Atlantis The Atlantean Symbolism of the Egyptian Temple

Eden and Its Luxuriant Vegetation

Another thing that strikes the visitor of Egyptian temples such as the one of Fig.2, is the bright coloration of the hypostyle hall and the luxuriant nature of the vegetation therein depicted. Very clearly, the realm there depicted is not desertic Egypt, but some tropical forest turned gloomy and nocturnal for some obscure reason. If we review Plato's extactic discussion of Atlantis as a tropical paradise full of perfumes, trees and luxuriant vegetation, the analogy with the region depicted in the hypostyle hall comes naturally to the mind.

The second evidence for this analogy consists in the nature of the vegetation there represented, and which is clearly intended to represent a tropical forest of huge trees, something wholly unlike anything we ever had in Egypt but which, to believe Plato, was commonplace in Atlantis. In hindsight, we only find, in the ancient world, a parallel to that place in luscious South India and Southwest Asia, precisely the site of Atlantis, as we have been arguing.

And it was there, in Punt, where the Egyptians fetched their "wood from Meru", which they indeed never obtained from Lebanon, despite the contrary affirmations of some Egyptologists. Thirdly, the very nature of the vegetation represented in the pillars is very characteristic of the distant regions we just discussed.

Strangely enough, none of the three plants represented in the pillars of Egyptian temples the lotus, the date palm, and the papyrus seems to be a native to Egypt, as we discuss elsewhere. The lotus (Nelumbo speciosum) is a native of Indonesia, and many Egyptian texts explicitly acknowledge its origin in Punt. Punt was the land of smelly plants such as the lotus, whose perfum so fascinated the Egyptians. The smelly lotus was the attribute of Nefertum, the god that came from Punt, certainly bringing along his fragrant flower for cultivation in Egypt.

The date palm is an Arecacea which thrives in the Indies, from where it probably came, for there thrive an enormous variety of other members of the family, including the famous areca palm. The specialists do not really know the site of origin of the date palm. But they know for sure that it is not native to Egypt and that it indeed came from farther East than there.

Finally, the papyrus was, like the lotus and the date palm, a plant that only grew under cultivation in Egypt. Even today the papyrus is rarity there, in contrast to Indonesia, where it is so abundant as to hamper navigation in its shallow seas.

All in all, it is plausible to conclude that the luscious region portrayed in the hypostyle halls of Egyptian temples is indeed Punt, and not at all the Egyptian delta, its attempted copy. And, as we already said above, Punt is no other than Indonesia, the true site of Atlantis, the Lost Continent. And that sunken region of continental dimensions can lie in no other part of the globe than Indonesia, as we argue elsewhere.