Introduction
A lover of ancient civilisations, Sylvain Tristan has been helped in
his quest of the past by two men – Jean Deruelle, who has been one of
the first to suggest a Megalithic origin for Atlantis and Alan Butler,
the rediscoverer of 366-degree geometry. Tristan’s own research and
personal investigation made him unveil the secret relationship between
most capital cities of antiquity the world over. From that Tristan
infers that one single people, who had incredibly accurate knowledge of
the Earth circumference, was able to voyage round the globe 4,000 years
before Columbus and most probably helped the first great civilisations
to rise. His discoveries are dealt with in his first book, ‘Les Lignes
d’or’ (‘The Golden Lines’), published in 2005.
After an amazing
demonstration in his second book, ‘Atlantide, premier empire européen,’
(‘Atlantis, First European Empire’), published in 2007, Tristan leaves
little doubt that the Megalithic civilisation was no less than Plato’s
Atlantis. More amazing still, this vast empire possessed perfect
knowledge of our planet – some knowledge that has been secretly passed
down from initiate to initiate for millennia.
THREE PILLARS FOR A HYPOTHESIS
SPM:
In your book, you uphold the theory that Atlantis did exist and identify
it as the Megalithic civilisation of Western Europe. Do you mean to say
that the builders of Stonehenge were Atlanteans? What makes you assert
that?
Sylvain Tristan:
I based myself on archaeological records,
mythological references and a mathematical demonstration altogether. My
approach is scientific and my goal has been to gather rational evidence
of a presumed civilisation. I have been trying to equate the known
descriptions of Atlantis and what we know about the Megalithic
expansion. Plato’s first description of the Atlantean empire and its
colonies very closely parallels the Megalithic settlement in Western
Europe. The Megalithic people were one of the only people of the time
that could skilfully sail across vast distances of the Atlantic coast,
extending from southern Scandinavia to southern Spain and later
expanding into the Mediterranean. Most people who write about Atlantis
mention Plato, but other Greek authors mentioned this mythical
continent, like Diodorus Siculus, a well-known historian from the 1st
century BC. If he didn’t write much about Atlanteans, he described them
as people living in the northwestern part of the known world a few
millennia before the Greeks. He also refers to Hecataeus of Abdera who
mentioned the so-called Hyperboreans, who were said to live in a
northern island where they revered Apollo in a magnificent precinct and
had a remarkable circular temple – in my opinion Avebury and Stonehenge.
So, geographically and chronologically, Atlanteans can only have been
the Megalithic people. This is the date given by Plato (9,000 years
before Solon) that poses the most serious problem and that has
discredited the myth among mainstream scholars. I am personally
convinced that this date is wrong. Radiocarbon dating of the Megalithic
sites roughly spans three and a half millennia, from 4800 BC to 1200 BC.
As their name gives it away, Atlanteans must have been living on the
Atlantic coast. That’s why I have no doubt that Atlanteans were the
Megalithic people, who lived in northwestern Europe and who later
settled the Mediterranean where their constructions are to be found in
the Balearic islands, Corsica, Malta and even northern Africa. There are
also obvious links between the Greek myths and those of northern Europe.
More evidence is the description by Egyptians of the Sea People
attacking the Mediterranean countries c.1200 BC, which coincides with
the end of the Megalithic era. Those descriptions mention skilful
sailors coming ‘from the midst of the sea.’ Egyptians images in Medinet
Habu specifically depict a type of sword that was manufactured in
Brittany, rather than in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is further
evidence that the Mediterranean was invaded by navigators originating on
the remote shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
A
366-DEGREE GEOMETRY
SPM:
According to you, their greatest trait was to
elaborate a 366-degree geometry. This geometry was, so to say, their
signature, is that right?
