An Atlantis Miscellany (Paul Dunbavin) A collection of the author’s smaller webpages and articles on the subject of Atlantis in the Irish Sea 2017-2020. In 1995 the author published The Atlantis Researches, later republished in UK and USA as Atlantis of the West. These more recent articles extend that earlier work and fill some of the gaps. Central to the theories was the case that indicators of time and place (based on a comparison of the ancient sources and modern science) pointed towards a location for Plato’s lost city in the eastern Irish Sea; following a pole shift event that occurred towards the end of the fourth millennium BC. This event submerged the low-lying plains around the British coast ‘in a single day and a night’. A summary and links to other pages may be found in my article 15 Years on from Atlantis (of the West). Current theories of Holocene climate and sea-level change are mired in the Milankovitch ice age theory, whereby the vast Pleistocene ice sheet melted since 10,000 BC and theoretically raised the sea level uniformly around world coastlines. On conventional eustatic modelling the North Sea ‘Doggerland’ was finally submerged around 6500 BC. However this same hypothesis demands that the Irish Sea was flooded much earlier, cutting off Ireland from Britain while the climate was still cold. However, the conventional theory of sea level change is at odds with Irish mythology, which recalls a submerged flowery plain in the Irish Sea called Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth) or even more revealing is one of its many other names: Tír fo Thuinn (Land under the Wave). These myths recall an era that was warm and idyllic. Welsh mythology recalls a similar lost land called Annwn, seemingly an extension of the land area or Wales. Numerous legends describe sunken cities around the western coast and both mythologies recall castles and towers lost to the sea. The only era that would fit the climate description would be the mid-Neolithic or Atlantic pollen zone (8000 to 5000 BP). Of course, modern science dismisses the testimony of ancient mythology, but it would tally completely with the description of Atlantis as given by Plato and that of the Elysian Fields in Egyptian myth. A sad progression in recent decades has been the building and proposed further construction of windfarms on the shallow seabed of the eastern Irish Sea, creating an eyesore that destroys the view from the tourist beaches along the North Wales coast. One hopes this will result in some sensitive study of the post-glacial seabed and its structure before it is so carelessly damaged. Three small articles relating to the Irish-Sea hypothesis are here aggregated from their original webpages: 1) R.K. Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast (2019) 2) Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor (2019) 3) Plato’s Impossible Plain (2020) Inevitably, when bringing together originally separate articles there will be some overlap between them, for which, apologies. www.third-millennium.co.uk ************************** R. K. Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast In his 1953 book Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire, Ronald Kay Gresswell summed-up his investigations into the deposits of the South Lancashire Plain between Liverpool and the River Ribble. He described a wave-cut notch in the flat coastal plain, which he termed the Hillhouse Coast after a prominent landmark. Westward of this ancient shoreline he described the ancient forest of oak and silver birch that lay beneath the onshore deposits and which also occur as submerged forest deposits beneath the modern beach line from Liverpool to the Ribble. He went on to link this ancient shoreline to deposits in the Fylde and Cumbria. In the pre-radiocarbon era he could only estimate that the wood was of Neolithic age, correlated with the so-called 25-foot beach found in other parts of Britain. Figure 6 from Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire (1953) Across this emergent rectangular plain (as may be seen on his map) he discerned from navigation charts where the ancient continuation of the rivers Ribble and Mersey-Dee had once flowed into a much-reduced Irish Sea. He argued that east of the 10-fathom depth-line the drowned river valleys had been smoothed by the sediment from the modern rivers; and he argued from his onshore borings that the in-filling of the Ribble estuary could similarly be observed in the Lancashire deposits. In chapter IV he devised the sequence of advances and retreats of the post-glacial Lancashire coastline during the Holocene. On page 47 he illustrated this in the diagram reproduced here. Figure 13 from Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire (1953) In stage 1 (early Holocene/ post-glacial) the sea rose to 7ft OD forming the Hillhouse coast. It then retreated in stage 2 towards the modern shore, allowing the growth of the oak and birch forests in stage 3 (mid-Holocene) as the sea retreated further out to -40ft OD. In stage 4 the sea returned close to modern shores, drowning the forests. As a lifelong resident of Southport, Ronald Kay Gresswell M.A., PH.D., F.R.S.A., F.G.S. (1905-1969) was a prominent member of the British Institute of Geographers, known best for his fieldwork on the geomorphology of Lancashire during the 1940s and 50s. His work predated the radiocarbon and treering dating methods that came to the fore only in the 1960s and 70s; and also the Milankovitch theory of ice-ages that gained acceptance around the same time. His research is therefore ‘pure’ and unbiased by these later theories; he discusses the ‘eustatic’ variations of the post-glacial sea-level due to ice-melt and the recovery from the ice-burden, solely in terms of their apparent local effects. As in all such studies of ancient sea-levels, local ‘isostatic’ vertical movements of the land can be conveniently conjured to make almost any theory fit the evidence – so long as one does not try too hard to correlate them with the parallels from other parts of the world. This is not a criticism of Gresswell for it is found in almost all such studies. Later researchers from the 1960s onwards, taking on board the then-prevailing theories of glacio-isostatic modelling, would revise Gresswell’s theories on the grounds that they did not correspond with the wider picture derived from the worldwide sealevel curves and the melting of the Laurentide icesheet. A summary of this later research may be found in the Coastal Geomorphology Survey of Great Britain, chapter 7 (see the reference below, pp 4-5). In the 1950s Gresswell could only date the period of lowered sea-level by the vegetation sequences. The consensus at that era, based on the earlier work of Godwin and Steers, was that the deciduous forests were of Boreal-Atlantic age. This view of a high sea level, followed by a regression below modern sea level and finally a rise to modern shores, was often described as “the submerged forest period”. Radiocarbon dates can now help to date these forests more reliably; see the feature here: Submerged Forests around Britain and Ireland. A stern critic of Gresswell’s work has been M. J. Tooley who would argue (1978) that the Hillhouse ‘cliff’ was actually the shore of a trapped inland lake; and that the true former coast lay somewhat further west. From modern radiocarbon dates he and other researchers would now prefer a sequence of more conservative advances and retreats around the modern shoreline. Up to five possible transgressions of the present-day coast are envisaged between 9200 BP and 5000 BP; with subsequent build-up of the deep sandy beaches that we see today. The idea of a submerged forest period was quietly dropped. There remains general agreement however, that the sea only reached its modern level around 5000 BP (c3000 BC). It should be noted that none of this later work challenges Gresswell’s insight that the former river channels could be discerned in the shallow bed of the eastern Irish Sea and therefore they must be post-glacial; and it follows that at whatever era these rivers flowed, the Isle of Man must have been linked to Cumbria. The divergence is that the later researchers, being constrained by the glacioisostatic models that they must cite, could not contemplate such huge advances and retreats of the shoreline by as much as 30-40 km across the eastern Irish Sea; they would prefer to talk only of smallscale oscillations just offshore of the modern coasts. This is where Gresswell’s naïve and ‘pure’ insight is so valuable. In my own cross-disciplinary studies, I came at this problem from a world-wide pattern of correspondence of sea level change in alternate quarter-spheres. This is the pattern expected to be produced by a pole-shift that would have occurred during the mid-Holocene: the late fourth millennium BC (see the feature here: Raised Beaches and Submerged Forests). This theory was first published in The Atlantis Researches (1995) and Atlantis of the West (2002). We find emergence around 5,000 years ago, by similar distances, along shallow East Asian and South American coasts; and so we should not be surprised by submergence of the scale proposed by Gresswell. The present author would continue to have serious issues with current models of sea-level change since the ice age. The various vertical movements of land and seabed (or the collapsing ‘fore-bulges’ of more modern parlance) which are proposed to explain the sea-level anomalies around the world would themselves constitute a change to the Earth’s figure; and must therefore trigger a wobble of the rotation axis and a pole-shift. This would in turn feed-back as variations of sea-level and