PLATO'S ATLANTIS WORD PUZZLE

No edition of Plato, with which I am acquainted, calls attention to the fact that his story of Atlantis contains a very simple but interesting and important cipher.

It is difficult to see how it has escaped notice, for Plato specifically states that the names are given in cipher and specifically states the nature of the, cipher, one well-known to adepts of his time, and specifically gives, and states that he gives, along with one of the names, its cipher solution, so affording a means of checking the method.

To quote Critias, sections VII and VIII:

" Yet before we narrate this, we must briefly warn you not to be surprised at hearing Hellenic names given to barbarians; and the cause of this you shall now hear. Solon, intending to make use of this story in his poetry, made an investigation into the power of names, and found that the early Egyptians who committed these facts to writing transferred these names into their own language, and he again receiving the meaning of each name, introduced it into our language... and to the twin born after him who had received for his share the extreme parts of the nesos (land) towards the Pillars of Hercules, as far as the region which now in that country is called Gadeirica, he gave the titular name which we Greeks call Eumelus, but which the people of that country call Gadeirus."

The " power of names" cipher was a standard international cipher used by scholars of that and earlier and later ages. By it a name, to be correctly translated, must not only mean the same thing as the original, but the letters of each, read as numbers, must, when added, give the same sum. To take an example from Berossus (Eusebi Chronicorum, Liber 'Prior, Schoene, pp. 14-18). " The ruler of them all was a woman whose name was Omorka, which in Chaldean is interpreted Thalatth, and in Greek Thalassa; but by numerical equivalence it is Selene."

The international number-letter system, omitting now discussion of modified values given to some of the " hundreds" letters, was:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Units	a	b	g	d	e	F	z	e	th
Tens	i	k	1	m	n	ks	o	p	kh
Hundreds	r	s	t	u	ph	ch	ps	o	sh

(F is the digamma which may be taken as v or w; e is eta and o is omega)

Taking the example given by Berossus, we have:

Omorka is numerically 70, 40, 70, 100, 20, 1, the sum of which is 301:

Selene is numerically 200, 5, 30, 8, 50, 8, the sum of which is 301.

And so Selene is considered to be the perfect translation of Omorka.

Taking next the example given by Plato, of one of the Atlantis -names, i.e. that Eumeles is the Greek translation of the Egyptian Gadeirus, we must remember that Solon, who tells the story, lived several hundred years before Plato and spoke an older form of Greek, and that even if Plato did give the spelling as handed down to him, it was probably corrected as old-fashioned by his editors. So we must be prepared to change the scientific spelling of the Greek grammarians back to the old spelling of Solon's time. According to the rule of the cipher, Gadeirus and Eumeles must mean the same thing. Since Gadeirus is Egyptian, it can only be connected with the root Gad, meaning " happy". So Eumeles must mean " happy" and, on looking in Liddell and Scott's Greek Dictionary, we find the word eumeles and that it was used by the poet Plato, who lived in the time of the philosopher Plato, in the sense of " agreeable". So the first condition is fulfilled.

For the second, we have Plato's statement that the name was a titular one of the land of Gadeirica and, on looking in Liddell and Scott again, we find that the proper Greek for an inhabitant of Gadeirica is Gadeireus.

Gadeireus is then 3, 1, 4, 5, 10, 100, 5, 400, 200 and the sum is 728.

Eumeles is 5, 400, 40, 5, 30, 8, 200 and its sum is 688.

They do not agree. But, looking in our Greek dictionary, we find other words, such as eummelies, from eu and melia, also emmeles, etc., showing that the M was commonly doubled, and other facts indicating that Eumeles was originally spelled with two Ms and that, for scansion and to avoid confusion, one M was dropped later by the grammarians. So we have:

Eummeles which is 5, 400, 40, 40, 5, 30, 8, 200 and totals 728, the same as Gadeireus, and the second condition is fulfilled; as of course it must be, since Plato gave it as an example.

We can now proceed somewhat confidently to solve the rest of the cipher. Take the name of the mother of Gadeireus, i.e. Klito. Its meaning is " the end", (Greek Klitos). What name of an Egyptian woman means " end"? Plutarch, in his " Iris and Osiris", section 38, says: " for which reason they call Nephthys the `end' and say that she is the consort of Typhon."

We know that the true spelling is Naphthys (see Herodotus, 7.193) and that it is the word from which naphtha is derived. So we have:

Klito is numerically 20, 30, 10, 300, 800 and sums to 1160.

Naphthys is numerically 50, 1, 500, 9, 400, 200 and sums to 1160.

So this is the correct translation of the cipher.

Klito married Poseidon, or in old Greek, Poteidaon, whose Egyptian equivalent is Typhon.

Poteidaon is 80, 70, 300, 5, 10, 4, 1, 800, 50 which sums to 1320.

Typhon is 300, 400, 500, 70, 50 the sum of which is 1320

and as Plutarch states, supra, Nephthys married Typhon.

Atlas is Harmakhis (the Pillars).

Atlas is numerically 1, 300, 30, 1, 200 which sums to 532.

Harmakhis is 90, 1, 100, 40, 1, 90, 10, 200 which sums to 532.

And now go on with the story. Solve the other names and you will be interested. Atlantis city was at the hot springs near Pjatigorsk, north of the Dariel Pass. The mud flats Plato speaks of have now been solidified. You will find Gadira on the old maps to the southeast of Atlantis.

December 1, 1927.

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