Sylvain Tristan:
The unit of measurement of the Megalithic people
strongly suggests that they possessed a 366-degree geometry. There
again, several pieces of evidence point in the same direction. Scottish
Professor Alexander Thom spent several decades of his life trying to
prove that the Megalithic stone circles had been based on a
82.96-centimetre unit which he dubbed the Megalithic yard. In the late
1990’s, Alan Butler showed that this length was a perfect subdivision of
the Earth’s polar circumference in the 366-degree geometry. The most
astonishing of all is that there are exactly 366 Megalithic yards to the
Megalithic second of arc. Furthermore, the greatest Megalithic sites of
Britain – Avebury and Stonehenge in the south of England, but also the
Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness in Orkney – and most capital
cities of the world’s first great civilisations before Rome – Thebes in
Egypt, Babylon in Mesopotamia, Mycenae and Athens on Greece, and so on –
are located on places that imply a direct knowledge of 366 geometry from
those who erected them there in the first place. I tried to show in my
first book, Les Lignes d’or, that chance alone cannot account for
the geographical positions of these places and cities. On the contrary,
it was decided to create them where they are because of mathematical
considerations – all these cities are located on the parallels and, much
more often, the meridians derived from 366-degre geometry as it
is applied on the Earth, that is, equidistant lines crisscrossing the
globe.
Stonehenge
Babylon, Mesopotamia
The Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt
Teotihuacan, Mexico
SPM:
Could you precise the nature of this geometry – that
you refer to as an ‘inspired creation’ – and tell us what makes you
think the Megalithic people might have devised it?
Sylvain Tristan:
The most beautiful and famous Megalithic sites of
Britain, like Stonehenge, and the world’s first great capitals that
flowered right after them, are located on what Alan Butler and I call
Salt Lines (what I termed Golden Lines in my first book), that is,
parallels and meridians derived from 366-degree geometry. Were you to
divide the Earth like a tangerine made of 366 segments, you would find
that these great cities of remote antiquity are located on the lines
that separate each different piece of the fruit. The Atlanteans’ genius
– or the Megalithic people’s genius, if you like ‑ was to reconcile the
units of time and distance. Within their system the calendar and the
geometry were in perfect harmony with the Earth. First, you have to
remember that in a year the Earth spins a bit more than 366 times, not
365, because the Earth also revolves once around the Sun during that
period. So they (or at least some people) devised a 366-day calendar.
Then they decided to create a 366-degree geometry. This geometry allows
for a neat unification of concepts that today are separate – it was
perfectly possible, for example, that in this mathematical system of
yore, when the Earth was making a minute-of-arc turn on its axis, this
was also a minute of time. That must have made the system beautifully
harmonious – time and distance being unified in a single overarching
system.
Applying this system
planet-scale meant creating sacred spots and cities, say, at the
intersections of big rivers and lines derived from the geometry.
Applying the system on a local scale meant to devise a unit of
measurement that was a neat subdivision of the Earth circumference in
this geometry – the Megalithic yard mentioned earlier, that is one 366th
of a Megalithic second of arc. There are at least two possible
candidates for the creation of the geometry. It is of course possible
that the Atlanteans were taught this geometry by some unidentified
civilisation. That they have devised it themselves actually seems quite
unlikely because the Megalithic people couldn’t even – or didn’t wish to
‑ write. An interesting possibility is that the geometry rose as the
result of two people meeting and sharing their respective knowledge with
each other. For instance, the Megalithic people were probably great
sky-gazers. Again, these great astronomical capacities are stressed both
by Diodorus Siculus’ Atlanteans and Hecataeus’ Hyperboreans. The
Megalithic people might have noticed the round umbra of the Earth on the
Moon during a Moon eclipse. Then, through careful observation of the Sun
course in different latitudes of the globe, they might have estimated
the Earth circumference with a great degree of accuracy. In the Middle
East they might have met the world’s first mathematicians (like
Presumerians), and the sharing of their mutual knowledge might have
resulted in the creation of 366-degree geometry.
SPM:
You claim that Atlanteans helped great civilisations
of antiquity until the Greeks to rise. On what basis are you able to
assert that?
