Thorwald C. Franke

@noemonas This may be, but where are the Cyclops, the Laestrygones, Circe, the Lotophages, Skylla in the sky? They are not there.

When Zeus transforms into a Bull, Jupiter is inside Taurus. When the snakes mate, its early summer. As he did with Persephone to produce Dionysus. You can be certain that all the gods refer to specific plants, stars, constellation and their relationships. This should be the very first thing people that study Greek texts should be aware of. The myths map onto the stars, the major Gods to the Planets, and their strife sex, and everything in between to their motions. Newton's notes are 99% Greek astrology(at the time still astronomy) and 1% the rest. Hyperbole but not far off the mark.

Intelligent approach to decipher the enigma of Homer's Odyssee: The adventure stories correspond to the lies Odysseus is telling in Ithaca: This is Key! -- I doubt the part with stars and Greek temples preserving knowledge in monster stories. But the basic observation is correct.

@noemonas I doubt. The abstract of the book you mentioned (Astronomy and Constellations in the Iliad and Odyssey) says that the constellations did not change. So, where are the Cyclops, Laistrygones, Circe, Skylla, etc. in the sky? They are not there.

How did Greeks and their temples keep time? When Jupiter(the planet) goes to Taurus(the house), Zeus is a bull that abducted Europa from Lebanon. Snake-mating season is late spring when Zeus mated with Persephone to produce Dionysus. Greek myths are precisely that, mapping the starry sky and hence Ptolemy's Almagest and the 7 Gods=7 Planets explicitly so even in 5th CE Constantinople when Nonnus wrote Dionysiaca, Dionysus trip to India. The mythological register gives you the timeline of the starry sky, the earthly register gives you the events.

@noemonas have a perfect correspondance in the Ithaca lying stories. Therefore, it's not the exact same story. Similar, yes. Same, not. Thing of the Lotophages, the Laistrygones, Calypso, Circe, Scylla. (2/2)

@noemonas I agree on the basic idea of the correspondance of the Ithaca lying stories with the adventure stories. What I doubt is the idea that there is a star mapping behind it. And preservation of stories in temples as monster and star stories? No. Also, not all adventure stories (1/2)

Book PDF for free download: "Dangerous Latin Literature" :-) degruyterbrill.com/de/document/do…

Plato's Atlantis and politics? At the conservative "Europa Aeterna" conference ("Plato and Europe", Vienna 27/28 Feb 2026), the Hungarian philosopher Balazs M. Mezei interpreted primeval Athens as a model for Europe. -- Well, not quite fitting. See here: freiewelt.net/artikel/redakt…

@booksoftitans Aristotle's quote about Plato's Atlantis, will it be part of the complete works? (little joke, though not entirely without sense, see Web link) atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_arist…

Preparing the arsenal for post-Plato.

Atlantis books written with the help of AI enter the stage: See my review of "Atlantis revisited" by Elan Moritz. atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-elan-… #Plato #Timaeus #Atlantis

@rogerkimball @AntigoneJournal Thank you! Inspired by your article, I had a closer look at Jane E. Harrison under the perspective of my research, and yes, I found something. More on my findings here: atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-jane-…

In case you missed it, here is a link to my essay on the classicist Jane Harrison (1850-1928) in @AntigoneJournal antigonejournal.com/2026/02/proleg…

It's International Women's Day, and here is Jane E. Harrison, a female scholar open for Atlantis as a real place, and against the invention hypothesis: atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-jane-… #Plato #Timaeus #Atlantis

@AntigoneJournal The history of Classical scholarship? You might consider "Kritische Geschichte der Meinungen und Hypothesen zu Platons Atlantis" by Thorwald C. Franke, 2 volumes, 2nd edition 2021. atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-gesch…

I'm in the game for some fresh suggestions on the history of Classical scholarship. Here are the things I have but there are a lot of gaps. What surveys/memoirs/letters are essential reading?

Atlantis Newsletter about the "Immersium" in Vienna. A show about World mysteries and Atlantis, under the guidance of Professor Neubauer. You can subscribe to the Atlantis Newsletter for free! #an243" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">atlantis-scout.de/atlantis_newsl…

Atlantis in the Epstein files: It seems that Ghislaine Maxwell was into the question of Atlantis because of Jacques Cousteau. But be careful, this is not corrobated information. It seems that there is a grain of truth in it. Time will tell more.

@LuxPatrum @Ljhodgson_ Important work! It preserves ex negativo what Platonists believed of the cycles of history. The German scholar Beate Fränzle published recently a book about the topic, relying also on Origen. You can find my English review here: atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-fraen…

I am holding in my hands what is (I believe) the first ever Greek-English edition of Origen's Contra Celsum. This massive 750-pager will go to print soon! Excellent editorial work, @Ljhodgson_

@PeterBrandEgypt Would love to talk about the Egyptian novel as precursor to the Greek novel.