climate very similar to those that the ‘isostatic’ movements are advanced to explain. Sea level researchers seldom mention geodesy and fail to consider the rotational dynamics of the planet. The question of whether the floor of the eastern Irish Sea was exposed during the warm mid-Holocene period has wider consequences for archaeology. It is also related to the question of whether there was a land-bridge between Britain and Ireland, and to the Isle of Man; and how the various flora and fauna reached these islands after the ice age. It offers the possibility of Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeology submerged offshore, compliant with Welsh, Irish and Mediterranean myths. Celtic myths and legends recall sunken cities and lost lands around the coast of Britain; and if we are to properly investigate these as memories of real events then the ‘submerged forest period’ prior to 5,000 years ago is the only era when we find both submergence and a warm climate. In the BGS Report (2015) we may see that Gresswell’s 10-fathom line would roughly correspond to the Eastern Irish Sea Mud Belt and the older region as the Central Irish Sea Gravel Belt. In both these regions however, the report describes the Holocene deposits as varying between 5m and up to 40m depth. Therefore anything of archaeological interest that was formerly at sea level would now be deeply buried. In closing this review of Gresswell’s pioneering work, I can only express appreciation for the painstaking work that he and other fieldworkers undertake; those who excavate in difficult locations to give us the dated primary evidence of past regimes; and without whose work the secondary and cross-disciplinary researchers could not progress. But specialists can sometimes be too close to a problem; what we need is not more onshore work and theoretical models, but more data from offshore. The diagrams reproduced here from ‘Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire’ are believed to be out of copyright. Should anyone object to their inclusion here then please contact the author. References The following will lead to all the relevant detailed coastal studies and papers. http://archive.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/GCRDB/GCRsiteaccount1961.pdf this is part of: Geological Conservation Review Volume 28: Coastal Geomorphology of Great Britain Chapter 7: Sandy beaches and dunes – GCR site reports Site: AINSDALE (GCR ID: 1961) Gresswell, R.K. (1953b) Sandy Shores in South Lancashire: the Geomorphology of South-West Lancashire, Liverpool Studies in Geography, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool Tooley, M.J. (1978) Sea-level Changes in North-West England during the Flandrian Stage, Clarendon Press, Oxford Mellett, C., Long, D., Carter, G., Chiverell, R and Van Landeghem, K (2015) Geology of the seabed and shallow subsurface: The Irish Sea. British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/15/057. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512352/1/BGS_Report_Irish_Sea_Geology_CR-15-057N.pdf Citation: Citation: Dunbavin, Paul, (2020) R. Kay Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast, Prehistory Papers, pp 118-124, Third Millennium, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4 Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor Ask a geologist to do a survey of the seabed and they will find geology. Any mark or feature in the surface sediments will be interpreted in terms of the geomorphology that they expect to find. An archaeologist looking at the same buried sub-sea features might see something different, as with crop marks on land. But why would an archaeologist wish to investigate the seabed other than to seek, perhaps, an ancient shipwreck? The possibility of ancient human settlement on what is now the floor of the Irish Sea – or indeed anywhere around the British or Irish continental shelf – is raised by the stories in Celtic mythology, which variously suggest lost cities around the coast: Lyonesse off Land’s End, a submerged ‘Celtic Otherworld’, or a lost land called Annwn; and other myths from Mediterranean sources also pose questions. Welsh myths describe a plain “as large as the sea” off the coast of North Wales and Irish myths would portray a submerged “flowery plain” in the vicinity of the Isle of Man. Irish and Welsh legends speak of a golden tower in the sea explored by the earliest colonists. [1] To approach these myths logically either they are just that: ‘myths’ in the sense of ‘fiction’ or they must be based on an authentic root memory. If indeed they recall an ancient submergence then the next logical step is to ask, when? We need not debate here the various mechanisms of sea-level change. On all conventional theories it must be remembered that the gradual eustatic rise of the sea since the ice age extended over thousands of years; a period of time longer than that which separates us from Dynastic Egypt. It is a failure of imagination to suggest that during these millennia there was no human settlement on the now-submerged regions of the continental shelf. The consensus is that present-day sea-level only stabilized around 5,000 years ago since which time there have been just minor fluctuations. In other parts of the world we find the opposite phenomenon at this same era: emergence and raised beaches rather than submerged features, together with evidence that people quickly colonised the newly exposed land (see: Raised Beaches and Submerged Forests). For Britain and Ireland, submerged forest deposits are found all around the modern coasts (see: Submerged Forests around Britain and Ireland). These come from various ages, but most date from either of two periods; the first roughly 5-6000 BC around the time that the North Sea land bridge was flooded, while those around western coasts cluster around a later period closer to 3000 BC. So if we should seek any submerged archaeology then, logically, it should date from these eras. The earlier dates correspond to the Mesolithic period of supposed hunter-gatherers; the later dates correspond to the transition between the Middle and the Late Neolithic. Again, logically, any memories of real events in a legend would suggest that the former date is too early; and so we should be looking around 5,000 years ago to find underwater archaeology to match the legends. We should expect that any submerged Middle Neolithic sites would look like those that we find on land from this era, such as the Court Cairns found all around the Irish Sea or the dolmens found further south; or perhaps settlements like those at Skara Brae; or field-walls such as those beneath Irish peat bogs. Cornish legends about the loss of a land called Lyonesse speak of some 140 ‘churches’ drowned in a sudden rise of the sea. [2] We would have to consider these as pagan religious sites and parishes. What might such submerged cairns and settlements look like now, ruined and buried beneath metres of silt on the sea floor? Imagination is required. And this is before we even consider looking for lost cities. Older studies of sea level change around the British coast would speak freely of a ‘submerged forest period’ in the mid-Holocene (see: The Irish Sea Coast here above). The theory, before glacio-eustatic modelling of world sea-levels forced it out of favour, was that there was an initial period of eustatic sea level rise (i.e. melting of polar ice) which gradually drowned the coasts up to c.5500 BC. After this rise a regression exposed western coasts again before a return of the sea to modern shores created the second wave of submerged forests around 3000 BC. Disagreement then arises as to how far out the sea may have receded during the warm mid-Holocene climate. Recent specialist studies would prefer a conservative ‘somewhere west’ of the present shores (as they have no data from the seafloor and decline to speculate) or that the submerged forests were created by trapped freshwater lakes near the coasts. The common-sense approach of archaeologists would be to seek submerged coastal sites such as we find at Westward Ho, Devon and at Skara Brae. However for the Irish Sea the legends of submerged plains, lost lands and towers are clearly pointing us further away from the shoreline than any archaeologist would consider; into depths that require expensive expeditions that so-far have been the preserve of geologists seeking oil and gas reserves or shallow sites for windfarms. Much of the geological mapping that we have for the central Irish Sea is acknowledged to be the work of just one man: the late Dr Robin Wingfield of the British Geological Survey (BGS) who, in the 1980s, identified ice-wedge polygons and circular features in sonar reflections taken north of Anglesey. [3] In the Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) coastal resources survey of 2004 the Irish Sea region is defined as SEA6 and various reports are available via the BGS Geoindex database. Another survey investigated suitable sites for wind farms. This concentrated on an area closer to the Lancashire coast where the Morecambe Bay gas field and wind farms are situated and it did not encounter the patterned ground found in the older surveys; the seabed is instead described as mostly flat and featureless. The authors noted that the older sonar techniques were largely obsolete and that geophysical data was completely absent for large areas. [4] These results and subsequent studies are now embodied in the BGS Geoindex and in the updated report by Mellet-et-al of 2015, which summarises the state of knowledge as at that date. The Geoindex shows the Holocene mud and sand deposits to vary between 5m and 40m thickness, with the deepest deposits