Who were the Atlanteans? At one time, Sykes believed that civilization commenced with the Atlanteans.
Its population appear to have enjoyed a mixed Stone Age and Bronze Age civilization. They knew sufficient astronomy to have an accurate calendar; they were probably the first to conceive of the zodiacs; they mummified their dead; worshipped a water god called Poseidon to whom bulls were sacrificed; and were somehow connected to Sun worship and later Moon worship. The Atlanteans also had knowledge of building and agriculture, and at some time during their evolution, they developed a system of hieroglyphics for dates and astronomical events. The Atlantean form of writing did not seem to be in any way even a remote ancestor of writing as we know it, which was evolved by the Phoenicians as an adaptation of Assyrian cuneiform. Sykes speculated that the dominant race of the Atlanteans were reddish in color, medium height, and had slightly egg shaped heads with sloping foreheads. Certain of the Atlantean customs have survived until today such as the couvade system (the husband goes into purdah on the birth of the child); artificial cranial deformation (creating egg shaped skulls by means of bandages or boards still exists from Africa to British Columbia); and Cyclopean architecture (found from Egypt to Peru and the Baltic Coast to Stonehenge). When Atlantis was submerged, some people migrated to Central America, up the Amazon to the border of Peru, Bolivia, and Columbia. Others took the eastern route and crossed the Sahara Sea to the lower reaches of the Nile. As survivors struggled in new lands, the advance toward higher civilization and technology advanced much slower in some areas than others.
Orichalcum: a Building Material
The metal orichalcum is mentioned by Plato and one or two other classical authors. The Atlanteans regarded this metal as a useful building material, and it has been reported as being dark red or almost white in color. Sykes wondered if the Atlanteans had a source of nickel in which platinum was present as an impurity. The natural admixture of the two metals may have been orichalcum. Orichalcum may also have been an impure copper, or a copper alloyed with beryllium (also known as glucinium).
The ancients had knowledge of seven metals that they made to correspond with the seven astrological planets: Gold-the Sun; Silver-Luna; Iron-Mars; Copper-Venus; Tin-Jupiter; Lead-Saturn; and Quicksilver-Mercury. The eighth metal, orikhalkos, mentioned by Plato, although abundant in Atlantis, has been lost since the submersion of the island. In the Critias, it was said, “Orichalcum was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island and, with the exception of gold, was esteemed the most precious of metals — the entire circuit of the wall which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum...”
In the February 1950 issue of Atlantis, there were two articles about orichalcum: Orichalcum by Egerton Sykes and The Orichalcum Of The Atlanteans by Ivan Tournier.
Archaeological Artifacts Suggesting Early Flight
In 1965, the TASS Agency reported that a drawing found in Ufekistan in Soviet Central Asia showed a figure resembling an astronaut “wearing something similar to a space helmet with antennae and carrying a contraption for flight”. In the December 1965 issue of Atlantis, in an article titled Early Space Traveller?, Sykes commented that, "It recalls the Taselli petroglyphs in North Africa."
In the March 1970 issue of Atlantis, Sykes referred to a national newspaper report the previous year concerning a three-thousand year old treatise on aeronautics discovered in Mysore, India, which described with diagrams the production of aircraft in BC 1000. The article was titled Flying Machines 1000 BC.
Religion: Sun And Moon Worship
In September 1950 in Atlantis, Sykes wrote The Sex Of Sun And Moon Gods in which he stated, “... in the earliest stages all gods were females... the first goddess, the giver of life, was personified in the Sun. Later, when the attentions of our present Moon had become pressing, it was considered as her son or lover. The planet Venus seems to have been masculine at some early stage... The original trinity: Sun Mother, Moon Father, and Venus Son, remained the kernel of the Fertile Crescent religions for thousands of years... The most interesting point is that in all these early religions men were the children of the representatives of the gods on earth, and not the objects of their creation.”
In Sykes’ October 1964 article Atlantis — The Situation As We Now See It, Sykes speculated that during part of the existence of Atlantis there was no moon; thus, the prevailing religion was sun worship, “But during the last few centuries of its existence our present moon, a large asteroid or a small planet with an eccentric orbit gradually began to come into the picture, bringing with it natural disasters each time it approached the earth. Because of this, there must have been a sharp religious fight between those who were anxious to placate the new gods of the moon, probably by means of human sacrifice and other rites, and their opponents who still worshipped the sun. It is because of the memory of this that all lunar gods and goddesses are popularly linked with black magic.”