Information AboutAtlantis |
This article is about Plato's island Atlantis. For other uses, see Atlantis (disambiguation) . Atlantis is an ancient Mythical island, whose existence and location have never been confirmed. The first references to Atlantis are from the Classical Greek philosopher Plato , who said it was engulfed by the ocean as the result of an earthquake 9,000 years before his own time, which would be well into the most recent Ice Age . Plato claimed it was somewhere outside the Pillars Of Hercules , now known as the Strait Of Gibraltar . While there are many theories about Atlantis, nearly all serious research concludes that Atlantis never existed as Plato described it, although elements of his story may have been drawn from real events. ANCIENT ACCOUNTS OF ATLANTIS Plato .]] Plato's accounts of Atlantis are in his works '' Timaeus '' and '' Critias ''; these are the earliest known references to the mythological civilization of the Atlanteans ( 360 BC ). The Timaeus dialogue is an introduction, followed by a concise history of the universe and ancient civilizations, according to Plato's particular philosophy. In the introductory portion, Socrates muses on the perfect society (as described in Plato's Republic) and wonders if he and his guests could come up with a story which puts this society into action. Critias mentions an allegedly historical tale that he would make the perfect example, and follows up by describing Atlantis in the Critias dialogue, mainly its origins and form. (Ancient Athens represented the "perfect society," and Atlantis the opponent, representing the opposite of the "perfect" traits described in the Republic.) Critias' account is purported to have originated from a visit to Egypt by the Athenian lawgiver Solon , where Sonchis , priest of Thebes , translated it into Greek for him. According to Critias, the Hellenic gods of old divided the land so that each god might own a lot; Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking, bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Libya and Asia Minor combined, but has since been sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea . The Egyptians described Atlantis as an island approximately 700 km across, comprising mostly mountains in the northern portions and along the shore, and encompassing a great plain of an oblong shape in the south "extending in one direction three thousand '' Stadia '' 600 km , but across the centre inland it was two thousand ''stadia'' 400 km ." Fifty ''stadia'' inland from the middle of the southern coast was a "mountain not very high on any side." Here lived a native woman with whom Poseidon fell in love and who bore him five pairs of male Twins . The eldest of these, Atlas , was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (now the Atlantic Ocean ), and was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his Fiefdom . Atlas's twin Gadeirus or Eumelus in Greek, was given the easternmost portion of the island which also lay at its northern extreme facing Gades , a town in southern Spain . The other four pairs of twins — Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes (the Azores ?) and Diaprepes — "were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea." Poseidon carved the inland mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular Moat s of increasing width, varying from one to three ''stadia'' and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each of the city's rings. The walls were constructed of red, white and black rock quarried from the moats, and were covered with Brass , Tin and Orichalcum , respectively. According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime, a war took place between those outside the ''Pillars of Heracles'' and those who dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the Mediterranean as far east as Egypt and the continent into Tyrrhenia , and subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against the Atlantean empire and as the alliance disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands. “But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea." Other Greek Accounts copy of a bust of Aristotle by Lysippos in the Louvre Museum .]] Aristotle thought that the Atlantic Ocean was shallow and muddy ( Meteor. 354a22). Yet, the pseudo-Aristotelic work '' On Marvellous Things Heard '' presents a rumor saying that the Carthaginians had discovered and colonised a large and fertile island lying several days' sail outside of the Pillars Of Hercules . The frequent identification with the legendary island of Antillia is, however, merely a conjecture. In his commentary on Plato's '' Timaeus '', Proclus writes: "That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone, and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Pluto, another to Ammon, and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of which was a thousand stadia; and the inhabitants of it – they add – pre-served the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-wise been sacred to Poseidon. Now these things Marcellus has written in his Aethiopica" (transl. Taylor, Nesselrath). However, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath argues that this Marcellus - who is otherwise unknown - is probably not a historian but a novelist.Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther, 2005. ''Greece & Rome'' 52:153-171. Proclus also tells us that priest showed him its history in Hieroglyphic characters. The geographer - were attributed to new discoveries in the western ocean in a later period. