Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

proposed in 1864 by

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an England, English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological ...

, theorized to have sunk beneath the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

, later appropriated by

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

ists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the discovery of

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label= Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of larg ...

and

continental drift Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of pl ...

in the 20th century. The hypothesis was proposed as an explanation for the presence of

lemur Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

but not in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

or the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

. Biologist

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...

's suggestion in 1870 that Lemuria could be the ancestral home of mankind caused the hypothesis to move beyond the scope of

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...

and zoogeography, ensuring its popularity outside of the framework of the scientific community. Occultist and founder of

theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

Helena Blavatsky, during the latter part of the 19th century, placed Lemuria in the system of her mystical-religious doctrine, claiming that this continent was the homeland of the human ancestors, whom she called Lemurians. The writings of Blavatsky had a significant impact on Western

esotericism Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...

, popularizing the myth of Lemuria and its mystical inhabitants. Theories about Lemuria became untenable when, in the 1960s, the scientific community accepted Alfred Wegener's theory of

, presented in 1912, but the idea lived on in the popular imagination, especially in relation to the Theosophist tradition.

Evolution of the idea

Lemuria was hypothesized as a land bridge, now sunken, which would account for certain discontinuities in

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

. This idea has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of

. Sunken continents such as Zealandia in the Pacific, and Mauritia and the

Kerguelen Plateau The Kerguelen Plateau (, ), also known as the Kerguelen–Heard Plateau, is an oceanic plateau and a large igneous province (LIP) located on the Antarctic Plate, in the southern Indian Ocean. It is about to the southwest of Australia and is ...

in the Indian Ocean do exist, but no geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans is known that could have served as a land bridge between continents. The idea of Lemuria was later incorporated into the philosophy of

Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

and has persisted as a theme in

pseudoarchaeology Pseudoarchaeology—also known as alternative archaeology, fringe archaeology, fantastic archaeology, cult archaeology, and spooky archaeology—is the interpretation of the past from outside the archaeological science community, which rejects ...

and discussions of lost lands. There is a vast fringe literature pertaining to Lemuria and to related concepts such as the Lemurian Fellowship and other things "Lemurian". All share a common belief that a

existed in what is now either the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

or the

in ancient times and claim that it became submerged as a result of a geological cataclysm. An important element of the mythology of Lemuria is that it was the location of the emergence of complex knowledge systems that formed the basis for later beliefs. The concept of Lemuria was developed in detail by James Churchward, who referred to it as Mu and identified it as a lost continent in the Pacific Ocean. Churchward appropriated this name from Augustus Le Plongeon, who had used the concept of the "Land of Mu" to refer to the imaginary lost continent of Atlantis. Churchward's books included ''The Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Men'' (1926), ''The Children of Mu'' (1931), ''The Sacred Symbols of Mu'' (1933), ''Cosmic Forces of Mu'' (1934), and ''Second Book of Cosmic Forces of Mu'' (1935). The relationships between Lemuria/Mu and Atlantis are discussed in detail in the book '' Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature'' (1954) by L. Sprague de Camp. Pseudoarchaeological and

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...

beliefs about Lemuria have been promoted in books by fringe author

Frank Collin Francis Joseph Collin (born November 3, 1944) is an American former political activist and Midwest coordinator with the American Nazi Party, later known as the National Socialist White People's Party. After being ousted for being partly Jewish (w ...

writing under the pen name Frank Joseph in books published by Inner Traditions – Bear & Company. Additional discussion of fantastic speculation about the imaginary land of Lemuria are examples of Lemuria in popular culture.

Scientific origins

Postulation

In 1864, "The Mammals of Madagascar" by

and biogeographer

appeared in '' The Quarterly Journal of Science''. Using a classification he referred to as

s, but which included related primate groups,Neild, Ted ''Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet'' Harvard University Press (2 Nov 2007) pp. 38–39 and puzzled by the presence of their

s in Madagascar and India, but not in Africa or the Middle East, Sclater proposed that Madagascar and India had once been part of a larger continent (he was correct in this; though in reality this was Mauritia & the

supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", which leav ...

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final sta ...

The anomalies of the mammal fauna of Madagascar can best be explained by supposing that... a large continent occupied parts of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans... that this continent was broken up into islands, of which some have become amalgamated with... Africa, some... with what is now Asia; and that in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands we have existing relics of this great continent, for which... I should propose the name Lemuria!

