Scientific evidence of the existence of semi-submerged Sardinian Atlantis in the ancient Atlantic Ocean now called the Western Mediterranean.

In January 2021, Luigi Usai, an independent researcher, released a new hypothesis according to which the sinking of Atlantis is due to the sudden melting of the ice following the glaciation called Würm. Geologists know that the level of the Mediterranean Sea reached -120 meters below the current level about 14,000 years ago. The so-called “Messinian salinity crisis” is also well known, during which Sardinia and Corsica were joined due to the lowering of the sea level by over a hundred meters, and it was possible to travel between them on foot. During the period of the war that broke out between Atlantis and Greece, that is, in 9600 BC, that is, about 11,600 years ago, geologists know that Sardinia and Corsica and a large part of the currently submerged coasts formed what appeared to be a large island, which was called in the third chapter of Timaeus and in Critias by Plato with the name of Atlantis.[125][126] At the center of the Atlantis plain and enclosed by the current Campidano plain, there would be what was the capital of Atlantis, also known by the name of Atlantis but today known by the name of Sulcis, and which started from a hill near the small village of Santadi and Masainas and Teulada, forming concentric circles of land and sea. It is still possible to notice how, starting from Santadi, the entire urban plan develops in concentric circles, even portions of mountains. There is also a vast toponymy related to the myth of Atlantis. In fact, as Usai points out, next to Santadi there are many places whose name recalls the hot and cold water sources created by Poseidon, who according to Usai was a simple man, probably a King, and not a God. Poseidon, placed a hot water source and a cold water source in the Capital of Atlantis. In fact, even today there are some hamlets of towns called “Acquacadda.” (Hot Water, in the Campidanese Sardinian language), S’acqua callenti de basciu. (The Hot Water Below, in the Campidanese Sardinian dialect) and S’Acqua Callenti de Susu (The Hot Water Above, also in the Campidanese Sardinian dialect, the dialectal variant of the Sardinian language spoken in southern Sardinia), while in the nearby town of Siliqua the Zinnigas cold water source is still present today. Also in Siliqua, a small town also located in the province of Cagliari, the “Castello d’Acquafredda” still exists, currently known for the famous story told by Dante Alighieri about Count Ugolino, who had stayed there according to a legend passed down orally. The Acquafredda castle takes its name from the medieval town of Acquafredda, which disappeared a few centuries ago, whose name recalls the cold water source of Poseidon, while in the province of Carbonia Caput Acquas insists on the theme of water. Furthermore, Usai points out,Poseidon’s tridents have been found carved in Neolithic and Paleolithic rocks found near the town of Laconi, in Sardinia. Next to Santadi there is a town called Narcao, which has two hamlets, called “Is Sais Superiore” and “Is Sais Inferiore”; this is a clear reference according to Usai, to the city of Sais in Egypt, where the high priest Sonchis revealed the story of Atlantis to Solon, the famous Greek politician. Furthermore, Sais is also a Sardinian surname. There are still two other interesting toponyms: Acqua Callentis[127] (another way of saying “Hot Water” in the Campidanese and Sulcitano Sardinian dialect), also known by the name of “Is Perdas” (i.e. “The Stones”): this location also recalls the sources of hot and cold water placed by Poseidon in the Platonic myth; and the locality of Terresoli (a crasis of Terra De Soli, or Land of the Sun in Sardinian Campidanese and Sulcitano) which closely resembles the name of Eliopolis, another city linked to the myth of Atlantis: in fact while Eliopolis in Greek means City of the Sun, Terresoli [128] means Land of the Sun. The locality of Piscinas is also found in Sulcis and takes up the theme of flooding: in Sardinian in fact this term is used to indicate a place where there has been an enormous stagnation of water. Usai’s theory, which takes the name of “Sardinian-Corsican Atlantean paradigm”, states that the species of elephants that Plato speaks of in Timaeus and Critias is that of the Mammuthus Lamarmorai, present on the Sardinian-Corsican island which is currently half-submerged, and of which remains have been found in at least three places in present-day Sardinia: in Gonnesa, in Sinis and in Alghero. At the end of the story of Atlantis, in the Timaeus, Plato states that the island was surrounded by mud that prevented