Mu (mythical lost continent)

Mu is a

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 antiquarian

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 to

Sais; its destruction by earthquakes, and submergence, recorded by Plato in his Timaeus, 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}

Le Plongeon claimed that the civilization of ancient Egypt, which is found in Alkebulan/Africa, was founded by Queen Moo, a refugee from the land's demise. Other refugees supposedly fled to North America, Central America, and South America and became the Maya.^[3]

Mu, as an alternative name for a lost Pacific Ocean continent previously identified as the hypothetical

Churchward claimed that "more than fifty years ago", while he was a soldier in India, 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 by William Niven in Mexico.^[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 the theory of evolution.^[10] Churchward gave a vivid description of Mu as the home of an advanced civilization, the Naacal, 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 the

As additional evidence for his claims, Churchward looked to the Holy Bible and found through his own translations that Moses was trained by the Naacal brotherhood in Egypt. Assyria mistranslated when writing and misplaced the Garden of Eden, which according to Churchward would have been located in the Pacific Ocean.

Churchward makes references to the Ramayana epic, a religious text of Hindu attributed to sage and historian Valmiki. 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 in Polynesia 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 giant moai statues of Easter Island. Citing W. 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 the Māori of New 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 first cannibalism and savagery" in the world.^[9]: 54

In the 1882 book

James Bramwell and William Scott-Elliot claimed that the cataclysmic events on Mu began 800 thousand years ago^[16]: 194 and went on until the last catastrophe, which occurred in precisely 9564 BC.^[16]: 195

In the 1930s, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was interested in Churchward's work and considered Mu as a possible location of the original homeland of the Turks.^[17] On the other hand, according to some views, Atatürk's interest in the continent of Mu did not go beyond examining the claims. Despite Tahsin Mayatepek's proposals, he did not see the need to establish a Department of Mu Language at Ankara University's School 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.^[18]

Masaaki Kimura has suggested that certain underwater features located off the coast of Yonaguni Island, Japan (popularly known as the Yonaguni Monument), are ruins of Mu.^[19][20]

Modern

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. The Pacific Ocean islands are not part of a submerged landmass but rather the tips of isolated volcanoes.

This is the case, in particular, of Easter 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 the moai 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" that Pierre Loti had reported ran from the island to the submerged lands below, is actually a natural lava flow.^[21] Furthermore, while Churchward was correct in his claim that the island has no sandstone or sedimentary rocks, the point is irrelevant because the pukao are all made of native volcanic scoria.

Easter Island was first settled around 300 CE^[22] and the pukao on the moai are regarded as having ceremonial or traditional headdresses.^[22][23]

• H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) featured the lost continent in his revision of Hazel Heald's short story "Out of the Aeons" (1935).^[24] Mu appears in numerous Cthulhu mythos stories, including many written by Lin Carter in his Xothic legend cycle.^[25]
• The 1970 Mu Revealed is a humorous spoof^[26] by Raymond Buckland purporting to describe the long lost civilization of Muror, located on the legendary lost continent of Mu. The book was written under the pseudonym "Tony Earll", an anagram of "not really". The book claimed to present a translation of a diary compiled by a boy called Kland found and translated by an archaeologist named "Reedson Hurdlop", an anagram of "Rudolph Rednose".^[27]
• Mû, la cité perdue [Mu, the Lost Continent] [1] by Hugo Pratt

• The MMORPG Mu Online takes place in the lost continent of Mu ^[28]

• The Lost Civilization of Mu is a plot point in MEGAMAN Star Force 2.

External links

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• James Churchward's book, The Lost Continent of Mu, on Bibliotecapleyades
• WNYC and the Land of Mu