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote that the Intelligentsia of Alexandria considered the destruction of Atlantis a historical fact and described a class of earthquakes that suddenly, by a violent motion, opened up huge mouths and so swallowed up portions of the earth, as once in the Atlantic Ocean a large island was swallowed up. Diodorus Siculus recorded that the Atlanteans did not know the fruits of Ceres . Pausanis called this island "Satyrides," referring to the Atlantes and those who profess to know the measurements of the earth. He states that far west of the Ocean there lies a group of islands whose inhabitants are red-skinned and whose hair is like that of the horse. ( Christopher Columbus described the Native Americans similarly.) A fragmentary work of Theophrastus of Lesbos tells about the colonies of Atlantis in the sea. Hesiod wrote that the garden of the Hesperides was on an island in the sea where the Sun sets. Pliny The Elder recorded that this land was 12,000 km distant (by modern measurment) from Cádiz , and Uba, a Numidian talks of an enormous island outside the Pillars of Hercules. He describes it as having a climate that is very mild; fruits and vegetables grow ripe throughout the year. There are huge mountains covered with large forests, and wide, irrigable plains with navigable rivers. Scylax Of Caryanda gives a similar account. Marcellus claims that the survivors of the sinking Atlantis migrated to ." MODERN INTEREST .]] With rare exceptions, such as '' by Ignatius Donnelly . Donnelly took Plato's account of Atlantis seriously and attempted to establish that all known Ancient Civilization s were descended from its high- Neolithic culture. In middle and late 19th Century , several serious Mesoamerica n scholars, starting with Charles Etienne Brasseur De Bourbourg , and including Edward Herbert Thompson and Augustus Le Plongeon proposed that Atlantis was somehow related to Maya n and Aztec culture. However, several of the researchers later repudiated those claims. , 1910]] Around this same time, the mythical nature of Atlantis was combined with other Lost Continent myths such as Mu and Lemuria by popular figures in the Occult and the growing New Age phenomenon. Helena Blavatsky , the "Grandmother of the New Age movement," writes in '' The Secret Doctrine '' that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes (contrary to Plato who describes them mainly as a military threat), and are the fourth " Root Race ", succeeded by the " Aryan Race ". Rudolf Steiner based much of his writings on occult revelations of Mu or Atlantis. Famed psychic Edgar Cayce gave its geographical location as the Caribbean , and proposed that Atlantis was an ancient, now-submerged, highly-evolved civilization which had ships and aircraft powered by a mysterious form of energy crystal. He also predicted that parts of Atlantis would rise in 1968 or 1969 . The Bimini Road , a geological formation in the Florida Keys, discovered in 1968, has been claimed by some to be evidence of the lost civilization (among many other things). Nationalist and Socialist ideas of Atlantis Plato's Atlantis has been considered by some Socialists as an early socialist Utopia . British Nationalists identified the British isles with Atlantis. The concept of Atlantis also entered National Socialist (Nazi) theory through Theosophy and Anthroposophy . In 1938 , Heinrich Himmler organized a search in Tibet to find a remnant of the white Atlanteans. According to Julius Evola ('' Revolt Against The Modern World '', 1934 ), the Atlanteans were Hyperboreans -- Nordic Supermen who originated on the North Pole . Similarly, Alfred Rosenberg ('' The Myth Of The Twentieth Century '', 1930 ) spoke of a "nordic-atlantean" or "aryan-nordic" Master Race . Aleister Crowley has also written an esoteric history of Atlantis, although this may be intended more as Metaphor than as fact. Recent times As Continental Drift became better understood and accepted during the 1950s , most "Lost Continent" theories of Atlantis were shown as false. In response, some recent theories propose that elements of Plato's story were derived from earlier myths. LOCATION HYPOTHESES Main article: Location Hypotheses Of Atlantis . This location is often rumored to have been the location of Atlantis.]] Since Donnelly's day, there have been dozens—perhaps hundreds—of locations proposed for Atlantis. Some are more or less serious attempts at legitimate scholarly or archaeological works; others have been made by Psychic or other Pseudoscientific means. Many of the proposed sites share some of the characteristics of the Atlantis story (water, catastrophic end, relevant time period), but none have been proven conclusively to be the historical Atlantis. Most of the historically proposed locations are in or near the Mediterranean Sea , either islands such as Sardinia , Crete and Santorini , Cyprus , Malta , and Ponza or as land based cities or states such as Troy , Andalucia or Tantalus (in the province of Manisa ), Turkey , and the new theory of Israel - Sinai or Canaan as possible locations. The massive Thera Eruption , dated either to the 17th or the 15th century BC, caused a massive Tsunami that experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan Civilization on the nearby island of Crete , further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe which inspired the story. Outside the Mediterranean Locations as far-flung as , Sinop and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon ). The nearby Sea Of Azov was proposed as another site in 2003 . Various islands or island groups in the Atlantic were also identified as possible locations, notably the Azores (Mid-Atlantic islands which are a territory of Portugal ), and several Caribbean islands. In Northern Europe , Finland (by Finnish pseudohistorian Ior Bock ), Sweden (by Olof Rudbeck in "Atland", 1672 - 1702 ), Ireland , and the North Sea have been proposed (Swedish geographer Ulf Erlingsson combines the North Sea and Ireland in a comprehensive hypothesis). Areas in the Pacific and Indian Ocean have also been proposed including Indonesia , Malaysia or both (i.e. Sundaland ) and stories of a lost continent off India named " Kumari Kandam " have drawn parallels to Atlantis. Even Cuba has been suggested. The Canary Islands have also been identified as a possible location, west of the Straits of Gibraltar but in close proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Some believe that Atlantis stretched from the tip of Spain to Central America . ATLANTIS IN FICTION Main article: Atlantis In Fiction The legend of Atlantis is frequently featured in many books, movies, television series, and other creative works. NOTES SOURCES
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