Before the Iberians, Celts, Phoenicians, Greeks and Tartessos, there were the Atlanteans, those inhabitants of the most advanced civilization - their technology, their knowledge, their ships, their cars, their wealth, their mines, their constructions, their culture, their hidden idols, their sacred kingdoms...—which disappeared—perhaps due to an earthquake or a great deluge—completely 11,000 years ago. It was one of those lost continents like Hyperboria, Lemuria and Mu, whose memory remains submerged in oblivion.

Atlantis is the seed of our own civilization, its empire spread over the planet - it is possible that the Greek myths had their Atlantean birth in Iberia. A large commercial port city, where boats enter and leave with their mythical metals. Its origin, wrapped in myth, legend and fantasy, is still one of the great enigmas for archaeologists, who believe it could be found on the coast of Cádiz, near the Pillars of Hercules, at the "end of the world". of which the classics of Antiquity spoke.

Many mysteries and secret keys of this legendary civilization to decipher. Was it the lost city that was under water that Plato was talking about? Did the Atlanteans invade Egypt? Was the Great Sphinx of Giza a vestige of Atlantis? Did the Atlanteans build the pyramids? Did they trade with King Solomon? Did your navigators reach America? Did they annihilate the Lemurian civilization? Was Tartessos perhaps Atlantis?

Before the Iberians, Celts, Phoenicians, Greeks and Tartessos, there were the Atlanteans, those inhabitants of the most advanced civilization - their technology, their knowledge, their ships, their cars, their wealth, their mines, their constructions, their culture, their hidden idols, their sacred kingdoms...—which disappeared—perhaps due to an earthquake or a great deluge—completely 11,000 years ago. It was one of those lost continents like Hyperboria, Lemuria and Mu, whose memory remains submerged in oblivion.

Atlantis is the seed of our own civilization, its empire spread over the planet - it is possible that the Greek myths had their Atlantean birth in Iberia. A large commercial port city, where boats enter and leave with their mythical metals. Its origin, wrapped in myth, legend and fantasy, is still one of the great enigmas for archaeologists, who believe it could be found on the coast of Cádiz, near the Pillars of Hercules, at the "end of the world". of which the classics of Antiquity spoke.

Many mysteries and secret keys of this legendary civilization to decipher. Was it the lost city that was under water that Plato was talking about? Did the Atlanteans invade Egypt? Was the Great Sphinx of Giza a vestige of Atlantis? Did the Atlanteans build the pyramids? Did they trade with King Solomon? Did your navigators reach America? Did they annihilate the Lemurian civilization? Was Tartessos perhaps Atlantis?

We all know the Golden legend where Saint George must save a princess who is going to be sacrificed as a tribute so that a Dragon allows the people to drink from the fountain. When Saint George kills him, the citizens decide to leave their paganism to embrace Christianity. It is said that this story is a translation of the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda, or of Hercules and Hesione, others relate it to the Egyptian god Horus as the horseman who surpassed Evil with his spear. In any case it is clear that early Christianity adapted the new religion to the existing one, to the old beliefs.

In this process of syncretism, Christian mythology presents us with Saint George as the white knight of the Church and the dragon would be the image of Satan, idolatry and paganism. His image was venerated for centuries, in 494 Georgios - that Roman soldier executed in Nicomedia for his faith in the time of Emperor Diocletian - is canonized and venerated ever since. His cult spread, he became patron of knights and soldiers (miles Christi), protector of the crusaders. During the reconquest, Pedro I and later Jaime I of Aragon appeared to him to help in the fight against the Muslims in the battles of Alcoraz and El Puig respectively.

From here we are left with the symbols of the knight of courage and the wisdom of the dragon, discarding that representation as an incarnation of evil, as a relative of the serpent.

Tartessia or Tarshish is considered the first civilization in the West ruled by the legendary Argantonio and located, it is believed, to the south of the Iberian Peninsula, on the riverbed of the Guadalquivir. The echo of a wonderful city, rich in agriculture, livestock and precious metals (silver and gold), is collected in texts, chronicles, stories, biblical episodes, myths and legends. It was the scene of Nórax, Gargoris, Habis and also Hercules, who traveled there, to the Garden of the Hesperides to finish his work, killing the mythological king of Tartessian, the three-headed giant Geryon.

Explorers, archaeologists and researchers continue to search, unsuccessfully, for this lost kingdom of Tartessos, leaving those vestiges in the collective imagination of a unique and mysterious city, of a cultured and happy people, perhaps fused with the Phoenician civilization or extinguished by the Carthaginians. Although it is possible that the classical texts and the sages warn us about the cyclical history of the world... when the very Atlantis that Plato tells us, that wise and advanced humanity was annihilated through a great catastrophe, an implacable divine punishment...

Image: Bronze Carriazo (Astarte, marshes & estuaries' goddesses).

La Estantigua (in Castilian tradition), Güestia or Bona Xente (in Asturian mythology), Corteju de Genti de Muerti (in Extremadura), Estadea (in Zamora), Hueste de Ánimas (in León), Vision, La Huespeda… different names to refer to the Santa Compaña, that group of wandering hooded ghosts, a dark army of souls in pain that wandered in the gloomy night through the towns, forests and crossroads as an omen of death. To know its origin, we must go back to Germanic paganism (Wild Hunt — whose evolution under the medieval Christian veil would give the gloomy spectral procession Mesnie Hellequin—) and Celtic (the Sluagh or the Fairy Host) related to omens of wars, plagues, diseases future and acts of gathering souls.

Among legends of Holy Places and Holy Grails, and stories of terrible massacres and Holy Crusades, appears the almost mythical figure of the Templar warrior, those knights emerged in the SXII to protect and defend pilgrims in Jerusalem. Famed for their courage in combat, their vows of chastity, obedience and poverty, in their territories the "droit de seigneur" was not allowed, they promoted art, architecture, cultural and scientific exchange with their Arab neighbors in the Holy Land. An economic and military power that confronted them with the very king of France, was the beginning of their persecution and death at the stake at the hands of the Inquisition. Accused of blasphemy, heresy and sodomy, a halo of mystery still looms today on one of the most powerful secret societies.