lying off the Cumbrian coast. [5] Shipwrecks and modern pipelines are clearly identifiable from trailing sand patterns formed by the prevailing currents. Also noted are subsurface features and ‘pock-marks’; once those defined as escaping methane (marsh gas) are excluded there still remain some interesting sites to explore. Of particular interest is a feature lying off Morecambe Bay described as a pingo (on land we might call these kettle-holes). This reveals a rounded-rectangular feature, which would be football-field-sized; and were it on land it would be about the same size as a typical Neolithic henge. Some of the pockmarks nearby are described as unknown and ‘possibly man-made’. [6] This location would at some prehistoric era have been a river valley flowing into a lake that is now the Lune Deep. Another potential pingo is noted to the north of the Isle of Man. To summarise the surface geology of the eastern Irish Sea as it is described would be as follows. The rectangular shelf slopes gently away from the English coastal dunes out to a depth of 50m between Anglesey and the Isle of Man. Close to the coast lies the Eastern Irish Sea Mud Belt overlaying the Central Irish Sea Gravel Belt that becomes exposed further west; this is mostly comprised of diamicton (a glacial till of mud and boulders). The smooth surface gives way to gravelly rough ground as the seabed becomes deeper between Mann and Anglesey, where areas of bedrock are exposed. These rocks are a continuation of the onshore geology of Anglesey. Here the seabed has just a thin covering of Holocene mud and sand and it is in this region that the glacially patterned ground and polygons are described. This description may be investigated on the maps in the BGS database and its various options as linked here; together with the interpretive reports that have been published by the geologists. A summary map of the areas of ‘patterned ground’ and the other unexplained features is offered below as an introduction, since the BGS geological overlays give little indication of depth. Seabed contours can be investigated via UK Admiralty chart 1826, or via the Admiralty online database. The highlighted area shows the regions where glacially patterned ground has been identified. Thumbnail of Admiralty chart 1826 for the eastern Irish sea, showing the depth contours. The public domain database of the British Geological Survey (BGS) can be found at: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/GeoIndex/offshore.htm and click on ‘view the offshore Geoindex’. The Admiralty wrecks and pipelines database plus a contour map (password required) is at: https://data.admiralty.co.uk/portal/apps/sites/#/marine-data-portal Geologists would deduce all of the patterned ground to be glacial scour features similar to those studied on land. In his 1987 paper, Wingfield had interpreted the polygons and near-circular features north-west of Anglesey as collapsed pingos, which typically occur in formerly glaciated areas. The small undulations on the seabed are interpreted as drumlins and flutes. It is important to note that there has been little examination of these features other than by sonar reflection and whatever they are formed-of lies buried beneath the sand and gravel. Another discovery from the DTI surveys is that the only place where hard bedrock penetrates the Holocene deposits lies to the north-west of Anglesey and it is interesting that the two highest peaks on the seabed at 32m and 35m depth correspond to areas where the bedrock is exposed. [7] The Holocene sand and mud varies in depth as shaped by the prevailing currents and it is likely that much has been scoured away in this region. In 2002 I was given permission to reproduce some of the sonar interpretations as an appendix to Atlantis of the West. I do recall in the 1990s speaking by telephone to a representative at the BGS (who may have been the late Dr Wingfield) who told me there was no other evidence then available. Later, in 2002, I spoke to his colleague Ceiri James who informed me that Dr Wingfield had died; and that he alone would have known on what evidence he described the patterned ground (as published in 1995 and cited in the later SEA6 reports). Recent enquiries of BGS could not identify precisely which surveys the published evidence of ‘polygons’, in areas other than those near Anglesey, had actually originated. The public database shows numerous sonar tracks crossing these areas. However, it is not really the relic features from the ice age that should interest us; rather we should ask: what lies hidden beneath the sand and mud layers? Another interesting feature from the DTI Environmental Assessment was a straight north-south ‘wall’ about 3m (10-feet) high where the mud has piled-up against it. [8] This lies close to the mapped boundary between the mud and diamicton. The survey describes the straight feature as unidentified and probably man-made – as it was not at that time shown on the Admiralty databases of wrecks or pipelines. However, it does correspond to where the sonar track crosses the modern pipeline between the Morecambe Bay gas platform and its outlying northern well! This shows us how quickly the modern currents can pile-up sediment over even a recent man-made structure; so who knows how much archaeology might lie buried deeper beneath the Holocene mud and gravel. In this analysis I would seek only to open minds to what is possible in order to reconcile the incompatible cross-disciplinary picture that arises when the same evidence is approached from contradictory specialist viewpoints: geology, archaeology and mythology, each offering us a different perspective. Archaeologists are only now waking-up to the likelihood of Mesolithic human activity on the submerged ‘Doggerland’ of the North Sea (Sunday Times 8-Sept-2019), so perhaps the Irish Sea is worthy of equal consideration: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/doggerland-the-fertile-paradise-that-joined-uk-to-europe-emerges-fromsea-bed-t5t389ktl I was reminded by all this of the story recorded by the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea. In the fifth century AD he recorded the legend of a long wall built by the people of ancient Brittia (northern Britain) to separate the land of the living from the land of the dead to the west. [9] To this same place, we are told, the souls of the dead were ferried! Were a man or any wild creature to venture beyond the wall they would surely be struck down dead within half an hour by the foul air. This would be quite a fair description of dense methane gas escaping from muddy pools. After all swamp gas, we are told, can also catch fire and create UFOs to confuse the credulous observer; so perhaps we should not be taken aback by a little bit of potentially explosive archaeology on the seabed! Notes 1) For a discussion of all these legends see Towers of Atlantis. The legends of a submerged tower in the Irish Sea are found in Nennius and in the Irish Book of Invasions. 2) As described by William of Worcester (fifteenth century) in his Itinerary of Cornwall. 3) See Wingfield 1987 and later citations. 4) See page 52 of the Kenyon & Cooper Sandwindfarms report. 5) Various overlay-maps are publicly available online via the BGS Geoindex offshore website, of which many are reproduced in the Mellet et al report of 2015. 6) See figure 16 on page 33 of the Holmes and Tappin 2005 report. 7) See the summary map ‘static bedforms’ as Figure 13 on page 28 of Holmes and Tappin 2005, which lists the sources from which it was compiled. 8) See Figure 17.5 on page 34 of the Holmes and Tappin 2005 report. 9) Procopius, History of the Wars, VIII, xx References and Sources: Wingfield, R T R. (1987) Giant sand waves and relict periglacial features on the seabed west of Anglesey. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 98, 400–404. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016787887800809 James, J.W.C. and Wingfield, R.T.R. (1987) Aspects of the seabed sediments in the southern Irish Sea. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 98, 404-406. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016787887800810 D.I., Jackson & R.T., Wingfield & D, Evans & R.P., Barnes & M, Arthur & M, Howells & R, Hughes & Petterson, Michael. (1995) The Geology of the Irish Sea, London: HMSO for the British Geological Survey. 2004 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA6 SV Lia SEA6 Survey - seabed sampling survey with video and photography (Irish Sea) https://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/start.php?tpc=004_aba64100-c149-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd&step=0014 Kenyon, N. and Cooper, W. (2005) Sand banks, sand transport and offshore wind farms. 10.13140/RG.2.1.1593.4807. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285584613_Sand_banks_sand_transport_and_offshore_wind_far ms Download available via researchgate https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjItf6Cm8PkAh WVTRUIHRMyDy4QFjADegQIABAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F285584613_Sand_ban ks_sand_transport_and_offshore_wind_farms&usg=AOvVaw2NrTWnMJ_cr5NKBJnppIZH Holmes, R. and Tappin, D. R. (2005) DTI Strategic Environmental Assessment Area 6, Irish Sea, seabed and surficial geology and processes, British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/05/057. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/194659/ SEA_6_Section_5_web.pdf http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11259/ Mellett, C. Long, D. Carter, G. Chiverell, R. and Van Landeghem, K. (2015) Geology of the seabed and shallow subsurface: The Irish Sea. British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/15/057. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512352/1/BGS_Report_Irish_Sea_Geology_CR-15-057N.pdf Tags: sea level change, submerged forest, catastrophism, sea-level change, ancient climate, ice ages, Irish Sea, pingo, sonar scans, Lancashire, Wales, pole shift Citation: Dunbavin, Paul (2020) Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor, in Prehistory Papers, pp 125-133 Third Millennium Publishing, Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4 Plato’s Impossible Plain We have surely all heard that old saying that if we had some bacon then we could have bacon and eggs – if we had some eggs! This is a warning for us not to nest too many ‘ifs’; not to go beyond the facts and venture too far into speculative territory. But sometimes as long as you admit what you are doing then the results can be interesting – especially when the subject is Plato’s Atlantis and the vast dimensions that he specifies for the lost ’continent’. Author Tony O’Connell in his book Joining the Dots (pages 82-87) and on the excellent Atlantipedia website draws our attention to the huge dimensions that Plato gives for the rectangular plain at the centre of Atlantis and for the size and depth of the surrounding ditch. When you consider these huge proportions, it is easy to see why Plato compared Atlantis to a lost ‘continent’! There should be no need to repeat in detail here the discussion of the units and solutions suggested by other authors and which are amply explored at http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/dimensions-of-atlantis/ In Critias, the scale of the central plain is given as three thousand stadia by two thousand stadia; a natural rectangle bounded by broad straight canals that diverted the rivers as they came down from the surrounding mountains. The fields within were irrigated by ditches that drew off the larger channels. The impression given is rather similar to the Dutch canals and dykes, or to the modern irrigation of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Like everyone else I assumed, in my own earlier books: Towers of Atlantis and Atlantis of the West, that the dimensions were unreliable due to a mistranslation of smaller units at an early stage in the transmission of the story. Even Plato found it hard to believe the measurements that he inherited, but he duly passed them on for us to consider. This should negate any suggestions that the story was Plato’s own invention – for why would he not have chosen more credible dimensions? Consider the following ancient measures: UNIT Egyptian Cubit Egyptian Khet Egyptian ‘River measure’ Egyptian Stadium Athenian Stadium Greek Plethron MULTIPLE 100 cubits 20,000 cubits 100 Greek feet METRIC EQUIVALENT 52.5 centimetres 52.5 metres 10.5 kilometres 157 metres 185 metres 30 metres The length of a Greek Stadium (Stadion) varied from place to place between 157m and 209 m – but it doesn’t help us much whichever unit we choose. As O’Connell points out, a canal width of a Greek or Egyptian stadium is excessive for purpose; the further detail that they were wide enough for ships to pass gives us a better idea of adequate dimensions from which we may scale down the other measures appropriately. However, we don’t have to accept that all the channels were quite so wide, or so deep, perhaps only those parts that needed to be; after all, we are also told that bridges spanned the various canals! If you consider a plethron as roughly the width of a Greek running track then you would have an adequate breadth for a canal, with perhaps wider passing places. However, this same dimension is also given as the depth of the channels. Why would the channels need to be so deep? Firstly, let us assume that we have a memory of a real place and not Plato’s own fiction. If we posit that Solon or his source mistranslated Egyptian khet as stadia then this would give us a rectangle (approximately) 150 km by 100 km, still huge, but slightly more plausible. We cannot be sure that the exact same units of length were used in the most archaic Egyptian dynasties. Regardless of how the original story came to be recorded by the priests of Sais, they too must have translated the dimensions from a native (Atlantian) source. The chain of preservation goes something like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Recorded in unknown local units of measure Transmitted by traders or colonists to archaic Egypt Recorded by the Saite priests when the temple was built Transcribed numerous times up to the era of Solon converted to Greek units by/for Solon Interpreted by Plato for his narratives Translated for modern readers by Greek scholars Errors could have been introduced at any of these intermediate stages in the preservation of the history. Therefore other than to conclude that the measurements are sensibly too large by a huge multiple then it becomes fruitless to seek a submerged rectangular plain of any precise scale; be it in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. We can better trust the invariable statements that ships could pass on the canals, and that the plain was roughly a 3 by 2 rectangle, as details more likely to have survived as ‘fossils’ through the various stages of transmission. Most theorists, in discussing diverse locations, from Thera, to Spain, to the Altiplano and beyond will simply ignore or bend Plato’s dimensions to suit their own pet theory. All we can really say is that there was a rectangular 3:2 plain at the centre of a large island. The plain was dissected by broad rivers which were controlled and diverted into the straight canals; it was surrounded by hills and mountains with another hill towards the centre; and a part of it faced south towards the open sea. So where might we find this combination of natural features? On the floor of the eastern Irish Sea, we do find a submerged rectangular plain at the centre of a large island (Britain and Ireland together) that would make a good match for Plato’s description. Actually, we can see two such rectangles. The larger rectangle is bounded by the modern shores of the Irish Sea, with the mountain of Mann at its centre. Between the Isle of Man and Anglesey lies a smaller submerged rectangle known as the Manx-Furness Basin. Separating this from the northern Solway Basin is a rise known as the Manx-Furness Ridge. UK Admiralty Chart 1826 The eastern Irish Sea is a relatively shallow submerged shelf, as shown here on the navigation chart. As a guide the road distance from Liverpool to Holyhead is around 63 km and from Liverpool to Carlisle 78 km If you would like to use some imagination and make some figurative ‘bacon and eggs’ then we do know that at some stage between the end of the Ice Age and modern times, the eastern Irish sea was exposed and the Isle of Man was linked to the Lancashire coast. We know this because various animals reached the island. The only point of dispute is precisely when this was. Conventional sea-level theories require the Irish Sea basin to have flooded early in the Holocene as the northern icecap melted and thus it would have had at best an icy tundra climate. It is generally agreed that the sea had gradually settled to its present shores by the mid-Holocene warm period, around 5,000 years ago. The submerged floor of the eastern Irish Sea slopes only gradually away from the Lancashire coast and reaches 50m depth, roughly along a line drawn from Anglesey via Mann to Galloway; and then drops away steeply to the west. To fulfil Plato’s description of a flat plain requires a relative tilt to have occurred. The Manx-Furness Ridge lies at a depth of 15-20m with two gaps where the depth falls to 25-30m If we assume the basins to north and south to have been formerly close to sea level (rather like the present-day Cambridgeshire Fens) then in order to link the basins across this ridge at sea level would have required a ‘canal’ of perhaps 20-30m depth to be dug in the soft glacial till – perhaps by deepening a natural river valley. Therefore, the most extreme depth of cutting specified by Plato (a plethron) would have been needed in only this one location. There is no point in trying to be precise with such estimates! Consider the labour that would have been required for such an irrigation scheme? Plato writes that the canals of Atlantis were a task over many generations for a large population of farmers. We may compare it to other civil engineering projects from the ancient world such as the lakes of Aztec Mexico, the lagoons of Angkor Wat, or even closer to home the digging of Offa’s Dyke or Hadrian’s Wall. We may see that the task becomes far more credible if the exaggerated dimensions of the canals and channels applied to only small sections of an otherwise naturally flat plain. If you would like to review more of the pattern of evidence that points to the Irish Sea as a likely location for the lost city then you will find this in my Towers of Atlantis and Atlantis of the West. These books contained quite enough new ideas to absorb, without frying any bacon and eggs! However, I hope the possibilities were always apparent to some of the more imaginative readers. Where else could you find a location that fits so well to Plato’s description and his impossible dimensions? References: UK Admiralty Charts 1121 and 1826 O’Connell, Tony (2018) Joining the Dots, ISBN: 978-1-9993626-0-7 Dunbavin, Paul (2017) Towers of Atlantis, Third Millennium Publishing, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-3-7 Dunbavin, Paul (2003) Atlantis of the West, Constable & Robinson, ISBN: 978-1-84119-716-5 Citation: cite this article on the Academia website ********************************** 

