Review
"- 'A modern classic text on a subject which today, far from being a lost cause, is undergoing a rise in popular interest. Plato would be pleased.' Nexus - 'Invaluable for both the student of ancient mythology and the Atlantean scholar.' Third Stone & the Ley Hunter
'If we would only believe what our ancestors are telling us then we may already possess more history than we ever knew. For a legend that can be attached to a chronology is a legend no longer - it is history!' Such is the contentious conclusion of this fascinating book, which is drawn from a wealth of sources including Plato, Tacitus and Plutarch; Celtic myth and legend; scientific works on climate change, oceanology and geology; astronomy and archaeology reference books. Dunbavin proposes the audacious theory that Plato's Atlantis myth refers to a drowned Neolithic civilization around the shores of what is now the British Isles, and traces the moment of this society's demise to a comet impact that caused a change in the Earth's axis, around 3100 BC. The author is clearly at ease with - and enthused with - his topic, and is able to present complicated subjects such as discrepancies between the calendars used by different civilizations and the consequent differences in the timing of their descriptions of the Great Flood, or the nature of the earth's rotational axis and the so-called 'Chandler Wobble' in terms that an interested lay reader may easily grasp. In fact, whether or not one agrees with Dunbavin's theory that a comet impact could have caused an alteration to the Earth's axis, the explanation of the mechanics of his theory is clearer than many found in popular science books. He explains in some detail how a change in sea depth around Britain of just eight to ten metres could have drowned huge areas of land, and compares the physical history of climate change in this area with the legends recounted in the enigmatic Welsh triads. The amount of research that has gone into this multidisciplinary book is illustrated by the fact that the bibliographic references alone take up nearly 50 pages and, while you may not agree with every conclusion drawn by Dunbavin, it is a well-sourced and interesting approach to a subject that has perennial appeal. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
The Middle Neolithic period around 5000 years ago, was a time of dramatic climate and sea level changes all around the world. Welsh legends remember lost cities beneath the Irish Sea; and Irish myths recall an "otherworld", a golden age when the eastern Irish Sea was a flowery plain inhabited by a golden-haired race of men. This book suggests that Plato's Atlantis is the same place that is remembered in these Celtic myths. Paul Dunbavin sets out in his controversial theory that Plato's Atlantis myth remembers the submergence of a Neolithic civilization around the shores of the British Isles. He argues that this cataclysm resulted from a change in the Earth's axis consequent upon a comet impact around 3100 BCE.
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