Saint Paul’s Journey to Atlantis- Iconium, the Birth of Athene, Plato and the Whirling Dervishes. Part Two © Nicholas Costa 2025
Konya, known in antiquity as Iconium, is considered to be one of the most religiously conservative metropolitan centers in Turkey. It is best known as the final home of Rumi (1207-1273 AD). Mevlana Celaddiin-i Rumi was a 13th century Muslim saint and Anatolian Mystic who is renown for his exquisite poetry and wise sayings, which have been translated into many languages. His turquoise-domed tomb in the city is its primary tourist attraction.
In the year of his death, Rumi’s followers established the Mevlevi Sufi order of Islam now better known as the Whirling Dervishes. Konya was the capital of the Seljuk Turks from the 12th to the 13th centuries.
Present day Konya is renowned for its strong spiritual atmosphere. It houses numerous tombs of prophets and saints. There are varying accounts, with sources claiming that there are between 329 and 379 prophet and saint tombs in the city. However it was a major religious centre long before the advent of Islam.
“Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshiper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.” (Celaddiin Rumi)
One may now ask why Iconium/ Konya was, and still is, a main religious centre, whether pagan, Christian, or Islamic throughout the millennia?
Why did Rumi choose to settle there in preference to any other location? Is the persistent religiosity of the location over millennia indicative that a major celestial catastrophic event occurred in the region in the distant past? Such an interpretation would also help to explain why Paul focused upon this city.
Whilst Rumi is credited with founding the whirling dervish movement as a means of gaining Islamic enlightenment, its roots may lie much further back in time. As can be seen in the images, the hats and costumes worn by the dervishes can be traced directly back to Hittite times.
The dance, which in Sufi terms is a reflection of the movement of the planets itself may also have its roots in an ancient Anatolian dance known as the Baukismos or Ionian dance which was performed by men in antiquity. (The whirling dance of Baukis: reinterpreting our sources chapter in Textiles in Motion, Elena Miramontes Seijas, 2023)
According to Julius Pollux (fl. 2nd century) :” the baukismós, eponymous ode of Baukis the dancer, a certain dance, graceful, moistening the body and whirling-based” (Gramm. Onomasticon 4.100)
Baukis and the Flood
The link to Baukis is telling, Baukis and Philemon are two characters found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. They were an old married couple living in in the region of Tyana, which Ovid places in Phrygia. Despite their poverty they were the only ones in their town to welcome the disguised gods Zeus and Hermes thereby embodying the pious exercise of guest friendship and hospitality.
In gratitude for their kindness Zeus told them that he was going to destroy the town and all those who had turned them away and not provided them with due hospitality. He told the couple to climb the mountain with the two gods, and not to turn back until they had reached the top.
Once they had reached the top the elderly couple looked back and saw that the town and everybody in it had been destroyed by a flood.
Halley’s Comet and Genghis Khan
The backdrop to Rumi’s relocation was the spectacular appearance of Halley’s comet in 1222 which engendered a number of millennial movements, as well as inspiring Genghis Khan (c1162 AD-1227 AD) to dispatch his Mongols on an invasion of the west.
For example one account of a millennial movement is that of (pseudo-) Ibn al-Fuwati (d. 1323?) who states that during the year 1240 one such messianic movement appeared in Transoxiania. This was Rumi’s native region. It was led by a non Arab Sufi in Bukhara named Abu al-Karm al-Darani, which ended in his death and the massacre of his 60,000 followers. (Apocalyptic Incidents during the Mongol Invasions, David Cook, 2008).
In that same year Rumi relocated from Damascus and came to Konya where he became a Sufi teacher.
The Comet of 1211 AD and Rumi
At the age of 5, c1211 AD, Rumi is reported to have seen angels in the sky and become very excited. (Rumi’s Secret, the Life of the Sufi Poet of Love, Brad Gooch, 2017.) Angels were in fact a metaphor for comets or asteroids.
Gooch cites another story concerning Rumi who at age 5 or 6 whilst playing on the roof of a building in the morning stated, “I saw some people in green robes. They took me away and helped me to fly and showed me the sky and the planets.”