An Atlantis Miscellany (Paul Dunbavin) A collection of the author’s smaller webpages and articles on the subject of Atlantis in the Irish Sea 2017-2020. In 1995 the author published The Atlantis Researches, later republished in UK and USA as Atlantis of the West. These more recent articles extend that earlier work and fill some of the gaps. Central to the theories was the case that indicators of time and place (based on a comparison of the ancient sources and modern science) pointed towards a location for the lost city in the eastern Irish Sea; following a pole shift event that occurred towards the end of the fourth millennium BC. This event submerged the low-lying plains around the British coast ‘in a single day and a night’. A summary and links to other pages may be found in my article 15 Years on from Atlantis (of the West). Current theories of Holocene climate and sea-level change are mired in the Milankovitch ice age theory, whereby the vast Pleistocene ice sheet melted since 10,000 BC and theoretically raised the sea level uniformly around world coastlines. On conventional eustatic modelling the North Sea ‘Doggerland’ was finally submerged around 6500 BC. However this same hypothesis demands that the Irish Sea was flooded much earlier, cutting off Ireland from Britain while the climate was still cold. However, the conventional theory of sea level change is at odds with Irish mythology, which recalls a submerged flowery plain in the Irish Sea called Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth) or even more revealing is one of its many other names: Tír fo Thuinn (Land under the Wave). These myths recall an era that was warm and idyllic. Welsh mythology recalls a similar lost land called Annwn, seemingly an extension of the land area or Wales. Numerous legends describe sunken cities around the western coast and both mythologies recall castles and towers lost to the sea. The only era that would fit the climate description would be the mid-Neolithic or Atlantic pollen zone (8000 to 5000 BP). Of course, modern science dismisses the testimony of ancient mythology, but it would tally completely with the description of Atlantis as given by Plato and that of the Elysian Fields in Egyptian myth. A sad progression in recent decades has been the building and proposed further construction of windfarms on the shallow seabed of the eastern Irish Sea, creating an eyesore that destroys the view from the tourist beaches along the North Wales coast. One hopes this will result in some sensitive study of the post-glacial seabed and its structure before it is so carelessly damaged. Three small articles relating to the Irish-Sea hypothesis are here aggregated from their original webpages: 1) R.K. Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast (2019) 2) Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor (2019) 3) Plato’s Impossible Plain (2020) Inevitably, when bringing together originally separate articles there will be some overlap between them, for which, apologies. https://www.academia.edu/85268409/An_Atlantis_Miscellany www.third-millennium.co.uk ************************** R. K. Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast In his 1953 book Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire, Ronald Kay Gresswell summed-up his investigations into the deposits of the South Lancashire Plain between Liverpool and the River Ribble. He described a wave-cut notch in the flat coastal plain, which he termed the Hillhouse Coast after a prominent landmark. Westward of this ancient shoreline he described the ancient forest of oak and silver birch that lay beneath the onshore deposits and which also occur as submerged forest deposits beneath the modern beach line from Liverpool to the Ribble. He went on to link this ancient shoreline to deposits in the Fylde and Cumbria. In the pre-radiocarbon era he could only estimate that the wood was of Neolithic age, correlated with the so-called 25-foot beach found in other parts of Britain. Figure 6 from Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire (1953) Across this emergent rectangular plain (as may be seen on his map) he discerned from navigation charts where the ancient continuation of the rivers Ribble and Mersey-Dee had once flowed into a much-reduced Irish Sea. He argued that east of the 10-fathom depth-line the drowned river valleys had been smoothed by the sediment from the modern rivers; and he argued from his onshore borings that the in-filling of the Ribble estuary could similarly be observed in the Lancashire deposits. In chapter IV he devised the sequence of advances and retreats of the post-glacial Lancashire coastline during the Holocene. On page 47 he illustrated this in the diagram reproduced here. Figure 13 from Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire (1953) In stage 1 (early Holocene/ post-glacial) the sea rose to 7ft OD forming the Hillhouse coast. It then retreated in stage 2 towards the modern shore, allowing the growth of the oak and birch forests in stage 3 (mid-Holocene) as the sea retreated further out to -40ft OD. In stage 4 the sea returned close to modern shores, drowning the forests. As a lifelong resident of Southport, Ronald Kay Gresswell M.A., PH.D., F.R.S.A., F.G.S. (1905-1969) was a prominent member of the British Institute of Geographers, known best for his fieldwork on the geomorphology of Lancashire during the 1940s and 50s. His work predated the radiocarbon and treering dating methods that came to the fore only in the 1960s and 70s; and also the Milankovitch theory of ice-ages that gained acceptance around the same time. His research is therefore ‘pure’ and unbiased by these later theories; he discusses the ‘eustatic’ variations of the post-glacial sea-level due to ice-melt and the recovery from the ice-burden, solely in terms of their apparent local effects. As in all such studies of ancient sea-levels, local ‘isostatic’ vertical movements of the land can be conveniently conjured to make almost any theory fit the evidence – so long as one does not try too hard to correlate them with the parallels from other parts of the world. This is not a criticism of Gresswell for it is found in almost all such studies. Later researchers from the 1960s onwards, taking on board the then-prevailing theories of glacio-isostatic modelling, would revise Gresswell’s theories on the grounds that they did not correspond with the wider picture derived from the worldwide sealevel curves and the melting of the Laurentide icesheet. A summary of this later research may be found in the Coastal Geomorphology Survey of Great Britain, chapter 7 (see the reference below, pp 4-5). In the 1950s Gresswell could only date the period of lowered sea-level by the vegetation sequences. The consensus at that era, based on the earlier work of Godwin and Steers, was that the deciduous forests were of Boreal-Atlantic age. This view of a high sea level, followed by a regression below modern sea level and finally a rise to modern shores, was often described as “the submerged forest period”. Radiocarbon dates can now help to date these forests more reliably; see the feature here: Submerged Forests around Britain and Ireland. A stern critic of Gresswell’s work has been M. J. Tooley who would argue (1978) that the Hillhouse ‘cliff’ was actually the shore of a trapped inland lake; and that the true former coast lay somewhat further west. From modern radiocarbon dates he and other researchers would now prefer a sequence of more conservative advances and retreats around the modern shoreline. Up to five possible transgressions of the present-day coast are envisaged between 9200 BP and 5000 BP; with subsequent build-up of the deep sandy beaches that we see today. The idea of a submerged forest period was quietly dropped. There remains general agreement however, that the sea only reached its modern level around 5000 BP (c3000 BC). It should be noted that none of this later work challenges Gresswell’s insight that the former river channels could be discerned in the shallow bed of the eastern Irish Sea and therefore they must be post-glacial; and it follows that at whatever era these rivers flowed, the Isle of Man must have been linked to Cumbria. The divergence is that the later researchers, being constrained by the glacioisostatic models that they must cite, could not contemplate such huge advances and retreats of the shoreline by as much as 30-40 km across the eastern Irish Sea; they would prefer to talk only of smallscale oscillations just offshore of the modern coasts. This is where Gresswell’s naïve and ‘pure’ insight is so valuable. In my own cross-disciplinary studies, I came at this problem from a world-wide pattern of correspondence of sea level change in alternate quarter-spheres. This is the pattern expected to be produced by a pole-shift that would have occurred during the mid-Holocene: the late fourth millennium BC (see the feature here: Raised Beaches and Submerged Forests). This theory was first published in The Atlantis Researches (1995) and Atlantis of the West (2002). We find emergence around 5,000 years ago, by similar distances, along shallow East Asian and South American coasts; and so we should not be surprised by submergence of the scale proposed by Gresswell. The present author would continue to have serious issues with current models of sea-level change since the ice age. The various vertical movements of land and seabed (or the collapsing ‘fore-bulges’ of more modern parlance) which are proposed to explain the sea-level anomalies around the world would themselves constitute a change to the Earth’s figure; and must therefore trigger a wobble of the rotation axis and a pole-shift. This would in turn feed-back