: There are other myths/prophecies involving islands,
: though not all of them sunken. Aztec mythology holds
: that their Mongols ancestors came over the land bridge
: in search of an island in a lake, on which would be a
: cactus, on which would be a hawk, eating a snake...
: and they found that in Tenochtitlan and made it their
: capital, eventually filling in the lake and expanding
: the island until there was no lake, and hence no
: island in it. Tenochtitlan is the ruined old city
: under Mexico City, for those who've never heard of it.
Well, actually the lake didn't get filled up until after the Spanish had razed Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City on its ruins. At the time of the conquest, Tenochtitlan was still surrounded by lake, across which were great, heavily defended causeways. Unfortunately, the prescence of the lake allowed Cortes to drag 13 prefabricated Brigantines (light warships) onto its waters, and armed with cannon and crossbows to fend off the native warcanoes, allowed Cortes to bombard any part of the city at any time. Oh well, seemed like a good idea at the time.
However, what's really interesting about Aztec Mythology, especially in relation to this topic, is that it holds that, at the end of the first age (about 14,000 BC), a great flood came, extinguishing the sun and drowning the race of giants who lived at that time, who became the fish. Currently, we are in the fifth age, the humanity having been all but destroyed at the end of each age, with approximately 4,000 year intervals between destructions of the world (the Cycle, anyone?), which were as follows:
The second age: a great wind blows out the sun. Almost everybody dies.
The third age: the earth is destroyed by a great fire. Almost everybody dies.
The fourth age: a rain of blood and fire kills lots of people, and then blights the land, allowing no crops to grow and almost everybody to starve.
The fifth age (the current one): on the 22nd of December 2012, great earthquakes will come, chasms will swallow cities, etc. and almost everybody will die.
Let's hope the Aztecs were wrong. :)