This hitherto report of a “mystical adventure” actually had a physical explanation. According to Noah Webster:
“In 1210 was an eruption of Heckla, and a cold winter. In 1211 appeared a comet, in May, visible for 18 days. Great tempests marked this period with inundations. In 1212 Venice and Damascus were violently agitated by earthquakes, and in Sicily thousands perished by an inundation. These phenomena were the heralds of a severe pestilence, which, in 1213, was so fatal in Italy, that authors affirm scarcely one tenth of the inhabitants survived. In the year following appeared two comets.” ( A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases; with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated, Noah Webster, 1799)
In later life in one of his poems he wrote:
“I’ve ridden comets across the sky, and I’ve looked below and above.
Then one day I looked inside myself, and this is what I found,
A golden sun residing there, beaming forth God’s light and sound.”
Plato
Given the thread of this article does it come as a surprise to learn that Plato, the author of the Atlantis narrative also features in the history of Konya? His narrative focuses upon two areas. The larger according to the measurements and description he supplies is the landmass equivalent in size and shape to Anatolia (Turkey). Whilst the second is equivalent to the plain below Ephesus in conformity with the description and measurements he provides in his narrative. (For details see the author’s book Atlantis, the Amazons, and the Birth of Athene, 2023.)
Rumi and other Sufi’s are heralded as a Neoplatonists. Rumi certainly makes a few deferential references to Plato in his works. It is supposedly Sufism’s deference to the philosopher that explains the presence of a number of locations in the immediate vicinity of Konya which bear the philosopher’s name. However the indications are that the allusion pre-existed both the Sufis and the advent of Islam. Common to all sources is the facts that Plato’s name was exclusively associated with monuments dating back to the Hittite era, and specifically related to water and flooding. (Plato in the Folk-lore of the Konia Plain, FW Hasluck · 1911)
According to Haji Khalfa (1609 AD –1657 AD), “The inhabitants of the country say that the plain of Konia was once a sea, which Plato caused to disappear.”
The Tumulus
A number of Islamic works written in the 13th century state that the famous Greek philosopher Plato’s tomb was located on Alaeddin Hill in the centre of Konya. The earliest extant source is by Yaqat Shihab al-Din (1179–1229), a Muslim scholar with notably Byzantine (Greek) ancestry. He states that the tomb was “in the church by the mosque”. There are now no discernible traces of any tomb dedicated to Plato. (He was actually buried in Athens).
The Eflatun Mescidi, or Plato’s Church was also known as St Amphilochios Church. It was located on the hill near the Alaaddin mosque. Construction of the mosque commenced c 1155 and was built on the site of a Christian basilica. Amphilochios of Iconium notably lived ca. 339/340, and died probably in 394–403 AD.
The hill is in fact an ancient tumulus which dates back to the early bronze age. (Quality criteria of urban parks: The case of Alaaddin Hill (Konya-Turkey),Ümmügülsüm Ter, 2011; Cities as Palimpsests? Responses to Antiquity in Eastern Mediterranean Urbanism, Edited by Elizabeth Key Fowden et al, 2022 )
The text of the Pilgrimage of the Merchant Basil (1466) states that there was a Christian church consecrated to Plato and to St Amphilochios inside of which was the ‘spring of Plato’ considered to be a well used for astrological purposes, as well as his tomb.
Plato’s Spring
The Aflatun Pinari/ Eflatun Pinar or Plato’s Spring is located some 85 km (53 mi) west of Konya, and drains into Lake Beyshehir in central Anatolia. It was believed that he once lived there. He was supposed to have blocked the outlet of the lake in order to bring its water to Konia, but to have desisted on finding that a town was flooded by his operations or the converse that ‘Plato’, with cotton, pitch, and large stones, blocked the outlet of a subterranean river which threatened to flood Konia. It was in fact a Hittite monument.
Plato’s River
In the same vicinity south of Lake Beyshehir near the village of Bunarbashi the ‘River of Plato’ was located. It is situated on the northern slopes of Mount Karadag (black mountain), an extinct volcano.
The slopes of the volcano have always been inhabited. Çatalhöyük (ca 7500 BC), which is one of the earliest neolithic settlements in Anatolia, is located north-west of the volcano. Hittite inscriptions are found on the hills to the south-east.
Ancient Derbe, which was another of the towns Paul the Apostle visited, is situated on the east slopes of the mountain. In early Christianity the towns on the mountain were religious centers. There are ruins of early Byzantine settlements all around the mountain and the region is called Binbirkilise (the Thousand and One Churches).
Coincidence?
According to the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire it was called Boratinon in late antiquity. Dare on ask as to whether the name was somehow linked to that of Athene? The Bor part of the name can also be found in the location now known as Bor which was once known as Tyana the very city named in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as the home of Baukis and Philemon.
