Atlantis

[Dionysos]

If this thread is in the wrong section of the Sleeping Forest, then I apologise and I will not cry if it is moved.

Anyway... Atlantis has caught the imaginations of the western world for thousands of years. This thread is about putting across your views on Atlantis. Do you think it ever existed? Should we really read Plato's account as historical? Is it more of a myth or fable to present his political views? Or... Is it somewhere in the middle, a fable made out of a story Plato had heard? If you think Atlantis was real, where would you place it on the map?


There have been many (sometimes bizzare) theories as to where it may be, and who the people may have been. From theories that Ireland was Atlantis, to science fiction (or actual theories?!) that the Atlanteans were an alien race, or a super race of man that used crystals and supreme technlogy, even nuclear power...

In fact it's so easy to place the name Atlantis on any remarkable find that there may have been an old civilisation that is now below sea level.

So... Was Plato having a laugh? Did it exist? Or has the story had too much attention, and we should probably concentrate on something else?

I know my views, but I want to hear other peoples.

 

[Laro]

It's almost the same as if you're asking is the Loch Ness monster real. We don'y have any proof on the excistance of Atlantis. Even if it was real it wouldn't make a difference if we found it now.

In his dialogues Timaios and Critias, the Greek citizen and philosopher Plato (427-347 BC). Wrote a story - supposedly a true one - in which an entire civilization disappeared under the sea, along with the continent on which it stood. Although it has no ancient historical source, and although it was strongly ctiticized from the very beginning, the tale of Atlantis is one of the most famous and controversial myths in the world.

According to Plato, some 12,000 years ago a rich and powerful nation named Atlantis lay to the west of the Pillars of Herakles, or what is known today as Straits of Gibraltar.The inhabitants of this island ruled over large portions of Europe and Africa. Their lust for power eventually led to war with the Athenians, whom Plato depicted as extraordinarily brave and skillful. When the other Greek soldiers retreated, apparently out of fear of the overwhelming strength of their opponents, Athens crushed her enemies and then freed the slaves of the defeated people of Atlantis. Thereafter, the wrath of Zeus, father of the Greek gods, sent a mighty earthquake and a tidal wave to the conquered island. Numerous Athenian warriors were also lost beneath the waves when Atlantis was submerged under the sea.
This is the substance of Plato's account, which he claimed harkened back to the journeys of the Athenian scholar and statesman Solon (639-559 BC) Solon traveled to Egypt and other countries from 571 to 561 BC, and is supposed to have learned of Atlantis from a temple scribe in the Egyptian capital city of Sais, in the Nile delta. It is not clear what sources the Egyptians might have relied upon, given that, according to Plato's chronology, their culture first came into being some 5000 years after the purported fall of Atlantis.
Plato retold the taleof the brave fight of the Athenians as part of two dialogues disssecting the ideal state. The works are organized accordingly. In the first dialogue. Timaios, he desribes the early history of the Greeks before moving to the battle between Athens and Atlantis. Specific details about Atlantis are only provided in the second dialogue, Critias. A third dialogue on the subject was apparently planned, but put down in writing.

To me it seems too far fetched. I think it's just a fairytale Plato wrote. Like Harry Potter - never exsisted.

 

[Dionysos]

I'd partly, well mostly, agree with that. It is an account that Plato largely made up to present his own message. It was largely exagurated. Not only the city and influence of the city itself, but also it being a whole continent, the time he placed the event, the distance away from Greece etc.

I do think there may be an underlying origin of truth though. Perhaps he heard a story from a person passing on the story of Solon, who had heard the story from the Egyptian preist at Sais, and then took several elements of this story and produced his own fiction based on it.

If this is the case, then the Atlantis myth may just be an excagurated, confused, and twisted account of the Theran eruption and the fall of the Minoans. We know the Egyptians documented tihs catastrophe, and such a catastrophe practically did wipe out the Minoan civilisation. So if we had to pin point a location for where Atlantis would be, I'd place my bets on the middle island of Thera (now Santorini) which was literally blown away from the blast, and a tidal wave and ash wiped out large portions of the surrounding area, washing up on Crete and destroying many areas there too.