Sylvain Tristan:
The Megalithic people were expert sailors who thrived
along the European shores, both in the Atlantic and in the
Mediterranean. They probably reached the Middle East by the end of the 4th
millennium BC ‑ about 3500-3100 BC. Thousands of Megalithic sites dating
from this time are to be found in the Jordan valley, which to me is
clear evidence that the Megalithic people at least met the people living
there at the time. When they discovered the river Jordan – an almost
exact natural north-south line – they might have decided to devise a
geometry that would use that river as a Prime Meridian, just like
Greenwich today symbolises the Prime Meridian of 360-degree geometry.
Chronologically, everything fits. For it is precisely at this time –
around 3100 BC – that the first great capitals started to thrive:
Babylon in Mesopotamia, Thebes in Egypt, Assur in Assyria, but also,
quite interestingly, Stonehenge in Britain. All these cities or places
are located on Salt Lines (meridians and parallels of 366 geometry), at
an integral number of degrees from the Jordan! Harappa, one of the most
prestigious cities of the Indus civilisation that rose around 2800 BC,
is a Salt Line location as well. Even the city of Caral in modern Peru,
the ‘Mother City of the Americas’ with the oldest-known New World
pyramids, is a Salt Line location as well. Much later, the same thing
can be said of Mycenae and Athens in Greece, or Hattusa in Anatolia. The
capital city of the Olmecs in Central America suddenly rose on a Salt
Line location in the same century as the Megalithic civilisation fell
and the Sea People raided the eastern Med.
Chance alone couldn’t explain
one fifth of the clear pattern we’ve got here – the locations of capital
cities must have been carefully selected by people dealing with the same
knowledge applied in places as remote to one another as Mesopotamia and
South America. I’ve had my findings checked by three independent
mathematicians, each of whom confirmed that my results couldn’t be
explained away by chance – the odds are just too high! That virtually
all the capital cities of the world’s new civilisations have been
erected along these lines show that the civilisation referred to by
Plato as Atlantis participated in the birth, or at least the great leap
forward, of these civilisations, and subsequently let them evolve on
their own. These civilisations were thus less colonies than places where
the Megalithic people left their fingerprints at the dawn of their lives
– fingerprints that assume the form of great mathematical and
astronomical knowledge.
THE
DOGGER ISLAND
SPM:
How do you explain that the myth of Atlantis refers
to an island?
Sylvain Tristan:
Mythical accounts in Greece tell us that Apollo
originally came from Hyperborea, which we saw was most probably northern
Europe. Moreover, the legends of Avalon, Atland and Aztlán, which
respectively belong to the mythologies of the Celts, the Frisians and
the Aztecs, all suggest an island that would have existed long ago in
northern Europe. So, the issue is, did the island of Atlantis described
by Plato once exist somewhere in northern Europe, even if we know that
the Greek philosopher probably deliberately exaggerated facts about it
in his account? Strangely enough, there is a submerged island in
the North Sea. As there are Megalithic sites all around the North Sea
(in Scandinavia, Germany, Holland and Britain), it just stands to reason
that, should this island have been emerged in Megalithic times, there
must have been Megalithic settlements on it as well. This submarine
island is called the Dogger Bank. Scientists generally think the Dogger
Bank has been submerged before 5000 BC, which would chronologically
place it before the Megalithic era.
The Dogger Bank, North Sea
There are, however, reasons to
doubt the validity of this date. For some geological reasons due to the
last Ice Age, the ground in this part of the world has been slowly going
down – it still is, which explains why today in Holland, Germany and
England, people regularly have to fight against the sea which is
encroaching the lands that are sinking on the shores of the North Sea.
There is little doubt in my opinion that the Dogger Bank has been rising
out of water much later than scientists tend to think, hence at
Megalithic times these lands were probably settled by them. That’s
probably the submersion of this island that later gave birth to
different myths of a lost island like those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and
so on – and of course Plato’s “tale” of Atlantis. I personally think
there are strong presumptions to carry out underwater excavations, or at
least investigations, in the Dogger Bank area. Undersea Megalithic sites
and, who knows, scanty remains of a lost capital might be found there in
the shallow waters of central North Sea. After the flooding of the
island, perhaps around 3500-3100 BC, the Megalithic people might have
sought new lands in the Middle East, and finally created a new ‘capital’
on another northern island – in Britain, in the Stonehenge/Avebury area,
for example.
