The Atlantis Hunters is a National Geographic video available from the National Geographic Website.

Source: National Geographic

The Atlantis Hunters is a National Geographic video available from the NG website.

Source: National Geographic

This episode takes a look  at the history of the Aegean civilizations and examines the myths surrounding Atlantis whilst experts discuss the various explorers who spent their lives attempting to locate the fabled lost city.

Plot

Around the turn of the 20th century, British archaeologist Professor Aitken and his son, Charles, have chartered a ship called the Texas Rose to take them out to sea. There, they plan to dive underwater in a diving bell designed by American engineer Greg Collinson. Although everyone aboard the ship, including Greg, thinks that the Professors Aitken are just going to look at fish, Charles and his father are secretly searching for proof of the existence of the lost city of Atlantis. He and Greg find it on their first dive, and then some. First, they are attacked by a reptilian sea monster, which comes through the bottom of the diving bell, but Greg is able to fend it off by sticking a live wire into its mouth, electrocuting it.

Immediately following this, Greg and Charles discover a statue made of solid gold, which is then hoisted up to the Texas Rose. Deckhands Grogan, Fenn and Jacko desire the gold statue for themselves and hatch a scheme to steal it. Grogan cuts the line to the diving bell, trapping Greg and Charles at the bottom of the sea, and then someone (we don’t see who but are meant to think it was one of the three mutinous sailors) shoots the elder Professor Aitken in the back. As Grogan goes to attack the Texas Rose’s captain, Daniels, a gigantic octopus known as the Sentinel, sent by the inhabitants of Atlantis, attacks the ship. Daniels, Grogan, Fenn and Jacko are kidnapped by the octopus and taken to Atlantis along with Greg and Charles in the diving bell.

The six castaways find themselves washed ashore within a vast, air-filled cavern beneath the ocean floor. Here they are greeted by Atmir, one of the Atlantean ruling class, and the helmeted, spear-wielding Guardians, who promise to take them “to safety”. En route, Greg, Charles and the others are told by Atmir that Atlantis is not just one city, but seven cities, the first three of which have been “lost beneath the waters of the outer limits forever.” Atmir takes the surface-dwellers through the causeway, a prehistoric swamp inhabited by a millipede-like monster called the Mogdaan, and then on to Vaar, the fourth city. Once here, Greg and the others are thrown into a dungeon — all, that is, except for Charles. As a scientist, he is deemed intelligent enough to be granted an audience with Atraxon and Atsil, the king and queen of Atlantis in Chinqua, the fifth city. They wish to make Charles one of them, and explain how they originally came from Mars and are using their mind powers to shape human history.

Meanwhile, Greg and the Texas Rose’s crew make friends with Briggs, the captain of the Mary Celeste and unofficial leader of the Atlanteans’ human slaves, and his daughter, Delphine. Briggs informs them they are to be slaves to protect Vaar from the constant attacks of creatures known as Zaargs. They will be given gills so they can never leave Atlantis and return to the oxygen-rich surface world, as the Atlanteans, being originally from Mars, breathe a different atmosphere. A convenient Zaarg attack allows Greg and the others to escape their cell, but also claims the life of Briggs. Her father dead, a distraught Delphine helps Greg and the crew escape from their cells and shows them a way into Atraxon’s palace in Chinqua through the sewers so they can rescue Charles.

Greg, Daniels and Grogan go with her, leaving Fenn and Jacko to guard the tunnel entrance. Charles is enjoying his newfound status amongst the intellectual Atlanteans and may not even want to be rescued, especially once they show him the “utopia” they aim to create on Earth, leaving him drunk with power. Even if they manage to find and rescue him, they still have to get out of the city, through the causeway past the Mogdaan, and then figure out how to get back up to the surface world. There’s also the matter of figuring out just who shot Charles’ father.

Cast

Doug McClure as Greg Collinson

Peter Gilmore as Charles Aitken

Shane Rimmer as Captain Daniels

Lea Brodie as Delphine

Hal Galili as Grogan

John Ratzenberger as Fenn

Derry Power as Jacko

Michael Gothard as Atmir

Daniel Massey as Atraxon

Cyd Charisse as Atsil

Robert Brown as Captain Briggs

Donald Bisset as Professor Aitken

Novelization

The novelization by Paul Victor was published in 1978, as a tie-in to the film, by Futura Publications Limited. Told entirely from the point of view of Greg Collinson, it follows the movie more or less faithfully. Notable changes, however, include the addition of a fourth crew member, Chuck, and the attack by flying fish — which in the film occurs as the surface-dwellers are escaping across the causeway — happens much earlier during their approach to Vaar.