Parallels

Sclater's theory was hardly unusual for his time; " land bridges", real and imagined, fascinated several of Sclater's contemporaries.

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (15 April 177219 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories ...

, also looking at the relationship between animals in India and Madagascar, had suggested a southern continent about two decades before Sclater, but did not give it a name. The acceptance of

Darwinism Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations tha ...

led scientists to seek to trace the diffusion of species from their points of

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

ary origin. Before the acceptance of

, biologists frequently postulated the existence of submerged land masses to account for populations of land-based species now separated by barriers of water. Similarly, geologists tried to account for striking resemblances of rock formations on different continents. The first systematic attempt was made by Melchior Neumayr in his book ''Erdgeschichte'' in 1887. Many hypothetical submerged land bridges and continents were proposed during the 19th century to account for the present distribution of species.

Promulgation

Hypothetical sketch of the monophylitic origin and of the diffusion of the 12 varieties of men from Lemuria over the earth LCCN2014649358

Coat of arms of the British Indian Ocean Territory

After gaining some acceptance within the scientific community, the concept of Lemuria began to appear in the works of other scholars.

, a Darwinian

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are give ...

, proposed Lemuria as an explanation for the absence of proto-human " missing links" in the fossil record. According to another source, Haeckel put forward this thesis before Sclater, without using the name "Lemuria".

Supersession

The Lemuria theory disappeared completely from conventional scientific consideration after the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift were accepted by the larger scientific community. According to the theory of plate tectonics, Madagascar and India were indeed once part of the same landmass (thus accounting for geological resemblances), but plate movement caused India to break away millions of years ago, and move to its present location. The original landmass, Mauritia & the supercontinent

prior to that, broke apart; it predominantly didn't sink beneath sea level.

Kumari Kandam

Some Tamil writers such as Devaneya Pavanar have associated Lemuria with Kumari Kandam, a legendary sunken landmass mentioned in the Tamil literature, claiming that it was the

cradle of civilization A cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was created by mankind independent of other civilizations in other locations. The formation of urban settlements (cities) is the primary characteristic of a society that c ...

. A Tamil commentator, Adiyarkunallar, described the dimensions that extended between the Pahruli River and the

Kumari River Kumari may refer to: Places * Kumari, Nepal, a town in central Nepal * Kumari (Afyon), a city in Turkey * Kumari (Kutahya), a town in Turkey * Kumari (island), an island in Estonia Religion * Kumari (goddess), in Hinduism * Kaumari, one of ...

in the Pandyan country that was taken over by the ocean later on.

In popular culture

Since the 1880s, the concept of Lemuria has had a prominent place in the mythology of

Anthroposophy Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Follower ...

and other

and

beliefs, inspiring many novels, television shows, films, and music. These are not scientific ideas, but fall within the realm of

and

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

. *

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univer ...

's poem "The Last of the Wine". *

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad ''The Golden Voyage of Sinbad'' is a 1973 fantasy adventure film directed by Gordon Hessler and featuring stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. Based on the ''Arabian Nights'' tales of Sinbad the Sailor, it is the second of three ''Sinba ...

1973 Film where Sinbad journeys to the island of Lemuria to reach the Fountain of Destiny. * Therion, Swedish Symphonic Metal band, 2003 album ''

Lemuria Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the d ...

''. *

Visions of Atlantis Visions of Atlantis is an Austrian metal band from Styria, founded in 2000. Inspiration came both from successful symphonic metal band Nightwish and from the myth of Atlantis. History ''Eternal Endless Infinity'' and lineup changes (200 ...

, Austrian symphonic metal band, 2018 album '' The Deep & the Dark''. * '' The Deep'', 2015–2019 animated TV show.The Deep (TV Series 2015– ) - IMDb
/ref>

References

External links

Lemuria
at the

Encyclopedia of Fantasy ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' is a 1997 reference work concerning fantasy fiction, edited by John Clute and John Grant. Other contributors include Mike Ashley, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, David Langford, Sam J. Lundwall, Michael S ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemuria (Continent) 1864 introductions Mythological places Pseudoarchaeology Esoteric anthropogenesis Theoretical continents