Sicilian Atlantis or Telepylos?

EMODnet screenshot of bathymetry near Sicily on the Malta Plateau.
Transects of bathymetry in and around geologic features on the Malta escarpment that transition from the plateau to the abyssal plain in the east.

Revealed on Twitter last week was the discovery of a “lost city” just 40 km off the coast of Sicily! This article is why that idea is sunk. So to speak.

When I first decided to write this, I expected to show a few screenshots of Twitter posts and comments about a crazy Atlantis claim. But the more I read about under sea mapping methods and the caveats that go with them, the more I realized that there are a lot of these “anomaly hunters” out there looking at Google Earth and various GIS datasets. And this could serve as a reference point on how to look at undersea “city” claims.

Going by the Twitter handle, @TheImmortician, Andre Chaisson has identified a set of “anomalies” using bathymetric data from GEBCO and EMODnet. He says he’s on the hunt for Atlantis but has come across a “submarine city” much larger than Atlantis.

blue monochrome bathymetry on featured in a twitter post about an alleged underwater city
Twitter post by TheImmortician claiming
to have located an “ancient coastal city.”

Instead of Atlantis, he’s calling this the mythical city of Telepylos, from Homer’s Odyssey. That city of the Laestrygonians, a race of cannibals and giants who lived in a rocky stronghold in the far north.

Why not Atlantis?

Well, according to Chaisson, it’s too big. Therefore it must be Telepylos. Chaisson claims he’s located a city “surrounded by a deep canal, 3 stadia wide in most places, enclosing an inner city are of 80 square kilometers–nearly twice the size of Atlantis.”

He goes on to say, “while Homer never detailed the city’s [Telepylos] interior layout, its dimensions, aligning perfectly with whole-number units, make its anthropogenic origin undeniable.” He’s also duly impressed that the site aligns “perfectly with the cardinal directions.”

In Homer’s Odyssey, only 45 of Odysseus’ men escape in a single boat of what was a 12-ship fleet until they encountered the Laestrygonians. This is because most of the ships were moored in the harbor and easy targets from stone-wielding giants, some of whom waded into the harbor and speared their sailors.

Yes, TheImmortician of Twitter, accepts a fictional story written almost 3000 years ago as an eyewitness account. Wait until he hears about the time Bruce Wayne traveled from Gotham City to Hogwarts where he learned the ways of the Force!

But Why Telepylos?

He doesn’t say. At least not on Twitter (that I saw). He does, however, “publish” an essay on Academia, where all the good (and bad) pseudoarchaeologists go to publish their works. There he writes, [Homer’s] “vivid depiction [of Telepylos] includes towering cliffs, a narrow harbor entrance, and dramatic landscapes, suggesting a location of strategic maritime importance.”

He also remarks both on Twitter and his essay that the precise adherence to the “stade” as a unit of measure is also evidence. Which version of the stade, you ask? One is left to assume his version. Chaisson writes on Twitter:

Twitter Screenshot
Twitter comment from 12/13/2024

In his essay he writes:

Most compellingly, the dimensions align perfectly with the ancient Greek unit of measurement, the stadia (176.4 meters), which was widely used in antiquity. This alignment not only suggests human origin but also potentially links the site to ancient Mediterranean civilizations that employed this unit. The consistent use of the stadia across the site further supports the notion that these structures were intentionally constructed, adhering to a standardized system of measurement. This alignment would be improbable if the features were purely natural formations

Andre Chaisson, https://www.academia.edu/125868234/Telepylos_Gateway_to_a_Lost_World

To his assertion above, I’d answer “yes” and “no.”

Yes, the consistency in alignment and measurements suggest human origin.
No, they don’t link to either the “stade” or ancient Mediterranean civilizations.

There are some problems with Chaisson’s claims. Most are pretty obvious but here are the ones I think stand out. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person to think so.

The Stadion

He’s right that the stadion or stade was widely used as a unit of length in antiquity. The problem is, there are many definitions of what constitutes a stadion depending on region and period of time.

It was Lev Vasilevich Firsov that established an empirical version of the stadion based on 81 distances provided by ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes and Strabo, geographer in Asia Minor. Firsov used known measurements from these two historical figures, averaged the results, and arrived at 157.7 meters.

There are a handful of known versions of the stadion used in antiquity, but Firsov’s averages of the Eratosthenes/Strabo stadion seems the more reliable. The table below lists some of the versions of the stade used in antiquity, which depend on the the various versions of the Greek foot (pode) in modern millimeters.

