearby, keeper of divine knowledge.
Later Egyptologists described these circles as “hidden after the flood.”
Atlantis echo: Here again are concentric circles, a sacred island, a great flood, and divine kingship.
Connecting the Dots: A Discussion
The parallels between Plato’s Atlantis and global myths—from Tamil Kumari Kandam to Mesopotamian Nisir, from Iranian Kangdez to Biblical Eden—show a striking pattern of shared motifs: floods, lost paradises, concentric sacred cities, and divine kingship.
Among these, the Egyptian contribution is the most critical. Plato himself acknowledged that the story came from Egyptian priests. Their sacred geography included Neserser, the concentric island of Osiris in the far East, and their historical voyages reached as far as Punt—identified with Sumatra, the ‘Land of Origin.’
When we combine Neserser’s sacred concentric circles with Punt’s real-world geography and resources, a powerful connection emerges: Egypt not only imagined an eastern paradise, but had knowledge of one. Atlantis may be the philosophical echo of Egypt’s long memory of Southeast Asia.
Thus, the Atlantis story can be seen as a tapestry woven from many threads—myths of lost lands, religious cosmologies, and Egypt’s own encounters with Southeast Asia. Connecting these dots allows us to glimpse Atlantis not as an isolated legend, but as part of a wider human memory of catastrophe, paradise, and rebirth.
Conclusion: When Myths Rhyme Across Oceans
Kumari Kandam, Kangdez, Neserser, Nisir, Asuras, Atlas, Eden—each speaks in its own voice, yet the chorus is familiar. Lost lands, floods, circular cities, divine kings, and paradise destroyed.
Plato may have woven a Greek philosophical tale. But the motifs he used—perhaps borrowed, perhaps remembered—echo far older and wider. Atlantis may not be alone; it may be part of a global pattern of mythic memory of catastrophe and rebirth.
Comparative Snapshot: Parallels at a Glance
A concise table to visualize recurring motifs and where Southeast Asia fits in the Egyptian knowledge frame.
Tradition/Source
Core Setting
Key Motifs
Flood/Collapse
Concentric/Sacred Center
Sea-Lord/Lawgiver
SE Asia Link
Kumari Kandam (Tamil)
Southern drowned land
Golden age, irrigated plains, gem mining, lost coasts
Yes – land swallowed by sea
No explicit circles (ordered realms)
Implied righteous kingship
Indirect (Indian Ocean south)
Kangdez (Iranian)
Fortress in the Far East, near equator
Concentric walls, metals, springs, tidal plain, volcanoes
Implied peril at sea’s edge
Yes – concentric fortifications
Sovereign order (Iranian epic)
Points East; equatorial hints
Neserser (Egypt)
Island-lake in the Far East
Osiris enthroned; 6–7 circles; ‘lake of fire’
Yes – flood imagery; ‘hidden’ after
Yes – canonical concentric circles
Osiris/Ra as sacral law & kingship
Conceptual East (sunrise); bridge to Punt
Mount Nisir (Gilgamesh)
Mountain of grounding
Paradise-like East; forests, birds, monkeys; great flood
Yes – global flood narrative
No (mountain refuge)
Divine warning & survival order
Tropical imagery resonates with SE Asia
Asuras/Ahuras (Indo-Iranian)
Cosmic moral order
Waters, oaths, boundaries (Varuna/Ahura Mazda)
Not central
Symbolic circles (order)
Yes – sea-lord/lawgiver archetype
Cultural substrate across Indo-Iran
Atlas/Poseidon (Greek)
Atlantean kingship; sea-quake god
Names tied to sea power, metals, concentric city
Yes – sudden destruction
Yes – Atlantis capital rings
Poseidon (cf. Varuna/Baruna)
By proxy via Indo-Iran → Egypt
Garden of Eden (Genesis)
Eastern paradise, 4 rivers
Pristine garden, moral test, exile
Yes – loss/expulsion (not flood)
No circles; central river hub
Implied divine law
ANE roots; not specific to SE Asia
Nusasura/Gosong Gia (Java Sea)
Shoal/reef & island lore
Name echoes (nusa + asura); local sunken-land myths
A research by Dhani Irwanto, 2 September 2025, addendum 4 September 2025
Abstract
This article re-examines Plato’s clause πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος ἐμποδών ὄντος, ὃν ἡ νῆσος ἱζομένη παρέσχετο (Timaeus 25d). We retain a conservative rendering: “a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal of mud/clay/silt, which the island provided as it settled.” Classical Greek lacks a fixed idiom for the modern technical term “coral reef,” so the phrase is treated as a context clue that secures the navigational effect but leaves the sustaining mechanism unspecified.
A marine-geological challenge follows from a literal, long-term “mud shoal” reading. Formation: in the absence of a local, continuous source of fine sediment (e.g., a river plume, estuary, or engineered spoil), an offshore shoal of mud/clay/silt lacks the supply and hydrodynamic confinement needed to aggrade upward toward the water surface; wave-orbital shear over a positive relief winnows fines, preventing vertical build-up to crest depth. Persistence: even if a storm or flood briefly raises a muddy mound, on open shelves such features are typically mobile and short-lived—reworked by waves and currents, reshaped by storms, and redistributed by river plumes—and, under post-glacial sea-level rise with slow subsidence (~1 cm/yr), they are not expected to maintain a stable, near-surface crest that reliably stops ships. Language alone (and a purely muddy material term) therefore cannot settle how the obstruction both formed and endured.
