Atlantis in the Java Sea

NUSASURA: THE ATLANTIS ISLAND?


In 2017, I visited an island in the middle of the Java Sea, namely the Bawean Island, to deliver a presentation about the island’s connection with Atlantis. I spent a few days there, wandering around the tiny island to observe and talk to every resident I met. There is an interesting thing that I got when talking with them. Some people told a legend about the existence of a mysterious island located on the north of the island, in the middle of the Java Sea, which is now drowned. They also told about the frequent occurrence of fishing boats or vessels that ran aground or lost when sailing near the mysterious island.

After returning from the island, I thought about opening up the old maps composed by geographers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After I observed, many maps show the existence of an island located in the northeast of the Bawean Island, with various names such as Nusasua, Nisasira, Nusasira and Nisaira (see attached maps). Then I interpreted the names into Nusasura in the Austronesian language group. Is Nusasura the Island of Atlantis?

In a research published in 2015, I undertook a hypothesis of the island of Atlantis, where there is the capital city of the kingdom of Atlantis, is located on the northeast of Bawean Island. The island is now drowned and overgrown by a coral reef named Gosong Gia or Annie Florence Reef. This coral reef was mapped in detail using multi-beam echosounder some time ago. From the pattern of the coral reef, the structure of the city and its dimensions narrated by Plato can still be seen. The location of the coral reef is more or less the same as the Nusasura shown on the above maps. Please note that the authors of the maps were informed by European sailors who sailed in the Java Sea. The sailors obtained the information about the islands in the Java Sea from the local residents or sailors, who probably also told of the mysterious island and then it was described by the European sailors.

Furthermore, I also observed the ancient records contained in Egypt. From here I obtained a word that sounds like Nusasura, Neserser. In the mythology of the Ancient Egyptians, the island and the lake of Neserser, “the island and the lake of flames” (in the volcanic region) where Osiris and Thoth came from, is often mentioned in their myths. As described in the “Papyrus of Nu” (in the “Book of Dead”), the myth tells that Osiris has his throne on the island of Neserser in the center of six or seven concentric circles with a gate at each and they are all in the “lake” of Neserser. The concentric circles were built for Ra by the dwellers of the lake. Thoth had his lands around the lake and he visited Osiris on the island. There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser and somehow these circles of Ra became hidden.

As written in many tomb texts from the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Periods in the Ancient Egypt, in the concepts of the divinities and the deceased, the Neserser island is a heaven-like place, a place where judgement is passed and the deceased is reborn equipped with a status (god or common being). The Hetep-fields is a kind of paradise under the supervision of the god Hetep with whom the deceased identifies himself, and where he leads the happy life reserved for the privileged. In the concept, Osiris, Horus and Thoth were given the status of gods or ancestral divinities.

The description of Neserser is resemblant to the story of Atlantis.
1. Six or seven concentric circles were built for Ra on the island of Neserser, conforming to the Atlantis’ four circles of lands (including the central land) and three circles of water, built by the god Poseidon.
2. Either Osiris or Atlas (not the Greek Atlas) have their thrones on the central lands.
3. The lake of Neserser is conforming to the almost closed sea around the Atlantis capital island. Plato describes the sea as a water with a mouth to the outer sea, thus arbitrarily can be called a lake. As described above, I made a hypothesis in 2015 that the sea is the ancient Java Sea where it had only one outlet.
4. There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser which devastated the island of Neserser, and then it was hidden. This is also in conformity with the descriptions about the destruction of Atlantis.

A sound-like word of Nusasura is also found on the Mesopotamian clay tablets, Nisir, the name of a sea where Gilgamesh sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim that has been given eternal life. In 2016, I made a hypothesis that the “Epic of Gilgamesh” fit the conditions in Indonesia, from the descriptions such as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees.

Nusasura could have come from the words “nusa” and “asura”, meaning the island of the Asuras. Asuras (also known as Suras and Asuryas) in the dharmic mythology are a class of divine beings or power-seeking deities. Asuras are described as powerful superhuman demigods with good or bad qualities. The good Asuras are called Adityas and are led by Baruna, while the malevolent ones are called Danavas and are led by Vritra. In later Vedic and post-Vedic texts, the benevolent gods are called Devas, while malevolent Asuras compete against these Devas and are considered “enemy of the gods”. In the above Atlantis hypothesis, I made an analogy of the god Baruna with Poseidon, the founder of Atlantis.

The term Asura is linguistically related to the Ahuras of Indo-Iranian people and pre-Zoroastrianism era. In both religions, Ahura, Vouruna and Daeva of pre-Zoroastrianism (Asura, Baruna and Deva of Dharmism) are found, but their roles are on opposite sides. That is, Ahura evolves to represent the good in pre-Zoroastrianism, while Asura evolves to represent the bad in Vedic religion, while Daeva evolves to represent the bad in pre-Zoroastrianism, while Deva evolves to represent the good in Vedic religion. This contrasting roles have led some scholars to deduce that there may have been wars in proto-Indo-European communities, and their gods and demons evolved to reflect their differences. In the Atlantis context, there was a war between Atlantis and “the Athens” (a borrowed name). The Asuras/Ahuras could be analogous to the Atlantean while the Devas/Daevas were “the Athenian”.

Please notice also the linguistic resemblance between Asura and Osiris in the above ancient records of Egypt. Osiris or Atlas have their thrones on the central lands. Note that Osiris was originally the god of water and vegetation. Therefore we can speculate that Asura, Osiris and Atlas are the same person. The name Atlantis was derived from Atlas, Neserser from Osiris and therefore Nusasura from Asura.

Phonetically, Asura is similar to Ashur, the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon, god of military prowess and empire, and namesake of the Assyrian Empire. Some scholars have claimed that Ashur was represented as the winged sun that appears frequently in Assyrian iconography. One variation contain a winged disc with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle. The Zoroastrian’s Ahura also have similar representation. From the characters he owns, that are powerful, mighty and has the symbol of solar disc, Ashur could be the association of Asura in the Mesopotamian culture. The circles inside the disc have similar configuration with the land-and-water circles of Atlantis.

Dhani Irwanto, June 2018

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