Stadion TypeModern LengthDerived fromCitation
Itinerary 157 metersEratosthenesEngels 1985
Firsov 1972
Hoyle 1962
Olympic176 meters600 podes x 294 mmEngels 1985
Attic (Hoyle’s “Olympic”)185 meters 600 podes x 308.3 mmHoyle 1962
Engels 1985
Wesenberg 1975
Lehmann-Haupt 1929
Ionic / Egyptian / Phoenician 209 meters 600 podes x 349 mmHoyle 1962
Wesenberg 1975
Lehmann-Haupt 1929
Babylonian / Persian / Doric196 meters 600 podes x 327 mmWesenberg 1975
Lehmann-Haupt 1929

Chaisson appears to use the Olympic stade as described by Engels (1985) rather than the description Hoyle uses, which is really the Attic stade. I’m assuming that Chaisson read somewhere that the Olympic stade was used in Southern Italy and that might be the reason for his reliance on it for this location underwater.

But why not use the Doric stade, which was used in Sicily and Greece as well as Persia? Or the Itinerary stade, which is consistent with the Stade of Eratosthenes when averaged?

Whatever version used, distance measurement had a flaw in that there was no empirical standard. And this created problems when one considered the curvature of the earth and, perhaps more importantly, the indirect nature of travel in antiquity. Shorelines have curves, bends, and jagged edges. Interior journeys had topography like mountains, hills, and bodies of water.

The Burden of Proof

Chaisson used QGIS to load multiple bathymetric data from GEBCO and EMODnet that was georeferenced to a basemap. Then I’m sure he used a measurement tool to measure distance. All well and good. I double checked and got pretty much the same measurements, give or take 50 meters here and there. His claim is that this consistency to a stade means this must have been an ancient human site and that it also means it cannot be digital or data processing artifacts.

Twitter screenshot
-Chaisson via Twitter, 12/13/24

But is that how the burden of proof really works? Not at all.

When you look at his measurements that show the “stade” of 176 meters, his start/end points are really pretty arbitrary. He could have taken the initial measurement from the outside of the so-called “canal” but he chose the inside. He could have taken measurements from several “points” that are really just moving the bullseye to fit the bullet-hole, as it were. This is known as the sharpshooter fallacy. There’s a lot of focus on points that work for his hypothesis, but no mention of features or potential measurements that do not.

Chaisson’s “stadia” annotations with Micallef et al’s study area and interpolation
artifacts circled in yellow.

But if you examine Chaisson’s bathymetry closely, you see that the rectilinear feature set is also roughly the length of the combined research area for Micallef, et al (2014), as they studied the mass movement dynamics of the Malta-Sicily Escarpment, which is adjacent to Chaisson’s “Telepylos.”

As one might imagine, this is already a research location so there is an inordinate amount of geophysical data like bathymetric lidar, side scan sonar, sub-bottom profiling, and magnetic resonance. And probably some I didn’t mention. I’m pretty sure Micallef et al also used gravity core sampling which is a really cool method of combining geophysics and geochemistry with physically retrieved core samples.

Interpolation and Data Processing Artifacts

The rectilinear feature set that Chaisson is calling an “ancient coastal city” is no accident. It’s a combination of varied resolution data sets that are giving the false impression of undersea geologic or man-made features. Transects of various data collection methods, with varied results and resolutions are potentially being overlaid. And there are definite signs of interpolation in the results. Note the areas I circled in yellow (above), which show identical patterns.

In side-scan sonar, data are interpolated when filling in “Not a Number” (NaN) values. These values happen because of missing or invalid data readings. Interpolation is also used to fill gaps in multibeam or Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data. This is the way seamless shaded relief maps of the ocean floor are created. Sometimes second or even third datasets are allowed to show through a layer mask when the data are available.

But when you start merging different surveys into a single dataset or data output, the results can sometimes get messy and artifacts can be more noticeable than the topography. Typically, the resolution of multibeam data and smoothing techniques are used to remove artifacts.

I could go into a lot of detail on various data collection methods and the types of artifacts. But I suspect there are a palimpsest of them on this section of the seafloor due to the interest in the Malta-Sicily Escarpment and the tectonic activity that seems to create large movements of sediment there.

The Actual Sea Level

Chaisson argues that the Mediterranean sea level at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum was held over through the Younger Dryas period and on to 8600 BCE when it was finally inundated by the rising Mediterranean Sea. This is contrary to what is actually supported by probably a few dozen lines of evidence that say otherwise. Chaisson doesn’t really say why he revises it though his occasional reference to Atlantis suggests that he needs the rise in sea levels to be more recent to fit some notion about this fictional city.