We therefore apply a semiotic–philological program that escalates from denotation and language-internal tests to a third-order assembly-and-consilience evaluation. Independent “puzzle pieces”—text/philology, pilotage and placement inside the mouth, geomorphology (planform), bathymetry (depth architecture), and regional ecology (growth potential)—are assembled and tested for mutual fit without ad-hoc rescue.
At Order-2, the language-internal analysis points to a reef-mantled (coral-reef) shoal as the best interpretation of the clause—while the translation itself remains conservative (“a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal of mud/clay/silt”). At Order-3, assembling the independent “puzzle pieces” and testing them by consilience identifies the specific fit with the Gosong Gia coral reef (Java Sea) over the sunken capital-island, yielding the remembered condition of impassability in Solon’s time. The contribution is twofold: a conservative translation coupled with a meaning established first by Order-2 inference and then confirmed by Order-3 consilience within the full reconstruction.
1. Problem Definition — What Does πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος Mean?
Syntactic note. Genitive absolute with a relative clause whose antecedent is the obstructive shoal; the island is the grammatical subject that “provided” it while settling.
1.2 Linguistic gap and ambiguity
Classical Greek lacks a single, fixed idiom corresponding to the modern technical term “coral reef.” The clause names the navigational effect (a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal with muddy character) but does not specify the long-term mechanism that keeps such an obstruction at crest depth.
1.3 Timeline tension in the narrative
The texts distinguish (i) a catastrophic destruction (“in a single grievous day and night,” Timaeus 25c) from (ii) a later state of impassability associated with settling/sinking (Timaeus 25d) and with the worked seascape around the capital-island (Critias 111a–c, 112a). The problem includes determining to which timeframe the persistent shallowness belongs and what processes could have produced that later condition.
1.4 Marine-geological challenge
Formation. On open marine shelves, building a near-surface mud/clay/silt mound requires a proximate, continuous source of fines (e.g., river plume, estuary, dredge spoil) and hydrodynamic confinement. In the absence of such input and trapping, wave-orbital shear over positive relief winnows fines and prevents upward aggradation toward the water surface.
Persistence. Even if storms or floods temporarily raise a muddy mound, unconsolidated fine-sediment shoals are typically mobile and short-lived: they are reworked by waves and currents, reshaped by storms, and redistributed by river plumes. Under post-glacial sea-level rise with slow subsidence (≈ 1 cm/year), gradual vertical drowning would not maintain a perpetual, turbulent, muddy shoal fixed near the surface. Without extraordinary confinement and continuous fine-sediment supply, fines are winnowed and dispersed, making a long-lived, ship-stopping mud crest geologically implausible.
1.5 The concrete problems to resolve
Formation. Without a proximate, continuous source of fines and hydrodynamic confinement, how could a mud/clay/silt mound aggrade upward to approach the water surface in the first place?
Persistence. Under post-glacial sea-level rise with slow subsidence (~1 cm/yr), how could a near-surface crest be maintained for centuries–millennia rather than being winnowed and dispersed?
Material vs. function. Can the clause’s muddy description be reconciled with a durable near-surface obstruction, or does a different material/process better account for the ship-stopping effect?
Temporal placement. How do the catastrophic destruction and the later impassability relate, and which processes govern the later condition?
Geographical fit. Does any proposed mechanism coherently match the capital-island setting and the navigational effect implied by the clause?
2. Methods — How the Phrase is Analyzed
This study combines semiotics (main method), linguistics/semantics, language-structure tests, philology, and archaeology/history under a consilience framework. The goal is to move from sign to meaning without anachronism and to make the claim falsifiable against independent evidence.
2.1 Semiotics (Main Method)
We treat πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος as a sign and test its meaning by ordered steps: Saussure’s dyad (signifier ↔ signified), Peirce’s triad (sign–object–interpretant), and especially Barthes’ orders of signification (the most important layer for this paper). At third order we embed the sign in a full reconstruction—the Puzzle/Anastylosis/Potsherd Models—and test whether it locks with independent evidence without ad-hoc fixes⁴.
Order 1 — Denotation: parse the clause in context; ask whether the literal sense uniquely determines the referent.
Order 2 — Connotation: apply language-internal contrasts (syntagmatic, paradigmatic, commutation) and pragmatics; if still indeterminate, escalate.
Order 3 — Reconstruction & consilience: assemble the sign with other puzzle pieces (capital-island inside the mouth3, Gosong Gia, regional reef ecology, bathymetry); accept provisionally only if the pieces cohere without contradiction.
2.2 Linguistics (Semantics & Context Clues)
Semantics provides tools to infer meaning from usage and co-text. A context clue is a piece of information provided by an author within a text to help readers understand the meaning of an unfamiliar or difficult word/phrase. In this study, the phrase πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος itself functions as that context clue—transmitted from the Egyptian priest to Solon, Critias, and Plato—guiding readers toward the kind of near-surface obstruction encountered at the capital-island inside the mouth³.
2.3 Applications to Language
We apply four language-structure checks: Syntagmatic — how elements combine inside the clause (e.g., intensifier κάρτα + qualitative genitive βραχέος narrows the hazard to extreme shallowness). Paradigmatic — the contrast set Plato did not choose (e.g., ὕφαλος ‘reef’, βράχεα ‘shallows’). Commutation test — substitute those terms and assess whether the discourse function changes (does the clause cease to match the narrative constraints?). Pragmatics — speaker intention and audience effect in a nautical description: to warn that a formerly accessible capital-island became unreachable from the sea after being mantled by reef.
2.4 Philology (Text, Variants, Syntax)
Close reading establishes the grammatical scaffold: a genitive absolute; adverbial ἐμποδών; qualitative genitive κάρτα βραχέος; relative pronoun with the shoal as antecedent; ἡ νῆσος as subject; participle ἱζομένη (“settling”); and παρέσχετο (“produced/furnished”). We also distinguish the adverbial expression κατὰ βραχύ (“briefly”) from the phrase under study; the former is unrelated.