FROM ATLANTEANS TO CELTIC DRUIDS
SPM:
You suggest that the Atlanteans’knowledge might
have been passed down to us via The Celtic druids. What type of evidence
do you base yourself on and what kind of knowledge are you talking
about?
Sylvain Tristan:
Part of the Megalithic knowledge might have come down
to us ‑ here’s how. To erect such huge pieces of stone, the Megalithic
people needed sages that we could call druids too, the word meaning
‘wise people.’ These druids were probably the kind of people who could
understand and use 366-degree geometry. I think the knowledge of these
druids might have survived at least till Roman times. When Caesar
conquered Gaul, he explicitly refers to Celtic druids that were still
being initiated in Britain at the time. He insists that druids were
being trained for twenty years – this initiation being exclusively oral,
thus based on memorisation, any from of writing being strictly
prohibited. It is my contention that some of, possibly even all of the
Megalithic knowledge could have been passed down for more than a
millennium via the Celtic druids. When druids were massacred not long
after Caesar, it is not totally absurd to suggest that at least part of
their knowledge was passed down till modern times through secret
societies that perpetuated the druidic tradition by concealing the fact
that they were ‘druids’. Of course this is just a suggestion, but it is
not completely out of the realm of plausibility . . .
Druids
The battle of Alesia
SPM:
Do you have more evidence that would support your
contention that Atlantean knowledge might have survived till modern
times?
Sylvain Tristan:
Well, again, you have to keep in mind that in my view
what we term ‘Atlantean’ was actually Megalithic, who used 366-degree
geometry. The avoirdupois pound, that is still used today in
English-speaking countries, appears to be one of the many implications
of this geometry of yore – another piece of evidence that Atlantean
knowledge might have secretly travelled through millennia. It is a fact
that the avoirdupois pound owes its name from the Old French phrase
avoir de pois, which means ‘goods of weight.’ My colleague Alan
Butler showed that there was exactly 1020 avoirdupois pounds
to a Megalithic-second-of-arc-thick ‘segment’ of Earth. A round number
in base 10 – as though the people ‘devising’ it in the Middle Ages had
chosen a precise subdivision of the Earth mass, not in any system but in
366-degree geometry. Of course, another question arises – how the heck
could they have known with such accuracy the mass of the Earth? Let’s
say it’s just a coincidence then – the only problem is that, according
to mathematicians who had a second look at the accuracy of the result,
it is unlikely to be a mere coincidence. It is also known that the Troy
pound is named after the French market city of Troyes. Now all this is
incredibly interesting because the French city of Troyes stands right on
a Salt Line – a meridian of 366-degree geometry! What is more, this Salt
Line is the very line where I believe that Alesia, the city that was
described by Diodorus Siculus as ‘the hearth and mother-city of all
Celtica,’ stands – in my opinion the most sacred city of Celtic druids,
that in turn might have inherited from the knowledge of Megalithic
druids. Is it not at least possible to imagine that the
Megalithic knowledge could have been secretly preserved, first by druids
in Alesia, then by some secret society in Troyes? You have to remember
at this point that the Knights Templar precisely emerged in the Middle
Ages… in Troyes! As the avoirdupois pound was originally French, there
is now good evidence that it might have come from Troyes too. More clues
suggest this knowledge might have survived till this day. I have good
reason to think that some modern secret societies have inherited from
this knowledge and for some reason make it a point to disseminate clues
about 366 geometry here and there on the planet. A good example of that
is some of the best crop circles that of course are illustrations of
circle geometry and that mainly appear in Wiltshire, along the Salt Line
passing through Stonehenge and Avebury. For of course these crop circles
are human-made. . .
A
GREAT ARCHITECT?
SPM:
Isn't there, apart from the
magnificent positioning of ancient capital cities on Salt Lines and the
key numbers of 366-degree geometry, another plane of understanding that
we don't
envisage because, quite simply, it stands beyond the reach of our
intellectual limits?