Graphic of a 3 map sequence showing sea level in the Mediterranean 20 kya to 12.9 kya.
Image from Foglini et al (2015). I added the red dot indicator for the site to show the
change in sea level from 20 ka to 14.4 ka to finally 12.9 ka.

Or maybe he sees 20,000 years ago as to early a date for Odysseus to be traipsing around the Med with a fleet of ships. Because the Neolithic period of Greece is more reasonable than the Paleolithic? At any rate, the red dot in each frame of the graphic above shows the region of his “Telepylos” at various periods of time. Among the lines of evidence that support the current understanding of sea level chronology in the Mediterranean Sea are:

  • Dated marine terraces and shorelines.
  • Coral reef formations and ledges with shellfish remains that are dated.
  • Sediment cores that include pollen, seed, and phytolith samples that are dated.
  • Incised valleys from rivers prior to inundation.
  • Glacial moraines — that accumulation of sediment left behind from melting glaciers.
  • Paleoclimate records from cave deposits

Not the First to Notice

Multicolor Bathymetry of the Malta Plateau at the edge of the Sicilian Escarpment looking north.
Screenshot of Bathymetry originally obtained from EMODnet found on Luigi Usai’s webpage.

There’s actually another person, Luigi Usai, that found this set of data processing artifacts. He put it on the internet by at least 2022. I’m guessing the data sets underlying the EMODnet bathymetry isn’t much older.

Conclusion

While it’s frustrating to see so much imagination and fantasy go into creating a narrative about a lost city–one that was a fictional city to begin with, I keep reminding myself this is coming from a person that has a true interest in ancient history and perhaps archaeology. As cool as a “lost city” might be, the methods of under sea mapping and the way the technology is being used to find genuine undersea settlements and habitation zones is way cooler.

Sure, these aren’t cities of “giant cannibals” or people of lost high-technology or whatever else some people are hoping to find. I’ve been a bit dismissive of much of Chaisson’s work. Though I know some who would say “not harsh enough.” I think he genuinely wants to understand the past, which is good. But I also think he has some pre-conceived ideas about what the past is and, like many, he’s more interested in those data that are supportive of these ideas. His essay on Academia shows it. For all the words he typed–more than I have here–he only includes three references: Micallef et al (2014), Chow (1959), and Homer (~700 BCE).

I genuinely think those who believe in Atlantis and Lost Civilizations have an honest interest in the human past. Maybe we just need to show them that the human past can be a cool story even if these ideas turn out to be fantasy.

References and Further Reading

Engels, Donald (1985). The Length of Eratosthenes’ Stade. American Journal of Philology, 106(3), 298–311.

Foglini, Federica, et al (2015). Late Quaternary Coastal Landscape Morphology and Evolution of the Maltese Islands (Mediterranean Sea) Reconstructed from High-Resolution Seafloor Data. In, J. Harff, G. Bailey, and F. Luth (Eds), Geology and Archaeology: Submerged Landscapes of the Continental Shelf. Geological Society, London.

Firsov, Lev Vasilevich (1972). “Eratosthenes’ Calculation of the Earth’s Circumference and the Length of the Hellenistic Stade,” Journal of Ancient History, 121, 154-75.

Gulbekian, Edward (1987). The Origin and Value of the Stadion Unit used by Eratosthenes in the Third Century BC. Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 37(4), 359–363.

Lehmann-Haupt, C. F. (1929). “Stadion.” In, Friedrich von Pauly (Ed.), Paulys Real-Encyclopadie der calssischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart.

Micallef, Aaron, et al (2014)The Malta-Sicily Escarpment: Mass Movement Dynamics in a Sediment Undersupplied Margin. In, Sebastian Krastel, et al (Ed), Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences. Springer, New York.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2024). Standard Ocean Mapping Protocol (Final). Federal Register.

Patterson, Tom (2014). Mountains Unseen: Developing a Relief Map of the Hawaiian Seafloor. Cartographic Perspectives, 76(76), 5-18.

Wesenberg, Burkhardt (1975). “Zum metrologischen Relief in Oxford.” Marburger-Winckelmann-Programm, 16.

Yang, Fanlin, et al (2007). A Post-Processing Method for the Removal of Refraction Artifacts in Multibeam Bathymetry Data. Marine Geodesy, 30(3), 235-247.