2.5 Archaeology/History (Consilience Framework)
We require independent lines to converge without ad-hoc rescue. Five evidence classes are used: textual-philological, navigation/toponymy, geomorphology, bathymetry, and regional ecology.
These methods define the escalation rule used in §3: if Orders 1 – 2 fail to identify a specific referent without anachronism, we escalate to Order 3 where the phrase is assembled with other puzzle pieces and tested by consilience.
3. Problem‑solving Workflow — Orders of Signification
We resolve the meaning of the sign by passing it through three ordered levels. If lower levels fail to identify a specific referent without anachronism, the phrase is escalated and then tested inside the full third-order reconstruction of the capital-island.
Conservative parsing and sense. At the denotative level, πηλοῦ is taken in its ordinary material sense—“mud, clay, or silt.” The intensifier κάρτα (“very”) with βραχέος (“shallow”) marks extreme shallowness; ἐμποδών indicates a navigational impediment (“in the way”); the relative clause ties the obstruction to the island’s settling (ἱζομένη). A cautious Order-1 gloss is therefore: “a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal of mud/clay/silt, which the island provided as it settled.” Order-1 thus fixes the effect (a hazardous shoal) and the proximate linkage (to settling), while remaining agnostic about the long-term mechanism that maintained the hazard.
Formation problem at Order-1 (marine-geological setting). The wording depicts what the feature behaved like, but not how such a muddy shoal could form up toward the surface in the first place where no local, continuous fine-sediment input (river plume/estuary/spoil) and no hydrodynamic confinement are evident. Over positive relief, wave-orbital shear winnows fines, inhibiting upward aggradation to crest depth (see §6.2).
Why Order-1 is insufficient on persistence. Even if storms or floods temporarily raise a muddy mound, unconsolidated mud/clay/silt shoals on open shelves are typically mobile and short-lived: they are reworked by waves and currents, reshaped by storms, and redistributed by river plumes. Over century-to-millennium timescales—especially under post-glacial sea-level rise—such fine-sediment shoals do not typically hold a fixed, near-surface crest that reliably stops ships (see §6.2).
Phase-2 slow-subsidence context (cf. §6.4). In the later scenario discussed in §6.4, the landmass is envisaged as sinking slowly under post-glacial sea-level rise, on the order of ~1 cm/year in generic terms. Such gradual vertical drowning would not create or maintain a perpetual, turbulent, muddy shoal at crest depth: the increasing water column and persistent orbital shear at the top of a shoal would winnow and disperse fines unless extraordinary confinement and continuous supply were present.
Interim conclusion at Order-1. Order-1 yields a conservative translation and a clear functional profile (“very shallow, ship-stopping shoal”), but—given the general marine-geological dynamics (formation and persistence; §6.2) and the Phase-2 slow-subsidence context (§6.4)—it does not by itself identify the enduring mechanism that kept the crest near the surface. This motivates escalation to Order-2 (language-internal tests) and, if still indeterminate, to Order-3 (assembly & consilience), without redefining πηλοῦ.
Philological note on the relative clause. The wording ὃν ἡ νῆσος ἱζομένη παρέσχετο encodes processual causation: as the island was settling, it “furnished” the obstruction. The Greek thereby links the hazard to submergence, but leaves the mechanism/material underspecified (no term for “growth” or “reef” is used, and no depth is given).
3.2 Order 2 — Connotation & Language-Internal Tests
Aim. Without importing external geology, Order-2 asks what the Greek itself allows or excludes when we probe usage, composition, contrasts, and speaker intent.
(a) Syntagmatic composition (how the clause is built). The intensifier κάρτα (“very”) with βραχέος (“shallow”) maximizes thinness; ἐμποδών specifies navigational interference; the genitive-absolute with ἱζομένη (“settling”) ties the impediment to an ongoing process associated with the island. Read together, the syntax profiles a very shallow, ship-stopping feature whose appearance is linked to settling, not a mere descriptive aside.
(b) Paradigmatic contrast (what Plato did not say). If a rock- or reef-type hazard were the intended denotative label, Greek offered other lexical resources (e.g., terms for rocks/ledges, or “under-sea/reef-like” hazards) and also familiar shore/bar words (sandbanks, marsh, etc.). Instead, the text uses πηλοῦ—the ordinary word for mud/clay/silt—plus a strong shallow/impeding profile. This choice underscores the effect (dangerous thinness that stops ships) and a muddy quality, while not elevating any technical seafaring noun to name the mechanism.
(c) Commutation test (controlled substitutions). If we substitute the material noun in thought experiments: swap πηλοῦ for “sand” → the picture shifts toward a sandbar/beach bar; swap for “rock/ledge/reef” → it becomes a rocky sill/reef; swap for “marsh/weed” → it evokes a vegetated shoal. These substitutions change the mechanism each time. Plato’s actual choice—πηλοῦ—colors the hazard as muddy while keeping the core function (impediment) intact; it does not by itself decide how a near-surface obstruction formed or persisted over time.
(d) Pragmatics (who is speaking to whom, and to what end). Within the narrative, a non-technical report passes through cultural and temporal filters (Egyptian priest → Solon → Critias → Plato). The phrasing works as a context clue: it helps a general audience imagine a ship-stopping shallowness caused as the island “settled,” without presuming a specialist taxonomy. The subject (“the island”) in the relative clause further frames the process as natural rather than engineered.