Sylvain Tristan:
Combinations of the three key numbers of 366 geometry
– 366, 40 and 10 ‑ are also fundamental characteristics of the Earth,
Moon, Sun, water and even the human body. Sometimes, when confronted
with such clockwork precision, I wonder whether it is possible that
people living 5,000 years ago could ever invent it. In many ways this
geometry seems superior to anything we have even now, for it sums up in
a simple way – with just three integers, in fact – some physical and
biological characteristics of our 'region' in the universe. This sounds
incredible but it is true. Freemasonry traditionally refers to a
'Great
Architect'
that would have created the universe. Sometimes it occurs to
me these numbers could be the signature of this Great Architect. Either
the Atlanteans were exceptionally bright people and they hit upon
something fundamental in our universe – but I somehow doubt it – or this
knowledge was one way or another 'given'
to them – but in this case how
and by whom? All this is the greatest mystery of all, of course, and I
would be presumptuous were I to tell you I had the answer to this
question. One fact remains – Salt Lines have been marked out on the
ground in the past much more than chance can possibly allow for, and to
this day no mathematician has proven me wrong.
The Earth
SPM:
Is Atlantis as you portray it a civilisation we might
learn from?
Sylvain Tristan:
Atlantis was a supercivilisation within the context of the epoch. It is
obvious that in his account Plato embellished reality when he wrote
about Atlantis, both because he needed this type of exaggeration for his
own literary and political purposes and also because at the time the
Megalithic people had disappeared for already a millennium, their
civilisation being already veiled in a deep shroud of mystery and myth.
His hyperbolic tendency is obvious and his description of Atlantis is
greatly distorted – the real Megalithic civilisation was obviously not
the refined, sophisticated nation he depicted . . . But in a way Plato
was right – Atlanteans were an astounding people in many ways. They
could erect gigantic stones, they were great sailors and they were
accomplished mathematicians and astronomers – indeed, it is astounding
just how familiar and intimate they came to be with the physics of our
planet. Moreover, the Megalithic people appeared to be a sort of united
nation or, at least, they managed to make contact with other people
without making war with them for most of the astonishing 4,500-year
period during which Megalithic stones have been erected across Europe.
In this regard we should be humble. Unlike the Megalithic people, we are
destroying the ship we’re sailing on – the Earth, which is a limited and
very fragile world. Such a civilisation cannot last long . . . The
Megalithic way of life managed to go unharmed through more than four
millennia. To end with an optimistic note, I think there is hope in the
sense that the Megalithic/Atlantean knowledge seems never to have been
completely lost. Maybe it is time for us to look back at the past in
order to pave the way for a better future.
- - -
A shortened version of this interview can be found in
the
Aug./Sept. 2007 issue of French magazine Sacrée Planète, see
www.sacree-planete.com
Find more on Sylvain
Tristan’s official website (available in French and English),www.leslignesdor.com
Don't
miss another article by Sylvain Tristan:
The Divine Numbers
- - -
PS Atlantis Found?
An update from the author:
I was just told the news! Massive evidence confirms that the lost
continent of Atlantis was probably the submerged Dogger Bank in the
North Sea! The Royal Society of Britain has found countless artefacts
down there, submerged rivers... and circular mounds surrounded with
ditches! This really looks like the pre-Megalithic civilisation I've
been talking about in my books all these years, right where I've always
thought it was! I had been waiting for such confirmation for a decade!!!
'Britain's Atlantis' found at bottom of North sea - a huge
undersea world swallowed by the sea in 6500BC
- Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves
8500 years ago
- Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark
- Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans
- Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed
by mammoths and other giant animals
- Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe
- Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea
level rises
Britain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the
North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams
from the University of St Andrews.
Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that stretched from Scotland to
Denmark was slowly submerged by water between 18,000 BC and 5,500 BC.
Divers from oil companies have found remains of a 'drowned world'
with a population of tens of thousands - which might once have been the
'real heartland' of Europe.
A team of climatologists, archaeologists and geophysicists has now
mapped the area using new data from oil companies - and revealed the
full extent of a 'lost land' once roamed by mammoths.
Read More (Source):
'Britain's Atlantis' found at bottom of North sea - a huge undersea
world swallowed by the sea in 6500BC
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