Special Notes

I usually attempt to use public domain and creative commons images, though I do occasionally use images within the terms of fair use for educational purposes. If you find an image that belongs to you and object to my using it, contact me and I’ll make the necessary adjustment(s). I occasionally use affiliate links, particularly in reviews. These links are marked “no_follow” and “sponsored.”

About Carl Feagans 409 Articles
Professional archaeologist that currently works for the United States Forest Service at the Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennessee. I'm also a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army and spent another 10 years doing adventure programming with at-risk teens before earning my master's degree at the University of Texas at Arlington.

4 Comments

  1. Subject: Cordial but Firm Request for Correction Regarding the Submerged City off the Coast of Sicily

    Dear Mr. Carl Feagans,

    I am writing to you as Dr. Luigi Usai to express my disappointment regarding your recent article published on https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2024/12/sicilian-atlantis-or-telepylos/ , concerning the submerged city off the coast of Sicily.

    As someone currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Journalism here in Cagliari, Italy, I fully understand the dynamics of your profession and recognize that errors can occasionally occur in the process of research and publication. However, in the case of your article, I believe a significant oversight has caused considerable damage to my reputation as a researcher and scholar, especially considering my extensive academic background and dedication to this field.

    As you are well aware, a fundamental principle of journalism is accuracy and the verification of sources. Unfortunately, your article does not acknowledge my work in discovering and documenting the submerged city off the coast of Sicily, which dates back to December 2021. Instead, the discovery is attributed to another individual who subsequently presented material potentially of lesser quality compared to the detailed images I initially published.

    I understand that misunderstandings or a lack of complete information may have occurred. However, this omission and misattribution negatively impact my scientific reputation and the credibility of my research.

    Therefore, I am writing to you cordially but firmly to request a public correction of your article. It is crucial to me that my prior discovery is acknowledged, with my name and the timeframe of my initial publications being clearly stated.

    My discovery has even been published everywhere on the Internet.

    For your reference and to facilitate the necessary correction, I would like to provide you with the scientific sources that clearly establish my priority in this discovery:

    Source 1: Mysterious submerged artifacts on the Hyblean carbonate platform, west of Sicily-Malta Escarpment found by Luigi Usai
    By luigiusai
    Dec 29, 2021

    Source 2: Atene del 9600 a.C.? – piattaforma continentale carbonatica iblea Sicilia-Malta (Athens of 9600 BC? – Hyblean carbonate continental platform Sicily-Malta)
    By luigiusai
    Jan 13, 2022

    Source 3: Sicily Malta Plateau Platform and Sicily Malta Escarpment
    By luigiusai
    Jul 1, 2024

    Source 4: Harvard Dataverse

    Source 5: Mendeley repository: Official discovery of the legendary island of Atlantis
    Published: 2 October 2024
    Contributor: Luigi Usai

    Source 6: Atlantipedia website, well-known among Atlantis researchers worldwide:

    Source 7: By searching on Google for the terms “Sicily Malta Platform” and “Sicily Malta Escarpment,” separately or together, and clicking on images, for over four years now, images from my websites dealing with the scientific discovery of bathymetric anomalies on the seabed of the Sicily Malta platform have been presented.

    Source 8: Teoria della Riva Würmiana

    Source 9: I published songs about this particular discovery:

    Source 10: Widespread Awareness and Formal Notifications in Italy: For the past four years, my findings have garnered significant attention within Italy, with hundreds of thousands of individuals having already viewed the images and information I have published online. Furthermore, to ensure official awareness and proper documentation, I sent formal registered emails (PEC – Posta Elettronica Certificata) approximately four years ago to the Soprintendenza del Mare (Superintendency of the Sea), the Italian Government, and numerous Italian Archaeological Superintendencies, officially reporting my discoveries at that time.

    I would also be grateful if you could inform me about the procedure that your website follows for correcting articles online, so that I can track the update and ensure the correction is clear and visible to your readership.

    I am confident that a respected professional like yourself will recognize the importance of accurate information and will take the necessary steps to rectify this unintentional inaccuracy.

    Thank you for your time and understanding. I look forward to your kind response.

    Sincerely,

    Dr. Luigi Usai
    (Master’s Student in Journalism, University of Cagliari)

    • Luigi,

      I see nothing that needs correction. I never stated that Chaison was the first to “discover” anything. In fact, I’m stating very clearly that he (and by extension you) are both victims of apophenia and a misunderstanding of how signal-to-noise works in unattenuated geophysical data.

