| Mu | |
|---|---|
| 'Lost Continent of Mu Motherland of Men' location | |
 Map of Mu byJames Churchward | |
| Created by | Augustus Le Plongeon |
| Genre | Pseudoscience |
| In-universe information | |
| Type | Hypotheticallost continent |
| Location | Pacific Ocean |
Mu is alost continent introduced byAugustus Le Plongeon (1825–1908), who identified the "Land of Mu" withAtlantis. The name was subsequently identified with the hypothetical land ofLemuria byJames Churchward (1851–1936), who asserted that it was located in the Pacific Ocean before its destruction.[1] The place of Mu in both pseudoscience and fantasy fiction is discussed in detail inLost Continents (1954, 1970) byL. Sprague de Camp.
Geologists state that the existence of Mu and the lost continent of Atlantis has no factual basis, and is physically impossible, as a continent can neither sink nor be destroyed in the short period of time asserted in the legends, folklore and literature about these places.[2][3][4][5]
The mythical idea of the "Land of Mu" first appeared in the works of the British-American antiquarianAugustus Le Plongeon (1825–1908), after his investigations of theMaya ruins inYucatán.[6] He claimed that he had translated the first copies of thePopol Vuh, the sacred book of theK'iche' from the ancient Mayan usingSpanish.[7] He claimed the civilization of Yucatán was older than those ofGreece andEgypt, and told the story of an even older continent.
Le Plongeon got the name "Mu" fromCharles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, who, in 1864, mistranslated what was then called theTroano Codex (now called "Madrid Codex") using thede Landa alphabet. Brasseur believed that a word which he read asMu referred to a land that had been submerged by a catastrophe.[8] Le Plongeon identified this lost land withAtlantis and, followingIgnatius Donnelly inAtlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), identified it as a continent that had once existed in theAtlantic Ocean:
In our journey westward across the Atlantic we shall pass in sight of that spot where once existed the pride and life of the ocean, the Land of Mu, which, at the epoch that we have been considering, had not yet been visited by the wrath of Human, that lord of volcanic fires to whose fury it afterward fell a victim. The description of that land given toSolon bySonchis, priest atSais; its destruction byearthquakes, and submergence, recorded byPlato in hisTimaeus, have been told and retold so many times that it is useless to encumber these pages with a repetition of it.[6]: ch. VI, p. 66
Mu, as an alternative name for a lost Pacific Ocean continent previously identified as the hypotheticalLemuria (the supposed place of origin forlemurs), was later popularised byJames Churchward (1851–1936) in a series of books, beginning withLost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Man (1926),[1] re-edited later asThe Lost Continent Mu (1931).[9] Other popular books in the series areThe Children of Mu (1931) andThe Sacred Symbols of Mu (1933).
Churchward claimed that "more than fifty years ago", while he was a soldier inIndia, he befriended a high-ranking temple priest who showed him a set of ancient "sunburnt" clay tablets, supposedly in a long-lost "Naga-Maya language" which only two other people in India could read. Churchward convinced the priest to teach him the dead language and decipher the tablets by promising to restore and store the tablets, for Churchward was an expert in preserving ancient artifacts. The tablets were written in either Burma or in the lost continent of Mu itself, according to the high priest.[10] Having mastered the language himself, Churchward found out that they originated from "the place where [man] first appeared—Mu". The 1931 edition states that "all matter of science in this work are based on translations of two sets of ancient tablets": the clay tablets he read in India, and a collection of 2,500 stone tablets that had been uncovered byWilliam Niven inMexico.[9]: 7
The tablets begin with the creation of Earth, Mu, and the superior human civilization Naacal by the seven commands of the seven superlative intellects of the seven-headed serpent Narayana. This creation story dismisses thetheory of evolution.[10] Churchward gave a vivid description of Mu as the home of an advanced civilization, theNaacal, which flourished between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, was dominated by a “Melanated/Black race",[9]: 48 and was "superior in many respects to our own".[9]: 17 At the time of its demise, about 12,000 years ago, Mu had 64 million inhabitants and seven major cities, and colonies on the other continents. The 64 million inhabitants were separated as ten tribes that followed one government and one religion.
