Mu (lost continent)

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Mu is the name of a lost land, or hypothetical vanished continent, that was once located in the Pacific Ocean but is now (like Atlantis and Lemuria, with which it is sometimes identified) believed to have sunk beneath the waters.

General acceptance by the scientific community of the theory of plate tectonics has diminished the formerly popular belief in sunken continents. Plate tectonics proposes that continental masses are composed of the lighter SiAl (silicon/aluminium) type rocks which literally float on the heavier SiMg (silicon/magnesium) rocks which constitute ocean bottoms. There is no evidence of SiAl rock in the Pacific basin.

1 History of the concept
2 Mu in politics
3 Mu in the arts and entertainment
4 See also

[edit] History of the concept

[edit] Augustus Le Plongeon

The idea of Mu first appeared in the works of the antiquarian Augustus Le Plongeon (1825–1908), a 19th century traveler and writer who conducted his own investigations of the Maya ruins in Yucatán. He announced that he had translated the ancient Mayan writings, which supposedly showed that the Maya of Yucatán were older than the later civilizations of Atlantis and Egypt, and additionally told the story of an even older continent of Mu, which had foundered in a similar fashion to Atlantis, with the survivors founding the Maya civilization. Le Plongeon actually got the name "Mu" from the mistranslation of what was then called the Troano manuscript by Abbe Brasseur (called de Bourbourg) in 1864, using the de Landa alphabet. This translation obviously includes a number in the original and this can be told because the figures are place-values in base-20(used by the Mayans)including 64,000,000 and 8,000, and in sequence. The translation recognizes some of the values but translates others as words and hence creating one long sentence. Mu was taken to mean Atlantis, which is what Le Plongeon thought; he also thought that Queen Moo was in Central America 30,000 years ago and founded civilizations in Atlantis and Egypt [this basic information by L. Sprague de Camp in Lost Continents, The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature, 1954. This section of this entry was written by Dale Drinnon, who recognized the place-values in base-20 of this translation of the so-called Troano manuscript in a still-unpublished manuscript]

[edit] James Churchward

This lost continent was later popularised by James Churchward (1852–1936) in a series of books, beginning with The Children of Mu (1931), The Lost Continent Mu (1933), and The Sacred Symbols of Mu (1935). The books still have devotees, but they are not considered serious archaeology, and nowadays are found in bookshops classed under 'New Age' or 'Religion and Spirituality'.

[edit] Other authors

Mu is identified with Lemuria in the Illuminatus! trilogy of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and Martin Gardner did the same in his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.

[edit] Archaeological evidence

The Morien Institute has identified underwater structures located off the coast of Yonaguni, in Okinawa, Japan as possibly being ruins of Mu. [1] There is little scientific evidence to support this assertion, and geologists generally believe that the rock formations were caused by geological processes and are of natural, not man-made, origin.

[edit] Mu in politics

In the late 1930s, Turkey's Independence leader Atatürk promoted research on Mu and other lost continents, in the hope of establishing connections between the Turkish civilization and other ancient cultures, such as the Uyghur, India, Maya, and Aztec [2].

[edit] Mu in the arts and entertainment

[edit] Books and comics

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) included Mu in his Cthulhu mythos.
In Robert E. Howard's Kull stories, Mu was a large continent with many great cities, and when it sank, the tops of mountain peaks became the isles of Lemuria.
V. T. Hamlin's Alley Oop comic strips (1932). "Moo" and "Lem" (after Lemuria?) are rival prehistoric nations.
Henri Vernes's albums:
- Les tours de cristal (1961). Hero Bob Morane time-travels to a high-tech Mu.
- Les géants de Mu (1975).
Andre Norton novel Operation Time Search (1967). Mu and Atlantis are rival nations.
W. Murphy and R. Sapir's book Coin of the Realm (1971–). Features Mu. "James Churchward" used as a pseudonym.
Tom Robbins' novel Still Life With Woodpecker (1980) makes extensive reference to Mu.
Oscar Loyo's comics magazine Karmatron (1986–1991). Mu is a base city for some of the characters.
M. Kurumada's manga Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac) (1986-1990). Mu is said to be the birthplace of a character called Mu. Mu is one of the 12 gold saints under Greek goddess Athena's command. Mu presides over the zodiac temple of Aries.
Hugo Pratt's comics album Mu (1988-1989). A Corto Maltese adventure.
S. Komatsuzaki's illustrated story The Undersea Kingdom. Mu goes to war with the modern world.
Margit Sandemo book series The Warlock and The Legend of the Realm of Light . Mu and Lemuria are advanced civilizations.
James Rollins's novel Deep Fathom, in which one of the characters is the great-granddaughter of James Churchward.
Nathaniel Mackey's National Book Award winning book of poems Splay Anthem (2006) which contains his serial poem "Mu".

