An Adventure

History presents us with evidence of many now lost cities and civilisations, many of which were thought to be legendary but have now been discovered such as Nineveh with its marvellous library, Ur, foremost city of the Chaldees, Troy with its multiple layers of city upon city and the treasure of Priam’s gold, Knossos, capital of a maritime empire and whose palace displayed frescoes of fashionable women in costumes that would not be out of place in modern Paris. Two other cities of equal or even greater fame still await discovery. Atlantis, the city whose walls and palaces were plated in sheets of gold, silver and gold alloy and which Plato tells us sank into the sea in a single day of earthquakes and rain. Tarshish, the city from which came the great treasure fleet every three years bringing gold and silver which King Solomon used to plate the walls of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Modern technology allows us to forecast precisely the location of the former of these two lost cities since Plato tells that it lay in the centre of a great continent opposite the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar); it lay midway along its longest side, the site was high above the level of the sea and took the form of a rectangular plain enclosed by mountains which contained the metals gold, silver, copper and tin. The plain itself was perfectly level and a vast irrigation canal 600ft wide was said to run around its perimeter, the plain was criss-crossed by smaller canals which also served for transportation purposes. The city sank into the sea in a time of earthquakes and floods caused by a single day of torrential rain.

Satellite mapping shows that this description applies perfectly well to the rectangular -shaped level Altiplano next to Lake Poopo, Bolivia so we may safely say that it was not the continent of Atlantis which sank into the sea as Plato himself thought, but only the island city of Atlantis which sank beneath the inland sea of Lake Poopo. Indeed although we know the whole continent by the European name of South America, this is not the true, pre-Columbian name of the country. It was formerly called by the Inca ‘Land of the Four Quarters’, one quarter of their empire being called ‘Antisuyo’, home of the Antis indians all along the eastern slopes of the Andes. In the native tongue, ‘Atl’ means ‘water’ and ‘Antis’ means ‘copper’ - Antis being, according to Prescott, the correct name for the mis-pronounced ‘Andes’ mountains.

The Altiplano is a site which contains many volcanic islands of a similar size to the one on which the city of Atlantis was founded and is still subject to earthquakes and floods such as those which Plato said brought an end to the city. The unique and precious metals such as gold, silver, copper and tin can all be obtained from mines which exist nearby in the mountains bordering Lake Poopo.

Knowing the location of the lost city of Atlantis give an insight into the location of the second previously mentioned city, Tarshish. Ezekiel tells us that in the days of King Solomon "once in every three years came the navy of Tharshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks". It is usually but forward that Tharshish existed somewhere near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River near Cadiz, Spain. But a fleet from here would not take three years to reach King Solomon, neither would a fleet from Spain be likely to include ivory and certainly improbable that it would contain peacocks for these magnificent birds originated in Ceylon.

It should be noted that the Temple of King Solomon was designed and built for him by the Phoenician King Hiram of Tyre who provided mariners - the men from Gebel- a port on the gulf of Aqaba and it was here that the metals were landed and the ornaments for the Temple cast in clay moulds in the ground. The temple was also similar to the temple of Poseidon in Atlantis since it was similarly hung in sheets of gold - according to Kings 10/22 in the days of Solomon, because of the imports, gold "was so plentiful as to be accounted as nothing". But where were King Solomon’s mines?

The imported metals also included lead and tin. Tin was a sought after metal since it could be alloyed with copper to produce bronze, gradually superseded by iron, also on the list of imported metals. But tin is an unusual metal in that it occurs in very few places in the world, small deposits in Cornwall and NW Spain, main deposits in Malaysia and most of all in Bolivia where there still exists a mountain of solid tin. And along with tin, is usually found silver.

One of the Greek histories tells us that the city of Tharshish lay on an island in the delta of a river. When the river reached its mouth it divided into two and between the arms thus formed there was an island on which was established the city. The river was said to carry in its stream gold, bronze, silver and tin and if one followed the river upstream to its source, one came to a mountain of solid silver.

Such a mountain does not exist in the region of the Guadalquivir River, Spain and no ancient city has been found at the mouth of this river. But from the delta of the Rio Parana, Argentina, where it discharges into the Rio de la Plata which means ‘river of silver’, if one follows this river upstream one comes to a mountain on the edge of Lake Poopo, Bolivia. This is Mt Potosi, the mountain of solid silver which was exploited by the Spanish conquistadors and became a fountain of wealth for the Spanish Empire. The silver was at first shipped along the River Pilcamayo which was formerly called "the river of silver" but because of Spanish tax laws the silver was ordered to be shipped to Spain via Lima and Panama in order to develop these two cities; the original route became forgotten but the name remained in the Rio de la Plata where the river discharges near Buenos Aires. The city of Tharshish itself probably existed on one of the islands at the delta of this river, since a transportation fleet would have been needed for the overseas shipment of metals. When contact was lost with the great continent, the city itself became lost in the shifting sands of the estuary but the site was remembered as a place where silver was so plentiful that even the ships anchors were cast in silver.

“I am rich Potosí, the treasure of the world and the envy of kings.”

Who surveyed the world in antiquity? When the Phoenicians sailed westwards to found the new capital and centre of their great maritime and commercial empire, they chose a site at Tunis, North Africa. This site is exactly 180° West of the continental land mass commencing at East Cape, Siberia, placing their capital in the geographic centre of the world’s land masses, no small achievement and impossible to dismiss as a coincidence. But then did the Phoenicians inherit the maritime wisdom of Atlantis via the mysterious Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt in the time of Ramesses III, gaining thus the sea routes which enabled Hiram of Tyre to provide Solomon with the metals to plate the Temple.

