The lost city of Atlantis has been found, and it’s straight out of the Bible – at least according to a stunning new National Geographic documentary which follows a high-tech, wide-ranging search for the mythical city with incredible results.
The documentary, Atlantis Rising, released last Sunday, features Oscar-winning Titanic director James Cameron and Emmy-winning journalist Simcha Jacobovici following ancient clues through Greece, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic on a search for Atlantis, a mythical city that allegedly sunk into the sea thousands of years ago. Along the way, they discover mind-blowing Biblical connections to Atlantis, including a 3,000 year old carving that ties the mythical city to the Jewish Temple.
“So often, when you tell people you are looking for Atlantis, they think it is a crazy project because they think it is a thing that was made up by Disney or Hollywood, a city full of mermaids,” Jacobovici told Breaking Israel News in an exclusive interview. Even he was astonished at what they found.
Jacobovici, who describes his recent projects as “investigative archaeology”, admitted that sources are scarce. The only ancient source for Atlantis was the Greek philosopher Plato in the 4th century BCE. In his dialogues, Plato wrote about a traveller, Solon, who learned about a highly advanced, wealthy civilization, described in depth. It was a port city located “past the ‘Pillars of Hercules’”, which Jacobovici explained is known today as the Straits of Gibraltar.
In Plato’s account, Solon describes the destruction of Atlantis by a natural disaster which covered the coastal city with mud and water. According to the story, the city sank into the ground and disappeared. Jacobovici equated this to a tsunami.
“Many people may think this is a fictitious account, but Plato went into a lot of detail,” Jacobovici argued. “More problematic is that no other historical or archaeological source discusses a city named Atlantis.” He pointed out, however, that the Greeks had a habit of renaming people and places.
The team set out to find a city that fit the description of Atlantis. The search eventually led them to the Iberian Peninsula, where they began to make a connection between Atlantis and an ancient city known as Tartessos – which appears, amazingly, in the Bible.
“There are many artifacts and ancient writings that show that 3,000 years ago there was a great city of Tartessos, very wealthy and with a powerful navy,”Jacobovici described. “Though we don’t know exactly where it was, it was purported to be somewhere in Southern Iberia, Spain or Portugal, precisely the area that Plato gives for Atlantis.”
The research led Jacobovici to believe there is a link between Plato’s fabled city of Atlantis, which he believes is Tartessos, and the oft-mentioned Biblical city of Tarshish, citing an unmistakably Atlantis-like reference in Psalms.
For, lo, the kings assembled themselves, they came onward together..Trembling took hold of them there, pangs, as of a woman in travail…With the east wind Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish. Psalms 48:5-8
The Bible speaks many times about a city called Tarshish. King Solomon fought naval battles with the wealthy city, an ally of Israel.
The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render tribute. Psalms 72:10
Tarshish is also mentioned as the city that Jonah chose to flee to rather than go to evil Nineveh.
But Yonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Hashem; and he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of Hashem. Jonah 1:3
In Tarshish, “Jonah encountered a fierce storm,” noted Jacobovici. “This is very characteristic of the area around the Straits of Gibraltar.”
The fact that the city of Tarshish is mentioned throughout the Bible seems to contradict a connection with an Atlantis that was destroyed well before Plato’s account. Jacobovici had an explanation.
“I think there were several stages in the destruction of Tarshish,” he said. “One was during the Exodus, and the final one was after King Solomon.”
Perhaps the most shocking revelation came when Jacobovici interviewed Spanish researcher Georgeos Diaz Montexano.
“He showed me Bronze Age symbols, 3,500 years old, carved into ancient shrines,” Jacobovici told Breaking Israel News. “Montexano believes that after the tsunami destroyed Atlantis, or Tarshish, the refugees made these shrines to commemorate the destruction of their city and to pray to their gods that Atlantis should rise again.”
The symbols carved into the walls had distinct design resembling a bull’s eye standing on a stick with three legs. The ancient stone carvings in the Spanish shrines are strongly reminiscent of Plato’s description of the port of Atlantis: three concentric circular docks with a central rectangular temple to Poseidon, with a canal connecting out to the sea.
“The symbol carved into the walls in Spain was an aerial view of the port Plato described, but with the canal depicted as Poseidon’s three-pronged trident,” Jacobovici explained.
Then Montexano showed him something even more remarkable. “In one of these of these shrines in Spain, the 3,000 year old carving is missing the top half of the bull’s eye. Montexano theorized that this symbolizes the refugees were praying for a restored Atlantis.
“But that symbol, as everyone knows, is the Menorah in the Jewish Temple,” said Jacobovici.
Jacobovici relates Montexano’s theory for the remarkable similarity between the ancient symbol found in Spain and the Jewish Temple.
“Montexan believes that when God told the Jews to make the Menorah, he gave them a symbol they already understood, already recognized from the Atlanteans.”