Plato’s Monastery
The Ak, Eflatun, or Plato’s Monastery near Konya was often visited by Rumi. It was also known as the Akmanastir (White Monastery) or Agios Chariton. It is located at the foot of Takkeli Mountain, 4 km west of Konya. The monastery features two rock-carved churches, a holy spring, a monk’s cell, and a podium. Notably, the sacred well on the premises is believed to be a miraculous formation emerging from below the earth. The monastery is believed to have been founded by Saint Chariton in the second half of the 3rd century and the first half of the 4th century. It underwent renovations in 1067 and 1289, the latter being during the reign of Sultan Mesut, whilst the dating of the main church to the 9th or 10th century indicates that the monastery evolved over time. (The Ak Manastir has been studied by researchers including IV. Kyrillos (19th century), W. M. Ramsay and G. Bell,1905, F. W. Hasluck, 1911, and S. Eyice, 1964.)
Ephesus- birthplace of Artemis
Having earlier visited sites which were the focus of major catastrophic events, know respectively as the Birth of Aphrodite, and the Birth of Athene why did Paul finally focus his attentions upon Ephesus? Why did he choose to travel through Asia Minor “over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia” (Acts 18:23)?
On Paul’s second missionary journey (A.D. 52), having previously visited Paphos and Iconium he came to Ephesus (Acts 18:19). On his third missionary journey (A.D. 54-56), Paul actually settled in Epheses and stayed there for between two and three years (Acts 19:8-10).
Ephesus was where the temple of Artemis was located and was a major centre of worship. Acts 19 35 states that all the world knows “that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven?”
Paul was evidently engaged in predicting a coming celestial event. When he “prophesied”, “Fear filled them all” both Jews and Greeks.
“Many also of those who had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds. [19] Many of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. They counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”
What were the books?
It would now appear that the opposition to Paul was because he promulgated a different initial counting point for a perceived catastrophic cycle of 1461 years. Since the other points had come and gone without any major event. It would appear that Paul and his followers focused upon the c1327 BC catastrophe at Ephesus and where therefore living in expectation of a new catastrophe in the region in the relatively near future.
Sothis and Bar Kokhba’s Revolt
Seemingly unrelated was the Bar Kokhba revolt which was a large-scale armed rebellion initiated by the Jews of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba (son of the star) against the Roman Empire in 132 AD. It lasted until 135 or early 136, and was the third and final escalation of the Jewish–Roman wars. Like the First Jewish–Roman War and the Second Jewish–Roman War, the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in a total Jewish defeat. Bar Kokhba in 135 and the Jewish rebels who remained after his death were all killed or enslaved within the next year. Whilst initially supported by Christians, Bar Kokhba ultimately alienated them and severely punishing any who refused to join the rebellion.
All the Jewish uprisings including that against Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC had a common link, one based upon the belief in a celestial cycle of 1461 years. (See Adam to Apophis, Asteroids, Millenarianism, and Climate Change, Nicholas Costa, 2013)
That against Antiochus produces a date of c1628 BC which equates with the ‘birth’ of Moses. Notably the coins of the Bar Kokhba revolt feature a palm tree- this was none other than an emblem of the prophetess Deborah who was in turn the Biblical metaphor for the goddess Artemis.
Destruction of Ephesus and the Fall of Icarus
The Bar Kochba’s revolt coincides with the start of a new Sothic cycle which according to Censorinus (de Die Natali) began in 134 AD. Working back from this date produces a date of 1327 BC
This date aligns with the Hittite text concerning Ephesus where Mursilli II states
“(15) Then as I marched, when I reached Mt. Lawasa, the awesome Tarhunnas, my lord, manifested (his) grace (Hit.: para handandatar): he hurled a thunderbolt (logogram, giskalmis). My army (or: troops) beheld the thunderbolt, it (i.e. the army) surveyed the land of Arzawa (or: the land of Arzawa saw it): the thunderbolt passed and it struck the land of Arzawa. It hit Apasas…”
For exactly the same year, c1327 BC, Greek mythology retains many explicit memories of the event and its aftermath which I shall be covering in future articles.
Apollodorus notably carries a memory of the event when he states that Heracles: “saw the body of Icarus washed ashore and buried it, and he called the island Icaria instead of Doliche”
Icarus was the individual who fell from the sky into the sea.
Next: Saint Paul’s Journey to Atlantis- Ephesus, Examining the Birth of Artemis- A New Analysis of a Historical Event.
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