WAS ATLANTIS REAL?

[CONDOR]

Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.

[Boreas]

After the time of Paradise - when this ball was tropical - we had a period of time that in Greek antiquity was called "Atlantis", signifying that the earth had tilted, giantic ice-caps had emerged around the poles and the year of four seasons had started a new time. Today we call this period "ice-time".

When ice-time ended a peculiar population came out of an ice-time refugia in the north - where they had been forced to develop an arctic culture where life could be sustain only by the help of domesticated plants and animals. To easen their daily efforts they had (also) developed a number of tools from bone, skin, stone and metals that were common to all the arctic individuals.

As they could escape the isolation of ice-time they started to emerge in parts of northern Eurasia during the warmer periods of ice-time, such as the Eem interglacial, 120-90.000 years ago. At the end of Younger Dryas (10-12.000 years ago) they would reach the Mediterranean, as well as Persia, Inida, China and America... 

Introducing their cattle, corn and tools - they could merge with the various tropical poeples - to cultivate and populate the inhabitted areas in the semi-tropic/semi-arctic areas of the Mediterranean, Caucasian, Himalayan and Meso-American climate-zones.

These palefaced arctics - who themselves (also) populated the brims of the Atlantic Ocean - were called "Atlanteans", still during Greek antiquity.
If one acccepts the name "Atlanteans" as the core of the Nort Eurasian culture that popultated Europe and Russia from the end of ice-time we may view their original home - "Atlantis" - as the ´"European refugia" of ice-time, described by modern anthropology, archeology and genetics.

If the Atlanteans were the northern (palefaced) surviviors of ice-time, then Atlantis have been very real.

[dhill757]

With all due respect to everyone that asks that question, we have to first all be settled on where Atlantis was.

There have been reports of underwater ruins in the Azores, near the Canaries, in the Eastern Atlantic, Cuba, Doggerland and the Bahamas. In most cases, there isn't much follow-up (i.e. actual expeditions) to confirm what is there, though, so these discoveries just vanish from the press. My own feeling is that the conclusive proof is a little deeper in the ocean than we currently have the technology, for, though. If we can't plug an oil leak that deep down there, we won't be finding Atlantis anytime soon.

[Boreas]

dear dhill,

I agree with your pre-requisite.

Now, Platos record tells that mainland Atlantis was destroyed as it was "overflooded". We may attach that to the time of the great flood as recorded by numerous other sources.
 
The greatest flood on record appeared as the ice-age came to a close, around 10.000 years ago, when the ocean-level rose about 120 metres.

Thus modern geology have actually confirmed that there indeed was a great, world-encompassing flood. They even found out when and how it happened - as gigatons of ice melted and entered the world oceans, between 18.000 and 10.000 yrs ago.

Since then a lot of landmass in the north, where the icecaps used to dwell, started to rise. That MAY include the area where mainland Atlantis were located - before deucalion. Consequently the old Atlantis can be at or above sea-level today. Platos texts does not contradict that the area of the (old) Atlantean society actually re-emerged...

[Tina Walter]

I voted yes, but you really have to wonder, how could Plato or the Egyptians have possibly known about  have known about the Ice Age flood?  We aren't certain what happened ten thousand years ago.  And, in an era where they had no technology, they would have had to have kept better records than we have.

[Kurgan]

I have always been of thr opinion that Plato referred to a later flood.

[CONDOR]

Proclus have said (?):

As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians this story about the Athenians and Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system.

Is Atlantis much more complex than we think? Or did Plato lie? How many stupid people "embarked" for centuries in this "hoax"?  Did Plato write mythological works at all? Was he a vain character?  or was Socrates? Was "the Republic" an unimportant work? Why so much trouble at deceiving the reader? Why the Atlas mountain range or the Atlantic naming? Why do we even care to state so meticulously the contrary?

Critias:
And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon.

Plato, Solon, Socrates, and Critias were all liars? Apparently yes,  Plato wrote three books to prove it, one of them, the Republic,  which is Plato's masterpiece about just citizens in a just city state, and two more about an ancient nation that vanished in the sea. Plato was definitely senile and crazy, and Socrates too. 

[Qoais]

Why does everyone exaggerate this "flood"?  It wasn't a flood.  In a flood, the waters rise up and cover everything.  In Plato's story, Atlantis SUNK BENEATH the waters supposedly out in the ocean.  Leaving shoals of mud.  How you can have shoals of mud out in the middle of the ocean is beyond me.  Also, the Athenian warriors were buried in this occurrence as well.  How could that happen if Atlantis was out in the middle of the ocean?  The Athenians didn't have ships 11,500 years ago to GET to Atlantis.  In a flood, the waters usually recede and the land is exposed again.  Plato said Atlantis was destroyed.  The waters did not recede.  She SUNK. 

He made it all up.

[HereForNow]

 

[Qoais]

[Kaila Spaulding]

Plato, Solon, Socrates, and Critias were all liars? Apparently yes,  Plato wrote three books to prove it, one of them, the Republic,  which is Plato's masterpiece about just citizens in a just city state, and two more about an ancient nation that vanished in the sea. Plato was definitely senile and crazy, and Socrates too.