Release Date: 1978

Duration: 96 min

Source: Wikipedia

A BBC Timewatch Programme

The programme is currently available on Youtube and has been split into 6 sections:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Links:

For the Lost History Website: Click Here

For the Lost History Series on You Tube: Click Here

Could the Atlanteans have lived in Egypt?

As part of a special about Atlantis, the National Geographic Channel joined author William Henry in Egypt, on the theory that, if there is anything in the Atlantis story, it must connect to lost information that is reflected in early Egyptian culture.

They also discuss the sudden end of exploratory activity on the Giza plateau in 1997, and William’s belief that something of great importance was found there and has been hidden by officials because it flies in the face of modern religious and archaeological beliefs.

Plot

A Greek fisherman named Demetrios (Sal Ponti, under the screen name of Anthony Hall) and his father rescue Princess Antillia (Joyce Taylor) from a shipwreck without knowing that in fact she is from the technologically advanced civilization of Atlantis. Upon returning her to her civilization, Demetrios is placed into slavery.

It turns out that the King Cronus (Edgar Stehli) is being manipulated by an ambitious usurper, Zaren (John Dall), using an evil sorcerer (Frank DeKova) who wishes to use the resources of Atlantis to take over the world. The slaves of Atlantis have been mining crystals which absorb the sun’s rays and can then be used to fire heat rays.

Through the help of a kind, spiritual high priest named Azar (Edward Platt), Demetrios is able to rescue the princess from the wicked spells of the sorcerer and his malicious pretender to the throne, and escape from the spectacular destruction of Atlantis in the climactic finale.

Cast

Sal Ponti (as Anthony Hall) as Demetrios
Joyce Taylor as Princess Antillia
John Dall as Zaren
William Smith as Captain of the Guard
Edward Platt as Azar the High Priest
Frank DeKova as Sonoy the Astrologer
Berry Kroeger as Surgeon
Edgar Stehli as King Cronus [Kronos]
Wolfe Barzell as Petros, Demetrios’ Father
Jay Novello as Xandros the Greek Slave
Paul Frees as Narrator/multiple voices

Release Date: 1961

Duration: 90 mins

Source: Wikipedia

Although scientists believe they have categorically disproved the myth of Atlantis, the idea is more popular now than ever before.

The latest exponent of the theory of a single lost source for all civilisation, is Graham Hancock.

Although he doesn’t call it Atlantis, his compelling ideas about a sophisticated society destroyed in a flood 12,000 years ago seem to be based on a reworking of the original Atlantis myth, whose survivors brought culture, religion, monument-building and civilisation to the rest of the world.

Graham Hancock offers various pieces of evidence to support his theory. He claims that the mysterious lost civilisation left its mark in ancient monuments, which he calculates were built to mirror certain constellations of stars. His hugely popular ideas have attracted such a wide audience that they stand to replace the conventional view of the past, which is based on scientific evidence that the civilisations of the ancient world were developed independently, by different peoples, on different continents.

Horizon journeys across the world to examine Hancock’s evidence for a lost civilisation and puts his theory to the test.

Using modern astronomy, Hancock and his followers claim they can find messages from a lost society in the patterns of some of the greatest ancient monuments of the world. One colleague in particular, the author Robert Bauval, believes that the Giza pyramids in Egypt were built to mirror the stars of Orion’s belt.

Hancock also believes that the great temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia mirror the constellation Draco as it would have appeared 12,000 years ago – at a time when the world was in the Stone Age. They see this as evidence that a great civilisation existed at this time, and later conveyed its wisdom to the peoples of the ancient world, before disappearing without trace from the archaeological record.

Astronomers, archaeologists and geologists study this evidence. Dr. Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, is troubled by Bauval’s claims.

Horizon further examines Hancock’s claims that the Sphinx and the mysterious ancient city of Tihuanacu in Bolivia were built 12,000 years ago by survivors of the lost civilisation itself.

It considers the idea that either Antarctica or an extraordinary underwater site at Yonaguni in Japan were the original home of these vanished people. In a film full of contentious debate and powerful arguments, Graham Hancock’s claims are pitted against cutting edge scientific analysis to discover whether his popular theory could be true.

A BBC Horizon Programme

The programme is currently available on Youtube and has been split into 5 sections:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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