Because Classical Greek lacked a fixed idiom for ‘coral reef,’ the clause can be heard through a familiar craft schema—mud that ends up ‘hardened’ into a ship-stopping obstacle—while the translation of πηλοῦ remains conservative; ‘reef’ is the Order-2 interpretation subsequently tested at Order-3.
Interim result at Order-2. Language-internal tests indicate that the clause functions as a context clue to a persistent, near-surface, accreting shoal; among live mechanisms, a reef-mantled (coral-reef) shoal best fits the wording and contrasts without redefining πηλοῦ in translation. Thus, Order-2 yields the working interpretation “coral reef.” Order-3 then tests this interpretation by consilience within the full reconstruction.
3.3 Escalation Rule
Why escalate. Orders 1 – 2 establish a stable functional profile—a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal linked to settling—but they remain agnostic about the long-term mechanism that could keep the crest near the surface.
What stays fixed; what is decided at Order-3.
Fixed (translation policy): retain the Order-1 gloss — “a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal of mud/clay/silt, which the island provided as it settled.” (πηλοῦ remains “mud/clay/silt”).
To be decided (Order-3): how such a shoal could persist at near-surface crest depth through time (mechanism + time-behavior) — specifically by assembling the independent “puzzle pieces” in a Puzzle Model⁴ and then testing that assembly by consilience (see §3.4), against the general marine-geologic background (§6.2) and the Phase-2 slow-subsidence context (~1 cm/yr) (§6.4), without redefining πηλοῦ.
Hand-off to §3.4. Section 3.4 now performs that puzzle assembly → consilience test, using the independent constraints to evaluate which mechanism best accounts for a persistently near-surface, ship-stopping shoal, while the conservative translation from Order-1 remains intact.
3.4 Order 3 — Assembly & Consilience
At this level the clause is integrated as a puzzle piece within the whole third-order model: (i) tropical constraint at ~11,600 BP; (ii) global narrowing to Sundaland; (iii) Sundaland envelope with the ancient Java Sea and the eastern “mouths” (e.g., Kangean Mouth); (iv) sea level ~–60 m at ~11,600 BP; (v) the South-Kalimantan level plain and canals; (vi) placement of the capital-island inside the mouth; (vii) Gosong Gia as a reef-mantled high; (viii) city form and multibeam/bathymetry benchmarks (see Figures 3 – 9). The pilotage sequence (outer sea → mouth → inner sea → local canal → ringed salt-water basins, with the last three on the capital-island) is one component inside this whole. The test is consilience: do these independent lines lock together without contradiction?
3.5 Application in This Study
πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος advances to Order 3 because Orders 1 – 2 remain indeterminate. In assembly it behaves like a reef-mantled, near-surface shoal over the sunken capital-island, making the city’s ruins impassable from the sea while satisfying the constraints summarized in Figures 3 – 9.
Figure 2. Reef-mantled obstruction over the sunken capital-island (schematic cross-section).
4) Assembly at Third Order — Puzzle Pieces & Consilience Tests
At the third order, the phrase is treated as a puzzle piece and tested within the whole reconstruction of the capital-island. The independent pieces below must lock together without ad-hoc rescue; where they do, the reading is provisionally supported.
4.1 Tropical Constraint (~11,600 BP)
Global vegetation at ~11,600 BP places the target in the tropical belt. Non‑tropical settings fail the primary biogeographic screen for extensive carbonate factories. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. Global vegetation at ~11,600 BP; tropical belt highlighted. Source: author’s compilation after standard palaeovegetation maps.
4.2 Global Narrowing to Sundaland
Intersecting Plato’s areal claim, the presence of neighboring islands and an opposite continent, and biocultural markers (e.g., coconut, elephant, rice) converges on Southeast Asia/Sundaland. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. World map at ~11,600 BP with converging markers; Sundaland emphasized. Source: author’s reconstruction.
4.3 Sundaland Envelope: Enclosed Sea, Eastern “Mouths,” Mountains, and Sea Level (~–60 m)
The ancient Java Sea forms an enclosed sea bounded by continent-scale land, with clustered eastern mouths (e.g., Kangean Mouth) providing access from the oceanic side. A volcanic-arc mountain chain lines the oceanic margin. Relative sea level near ~–60 m at ~11,600 BP frames shelf exposure and subsequent drowning. See Figure 5.
Figure 5. Sundaland and the ancient Java Sea: enclosed sea, eastern mouths, mountain arc; shoreline ~–60 m. Source: author’s reconstruction.
4.4 Level plain & canals (South Kalimantan); placement of the capital‑island
South Kalimantan presents a square-oblong level plain (≈ 555 × 370 km) open to the sea at the south and sheltered at the north, with major, transverse, and irrigation canals. The capital-island is placed on an island inside the mouth, located at the south side of the plain, consistent with the pilotage sequence (outer sea → mouth → inner sea → local canal → ringed salt-water basins)3. See Figure 6.
Figure 6. South Kalimantan level plain & canals; placement of the capital‑island inside the mouth. Figure 7. Coral-reef distribution in the Java Sea (from Irwanto 2015).12
4.5 City Form on the Capital‑island (Ringed Salt‑water Basins)
The capital-island exhibits concentric rings of water and land, bridges/underpasses, and a palace/temple on a small hill near the center—a functional harboring system matching Plato’s narrative constraints for access and defense. See Figure 8.
Figure 8. Conceptual rendering of the ringed capital-island: water/land rings, bridges, and central sanctuary. Source: author’s reconstruction.
