In 1970 the University Press of the Pacific, based in Honolulu Hawaii, published a book by Zhirov entitled “Atlantis: Anthology-Basic Problems”.
The books make several claims, the most important of which are:
- Plato is very specific in telling us where Atlantis was located, therefore it is entirely pointless to speculate whether it may have been located elsewhere–we said something to that effect in our previous post;
- Zhirov believed that the riddle of Atlantis could only be solved by Oceanographers–which makes sense because, as Plato wrote, Atlantis sunk in the Ocean and that’s where one should search it–though the search may have to be conducted at a deeper level than Plato suggested
- Plato’s writings on Atlantis are actually the first documents speaking of America
Plato in fact wrote that “the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which you call the pillars of Heracles ; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from the islands you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean ; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a continent.”. Zhirov, in his Atlantis (1970, pp. 22-23) noted that this is the first reference to the American continent. There is every reason to be believe Zhirov to be right.
4, Zhirov disagreed with Frobenius as to the location of Atlantis. For Frobenius, but also for A.L. Yanshin, who was, if I am not mistaken a Soviet Geologist, Atlantis was to be found in the Gulf of Guinea. Frobenius held this belief because of or after his encounter with the Yoruba who, in his view, were unlike any other African people. Yanshin suggested this belief to emerge from Phoenician reports. But for Zhirov, that belief contradicts Plato and must be rejected. Atlantis must be in front of the Pillars of Heracles, must be in or close to Africa (because of the large number of elephants roaming in Atlantis) and must be stretch as far south as we understand Plato’s line about “the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments” in Atlantis. Zhirov (1970, p. 29) tell us that Frobenius thought that such fruit was the oil palm, Zhirov suggests that it might have been a coconut palm. Zhirov went on to say that in this case some of the Atlantean kingdoms should have been located below the 25th parallel because north of this parallel coconut palms do not grow.