As we noted in our previous post Frobenius believed that he had discovered Atlantis in West Africa. In the article of the New York Times, published on January 30, 1911, the evidence that Frobenius provided to support his claim was that he had found what he believed to be a bronze head of Poseidon.

There were other reasons, however, why Frobenius was convinced that Atlantis was or had been located in West Africa and, more specifically, in the Gulf of Guinea. One of such reasons was that he believed that the mysterious trees, which, according to Plato, existed in Atlantis were oil palms. Zhirov claimed instead that the mysterious trees were in fact coconut palms; that, as a result, Atlantis had to be situated south of the 25th parallel “because the coconut palm does not growth north of that parallel” (Zhirov, 1970, p. 29).

The second reason why Frobenius believed that Atlantis should have been located in West Africa was that when he encountered – in his fourth African expedition- the Yoruba, he believed them to be different from any other African ethnic group he had encountered so far, he believed them to be highly aristocratic, and he attributed such differences and perceived aristocratic demeanor to the fact that they were the descendants of the people of Atlantis (see Marchard, 1997, p. 160).

Marchand, Suzanne. “Leo Frobenius and the Revolt against the West.” Journal of contemporary history 32, no. 2 (1997): 153-170.

Zhirov, Nicolas. Atlantis: Atlantology: Basic Problems. The Minerva Group, Inc., 2001.