I think you are confusing metaphor with lying.  In philosophy, invention is sometimes used to make a greater point.

[Boreas]

I voted yes, but you really have to wonder, how could Plato or the Egyptians have possibly known about  have known about the Ice Age flood?  We aren't certain what happened ten thousand years ago.  And, in an era where they had no technology, they would have had to have kept better records than we have.

The quote from Critias, as given by Condor at the beginning of the thread, tells how the old stories were kept - by a common tradition of songs, poems and sagas. The quote even tells how these most ancient stories "went out of fashion" - due to social upheaval and political changes during the period before and during Greek Antiquity. As the tradition in which Solon belonged died out the old story of the Greek and Egyptian origin - Atlantis - died out, to give way for new and constructed stories of the origin of man, culture and civilisation.


Critias;  "I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys,[/b]and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion.

One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet."

[Boreas]

Why does everyone exaggerate this "flood"?  It wasn't a flood.  In a flood, the waters rise up and cover everything.  In Plato's story, Atlantis SUNK BENEATH the waters supposedly out in the ocean.  Leaving shoals of mud.  How you can have shoals of mud out in the middle of the ocean is beyond me.  Also, the Athenian warriors were buried in this occurrence as well.  How could that happen if Atlantis was out in the middle of the ocean?  The Athenians didn't have ships 11,500 years ago to GET to Atlantis.  In a flood, the waters usually recede and the land is exposed again.  Plato said Atlantis was destroyed.  The waters did not recede.  She SUNK. 

He made it all up.

You're free to look at it any way you like. As long as you keep within reasonability.

Since the stories of Critias and Timaeus are coborated by a number of antique texts its impossible not to regard the Atlantis-story as plain speculation, guess-work or fiction. So, it's a riddle - and of historical origins.

If you accept the geological tables of ocean-rise of - all in all - 120 metres, you may have to agree that the various ways of describing this phenomenon - from the Vedas to Popol Vuh - would be of less importance. The heart of the matter is that a world-wide RISE in ocean-level would occur. Wheter you anticipate that as a "flooding of the ocean" OR a "sinking of the land" is irrelevant.

What remains is that the flooding made Atlantis proper to sink.

Though - Solon never said that it remained sunk - as I elaborated above. The shoals of mud was left as the last glaciers of the ending ice-time showeled over the area of Altlandis - to cover it in ice and water. Mud, such as clay and silt, are both produced by melting glaciers and transported to the closest ocean by their melt-waters. Atlantis were obviously located at the coast of the great island it belonged to.

Shoals of mud are still found around the Baltic ocean still today, with a proxed age of 10.000-11.000 years...

[Qoais]

Since the stories of Critias and Timaeus are coborated by a number of antique texts its impossible not to regard the Atlantis-story as plain speculation, guess-work or fiction. So, it's a riddle - and of historical origins.

What antique texts corroborate Critias and Timaeus?

If you accept the geological tables of ocean-rise of - all in all - 120 metres, you may have to agree that the various ways of describing this phenomenon - from the Vedas to Popol Vuh - would be of less importance. The heart of the matter is that a world-wide RISE in ocean-level would occur. Wheter you anticipate that as a "flooding of the ocean" OR a "sinking of the land" is irrelevant.

120 meters is 360 feet.  Hardly enough to cover mountains.  Flooding and Sinking are two different concepts.  Plato was making sure the story showed that there was no more Atlantis.  So it sunk.  It never existed in the first place, but for the sake of the story, to make sure it didn't exist, he made it sink, never to be seen again.  A flood does recede and I'm sure even poor old Plato knew that much and that's why he said it sunk. 

Though - Solon never said that it remained sunk - as I elaborated above. The shoals of mud was left as the last glaciers of the ending ice-time showeled over the area of Altlandis - to cover it in ice and water. Mud, such as clay and silt, are both produced by melting glaciers and transported to the closest ocean by their melt-waters. Atlantis were obviously located at the coast of the great island it belonged to.

I'm sure you meant to say Plato did you not?  Plato said it sunk.  All that remained were shoals of mud.  He would not have known there had been an ice age, he would not have known this ice was melting and sending mud and ice flowing down to the ocean.  No doubt he was picturing a land sinking, knowing it would disturb the soil and bubble like a boiling pot, leaving the mud.  However, as I've said before, if an island sunk in the ocean, there would not be shoals of mud in the first place, because it's too deep.  It would be as Thera, and leave a cauldron.  If the whole thing went, there would not be anything - just water.  The water may be dirty in the area for a little while due to the disturbance of course, but not shoals of mud. 

There's shoals of mud in the Straits of Gibraltar as well, but that's from the currents that go in and out all the time.

Edit:

Plato said "the island of Atlantis sank".  That's pretty clear don't you think?  Not just the city, the island.

[Moabite God]

How you can have shoals of mud out in the middle of the ocean is beyond me.

 

How would he know it was mud?  They didn't have divers in those days.  Use some common on sense! He probably meant seaweed of the type you'd find in the Sargasso Sea.

Also, the Athenian warriors were buried in this occurrence as well.  How could that happen if Atlantis was out in the middle of the ocean?

They would both be effected if there was an asteroid hit, or similar body in the middle of the ocean.