as variations of sea-level and climate very similar to those that the ‘isostatic’ movements are advanced to explain. Sea level researchers seldom mention geodesy and fail to consider the rotational dynamics of the planet. The question of whether the floor of the eastern Irish Sea was exposed during the warm mid-Holocene period has wider consequences for archaeology. It is also related to the question of whether there was a land-bridge between Britain and Ireland, and to the Isle of Man; and how the various flora and fauna reached these islands after the ice age. It offers the possibility of Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeology submerged offshore, compliant with Welsh, Irish and Mediterranean myths. Celtic myths and legends recall sunken cities and lost lands around the coast of Britain; and if we are to properly investigate these as memories of real events then the ‘submerged forest period’ prior to 5,000 years ago is the only era when we find both submergence and a warm climate. In the BGS Report (2015) we may see that Gresswell’s 10-fathom line would roughly correspond to the Eastern Irish Sea Mud Belt and the older region as the Central Irish Sea Gravel Belt. In both these regions however, the report describes the Holocene deposits as varying between 5m and up to 40m depth. Therefore anything of archaeological interest that was formerly at sea level would now be deeply buried. In closing this review of Gresswell’s pioneering work, I can only express appreciation for the painstaking work that he and other fieldworkers undertake; those who excavate in difficult locations to give us the dated primary evidence of past regimes; and without whose work the secondary and cross-disciplinary researchers could not progress. But specialists can sometimes be too close to a problem; what we need is not more onshore work and theoretical models, but more data from offshore. The diagrams reproduced here from ‘Sandy Shores in Southwest Lancashire’ are believed to be out of copyright. Should anyone object to their inclusion here then please contact the author. References The following will lead to all the relevant detailed coastal studies and papers. http://archive.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/GCRDB/GCRsiteaccount1961.pdf this is part of: Geological Conservation Review Volume 28: Coastal Geomorphology of Great Britain Chapter 7: Sandy beaches and dunes – GCR site reports Site: AINSDALE (GCR ID: 1961) Gresswell, R.K. (1953b) Sandy Shores in South Lancashire: the Geomorphology of South-West Lancashire, Liverpool Studies in Geography, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool Tooley, M.J. (1978) Sea-level Changes in North-West England during the Flandrian Stage, Clarendon Press, Oxford Mellett, C., Long, D., Carter, G., Chiverell, R and Van Landeghem, K (2015) Geology of the seabed and shallow subsurface: The Irish Sea. British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/15/057. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512352/1/BGS_Report_Irish_Sea_Geology_CR-15-057N.pdf Citation: Citation: Dunbavin, Paul, (2020) R. Kay Gresswell and the Irish Sea Coast, Prehistory Papers, pp 118-124, Third Millennium, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4 Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor Ask a geologist to do a survey of the seabed and they will find geology. Any mark or feature in the surface sediments will be interpreted in terms of the geomorphology that they expect to find. An archaeologist looking at the same buried sub-sea features might see something different, as with crop marks on land. But why would an archaeologist wish to investigate the seabed other than to seek, perhaps, an ancient shipwreck? The possibility of ancient human settlement on what is now the floor of the Irish Sea – or indeed anywhere around the British or Irish continental shelf – is raised by the stories in Celtic mythology, which variously suggest lost cities around the coast: Lyonesse off Land’s End, a submerged ‘Celtic Otherworld’, or a lost land called Annwn; and other myths from Mediterranean sources also pose questions. Welsh myths describe a plain “as large as the sea” off the coast of North Wales and Irish myths would portray a submerged “flowery plain” in the vicinity of the Isle of Man. Irish and Welsh legends speak of a golden tower in the sea explored by the earliest colonists. [1] To approach these myths logically either they are just that: ‘myths’ in the sense of ‘fiction’ or they must be based on an authentic root memory. If indeed they recall an ancient submergence then the next logical step is to ask, when? We need not debate here the various mechanisms of sea-level change. On all conventional theories it must be remembered that the gradual eustatic rise of the sea since the ice age extended over thousands of years; a period of time longer than that which separates us from Dynastic Egypt. It is a failure of imagination to suggest that during these millennia there was no human settlement on the now-submerged regions of the continental shelf. The consensus is that present-day sea-level only stabilized around 5,000 years ago since which time there have been just minor fluctuations. In other parts of the world we find the opposite phenomenon at this same era: emergence and raised beaches rather than submerged features, together with evidence that people quickly colonised the newly exposed land (see: Raised Beaches and Submerged Forests). For Britain and Ireland, submerged forest deposits are found all around the modern coasts (see: Submerged Forests around Britain and Ireland). These come from various ages, but most date from either of two periods; the first roughly 5-6000 BC around the time that the North Sea land bridge was flooded, while those around western coasts cluster around a later period closer to 3000 BC. So if we should seek any submerged archaeology then, logically, it should date from these eras. The earlier dates correspond to the Mesolithic period of supposed hunter-gatherers; the later dates correspond to the transition between the Middle and the Late Neolithic. Again, logically, any memories of real events in a legend would suggest that the former date is too early; and so we should be looking around 5,000 years ago to find underwater archaeology to match the legends. We should expect that any submerged Middle Neolithic sites would look like those that we find on land from this era, such as the Court Cairns found all around the Irish Sea or the dolmens found further south; or perhaps settlements like those at Skara Brae; or field-walls such as those beneath Irish peat bogs. Cornish legends about the loss of a land called Lyonesse speak of some 140 ‘churches’ drowned in a sudden rise of the sea. [2] We would have to consider these as pagan religious sites and parishes. What might such submerged cairns and settlements look like now, ruined and buried beneath metres of silt on the sea floor? Imagination is required. And this is before we even consider looking for lost cities. Older studies of sea level change around the British coast would speak freely of a ‘submerged forest period’ in the mid-Holocene (see: The Irish Sea Coast here above). The theory, before glacio-eustatic modelling of world sea-levels forced it out of favour, was that there was an initial period of eustatic sea level rise (i.e. melting of polar ice) which gradually drowned the coasts up to c.5500 BC. After this rise a regression exposed western coasts again before a return of the sea to modern shores created the second wave of submerged forests around 3000 BC. Disagreement then arises as to how far out the sea may have receded during the warm mid-Holocene climate. Recent specialist studies would prefer a conservative ‘somewhere west’ of the present shores (as they have no data from the seafloor and decline to speculate) or that the submerged forests were created by trapped freshwater lakes near the coasts. The common-sense approach of archaeologists would be to seek submerged coastal sites such as we find at Westward Ho, Devon and at Skara Brae. However for the Irish Sea the legends of submerged plains, lost lands and towers are clearly pointing us further away from the shoreline than any archaeologist would consider; into depths that require expensive expeditions that so-far have been the preserve of geologists seeking oil and gas reserves or shallow sites for windfarms. Much of the geological mapping that we have for the central Irish Sea is acknowledged to be the work of just one man: the late Dr Robin Wingfield of the British Geological Survey (BGS) who, in the 1980s, identified ice-wedge polygons and circular features in sonar reflections taken north of Anglesey. [3] In the Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) coastal resources survey of 2004 the Irish Sea region is defined as SEA6 and various reports are available via the BGS Geoindex database. Another survey investigated suitable sites for wind farms. This concentrated on an area closer to the Lancashire coast where the Morecambe Bay gas field and wind farms are situated and it did not encounter the patterned ground found in the older surveys; the seabed is instead described as mostly flat and featureless. The authors noted that the older sonar techniques were largely obsolete and that geophysical data was completely absent for large areas. [4] These results and subsequent studies are now embodied in the BGS Geoindex and in the updated report by Mellet-et-al of 2015, which summarises the state of knowledge as at that date. The Geoindex shows the Holocene mud and sand deposits to vary between 5m and 40m thickness, with the deepest deposits lying