Map of the parallels between Old and New Worlds, having a common source in the middle. From the film Atlantis, the Lost Continent, 1961.
How to prove the reality of a land that is no longer there? Ignatius
Donnelly employed a method foreshadowed by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder
of the Theosophical Society. He instanced parallels between the Old World
and the New, and argued that some were close enough to infer a common source
in between, namely Atlantis. Mythology on both sides of the ocean supplied
Flood legends. It also supplied deities, again across oceans, who seemed
similar enough to be equated. Study of ancient symbolism revealed a pre-Christian
reverence for the cross as sacred. Another datum was the presence of pyramids
in Egypt and Mexico, both claimed as colonies of Atlantis. Sweden as well
had prehistoric pyramidal monuments, and it too, according to Donnelly,
was partly within Atlantis' empire. An unusual sidelight in this discussion
is the question of elephants. Plato says Atlantis had many, and
so of course has Africa, but the America opened up by Columbus had
none. Nevertheless, a few pre-Columbian art works can be interpreted as
depicting them. Perhaps, the theory goes, Atlanteans exported them
in both directions, but to the Americas only in small numbers, so that
the species died out there.
The anthropologist Lewis Spence, while rejecting Donnelly's notions
of an advanced Atlantean civilization, assembled facts of a similar
nature in support of an Atlantean 'culture-complex' spanning the
ocean. This included evidences of ancient witchcraft, and ritual practices
such as head-flattening and mummification.
Pyramids of Cheops and Khafre, El Giza, Egypt, c.4000 BC
Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico, c.100 BC
Gateway of the Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae, Greece, c.1300 BC
Corridor of Palace, Palenque, Mexico, 7th c. BC
Mayan Relief from Stela B, Copan, Honduras, AD 731