A couple of questions about the South American theory:
1. Does it posit the names, Thule, Tulan, Tile, Tollan, Aztlan, and Atlantis, to be disconnected and/or referring to different lands?
2. Is Hyperborea considered to also be a different (polar) culture, separate from "Atlantis"?
Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to make any sort of connection, or a clear distinction for that matter, with any of these, but I have always assumed that Thule itself was separate, partially to fit my belief that South America is likely Atlantis while most ancient accounts place Thule high in the North Atlantic above Britain. I believe that Jim Allen in his South American theory delves into the linguistics a bit, specifically addressing the name Aztlan. You can check his website, there is a wealth of very good information there:
http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/theatlantistrail.htmAs for me, while I think the linguistic link is intriguing, I am of the mind that Plato's dialogues offer a more reasonable and clear source for the Atlantis name.
Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced.- Critias
Based on this excerpt from Plato’s dialogues, the original name for these people was likely lost as the Egyptians applied one name and Solon in turn another. My own theory is that the Egyptians used a simple descriptor and not an actual name when referring to these people. This is extremely likely as we know that the Egyptians had a history of doing such. The descriptor that the Egyptians used was most likely ‘sea peoples’. This does not mean that they were the same sea peoples that the Egyptians themselves defeated, although they may have been remnants of the originals.
If the Egyptians described these people as Solon says, a seafaring people living on a large continent outside the Mediterranean, it is an obvious and simple maneuver on Solon’s behalf to apply the Hellenic names ‘Atlas’ and ‘Atlantis’—names associated with the easternmost portion of the known world and the great ocean beyond the Mediterranean—to these people and their land. As the passage above states, Solon "recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language"; 'sea peoples' in the waters beyond the Mediterranean and people of the Atlantis Ocean are a far too convenient match.
While others have suspected the 'sea peoples' as being the Atlanteans, I have not been able to find anyone else making this extremely basic connection. I have to believe someone else has and their work will crop up later in my research.
-Doug