navigation: this would have been caused by the erosion of the Sardinian-Corsican continental shelf by millennia of undertow. The island of Atlantis was the largest of all, according to Plato: in fact the Sardinian-Corsican geological block was an island of emerged land and is in fact the largest of all those in the Western Mediterranean, which according to Usai was called the Atlantic Ocean even before papyrus and scrolls dealing with geography were made, which is why no memory remains, and geography was later modified. In Atlantis there were the oldest old people: in fact Sardinia, which would only be an emerged plateau of Atlantis, is still famous throughout the world for its people of centenarians[129], in particular the population of the blue zone of Perdas De Fogu[130] [131] [132] [133]. Atlantis was rich in minerals, and in fact the mines of Sulcis are the oldest in Europe[134]. The Atlanteans were “tower builders” according to Platonic dialogues:and in fact there are over 7000 nuraghi present and studied and hundreds of others are continually discovered but not excavated. Usai also states that the ancient literary text of the Meropide deals with the island of Atlantis as a semi-submerged Sardinian-Corsican block: currently, however, all official texts consider the Meropide only a parody of the Platonic texts. The discovery in the rock shelter at Su Carroppu di Sirri of three ancient Sardinian individuals[135], two of whom have given the possibility of analyzing ancient DNA, has shown that this population of Sulcis does not date back to 8000 years ago as initially believed[136], but rather dates back to 11000 years ago[137], and the war between Atlantis and the first Greece mentioned in the Timaeus and the Critias broke out, according to Plato, 11600 years ago: this would seem to be a confirmation of the presence of a Sardinian population in the period in which the story of Atlantis is placed. The DNA found is different from the DNA of the Neolithic population that colonized the island of Sardinia about three thousand years later, and the analysis has shown that these populations of 11,000 years ago preyed on marine resources, that is, they ate seafood and lived along the coasts, in accordance with Usai’s Atlantean paradigm. Plato states that in Atlantis they built using stones of three colors: black, red and white; the black stones would be obsidian[138] [139], in particular that of Monte Arci[140], which Sardinia exported throughout Europe for thousands of years and slate, the red rocks would be those of Arbatax[141] and Carloforte and others submerged in the Sardinian-Corsican paleocoasts. In the summer of 2024, archaeological works at the Nuraghe Miali of Pompu[142] brought to light black basalt ashlars which show the Nuragic habit of creating chromatic effects in architecture through the alternation of stones of various colours, in accordance with what Plato stated. The same phenomenon was found and certified at the Nuraghe Arrubiu[143] and the Nuraghe Palmavera and the Nuragic Palace of Barumini. The Pillars of Hercules would be the Faraglione Antiche Colonne of Carloforte[144] [145] as proposed by Giorgio Saba, still existing and of very ancient history[146], and not the Strait of Gibraltar as believed up to now by most theories: beyond the Pillars of Hercules of Carloforte therefore, there was a narrow port, that is the small port formed by the islands of Sant’Antioco and San Pietro, and outside this small port there was the real sea, called in Timaeus and Critias also Atlantic Ocean, but today called Western Mediterranean. The Sardinian-Corsican Atlantean paradigm proposes that the Atlanteans populated the Sardinian-Corsican continental platform currently semi-submerged in the Mediterranean, forced then to migrate when the eustatic level rose drastically [147], perhaps due to repeated Meltwater Pulses[148] [149],distributed over several millennia. These migrations would then take various names: Sumerians and Vascons, among others, giving rise to the megalithic civilization along the coasts of all Europe. In support of this Usai states that these peoples have agglutinative Semitic languages, an “Atlantean” characteristic; the Basques in fact have prehistoric carnival figures similar to the Sardinian ones because both peoples “come from Atlantis”, that is, from the semi-submerged Sardinian Corsican geological block: the Joaldun[150], the Mamuthones, the Boes and the Merdules. Furthermore, the Basques would have brought the tradition of the bulls described by Plato in Timaeus and Critias, bulls that were venerated and respected in Atlantis, to Pamplona in Navarre the use of the Encierro, which then changed into the Spanish bullfight.