4.6 Benchmarks at Gosong Gia (Reef‑mantled High)
Multibeam/bathymetric evidence at Gosong Gia shows a central knoll and an annular trough at ~55 – 60 m, matching (1) late-glacial stillstands ~11,600 BP, (2) the ringed-city geometry and (3) a small hill near the center as benchmarks to assemble other puzzle pieces. The pattern is consistent with a reef-mantled high whose carbonate production maintained near-surface obstruction. See Figure 9.
Figure 9. City plan vs. Gosong Gia bathymetry: central knoll, annular trough ~55 – 60 m and three benchmarks. Source: author’s comparison.
4.7 Fit Statement & Decision Rule
Fit statement (assembly result). The Order-3 assembly yields a single coherent object: the coral-reef–mantled shoal at Gosong Gia (Java Sea), located inside the mouth and over the sunken capital-island on the south side of the plain. This object reproduces the clause’s navigational effect (“very shallow… in the way”) as a persistent, near-surface hazard.
Consilience (constraint-by-constraint).
Locational/pilotage: aligns with the sequence outer sea → mouth → inner sea → local canal → ringed basins, at the approach to the capital-island.
Navigational: functions as a ship-stopping near-surface shoal across time, matching the remembered impassability.
Geomorphology: exhibits an annular reef planform with a central knoll, consistent with the capital-island geometry.
Bathymetry: shows ~60 m vertical relief from seabed to near-surface crest—adequate to present a crest-depth hazard without ad-hoc assumptions.
Ecology/growth: warm, sunlit conditions compatible with Holocene reef accretion (mm–cm/yr) capable of keeping pace with sea-level rise.
4.8 Counter‑explanations Tested
We evaluated non-reef mechanisms against the assembled pieces (formation, persistence, planform, bathymetry, ecology) and recorded the negative tests as follows:
H₀ — Persistent terrigenous silt/mud shoal (no reef mantle). Formation: lacks a proximate, continuous fine-sediment source and confinement to aggrade ~60 m toward the surface. Persistence: unconsolidated fines are winnowed and redistributed under waves/currents and cannot maintain a fixed, very-shallow crest through slow subsidence (~1 cm/yr). Status: Fails (formation & persistence).
H₁ — Sand bar/tidal-delta mound. Planform: expected elongate/migratory bars, not a stable annulus with central knoll. Depth behavior: shore-attached/migratory features do not produce the observed ~60 m relief to a near-surface crest offshore. Status: Fails (planform & bathymetry).
H₂ — Rocky sill/hardground without reef accretion. Time behavior: without vertical biogenic accretion, a rock high does not keep a crest at near-surface depth through Holocene rise. Ecology/texture: lacks the expected carbonate framework that explains both crest maintenance and surface roughness. Status: Fails (persistence & ecology).
H₃ — Anthropic obstruction (ruins or engineered bar). Scale: architectural debris cannot plausibly yield a regional annular bathymetry with ~60 m relief. Durability: does not explain the long-term near-surface crest without invoking ad-hoc confinement/supply. Status: Fails (scale & persistence).
H₄ — Transient flood/tsunami silting. Temporal mismatch: event deposits are episodic and remobilized, not a persistent ship-stopping shoal across centuries–millennia. Status: Fails (persistence).
Result. Each non-reef alternative contradicts ≥ 2 core classes (formation/persistence, planform, bathymetry, ecology) and/or relies on ad-hoc rescue (hidden confinement/continuous supply). The reef-mantled high at Gosong Gia remains the only mechanism that forms, keeps pace with sea-level rise, and matches the annular planform and near-surface crest—therefore it is provisionally supported pending direct material/chronometric checks.
5. Predictions & Measurement
This section turns the third-order assembly into falsifiable predictions and a measurement plan. Each evidence class yields concrete signals.
5.1 Testable Predictions by Evidence Class
Philology/Textual function: The clause behaves as a context clue for an unfamiliar phenomenon, not a taxonomic label; it remains compatible with a persistent, near-surface obstruction over the sunken capital-island.
Navigation/Toponymy: Modern mariners report a ship-stopping hazard at the site; historical charts/tags associate the feature with a shoal/reef that fits the pilotage sequence (outer sea → mouth → inner sea → local canal → ringed basins).
Geomorphology (planform): Annular or sub-annular planform with a small central knoll and surrounding trough, consistent with a reef-mantled high. Spatial coherence (crest → back-reef → lagoon/annulus) should be detectable. (see Figure 10)
Bathymetry/Seabed imaging: Multibeam resolves a central knoll and an annular trough around ~55 – 60 m, plus textural contrasts between crest/back-reef/fore-reef. Side-scan reveals framestone/patch texture on the crest and smoother lagoonal infill inside.
Ecology/Carbonate factory: Presence of coral/coralline-algal framestone and carbonate sands in the photic zone; reef assemblages appropriate to shallow, warm, relatively calm waters of the Java Sea.
Stratigraphy/Material indicators: Back-reef and flat cores show Holocene carbonate overlying an older surface; at select points, anthropogenic material (e.g., mortar/worked stone) may occur below or within basal units if the city was reef-mantled after submergence.
Chronology: U/Th ages on corals indicate mid- to late-Holocene accretion on the crest/back-reef; OSL on lagoonal/back-reef sands constrains infill phases; any anthropogenic material dates older than overlying reef carbonates.
Geochemistry/Petrography: SEM/EDS and thin-section confirm carbonate textures (framestone/bindstone) versus terrigenous silt; mortars (if present) exhibit diagnostic binders/additives distinct from natural cements.
5.2 Measurement Plan (Minimum Dataset)
Phase 1 — Non-intrusive mapping: 0.5 – 1 m multibeam bathymetry; side-scan; magnetometer; ROV visual transects across crest, back-reef/lagoon, and fore-reef. Deliverables: high-resolution DEM, mosaics, and anomaly catalog.
