The first known mention of Lemuria appears in the works of Augustus le Plongeon (1825-1908), a 19th-century traveler and writer who conducted investigations of Mayan ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula. Le Plongeon announced that he had translated ancient Mayan writings, which he claimed proved that the Mayan civilization was older than those of Greece and Egypt. He also told the story of an even older continent called Mu, which had sunk in a manner similar to Atlantis. Its survivors, he asserted, founded the Mayan civilization.
In 1864, Abbot Brasseur de Bourbourg was tasked with translating a Mayan codex using an alphabet compiled by the conquistador Diego de Landa. The Mayan writing system was somewhat similar to Japanese or Egyptian, as it used ideograms that also had phonetic value; thus, it lacked a true alphabet. The Spanish found that it was a set of symbols that, when read aloud, sounded like the letters of the Latin alphabet. Brasseur understood that the codex narrated a catastrophe that had destroyed an entire continent. Its name was expressed in two symbols that corresponded to the letters “M” and “U,” leading to the emergence of the name “Mu.”
The most famous researcher of the traditions and evidence relating to Mu was undoubtedly British Army Colonel James Churchward (1851-1936). As a theosophist, he became the editor and defender of the modern esoteric theory regarding the existence of the continent of Mu. Stationed in colonial India at the end of the 19th century, Churchward made countless trips and investigations throughout India, Siberia, and Mongolia in search of archaeological evidence to corroborate the writings of the mysterious Nacal archives, identified as the last written testimonies of the vanished continent of Mu. Churchward’s works, including *The Lost Continent of Mu: Motherland of Man* (1926), popularized the idea of Mu and its civilization.
In recent years, intriguing claims have emerged regarding artifacts related to Mu found in Turkey. Verbal traditions among some Turkish communities speak of an ancient civilization connected to Mu, often depicted as a highly advanced society. Artifacts purportedly from this civilization have been reported, although rigorous archaeological verification remains limited. This connection reflects a broader cultural narrative in which ancient civilizations, like Mu, are often linked to myths of lost continents and advanced knowledge, paralleling tales of Atlantis.
In his books, Churchward narrated how, in India in 1866, a high priest named Ricius, with whom he began collaborating to combat a severe famine, showed him very ancient tablets kept in the secret chambers of a certain Hindu temple. These tablets were engraved in a strange ideographic language that, according to the priest, formed a small portion of the treasures rescued by the Nacals before the cataclysm that destroyed the seven sacred cities of the continent of Mu. The old Hindu priest agreed to instruct Churchward in the Nacal language—the oldest language humanity has articulated. Thanks to this, the colonel was able to decipher the history of Mu from ancient stone tablets hidden in the priest’s temple.
According to the tablets, Homo sapiens first appeared in the homeland of Mu and gave rise to a select lineage of 64 million individuals. Over time, this civilization established countless colonies throughout the world, one of which was Atlantis, which later became a new empire after gaining its independence. About 12,000 years ago, the continent was completely destroyed by a single, violent cataclysm, potentially linked to global events like the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (Bunch et al., 2012).
Who were the Nacals? Nacal was the name of the first civilization that existed on Earth. According to Churchward, this culture and its mother tongue originated in the current Tarim Basin in China. Today, this area encompasses the Taclamacán Desert, the westernmost region associated with the Gobi Desert. The first recorded use of the term “Nacal” is found in Augustus le Plongeon’s work, *Queen Moleda and the Sphinx of Egypt* (1896).
There may have been a felt need to recover the libraries of the Mayan sages, hidden since the beginning of the Christian era, to save them from destruction at the hands of invading hordes. These libraries contained the wisdom of ancient philosophers preserved in the books of the Brahmins, reflecting the knowledge that came to India and from there to Babylon and Egypt in very remote times through the Mayan adepts known as Nacals. These eminent figures, hailing from their homeland, served as missionaries of religion and civilization, eventually settling in Burma, where they became known as Nagas.
In the Decam, a large plateau covering much of the Central-South Indian subcontinent, they carried out their civilizing work. Notably, for le Plongeon, the great original civilization was in Central America, implying that the Nacals were missionaries of the Mayan religion and civilization. In contrast, according to Churchward, as recounted in *The Lost Continent of Mu: Homeland of Man* (1926), Nacal referred to the people and civilization of Mu, as well as the name of their language.
Mu References
– Bunch, T. E., et al. (2012). “Evidence for a cosmic impact around 12,900 years ago that contributed to the extinction of megafauna and the end of the Clovis culture.” “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”.
– Churchward, James. “The Lost Continent of Mu: Motherland of Man”. 1926.
– Le Plongeon, Augustus. “Queen Moleda and the Sphinx of Egypt”. 1896.
– Research on the myths of Mu and its connections to various ancient civilizations can be explored in works like “Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds” by Charles Berlitz (1986) and “Lost Cities of Atlantis, Ancient Europe & Biblical Civilizations” by David R. Stewart (1996).
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