[edit] Movies, TV serials, and animations

Atragon (1963) and Super Atragon (1996), based on S. Oshikawa's novel The Undersea Battleship and Komatsuzaki's short story above.
Brave Raideen (1975–1976). The title character is a giant robot created to protect Mu.
The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982). Character Tao is a descendant of the Empire of Mu. Changed to the Empire of Hiva for the English dub.
Dai Sentai Goggle V (1982-1983). Mu is represented by the opal on the forehead area of Goggle Yellow's helmet.
Super Dimension Century Orguss (1983.) The Mu Empire is a race of intelligent robots apparently connected with the legendary civilization. They turned on their creators and seek to destroy all other forms of intelligent life.
Space Sheriff Shaider (1984). The Fuuma Empire, the alien empire fought by Shaider, played by Hiroshi Tsuburaya, came originally from Mu.
RahXephon (2002). The Mulians are shown as a race who look like other humans but have blue blood. They are portrayed as coming from an alternate dimension into which the continent of Mu accidentally disappeared and in which it continues to exist; in this story, Mu is thus not a sunken continent, though still a lost one.
Transformers: Cybertron (2005-2006). Mu is portrayed as actually being an ancient alien spacecraft.

[edit] Video games

Square-Enix's Star Ocean: Till the End of Time - one of the teams in the arena "Soldier's of Mu" has a brief reference to Mu "sitting on the bottom of the Mediterrean".
Namco's Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse has a reference to Mu as the protagonists travel on a lost planet, Miltia, as an enigmatic character chaos compares the state of the planet to the lost continent.
Webzen's MMORPG Mu Online. The play is set in Mu.
The NES and Super Nintendo games DuckTales 2 (1993), Illusion of Gaia (1994), Terranigma (1995), Chrono Trigger (1995), and Star Ocean: Fantastic Space Odyssey (1996) all reference Mu.
Game Boy Advance's game Astro Boy: Omega Factor (2004). Mu is an Aztec-like land.
City of Heroes (2004). Many humans with magical abilities are said to be descended from the people of Mu. The villain group known as the Circle of Thorns is made up primarily of the ghosts of their ancient enemies, the Oranbegans. Also, the villain group Arachnos has a division made up entirely of Mu descendants.
Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds features a city called Mu on at least two different scenarios.

[edit] Music

MU, a 70s American Psychedelic rock band.
Mu, a current British/Japanese electronica duo.
The Thirteen Cryptical Prophecies of Mu, song from the album The Power Cosmic by Bal-Sagoth.
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (later known as The KLF), a British techno band very fond of Mu.
Glassjaw, A rock band from Long Island, NY. The second track on their album 'Worship and Tribute' is called "Mu Empire."
Lemuria, song from the double album Lemuria / sirius B by symphonic opera metal band, Therion.
Don Cherry's 1969 records with Ed Blackwell, Mu, Part I and Mu, Part II
Mu, a track on the 1967 album Atlantis by jazz musician Sun Ra. Other tracks include Lemuria, Yucatan, Bimini, and the title track, Atlantis. The album features the Hohner clavinet.
Robert Plant, of the rock group Led Zeppelin, claimed his symbol on the band's fourth album (a feather inside a circle) represents the Mu civilization. He said, "My symbol was drawn from sacred symbols of the ancient Mu civilisation which existed about 15,000 years ago as part of a lost continent somewhere in the Pacific Ocean between China and Mexico. All sorts of things can be tied in with Mu civilisation - even the Easter Island effigies. These Mu people left stone tablets withe their symbols inscribed into them all over the places. And they all date from the same time period. The Chinese say these people came from the east and the Mexicans say they came from the west...obviously it was somewhere in between." (From the book "Talking," by Dave Lewis.)