As an Egyptologist, I'm on X to offer my knowledge of ancient Egypt and share my passion for this fascinating civilization and the marvelous monuments and artifacts the Egyptians left behind. I also love sharing their history and culture. I'm not in it for the money, attention, or whatever. I'm not trying to be a professional influencer. I like to share lots of images in my posts with fun facts Lately I've become almost a full-time debunker pointing out the problems & holes in strange theories and clear disinformation and fake reports or AI generated videos. Whether I'm doing my own post on something about Egypt or debunking exotic theories about the pyramids, ideas about ancient Egyptian "magic" or "advanced technology" or bizarre conspiracy theories, I get lots of pushback. Im not whining, it's X and I'm a big boy. I can take it Pushback comes from: 1. Random trolls 🧌 "You're a dumb a$$ man!" Very sophisticated commentary 2. People who honestly disagree, often passionately, who reply with various degrees of or lack of politeness 3. Professionals of the influencer / Grifter / conspiracy theorist types. They are looking for clickbait, to sell videos, "ancient mystery tours" to sites in other countries like Egypt, etc. They include types like @BrightInsight6 @4gottnHistory @ancientorigins @MichaelButtonX @randallwcarlson @wakenminds @Mysteries_X_ @derek__olson I want to talk about a big problem our society has with where and how we get information and who and what we believe and why we believe it. Today, for a lot of people, when they hear "he's a professor", "she's a scientist", "he's an expert in A", or "she a professional authority on B" they instantly put their guard up A so-called "expert"? Don't trust them, what do they know anyways? It's become trendy to distrust experts & "mainstream" has become an insult. Anyone with professional knowledge of a subject like ancient history is accused of being a "gate keeper" as if I could stop ANYONE from believing whatever the #%@$ they want to about Ancient Egypt or force them to accept my views! We Egyptologists don't even agree among ourselves. We aren't brainwashed, or a cult, or secret society. We don't all agree on a single "doctrine" & defend it against all challenges from the outside. I don't believe everything my professors told me and i don't expect my students to do so either. Actually we fight like hell about a lot of things, but agree broadly on various others and absolutely on some important issues All of us believe the Egyptians built the pyramids, with Khufu building the Great Pyramid of Giza in the 4th Dynasty & we are convinced the Sphinx is also 4th Dynasty based on the archaeological evidence! (and the TOTAL LACK OF EVIDENCE for all the weird and wild theories going around about them. See half my reply posts!) None of us believe the Egyptian gods were real or that there is a lost scroll of Thoth carved on Emerald tablets or whatever. Call us "closed minded" all you want, but unless Sobek appears before me and threatens to bite my head off with his crocodile jaws I'm remaining more than just agnostic about the Egyptian gods We think women in Egypt were better off than women in other ancient societies like Mesopotamia or Greece, but exactly what status women had compared to other cultures and compared to Egyptian men is hotly debated. The only thing Egyptologists agree about Akhenaten and Nefertiti is that none of them can totally agree with each other about Akhenaten and Nefertiti We debate issues that fascinate everyone and stuff no one else but a few Egyptologists care about We spend our lives doing archaeology, translating hieroglyphic texts, studying artifacts, reading countless scholarly books & articles to better understanding ancient Egypt We do this because of our passion for understanding & preserving knowledge of ancient Egypt.

@SPHistoriador Well, you can only see what you are expecting to see, as it seems. Cecil Torr expected circularly nested harbour structures, not one harbour next to the other. He really failed. You might love to reconstruct the story. Here it is: archive.org/details/classi…

@Atlantis_Scout The ports of Carthage are clearly visible and impossible to miss! Here is a video I took during one of my visits to the city. Most likely, they were looking for Carthage itself in the wrong place.

Carthage created an empire and, in the process, founded several colonies throughout the Mediterranean. The process led the Carthaginians to sail and explore the coasts of the Mediterranean and, in the process, go beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the unknown. Thread 🧵

Great thread on Carthage!

@SPHistoriador At the end of the 19th century, the American Classicist Cecil Torr tried to identify the harbour of Carthage. He failed, because he concluded from the sources that it looked like Plato's Atlantis. Which is wrong. (Or Atlantis actually look like Carthage?)

One of these copies survived until the 9th century AD, when it was transcribed into the version that has survived to this day, known as the Heidelberg manuscript. This is how we know about Hanno's journey.

@nobulart It's great you included Aristotle's view too. There's a widespread but false belief that Aristotle rejected Plato's Atlantis story, yet the evidence suggests otherwise - see the book "Aristotle and Atlantis" by @Atlantis_Scout. A brief review: atlantipedia.ie/samples/aristo…