Phase 2 — Targeted coring & sampling: 2 – 3 short cores spanning crest → back-reef/lagoon, with U/Th on corals and OSL on sands; grab samples for SEM/EDS and thin-section petrography. If safe and permitted, probe for anthropogenic layers beneath framestone at selected points.
Phase 3 — Limited ground-truthing: confirm key contacts (reef over older surface), document any anthropic indicators in situ, and recover small diagnostic specimens. Coordinate with heritage/environmental authorities and maintain open data where feasible.
5.3 Quality Control & Ethics
Adopt pre-registration of criteria and sampling sites; independent replication of key measurements (bathymetry grids, U/Th labs); chain-of-custody for specimens; and coordination with cultural-heritage and environmental authorities to minimize impact.
5.4 Interpretation guardrails
Avoid anachronistic naming; privilege function (“ship-stopping shallow”) over modern taxonomic labels in the translation itself; reserve “coral-reef shoal” for the third-order discussion.
6. Discussion
Plato, Timaeus 25d — clause (with relative clause) as cited in this study:
Literal rendering used herein: “when very shallow mud/clay/silt became an impediment, which the island provided as it settled.”
6.1 Philology vs. Geological Plausibility (Timaeus 25d)
At Order‑1 the philology is conservative: πηλοῦ = “mud/clay”; κάρτα = “very”; βραχέος = “shallow”; ἐμποδών = “standing in the way.” The clause therefore denotes a very shallow, ship‑stopping shoal (Timaeus 25d). The present model does not replace that denotation with “reef.” Instead, the phrase is treated as a context clue whose literal wording describes the navigational effect while leaving genesis under‑determined at Orders 1 – 2; Order‑3 assembly then tests whether a persistent hazard at the capital‑island is better explained by reef mantling under slow subsidence than by a permanent mud bank.
6.2 Background: What is the Holocene transgression?
The Holocene transgression is the long, global rise of sea level following the last Ice Age. As continental ice sheets melted, sea level climbed by over a hundred meters from ~20,000 years ago into recent millennia. The rise was non-linear—generally faster in the early Holocene and slower later—and it progressively drowned lowlands into shallow seas on broad continental shelves.
The final near-surface configuration implies ~55–60 m of relief to the seabed; in open-shelf settings, such relief cannot be achieved or maintained by mud/clay/silt without extraordinary, continuous input and confinement, whereas a biogenic reef framework can accrete upward and keep the crest in the photic zone as sea level rises.
Figure 11. Holocene transgression (after NASA, 2012). Red lines show global sea level at Atlantis glory ~11,600 years ago.
Why this matters here?
Muddy shoals: formation & persistence. In the absence of a local, continuous supply of fine sediment (e.g., river plume/estuary/spoil) and hydrodynamic confinement, an offshore mound of mud/clay/silt will not aggrade upward toward the surface; wave-orbital shear over positive relief winnows fines. Even if storms momentarily build a mound, such shoals on open shelves are typically mobile and short-lived—reworked by waves and currents, reshaped by storms, and redistributed by river plumes. Under ongoing sea-level rise, a fixed, very-shallow muddy crest that reliably stops ships is geologically implausible. Moreover, the final near-surface configuration implies vertical relief on the order of tens of meters (≈ 60 m) from the seabed; generating and maintaining a muddy mound of that thickness offshore is not credible without intensive, sustained sediment supply and confinement—conditions not implied by the text.
Reef response to rising seas. By contrast, coral-reef frameworks can keep pace with rising sea level where water is warm, clear, sunlit, and the slope provides hard substrate. Vertical accretion on the order of mm–cm per year can maintain a near-surface reef-mantled high as sea level climbs—precisely the kind of persistent, ship-stopping hazard implied by the clause.
The text distinguishes the catastrophic past from the later, observed seascape. Timaeus 25c recalls the sudden destruction: “μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ καὶ νυκτὶ χαλεπῇ” — “in a single grievous day and night,” following “σεισμῶν τε καὶ κατακλυσμῶν” — “earthquakes and floods.” By contrast, Timaeus 25d frames the lasting impediment to navigation with the clause quoted above, a condition understood to obtain in Solon’s time. See Dual Timeline Alignment in Plato’s Narrative.
In Critias 111a–c, the capital‑island’s ringed basins and engineered waterways are described in detail (rings of sea and land with bridges and a canal to the open sea), consistent with a harboring system that could later be rendered impassable by a near‑surface shoal.
6.4 A Two‑Phase Model of Cataclysm (Timaeus 25c; Critias 112a)
Phase 1 — Instant devastation: the city is destroyed “μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ καὶ νυκτὶ χαλεπῇ” (Timaeus 25c).
Phase 2 — Slow subsidence/drowning: over the Holocene transgression, the island “settles/sinks,” yielding a shallow, difficult sea (cf. Timaeus 25d); Critias 112a emphasizes the later, worked seascape and infrastructure, which, in our reading, could be overgrown/obstructed by a reef‑mantled high.
Taken together, these clarifications suggest a cautious, evidence‑led stance rather than prescriptive rules. Retaining the conservative gloss—“a very shallow, ship‑stopping shoal” (Timaeus 25d)—keeps faith with the Greek wording while leaving the clause’s genesis open at Orders 1 – 2. Once the phrase is placed at Order‑3, the long‑term setting of the Java Sea under Holocene sea‑level rise makes a reef‑mantled high a parsimonious candidate for the persistent hazard over the sunken capital‑island; by contrast, a fixed mud shoal is harder to sustain over millennial timescales.