      In addition, I very clearly pointed out that you misunderstood the data first. See the section in my article under the subheading “Not the First to Notice.”

      Regardless, thanks so much for stopping by my blog even though you didn’t actually read the article!

      -Carl

    • Hey Luigi, before you accuse other people of misinformation you should look at yourself. This site (Malta Escarpment) was first discovered and scrutinized by renowned Maltese Geologist named Aaron Micallef, whose work you’re plagiarizing. He worked on the site twice, starting in 2013 and then again I think around 2017. In 2017 i studied the site myself and even reported it, officially, to the Maltese Authorities for possible human activity. It was determined that nothing of archaeological context was found. There is no city or anything major at that area as the geologist would have found it. Even if there was something there are people before you who get the credit.
      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169555X18304616

  2. Title: Revisiting the Geo-Mythological Cartography of the Western Mediterranean: Archaeological and Morphological Correlates of ‘Lake Tritonis’ in Southern Sardinia
    Author: Luigi Usai
    Affiliation: Independent Researcher, Quartucciu (CA), Sardinia, Italy.
    ORCID: 0009-0003-3001-717X

    Abstract
    Classical historiography has traditionally identified the mythical Lake Tritonis and the Atlas Mountains—central locations in the narratives of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Apollonius of Rhodes—with the modern geography of North Africa. However, this consolidated model presents significant inconsistencies when comparing the hydrographic descriptions of antiquity with the arid morphology of the Maghreb. This paper proposes a geo-mythological revision based on a “Sardinian-Corsican Paradigm.” We hypothesize that the “Libyan” geography described in archaic sources refers to the Sardinian southern coast. This hypothesis is supported by the convergence of three datasets: (1) A paleogeographic reconstruction of the Cagliari wetland system as a unified, navigable basin compatible with the Lacus Tritonidis; (2) The persistence of toponymic markers such as Caput Terrae (Capoterra) and Macchiareddu (Machlyes); and (3) Crucial archaeological evidence, specifically the discovery of Cypriot-Mycenaean bronze tripods (Late Helladic IIIC) in the exact stratigraphic contexts predicted by the myth: the lagoonal site of Selargius and the mountain sanctuary of Santadi.
    Keywords: Historical Geography; Geo-mythology; Sardinia; Late Bronze Age; Mycenaean Tripods; Lake Tritonis; Paleogeography.
    ________________________________________
    1. Introduction: The Geographical Anomaly
    For centuries, the communis opinio in historical geography has established a direct correspondence between the toponyms of primary sources (Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus) and modern North African geography. Libya (?????) is identified with the African continent, and Atlas (?????) with the Moroccan mountain range. However, this model forces scholars to interpret detailed descriptions—such as the navigability of Lake Tritonis or its proximity to a lush “Garden”—as purely mythical or allegorical, given the lack of corresponding physical features in the Tunisian Chotts or the Libyan desert.
    This paper proposes an alternative spatial analysis. We posit that the primordial toponymy was centered on the Sardinian-Corsican geological block and was only later transferred to the African continent during the Hellenistic-Roman period (a phenomenon of toponymic displacement). By applying the descriptions of Herodotus (Book IV) and Apollonius of Rhodes (Argonautica, IV) to the morphology of Southern Sardinia, a coherent micro-topographical correspondence emerges.
    2. Geomorphology: The “Muddy Sea” and the Cagliari Graben
    The central element of the Argonaut myth and the Platonic narrative ( Timaeus) is a vast body of water characterized by shallow depths, shoals, and mud (pélos), which traps ships and requires a specific “narrow passage” to exit into the open sea.
    2.1. The Paleo-Hydrography of Cagliari
    The Campidano Graben in Southern Sardinia terminates in a vast wetland system comprising the modern lagoons of Santa Gilla and Molentargius. Geological data (Ardau et al., 2002; Orrù et al., 2014) confirm that during the Late Bronze Age (approx. 1200 BC), relative sea levels and sedimentation rates created a configuration distinct from the present day.
    Instead of separated ponds, the area likely functioned as a unified, estuarine lagoon system fed by the Cixerri and Mannu rivers. This morphology perfectly matches the description of Lake Tritonis: a large, enclosed body of water connected to the sea by a difficult, shifting channel (steiòn póron), prone to silting a “muddy trap” for ancient keeled vessels.