Churchward claimed that the landmass of Mu was located in the Pacific Ocean, and stretched east–west from theMarianas toEaster Island, and north–south fromHawaii toMangaia. According to Churchward the continent was supposedly 5,000 miles from east to west and over 3,000 miles from north to south, which is larger than South America. The continent was believed to be flat with massive plains, vast rivers, rolling hills, large bays, and estuaries.[11] He claimed that according to thecreation myth he read in the Indian tablets, Mu had been lifted above sea level by the expansion of underground volcanic gases. Eventually Mu "was completely obliterated in almost a single night":[9]: 44 after a series of earthquakes andvolcanic eruptions, "the broken land fell into that great abyss of fire" and was covered by "fifty millions of square miles of water."[9]: 50 Churchward claimed the reasoning for the continent's destruction in one night was because the main mineral on the island was granite and was honeycombed to create huge shallow chambers and cavities filled with highly explosive gases. Once the chambers were empty after the explosion, they collapsed on themselves, causing the island to crumble and sink.[12]
Churchward claimed that Mu was the common origin of the great civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Central America, India, Burma and others, includingEaster Island, and was in particular the source of ancientmegalithic architecture. As evidence for his claims, he pointed to symbols from throughout the world, in which he saw common themes of birds, the relation of the Earth and the sky, and especially theSun. Churchward claimed that the king of Mu was named Ra and he related this to the Egyptian god of the sun,Ra, and theRapa Nui word for Sun,ra’a.[9]: 48 He claimed to have found symbols of the Sun in "Egypt,Babylonia,Peru and all ancient lands and countries – it was a universal symbol."[9]: 138
As additional evidence for his claims, Churchward looked to the Holy Bible and found through his own translations thatMoses was trained by the Naacal brotherhood in Egypt.Churchward makes references to theRamayana epic, areligious text ofHindu attributed to sage and historianValmiki. Valmiki mentions the Naacals as “coming to Burma from the land of their birth in the East,” that is, in the direction of the Pacific Ocean.[13]
Churchward attributed all megalithic art inPolynesia to the people of Mu. He claimed that symbols of the sun are found "depicted on stones of Polynesian ruins", such as the stone hats (pukao) on top of the giantmoai statues of Easter Island. CitingW. J. Johnson, Churchward describes the cylindrical hats as "spheres" that "seem to show red in the distance", and asserts that they “represent the Sun as Ra.”[9]: 138 He also incorrectly claimed that some of them are made of "red sandstone",[9]: 89 which does not exist on the island. The platforms on which the statues rest (ahu) are described by Churchward as being "platform-like accumulations of cut and dressed stone", which were supposedly left in their current positions "awaiting shipment to some other part of the continent for the building of temples and palaces".[9]: 89 He also cites the pillars "erected by theMāori ofNew Zealand" as an example of this lost civilization's handiwork.[9]: 158 In Churchward's view, the present-day Polynesians are not descendants of the dominant members of the lost civilization of Mu, responsible for these great works, but are instead descendants of survivors of the cataclysm that adopted "the firstcannibalism and savagery" in the world.[9]: 54
In the 1882 bookOahspe: A New Bible, John Newbrough included a map of the Earth inantediluvian times (i.e. prior to the great flood of biblical record) where an unknown continent is located in the Northern Pacific. Newbrough called this continent Pan. People often link both Pan and Mu as the same mythological continent since both are claimed to be located in the Pacific. Newbrough continues to claim that the unknown continent disappeared 24,000 years ago, but will soon rise from the Pacific and will be inhabited by the Kosmon race.[14]
Louis Jacolliot was a Frenchattorney,judge, andoccultist who specialized in the translation ofSanskrit. He wrote about the land of the Rutas, a lost land that ancient sources claimed was in the Indian Ocean but which he placed in the Pacific Ocean and associated with Atlantis stories inHistoire des Vierges. Les Peuples et les continents disparus (1874). He amplified upon this inOccult Science in India (1875, English translation 1884). He has been identified as a contributor toRosicrucianism.[15]
In the 1930s,Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of theTurkish Republic, was interested in Churchward's work and considered Mu as a possible location of theoriginal homeland of theTurks.[16] On the other hand, according to some views[by whom?], Atatürk's interest in the continent of Mu did not go beyond examining the claims. DespiteTahsin Mayatepek's proposals, he did not see the need to establish a Department of Mu Language at Ankara University'sSchool of Language and History – Geography. The relationship between Atatürk and the continent of Mu has been exaggerated to attract interest in the books written about the continent of Mu.[17]
Masaaki Kimura has suggested that certain underwater features located off the coast ofYonaguni Island,Japan (popularly known as theYonaguni Monument), are ruins of Mu.[18][19]
Moderngeological knowledge rules out "lost continents" of any significant size. According to the theory ofplate tectonics, which has been extensively confirmed since the 1970s, theEarth's crust consists of lighter "sial" rocks (continental crust rich inaluminiumsilicates) that float on heavier "sima" rocks (oceanic crust richer inmagnesium silicates). The sial is generally absent in the ocean floor where thecrust is a few kilometers thick, while the continents are huge solid blocks tens of kilometers thick. Since continents float on the sima much likeicebergs float on water, a continent cannot simply "sink" under the ocean.
It is true thatcontinental drift andseafloor spreading can change the shape and position of continents and occasionally break a continent into two or more pieces (as happened toPangaea). However, these are very slow processes that occur ingeological time scales (hundreds of millions of years). Over the scale of history (tens of thousands of years), the sima under the continental crust can be considered solid, and the continents are basically anchored on it. It is almost certain that the continents and ocean floors have retained their present position and shape for the whole span of human existence.
There is also no conceivable event that could have "destroyed" a continent, since its huge mass of sial rocks would have to end up somewhere—and there is no trace of it at the bottom of the oceans. ThePacific Ocean islands are not part of a submerged landmass but rather the tips of isolatedvolcanoes.
This is the case, in particular, ofEaster Island, which is a recent volcanic peak surrounded by deep ocean (3,000 m deep at 30 km off the island). After visiting the island in the 1930s,Alfred Métraux observed that themoai platforms are concentrated along the current coast of the island, which implies that the island's shape has changed little since they were built. Moreover, the "Triumphal Road" thatPierre Loti had reported ran from the island to the submerged lands below, is actually a natural lava flow.[20] Furthermore, while Churchward was correct in his claim that the island has no sandstone or sedimentary rocks, the point is irrelevant because thepukao are all made of native volcanicscoria.
Easter Island was first settled around 300 CE[21] and thepukao on themoai are regarded as having ceremonial or traditional headdresses.[21][22]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)https://archive.org/details/the-lost-continent-of-mu
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