Within this frame, the consilience approach is not meant to dictate outcomes so much as to weigh fit—which explanation better matches the observed planform (annulus + central knoll), the characteristic depths (~55 – 60 m), and the constraints of reef ecology without ad‑hoc rescue. Should new measurements revise one or more evidence classes, the reading can shift accordingly. In short, the translation may remain conservative while the interpretation proceeds in a staged, testable way.
6.6 Legendization in Transmission: From Priest to Plato
Scope. Between the Egyptian temple account and Plato’s dialogues, the narrative passed through Sonchis → Solon → Critias → Plato, across generations of oral circulation. Such a path invites legendization—adaptive retellings that localize, simplify, and metaphorize material for new audiences.
Relevance to the clause. Classical Greek lacks a fixed idiom for the modern term “coral reef.” In a legendizing environment, a narrator can preserve the effect (“very shallow… in the way”) while substituting a familiar material term—πηλός (mud/clay/silt)—to keep the scene intelligible. Thus πηλοῦκάρταβραχέοςἐμποδών functions as an audience-oriented context clue: it names the navigational hazard without specifying a biogenic mechanism the language did not lexicalize.
Implications for this study.
Order-2 (language-internal): The clause’s syntagmatic build (κάρτα + βραχέος + ἐμποδών with a settling island) and paradigmatic contrasts (what it is not called) favor the interpretation of a reef-mantled, near-surface shoal, without redefining πηλοῦ in translation.
Order-3 (consilience): That Order-2 reading is then tested by assembling independent puzzle pieces (pilotage, planform, bathymetry, ecology, stratigraphy), which converge on the Gosong Gia coral reef over the sunken capital-island.
Guardrails. Legendization does not license free substitution. The study retains the conservative translation (“very shallow, ship-stopping shoal of mud/clay/silt”) and treats “reef” as the interpreted mechanism: first inferred at Order-2, then validated (or not) by Order-3 consilience.
Takeaway. Recognizing a likely legendization effect explains why a mud-colored phrase can describe what the reconstruction shows to be a reef-mantled near-surface shoal—the same ship-stopping reality, expressed in terms available to the transmitters and their audience.
6.7 Craft Imagery and Natural “Hardening”
Possibility. Given Greek craft vocabulary and Plato’s broader use of craft metaphors (Timaeus), it is plausible that Solon/Plato understood the emergence of a fixed, ship-stopping shoal through an everyday craft schema: mud → hardened obstacle. In pottery and masonry, πηλός (mud/clay/silt) is molded (πλάσσω/πλάττω), then fired/strengthened (πυρόω), becoming hard (σκληρός), much as a once-soft material ends up a rigid impediment. Without a technical idiom for “coral reef,” a narrator might naturally use mud-colored phrasing to convey the result—a hard, near-surface obstruction—via a familiar process template.
Application to the clause. The wording πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος ἐμποδών secures the effect (very shallow, “in the way”) and the link to a process (the island “settling,” ἱζομένη), while leaving the mechanism unnamed. Heard through a craft schema, “mud” can function metonymically for seabed stuff that ends up hard enough to stop ships—not that the shoal is literally fired clay, but that it behaves like something that has hardened.
Guardrails. This is an interpretive metaphor, not a change in translation. We continue to render πηλοῦ conservatively as “mud/clay/silt,” and identify coral-reef framework + marine cementation as the likely mechanism only at the interpretive level (Order-2), then test that reading by consilience in Order-3. The analogy helps explain why a mud-colored phrase could describe what the reconstruction shows to be a reef-mantled, near-surface shoal—the same navigational reality, expressed with the conceptual tools available to the transmitters and their audience.
7. Conclusion
This study addressed the meaning of the clause πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος ἐμποδὼν ὄντος, ὃν ἡ νῆσος ἱζομένη παρέσχετο by applying a three-level workflow: denotation (Order 1), language-internal connotation tests (Order 2), and third-order assembly and consilience (Order 3). Orders 1 – 2 established a ship-stopping shallow but did not uniquely identify its genesis; Order 3 required integrating the phrase as a puzzle piece within the independently constrained reconstruction of the capital-island (Figures 3 – 9).
The assembled evidence converges on a conservative but specific reading: the clause denotes a persistent, very-shallow obstruction maintained by carbonate production—a reef-mantled, near-surface shoal over the sunken capital-island, which rendered the city’s ruins impassable from the sea. This reading satisfies the locational (pilotage sequence), navigational, geomorphic, bathymetric (~55 – 60 m annular pattern), and ecological constraints without ad-hoc rescue.
Because Classical Greek lacks a single fixed idiom equivalent to the modern technical term “coral reef,” Plato’s phrasing is best understood as a context clue for an unfamiliar phenomenon rather than as a taxonomic label. The translation therefore remains conservative—“a very shallow, ship-stopping shoal”—with an interpretive note at third order that this is most plausibly a coral-reef shoal (reef-mantled high) at Gosong Gia coral reef in the Java Sea.
Alternative explanations (e.g., a purely terrigenous silt bar) underperform on persistence, planform, and depth-distribution: they do not reproduce the annular bathymetry and carbonate ecology observed in the Java Sea nor the pilotage sequence terminating on the capital-island. Where competing models require auxiliary assumptions to evade these mismatches, the present reading achieves fit without such adjustments.
In 2017, I visited an island in the middle of the Java Sea, namely the Bawean Island, to deliver a presentation about the island’s connection with Atlantis. I spent a few days there, wandering around the tiny island to observe and talk to every resident I met. There is an interesting thing that I got when talking with them. Some people told a legend about the existence of a mysterious island located on the north of the island, in the middle of the Java Sea, which is now drowned. They also told about the frequent occurrence of fishing boats or vessels that ran aground or lost when sailing near the mysterious island.