Could be that accounts of this catastrophe, preserved in memory by the priests, and passed on to a Greek guest were later used as basis or inspiration for his fictional story of Atlantis. Such a story such as the Theran eruption will have sounded as catastrophic in that time (well in any time I guess) anyway, and perhaps he was so inspired by this event he decided to create a sort of fable or tale about it, or based on it.

Gah.. Sorry if that isn't coherant. Trying to juggle msn and this at the same time and can't think straight.

 

[Amethystius]

I'm still debating with myself over whether Atlantis was real or not.
Atlantis has been portrayed as a massive, gleaming, rich city filled to the brim with new technologies and architechture (spelling, sorry).
I have seen it, if not at least references to it, in many video games.
When I was young I was so inspired by Atlantis that I used to dig in the sand on the beach to see if I could find any kind of relic... Ahhh memories.

 

[Dionysos]

I'm still debating with myself over whether Atlantis was real or not.
Atlantis has been portrayed as a massive, gleaming, rich city filled to the brim with new technologies and architechture (spelling, sorry).
I have seen it, if not at least references to it, in many video games.
When I was young I was so inspired by Atlantis that I used to dig in the sand on the beach to see if I could find any kind of relic... Ahhh memories.

Yeah, Atlantis has been referenced to in everything and anything. It is large a part of world, or at least the western world culture and fiction now.

It's in games, films, comics, and TV series.

I don't beleive in it being a random continent in the middle of the Atlantic like many beleive, and I guess like Plato had implied. That new technology and architecture though need not be something we need marvel at now, but at the time perhaps it would have been revolutionary.

Lots of cultures in prehistory were buzzing with new ideas and thriving with some techniques that have us thrown back in amazement though. The minoans with their suprisingly sophisticated water management and drainage and water systems, their use of draft doors and windows to funnel refreshing air into rooms. The beautifull architecture. All new technologoy and architecture. Just like many other cultures too in this time were coming into their own existence with amazing discoveries. Man's first leap of discovery.

So really I don't think anything is remarkable about Atlantis being potrayed as advanced, but perhaps modern sci-fi has put it out of proportions just a little bit!

 

[natan]

apparently, there has been sum ruins discovered underwater roughly around where experts believe Atlantis is/was if it ever existed. this may prove the existance of atlantis

 

[Dionysos]

apparently, there has been sum ruins discovered underwater roughly around where experts believe Atlantis is/was if it ever existed. this may prove the existance of atlantis

Do you know where this was? Where the ruins found were?

I know there has been a lot of work on santorini, cyprus etc lately, but I'm not sure if that is what you mean.

 

[natan]

i dont know where it was, i just remember reading about it in a newspaper a while ago, i dont remember the specifics of it

 

[JUDICO GABRANTH]

A clue to knowing if Atlantis is real or not is if Knowing if Lemuria (Atlantis Twin Island). according to legend it used to be somewhere in the Pacific ocean. When Atlantis sank so did Lemuria because the same undersea current ran under them.

 

[Dionysos]

A clue to knowing if Atlantis is real or not is if Knowing if Lemuria (Atlantis Twin Island). according to legend it used to be somewhere in the Pacific ocean. When Atlantis sank so did Lemuria because the same undersea current ran under them.

I haven't heard this legend.

My knowledge of Lemuria is very limited, but wasn't it a theoretical continent created by confused people when they found fossils for Lemurs in both East Africa and India? They supposed that there was once a massive land that connected the two that Lemurs thrived on, and the land was dubbed Lemuria.. But breakthroughs plate tectonics research showed that India was once connected to Africa, and hence explains the presence of Lemurs on both sides.
Thats what I remember of Lemuria. I could be wrong, and I'm sure there are some people that claim Lemuria is connected to Atlantis, though I haven't heard it myself.