Ragnarok
The Norse “Twilight of the Gods,” the destruction of the world that has been and will be again, over and over, as part of the cyclical nature of destiny. With its vivid descriptions of fiery skies and sinking land-masses, Ragnarok undoubtedly reflects folk memories of Atlantis. It reads in part, “Already the stars were coming adrift from the sky and falling into the gaping void. They were like swallows, weary from too long a voyage, who drop and sink into the waves.”
Ramses III
XX Dynasty Pharaoh who defeated the “Sea People” invasion of the Delta in 1190 b.c., and subsequently raised a great Victory Temple, Medinet Habu, to his success in the Upper Nile Valley, West Thebes. On its walls, Ramses documented his military campaigns in incised illustrations and hieroglyphs. They still exist and document a serious attempt by Atlantean forces to subdue Egypt eight years after the capital of their island empire had been obliterated by a natural catastrophe. The wall texts explain that Sekhmet, the goddess of fiery destruction, “pursued them like a shooting-star” and incinerated their homeland, which immediately thereafter “vanished beneath the waves.” The Sea People’s head city was referred to as Neteru, defining a sacred place; Plato likewise characterized Atlantis as “sacred.” The Medinet Habu account is accompanied by various scenes from these events, including realistic representations of enemy warships and the Sea People themselves in various poses of defeat and captivity. They are the only portraits from life of Atlanteans soon after their capital was engulfed by the ocean.
Ramses displayed his military genius and personal courage in terrible adversity. The navy of Atlantis had brushed aside the Egyptians’ defenses at the mouth of the Nile Delta, and its troops of invading marines stormed ashore. They overcame all initial resistance to capture major cities, such as Busiris. Ramses withdrew his forces and regrouped, observing how the invaders advanced concurrently with their ships, which they relied on for support. At the southernmost end of the Nile Delta, he threw virtually all of his surviving naval units against the Sea People. The much smaller Egyptian crafts were not only out-classed, but out-numbered, as well. On the verge of being overwhelmed, Pharaoh’s warships suddenly turned and fled in retreat, with the whole invading fleet in hot pursuit.
Ramses had his littler vessels lure their cumbersome enemies into narrower, shallower areas of the river familiar to the Egyptian captains, but unknown to the Sea People. The Atlanteans suddenly found themselves unable to freely maneuver and began grounding on unseen shoals. The Egyptians now plied the big warships with a barrage of fire-pots, just as thousands of archers abruptly appeared along the shore to launch endless flights of arrows at the outmaneuvered invaders. Cut off from their floating supplies, the Sea People were routed back up the delta toward its Mediterranean shores, where they disembarked in their remaining ships.
But the war was far from over. The invasion had consisted of a three-pronged attack from the north against the Delta, westward across Libya, and at the Egyptian colony of Syria, in the east. Infantry held the Libyan assault at Fortress Usermare, near the Egyptian frontier, until Ramses was able to bring up his forces, enduring almost annihilating losses in the process of defense. Pharaoh never spared a moment for celebration. He moved with great speed. Before they could effect a landing, he met the Sea People on the beaches at Amor, where they suffered their final defeat. Ramses personally participated in this last battle, drawing his great bow against the invaders.
The wall texts at Medinet Habu record that the captive Sea People warriors were bound at the wrists behind their backs or over their heads, together with their allies, including Trojan War veterans from Libya, Etruria, Sicily, Sardinia, and other parts of the Mediterranean. They saw the Atlantean invasion as an opportunity for plunder, and had joined as pirates. Thousands of these unfortunate prisoners-of-war were paraded before the victorious Ramses III and his court. After interrogation by his scribes, they were castrated, then sent to work for the remainder of their lives as slave laborers at the Tura limestone pits. Thus ended the imperial ambitions of Atlantis in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ramman
A Babylonian god whose destruction of the world describes the Atlantean catastrophe. The Deluge engulfed mankind when “the whirlwind of Ramman mounted up to the heavens and light was turned into darkness.” His cataclysmic function was still recognized by the Assyrian king, Hammurabi, who invoked him with the words, “May he overwhelm the land like the Flood! May he turn it into heaps and ruins! And may he blast it with a bolt of destruction!” In the Old Testament, Ramman appears as “Rimmon.”
Ramu
The capital city of Lemuria, located in what later became the Hawaiian Islands, according to a past-life memory experienced by actress and author, Shirley MacLaine.
Ra-sgeti-Mu
A Maldive island at the Equator, south of the Indian subcontinent, its name contains both that of the worldwide sun-god, Ra, and Mu, the sunken Pacific civilization from which Ra-sgeti-Mu’s first culture-bearers arrived in prehistory.
Rawana
Described in a Tamil religious text, Sillapadakaram, as the lord of a resplendent “citadel,” Kumari Nadu, comprising 25 palaces with 4,000 streets, “swallowed by the sea in a former age.” The myth probably refers to ruins of a city discovered 120 feet under the Gulf of Cambay, 25 miles off the coast of Gujurat, India, in May, 2001, by researchers with India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology. They found stone pillars, walls, pottery, jewelry, sculpture, human bones, and even inscribed evidence of a written language. The site appears to have been part of Harappa-Mohenjo Daro Civilization that flourished in the Indus Valley from around 2800 to 1500 b.c. The island on which Rawana’s “citadel” was located most likely sank under the Gulf of Cambay during the Late Bronze Age with the same worldwide cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis.
Redin
Racially alien seafarers who sailed from their distant kingdom, bringing civilization to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Remembered as red-haired and blue-eyed, with sharply defined noses, the Redin were probably the “Rutas” described in Tibetan tradition as culture-bearers from the sunken Pacific lands of Mu. This identification is reinforced by the names of islands where the Redin erected monumental structures, including stone mounds (hawitti), pyramids, and baths: Ra-sgeti-Mu, Laamu, Utimu, Timu and Utimu—all variations of the lost homeland.
Revolving Castle
A Celtic memory of Atlantis, in which “revolving” is a mythic elaboration of “circular,” referring to the city’s concentric layout. The Brythonic otherworld, Annwn, with its distinctly Atlantean features, was Caer Sidi, a “revolving castle” surrounded by the sea. The Old Irish Catair Cu Roi, was a “revolving fort,” where the first heroes of Ulster competed for the rank of champion.
R’lyeh
In H.P. Lovecraft’s 1926 short story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” a huge stone city built during the deeply ancient past, but since sunk beneath the Pacific Ocean following a natural catastrophe that affected much of the world. R’lyeh was based at least in part on accounts of Mu, then being popularized by James Churchward.
The underwater Delta formation, possibly a harbor facility for Atlantean ore ships, in Wisconsin’s Rock Lake is clearly visible from 3,000feet.
Rock Lake
A small body of water in southern Wisconsin, located between Milwaukee and the state capitol, Madison. Rock Lake is notable for the sunken stone structures it contains— pyramidal burial mounds of men who worked the copper mines of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from 3000 b.c. to 1200 b.c. The mines were excavated and operated by engineers from Atlantis, so at least some of the underwater tombs probably contain the remains of Atlantean workers.
Rongo-mai
Still venerated in the Lake Taupo districts of New Zealand as a war-god who, in the deep past, attacked the world in the guise of a comet. After bringing great destruction upon humankind, he transformed himself into a gigantic whale which sank into the sea.