In the gold museum at La Paz, Bolivia, statues with inlaid gold tears are said to be weeping for the lost city of Atlantis. A few km to the north of La Paz, and some 20km from Lake Titicaca lies the mysterious city of Tiahuanaco, the oldest known city in the Americas and at one time a sea port on the edge of Lake Titicaca (known locally as Titicaca Sea and which has now receded.) On Lake Titicaca exists the islands of the Sun and the Moon, said to be the birthplace of the god Viracocha who emerged from these islands after the flood and created the people who repopulated the country. The islands are also the legendary birthplace of the Incas who founded an empire stretching thousands of miles across the Andes. The Inca were people of Quecha origin, children of the sun whereas the other great Altiplano race, the Aymara, were children of the moon. And the moon may have been the ancient timepiece used for the calculation of longitude, the Inca themselves using a sidereal lunar calendar based on a period of 20 Inca years when all the lunar phases repeated themselves.

In the year 1540, a vast expedition of 350 Spaniards and 4,000 indians under the leadership of Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Franciso Pizarro set out from Quito, Ecuador to explore the interior of South America. Reaching the waters of the River Napo, Gonzalo ordered the construction of a brigantine and being short of supplies, sent a body of 50 men under Francisco de Orellana ahead to secure provisions. The current swiftly carried the boat off down river never to rejoin the main group which after an absence of two years of extreme hardship found its way back to Quito. Orellana’s voyage became known as the Great Descent - the first to navigate the length of the Amazon and it was Orellana who gave it its name, Rio de las Amazonas - River of the Amazons, on account of the fierce fighting women they encountered along its banks. Orellano on his return to Spain via Cuba also brought with him tales of the golden city of El Dorado thought to lie in the interior.

The route to the sea via the Amazon is one option which may have existed since ancient times and is a route which has certainly been retraced in modern times. A lesser known route is the route from the Altiplano via the rivers Pilcamayo and the Parana to the estuary at Rio de la Plata and thence by sea under the Cape of Good Hope following the tradewinds and up the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba.

The adventure begins at the island of the Sun, traditional birthplace of the Inca and the original Inca landing place and stone stairway still exists today. Using traditional reed boats from Lake Titicaca, the expedition sets out to navigate the waters of the River Desaguadero, 150 miles south to Lake UruUru and thence to Lake Poopo. The water levels were formerly much higher than today facilitating the use of numerous now abandoned irrigation canals which exist all over the region of Lake Titicaca/Poopo. The name of Lake UruUru should not go unnoticed since the Urus were the original lakeside dwellers of the Altiplano and Ur was also the ancient capital of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia, in the Sumerian language, ‘Urutu’ meaning ‘river of copper’ - the first people of Mesopotamia also dwelt amongst the marshes and used reed boats similar to those of Titicaca.

Along the route of the Desaguadero River lie many ancient archaeological sites, gold and copper mines and in the museum at Oruro exists a Mediterranean style amphora which dates from around 1200BC - suggesting a trans-Atlantic contact. On arrival at Lake Poopo, the expedition continues to the volcanic island of Pampa Aullagas, the site of ancient Atlantis which exists at the southern end of the lake about three miles from the lakes edge - but when the lake floods, it becomes an island. At other times the lake dries up altogether, so these days the route is no longer as feasible by boat as it was in the days of the Urus who lived along the edges of the lakes and waterways and on floating islands on the lakes themselves. Pampa Aullagas exists in the correct location for the missing city of Atlantis and shows how the city was built on the edge of the level plain and next to the sea, as Plato said, "50 stades from the sea."

From Pampa Aullagas, it is but a short distance to the upper waters of the Pilcomayo River, here called "Rio de Aquas Calientes" (River of hot waters) and the route now proceeds down the course of the Pilcomayo River, past the Silver Mountain and down to the town of Villamontes which is where the heights of the Andes are left behind and the River Pilcomayo formerly took its course down to the island of Tarshish at the entrance to the river opposite Asuncion.

The Pilcamayo River, the original ‘River of Silver" was the route to the Altiplano and carried in its stream the gold, silver, copper and bronze for which the city of Tarshish was famous. From Asuncion, the river is broad and navigable by large vessels and one can proceed by ship or by land as far as Buenos Aires in the delta of the Parana River.

At Buenos Aires one has reached the sea, the Atlantic Ocean and from here the route taken by the first ancient reed ships was probably via the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, giving access to the first settlements on the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and via the Gulf of Aqaba through the historic Valley of Jordan to the state of Israel, thus symbolising the voyage of the fleets of Tarshish which brought peacocks, ivories and precious metals to the court of King Solomon every three years according to the bible account.

Today the Pilcomayo is dried up and no longer navigable but the route from Puerto Suarez in Bolivia on the rio Parana to Buenos Aires and also the river route along the rio Grande via the Amazon to the Atlantic have both been followed in reed boats by Col John Blashford Snell in his Kota Mama expeditions

I should mention that although many people seem to have the idea that the canals on the Altiplano were connected with the sea, they were in reality connected with the inland sea, extending from Lake Titicaca in the north, to Lake Poopo in the south,a considerable distance and thus, the boats which brought merchandise from abroad could equally well be considered to be bringing merchadise from within the vast continent itself.

The river routes which led off the high altiplano to the lower levels were routes that could be followed in the days before modern roads with porters transporting merchandise and canoes, as can be seen in the sixteenth century illustration below.

above, location of Potosi and the mines of tin, gold and orichalcum around Lake Poopo
and the site of Atlantis at Pampa Aullagas.

above, river routes from the south-east side of the Altiplano.

Jim Allen, author:
Atlantis: the Andes Solution
The Atlantis Trail
Atlantis: Lost Kingdom of the Andes
webatlantis@hotmail.com

atlantisbolivia.org