    3. Archaeological Evidence: The “Smoking Gun”
    The strongest argument for this re-identification is not merely philological but material. The myth of the Argonauts explicitly describes the gift of a bronze tripod to the local deity (Triton) on the shores of the lake to ensure safe passage. If the Sardinian hypothesis is correct, archaeological records should show evidence of high-status Aegean ritual objects in this specific area.
    3.1. The Tripod of Selargius (The Lagoon Context)
    Excavations at Selargius (specifically the Su Coddu/Canelles site), located on the paleo-shores of the Cagliari lagoon system (proposed Lake Tritonis), have yielded fragments of bronze rod-tripods. Typological analysis confirms their Cypriot-Mycenaean origin (Late Helladic IIIC), dating them to the Final Bronze Age (12th–11th century BC). The presence of such specific prestige items in a Nuragic context confirms direct interaction with Aegean navigators exactly where the myth places the Argonauts’ landing.
    3.2. The Tripod of Santadi (The Atlas Context)
    Furthermore, the myth associates the lake with a nearby mountain range (Atlas). In the Grotta Pirosu-Su Benatzu at Santadi, located in the Sulcis mountains (proposed Mons Atlas), another bronze tripod of Cypriot-Mycenaean tradition was discovered in a ritual context (“Hall of the Treasure”).
    The triangulation is precise: high-status votive tripods of the correct era appear in both the lagoonal settlement and the mountain sanctuary, mirroring the mythical geography of the Tritonis/Atlas complex.
    4. Toponymic Stratigraphy: Persistence of Memory
    While etymology can be debated, the spatial clustering of specific toponyms in the Sulcis-Campidano area offers statistically significant correlations with the classical sources.
    • Capoterra (Caput Terrae): The town overlooking the lagoon bears a Latin name meaning “Head/End of the Land.” In a pre-cartographic worldview, this promontory likely marked the limit of the safe ecumene before the open “Atlantic” sea (the Western Mediterranean).
    • Macchiareddu (Machlyes): Herodotus mentions the Machlyes tribe living on the shores of Lake Tritonis. The modern industrial district of Macchiareddu, situated on the lagoon’s western edge (near the Cuccuru Ibba archaeological site), may represent a phonetic fossil of this ethnonym.
    • Fruttidoro: Located in the plain of Capoterra, this modern toponym (“Golden Fruits”) persists in an area described by pedological studies (Vacca, 2014) as having exceptional soil capability. It geographically coincides with the mythical location of the Garden of the Hesperides: a fertile plain protected by the Atlas (Sulcis) mountains and facing the setting sun.
    5. Discussion: The Sardinian-Corsican Paradigm
    The application of the “Sardinian Grid” resolves the crux desperationis of classical geography.
    1. Triangulation: Diodorus Siculus places the Atlas, the Ocean, and the Lake Tritonis in immediate proximity. This is impossible in the Maghreb (where the Atlas is far inland) but accurate in Sardinia (Sulcis Mts + Gulf of Cagliari + Lagoons).
    2. The “Atlantic” Ocean: We propose that the Oceanus Atlanticus of archaic sources referred to the Western Mediterranean basin surrounding the Sardinian-Corsican block (the Insula Magna), not the ocean west of Gibraltar. The title “Atlantic” derives from the island’s presiding mountain/deity (Atlas/Sulcis).
    6. Conclusion
    The convergence of geomorphological data (the muddy paleo-lagoon), archaeological evidence (Mycenaean tripods in situ), and toponymic stratification suggests that the “Libyan” narratives of the Greek archaic period were originally descriptions of Southern Sardinia.
    The identification of the Cagliari wetland system with Lake Tritonis is not merely a speculative adjustment but a falsifiable hypothesis supported by material culture. We urge further stratigraphic investigations in the Capoterra and Santa Gilla areas to recover further evidence of this proto-historic interface between the Aegean and Nuragic worlds.
    References
    • Ardau, F., et al. (2002). Geophysical surveys in the Capoterra coastal plain. 8th EEGS-ES Meeting.
    • Lo Schiavo, F., et al. (2009). Oxhide Ingots in the Central Mediterranean. Rome: AGAT.
    • Orrù, P. E., et al. (2014). Coastal mobility and sea-level rise in the Gulf of Cagliari. Quaternary International.
    • Usai, L. (2024). Localizzazione del leggendario Giardino delle Esperidi a Fruttidoro di Capoterra [Preprint]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13755822
    • Vacca, A., et al. (2014). The Land Unit and Soil Capability Map of Sardinia. EGU General Assembly.

1 Trackback / Pingback

  1. Archaeology 2024-12-25 – Ingram Braun

Leave a Reply