off the Cumbrian coast. [5] Shipwrecks and modern pipelines are clearly identifiable from trailing sand patterns formed by the prevailing currents. Also noted are subsurface features and ‘pock-marks’; once those defined as escaping methane (marsh gas) are excluded there still remain some interesting sites to explore. Of particular interest is a feature lying off Morecambe Bay described as a pingo (on land we might call these kettle-holes). This reveals a rounded-rectangular feature, which would be football-field-sized; and were it on land it would be about the same size as a typical Neolithic henge. Some of the pockmarks nearby are described as unknown and ‘possibly man-made’. [6] This location would at some prehistoric era have been a river valley flowing into a lake that is now the Lune Deep. Another potential pingo is noted to the north of the Isle of Man. To summarise the surface geology of the eastern Irish Sea as it is described would be as follows. The rectangular shelf slopes gently away from the English coastal dunes out to a depth of 50m between Anglesey and the Isle of Man. Close to the coast lies the Eastern Irish Sea Mud Belt overlaying the Central Irish Sea Gravel Belt that becomes exposed further west; this is mostly comprised of diamicton (a glacial till of mud and boulders). The smooth surface gives way to gravelly rough ground as the seabed becomes deeper between Mann and Anglesey, where areas of bedrock are exposed. These rocks are a continuation of the onshore geology of Anglesey. Here the seabed has just a thin covering of Holocene mud and sand and it is in this region that the glacially patterned ground and polygons are described. This description may be investigated on the maps in the BGS database and its various options as linked here; together with the interpretive reports that have been published by the geologists. A summary map of the areas of ‘patterned ground’ and the other unexplained features is offered below as an introduction, since the BGS geological overlays give little indication of depth. Seabed contours can be investigated via UK Admiralty chart 1826, or via the Admiralty online database. The highlighted area shows the regions where glacially patterned ground has been identified. Thumbnail of Admiralty chart 1826 for the eastern Irish sea, showing the depth contours. The public domain database of the British Geological Survey (BGS) can be found at: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/GeoIndex/offshore.htm and click on ‘view the offshore Geoindex’. The Admiralty wrecks and pipelines database plus a contour map (password required) is at: https://data.admiralty.co.uk/portal/apps/sites/#/marine-data-portal Geologists would deduce all of the patterned ground to be glacial scour features similar to those studied on land. In his 1987 paper, Wingfield had interpreted the polygons and near-circular features north-west of Anglesey as collapsed pingos, which typically occur in formerly glaciated areas. The small undulations on the seabed are interpreted as drumlins and flutes. It is important to note that there has been little examination of these features other than by sonar reflection and whatever they are formed-of lies buried beneath the sand and gravel. Another discovery from the DTI surveys is that the only place where hard bedrock penetrates the Holocene deposits lies to the north-west of Anglesey and it is interesting that the two highest peaks on the seabed at 32m and 35m depth correspond to areas where the bedrock is exposed. [7] The Holocene sand and mud varies in depth as shaped by the prevailing currents and it is likely that much has been scoured away in this region. In 2002 I was given permission to reproduce some of the sonar interpretations as an appendix to Atlantis of the West. I do recall in the 1990s speaking by telephone to a representative at the BGS (who may have been the late Dr Wingfield) who told me there was no other evidence then available. Later, in 2002, I spoke to his colleague Ceiri James who informed me that Dr Wingfield had died; and that he alone would have known on what evidence he described the patterned ground (as published in 1995 and cited in the later SEA6 reports). Recent enquiries of BGS could not identify precisely which surveys the published evidence of ‘polygons’, in areas other than those near Anglesey, had actually originated. The public database shows numerous sonar tracks crossing these areas. However, it is not really the relic features from the ice age that should interest us; rather we should ask: what lies hidden beneath the sand and mud layers? Another interesting feature from the DTI Environmental Assessment was a straight north-south ‘wall’ about 3m (10-feet) high where the mud has piled-up against it. [8] This lies close to the mapped boundary between the mud and diamicton. The survey describes the straight feature as unidentified and probably man-made – as it was not at that time shown on the Admiralty databases of wrecks or pipelines. However, it does correspond to where the sonar track crosses the modern pipeline between the Morecambe Bay gas platform and its outlying northern well! This shows us how quickly the modern currents can pile-up sediment over even a recent man-made structure; so who knows how much archaeology might lie buried deeper beneath the Holocene mud and gravel. In this analysis I would seek only to open minds to what is possible in order to reconcile the incompatible cross-disciplinary picture that arises when the same evidence is approached from contradictory specialist viewpoints: geology, archaeology and mythology, each offering us a different perspective. Archaeologists are only now waking-up to the likelihood of Mesolithic human activity on the submerged ‘Doggerland’ of the North Sea (Sunday Times 8-Sept-2019), so perhaps the Irish Sea is worthy of equal consideration: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/doggerland-the-fertile-paradise-that-joined-uk-to-europe-emerges-fromsea-bed-t5t389ktl I was reminded by all this of the story recorded by the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea. In the fifth century AD he recorded the legend of a long wall built by the people of ancient Brittia (northern Britain) to separate the land of the living from the land of the dead to the west. [9] To this same place, we are told, the souls of the dead were ferried! Were a man or any wild creature to venture beyond the wall they would surely be struck down dead within half an hour by the foul air. This would be quite a fair description of dense methane gas escaping from muddy pools. After all swamp gas, we are told, can also catch fire and create UFOs to confuse the credulous observer; so perhaps we should not be taken aback by a little bit of potentially explosive archaeology on the seabed! Notes 1) For a discussion of all these legends see Towers of Atlantis. The legends of a submerged tower in the Irish Sea are found in Nennius and in the Irish Book of Invasions. 2) As described by William of Worcester (fifteenth century) in his Itinerary of Cornwall. 3) See Wingfield 1987 and later citations. 4) See page 52 of the Kenyon & Cooper Sandwindfarms report. 5) Various overlay-maps are publicly available online via the BGS Geoindex offshore website, of which many are reproduced in the Mellet et al report of 2015. 6) See figure 16 on page 33 of the Holmes and Tappin 2005 report. 7) See the summary map ‘static bedforms’ as Figure 13 on page 28 of Holmes and Tappin 2005, which lists the sources from which it was compiled. 8) See Figure 17.5 on page 34 of the Holmes and Tappin 2005 report. 9) Procopius, History of the Wars, VIII, xx References and Sources: Wingfield, R T R. (1987) Giant sand waves and relict periglacial features on the seabed west of Anglesey. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 98, 400–404. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016787887800809 James, J.W.C. and Wingfield, R.T.R. (1987) Aspects of the seabed sediments in the southern Irish Sea. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 98, 404-406. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016787887800810 D.I., Jackson & R.T., Wingfield & D, Evans & R.P., Barnes & M, Arthur & M, Howells & R, Hughes & Petterson, Michael. (1995) The Geology of the Irish Sea, London: HMSO for the British Geological Survey. 2004 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA6 SV Lia SEA6 Survey - seabed sampling survey with video and photography (Irish Sea) https://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/start.php?tpc=004_aba64100-c149-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd&step=0014 Kenyon, N. and Cooper, W. (2005) Sand banks, sand transport and offshore wind farms. 10.13140/RG.2.1.1593.4807. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285584613_Sand_banks_sand_transport_and_offshore_wind_far ms Download available via researchgate https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjItf6Cm8PkAh WVTRUIHRMyDy4QFjADegQIABAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F285584613_Sand_ban ks_sand_transport_and_offshore_wind_farms&usg=AOvVaw2NrTWnMJ_cr5NKBJnppIZH Holmes, R. and Tappin, D. R. (2005) DTI Strategic Environmental Assessment Area 6, Irish Sea, seabed and surficial geology and processes, British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/05/057. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/194659/ SEA_6_Section_5_web.pdf http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11259/ Mellett, C. Long, D. Carter, G. Chiverell, R. and Van Landeghem, K. (2015) Geology of the seabed and shallow subsurface: The Irish Sea. British Geological Survey Commissioned Report, CR/15/057. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512352/1/BGS_Report_Irish_Sea_Geology_CR-15-057N.pdf Tags: sea level change, submerged forest, catastrophism, sea-level change, ancient climate, ice ages, Irish Sea, pingo, sonar scans, Lancashire, Wales, pole shift Citation: Dunbavin, Paul (2020) Patterns on the Irish Sea Floor, in Prehistory Papers, pp 125-133 Third Millennium Publishing, Beverley, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-4-4 Plato’s Impossible Plain We have surely all heard that old saying that if we had some bacon then we could have bacon and eggs – if we had some eggs! This is a warning for us not to nest too many ‘ifs’; not to go beyond the facts and venture too far into speculative territory. But sometimes as long as you admit what you are doing then the results can be interesting – especially when the subject is Plato’s Atlantis and the vast dimensions that he specifies for the lost ’continent’. Author Tony O’Connell in his book Joining the Dots (pages 82-87) and on the excellent Atlantipedia website draws our attention to the huge dimensions that Plato gives for the rectangular plain at the centre of Atlantis and for the size and depth of the surrounding ditch. When you consider these huge proportions, it is easy to see why Plato compared Atlantis to a lost ‘continent’! There should be no need to repeat in detail here the discussion of the units and solutions suggested by other authors and which are amply explored at http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/dimensions-of-atlantis/ In Critias, the scale of the central plain is given as three thousand stadia by two thousand stadia; a natural rectangle bounded by broad straight canals that diverted the rivers as they came down from the surrounding mountains. The fields within were irrigated by ditches that drew off the larger channels. The impression given is rather similar to the Dutch canals and dykes, or to the modern irrigation of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Like everyone else I assumed, in my own earlier books: Towers of Atlantis and Atlantis of the West, that the dimensions were unreliable due to a mistranslation of smaller units at an early stage in the transmission of the story. Even Plato found it hard to believe the measurements that he inherited, but he duly passed them on for us to consider. This should negate any suggestions that the story was Plato’s own invention – for why would he not have chosen more credible dimensions? Consider the following ancient measures: UNIT Egyptian Cubit Egyptian Khet Egyptian ‘River measure’ Egyptian Stadium Athenian Stadium Greek Plethron MULTIPLE 100 cubits 20,000 cubits 100 Greek feet METRIC EQUIVALENT 52.5 centimetres 52.5 metres 10.5 kilometres 157 metres 185 metres 30 metres The length of a Greek Stadium (Stadion) varied from place to place between 157m and 209 m – but it doesn’t help us much whichever unit we choose. As O’Connell points out, a canal width of a Greek or Egyptian stadium is excessive for purpose; the further detail that they were wide enough for ships to pass gives us a better idea of adequate dimensions from which we may scale down the other measures appropriately. However, we don’t have to accept that all the channels were quite so wide, or so deep, perhaps only those parts that needed to be; after all, we are also told that bridges spanned the various canals! If you consider a plethron as roughly the width of a Greek running track then you would have an adequate breadth for a canal, with perhaps wider passing places. However, this same dimension is also given as the depth of the channels. Why would the channels need to be so deep? Firstly, let us assume that we have a memory of a real place and not Plato’s own fiction. If we posit that Solon or his source mistranslated Egyptian khet as stadia then this would give us a rectangle (approximately) 150 km by 100 km, still huge, but slightly more plausible. We cannot be sure that the exact same units of length were used in the most archaic Egyptian dynasties. Regardless of how the original story came to be recorded by the priests of Sais, they too must have translated the dimensions from a native (Atlantian) source. The chain of preservation goes something like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Recorded in unknown local units of measure Transmitted by traders or colonists to archaic Egypt Recorded by the Saite priests when the temple was built Transcribed numerous times up to the era of Solon converted to Greek units by/for Solon Interpreted by Plato for his narratives Translated for modern readers by Greek scholars Errors could have been introduced at any of these intermediate stages in the preservation of the history. Therefore other than to conclude that the measurements are sensibly too large by a huge multiple then it becomes fruitless to seek a submerged rectangular plain of any precise scale; be it in the Atlantic or Mediterranean. We can better trust the invariable statements that ships could pass on the canals, and that the plain was roughly a 3 by 2 rectangle, as details more likely to have survived as ‘fossils’ through the various stages of transmission. Most theorists, in discussing diverse locations, from Thera, to Spain, to the Altiplano and beyond will simply ignore or bend Plato’s dimensions to suit their own pet theory. All we can really say is that there was a rectangular 3:2 plain at the centre of a large island. The plain was dissected by broad rivers which were controlled and diverted into the straight canals; it was surrounded by hills and mountains with another hill towards the centre; and a part of it faced south towards the open sea. So where might we find this combination of natural features? On the floor of the eastern Irish Sea, we do find a submerged rectangular plain at the centre of a large island (Britain and Ireland together) that would make a good match for Plato’s description. Actually, we can see two such rectangles. The larger rectangle is bounded by the modern shores of the Irish Sea, with the mountain of Mann at its centre. Between the Isle of Man and Anglesey lies a smaller submerged rectangle known as the Manx-Furness Basin. Separating this from the northern Solway Basin is a rise known as the Manx-Furness Ridge. UK Admiralty Chart 1826 The eastern Irish Sea is a relatively shallow submerged shelf, as shown here on the navigation chart. As a guide the road distance from Liverpool to Holyhead is around 63 km and from Liverpool to Carlisle 78 km If you would like to use some imagination and make some figurative ‘bacon and eggs’ then we do know that at some stage between the end of the Ice Age and modern times, the eastern Irish sea was exposed and the Isle of Man was linked to the Lancashire coast. We know this because various animals reached the island. The only point of dispute is precisely when this was. Conventional sea-level theories require the Irish Sea basin to have flooded early in the Holocene as the northern icecap melted and thus it would have had at best an icy tundra climate. It is generally agreed that the sea had gradually settled to its present shores by the mid-Holocene warm period, around 5,000 years ago. The submerged floor of the eastern Irish Sea slopes only gradually away from the Lancashire coast and reaches 50m depth, roughly along a line drawn from Anglesey via Mann to Galloway; and then drops away steeply to the west. To fulfil Plato’s description of a flat plain requires a relative tilt to have occurred. The Manx-Furness Ridge lies at a depth of 15-20m with two gaps where the depth falls to 25-30m If we assume the basins to north and south to have been formerly close to sea level (rather like the present-day Cambridgeshire Fens) then in order to link the basins across this ridge at sea level would have required a ‘canal’ of perhaps 20-30m depth to be dug in the soft glacial till – perhaps by deepening a natural river valley. Therefore, the most extreme depth of cutting specified by Plato (a plethron) would have been needed in only this one location. There is no point in trying to be precise with such estimates! Consider the labour that would have been required for such an irrigation scheme? Plato writes that the canals of Atlantis were a task over many generations for a large population of farmers. We may compare it to other civil engineering projects from the ancient world such as the lakes of Aztec Mexico, the lagoons of Angkor Wat, or even closer to home the digging of Offa’s Dyke or Hadrian’s Wall. We may see that the task becomes far more credible if the exaggerated dimensions of the canals and channels applied to only small sections of an otherwise naturally flat plain. If you would like to review more of the pattern of evidence that points to the Irish Sea as a likely location for the lost city then you will find this in my Towers of Atlantis and Atlantis of the West. These books contained quite enough new ideas to absorb, without frying any bacon and eggs! However, I hope the possibilities were always apparent to some of the more imaginative readers. Where else could you find a location that fits so well to Plato’s description and his impossible dimensions? References: UK Admiralty Charts 1121 and 1826 O’Connell, Tony (2018) Joining the Dots, ISBN: 978-1-9993626-0-7 Dunbavin, Paul (2017) Towers of Atlantis, Third Millennium Publishing, ISBN: 978-0-9525029-3-7 Dunbavin, Paul (2003) Atlantis of the West, Constable & Robinson, ISBN: 978-1-84119-716-5 Citation: cite this article on the Academia website or the individual articles in Prehistory Papers 1 & 2 https://www.academia.edu/85268409/An_Atlantis_Miscellany **********************************