After returning from the island, I thought about opening up the old maps composed by geographers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After I observed, many maps show the existence of an island located in the northeast of the Bawean Island, with various names such as Nusasua, Nisasira, Nusasira and Nisaira (see attached maps). Then I interpreted the names into Nusasura in the Austronesian language group. Is Nusasura the Island of Atlantis?
In a research published in 2015, I undertook a hypothesis of the island of Atlantis, where there is the capital city of the kingdom of Atlantis, that is located on the northeast of the Bawean Island. The island is now drowned and overgrown by a coral reef named Gosong Gia or Annie Florence Reef. This coral reef was mapped in detail using multi-beam echosounder some time ago. From the pattern of the coral reef, the structure of the city and its dimensions narrated by Plato can still be seen. The location of the coral reef is more or less the same as the Nusasura shown on the above maps. Please note that the authors of the maps were informed by European sailors who sailed in the Java Sea. The sailors obtained the information about the islands in the Java Sea from the local residents or sailors, who probably also told of the mysterious island and then it was described by the European sailors.
Furthermore, I also observed the ancient records contained in Egypt. From here I obtained a word that sounds like Nusasura, Neserser. In the mythology of the Ancient Egyptians, the island and the lake of Neserser, “the island and the lake of flames” (in the volcanic region) where Osiris and Thoth came from, is often mentioned in their myths. As described in the Papyrus of Nu (in the Book of Dead), the myth tells that Osiris has his throne on the island of Neserser in the center of six or seven concentric circles with a gate at each and they are all in the “lake” of Neserser. The concentric circles were built for Ra by the dwellers of the lake. Thoth had his lands around the lake and he visited Osiris on the island. There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser and somehow these circles of Ra became hidden.
As written in many tomb texts from the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Periods in the Ancient Egypt, in the concepts of the divinities and the deceased, the Neserser island is a heaven-like place, a place where judgement is passed and the deceased is reborn equipped with a status (god or common being). The Hetep-fields is a kind of paradise under the supervision of the god Hetep with whom the deceased identifies himself, and where he leads the happy life reserved for the privileged. In the concept, Osiris, Horus and Thoth were given the status of gods or ancestral divinities.
The description of Neserser is resemblant to the story of Atlantis.
Six or seven concentric circles were built for Ra on the island of Neserser, conforming to the Atlantis’ four circles of lands (including the central land) and three circles of water, built by the god Poseidon.
Either Osiris or Atlas have their thrones on the central lands.
The lake of Neserser is conforming to the almost closed sea around the Atlantis capital island. Plato describes the sea as a water with a mouth to the outer sea, thus arbitrarily can be called a lake. As described above, I made a hypothesis in 2015 that the sea is the ancient Java Sea where it had only one outlet.
There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser which devastated the island of Neserser, and then it was hidden. This is also in conformity with the descriptions about the destruction of Atlantis.
Again, a sound-like word of Nusasura, Nisir, is also found on the Mesopotamian clay tablets, the name of a sea where Gilgamesh sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim that has been given eternal life. In 2016, I made a hypothesis that the Epic of Gilgamesh fit the conditions in Indonesia, from the descriptions such as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees.
Nusasura could have come from the words “nusa” and “asura”, meaning the island of the Asuras. Asuras (also known as Suras and Asuryas) in the dharmic mythology are a class of divine beings or power-seeking deities. Asuras are described as powerful superhuman demigods with good or bad qualities. The good Asuras are called Adityas and are led by Baruna, while the malevolent ones are called Danavas and are led by Vritra. In later Vedic and post-Vedic texts, the benevolent gods are called Devas, while malevolent Asuras compete against these Devas and are considered “enemy of the gods”. In the above Atlantis hypothesis, I made an analogy of the god Baruna with Poseidon, the founder of Atlantis.
The term Asura is linguistically related to the Ahuras of Indo-Iranian people and pre-Zoroastrianism era. In both religions, Ahura, Vouruna and Daeva of pre-Zoroastrianism (Asura, Baruna and Deva of Dharmism) are found, but their roles are on opposite sides. That is, Ahura evolves to represent the good in pre-Zoroastrianism, while Asura evolves to represent the bad in Vedic religion, while Daeva evolves to represent the bad in pre-Zoroastrianism, while Deva evolves to represent the good in Vedic religion. This contrasting roles have led some scholars to deduce that there may have been wars in proto-Indo-European communities, and their gods and demons evolved to reflect their differences. In the Atlantis context, there was a war between Atlantis and “the Athens” (a borrowed name). The Asuras/Ahuras could be analogous to the Atlantean while the Devas/Daevas were “the Athenian”.
Please notice also the linguistic resemblance between Asura and Osiris in the above ancient records of Egypt. Osiris or Atlas have their thrones on the central lands. Note that Osiris was originally the god of water and vegetation. Therefore we can speculate that Asura, Osiris and Atlas are the same person. The name Atlantis was derived from Atlas, Neserser from Osiris and therefore Nusasura from Asura.
Phonetically, Asura is similar to Ashur, the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon, god of military prowess and empire, and namesake of the Assyrian Empire. Some scholars have claimed that Ashur was represented as the winged sun that appears frequently in Assyrian iconography. One variation contain a winged disc with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle. The Zoroastrian’s Ahura also have similar representation. From the characters he owns, that are powerful, mighty and has the symbol of solar disc, Ashur could be the association of Asura in the Mesopotamian culture. The circles inside the disc have similar configuration with the land-and-water circles of Atlantis.
Sundaland Research Program 