Message #253736

[cicero]

@Desiree:

I like you putting forward arguments!

> This is the same kind of short-sighted thinking that once made people believe that the Clovis people were the first settlers
> of the Americas and that it only occurred three thousand years ago.
> We now know that the Americas were inhabited between 10,000 to 30,000 years ago!

Maybe again a misunderstanding: What I wanted to say is this:
Even if people lived there this does not mean that this was known several hundred kilometers away.
Herodotus reports of Greek sailors of his century who thought that the way from Greece to Turkey is as long as the way to the Pillars of Hercules.
(Just as an example, Herodotus knew better at the same time, of course)

> How can you possibly think that the  Egyptians had no knowledge of it when we know how long boats have been around?

Easy. We see from Greek authors and Egyptian texts what they knew at which time.
Herodotus tells us how the Greeks explored the Mediterranean, step-by-step,
in the centuries before him. "Centuries", not "millenia".
Or take the Egyptian records about the mysterious Sea Peoples: They did not know where they came from.
(We even do not know this, today) But it is pretty sure that they did not come from the Pacific
but from a nearer location.

> Herodotus knew of the Atlantic, too, and he wrote before Plato.

Yes, but Herodotus is only one century before Plato. One single century!
And it is reasonable to assume that the "9000" years match to a longer time period than only 100 years,
whatever period you prefer because of whatever reasons.

> Likewise, Hellanicus also wrote of a fragment dealing with Atlantis, too

No, this is an urban myth. Hellanicus uses the mere word "Atlantis" (as does Herodotus!),
which is not a name, but a grammatical form of "Atlas".
I am sure that many other authors used this grammatical form of Atlas, too.
Both do not use it in the way Plato does but for a totally different purpose.
It is simply wrong to say that Hellanicus or Herodotus talked about Atlantis before Plato.
They talked about Atlas, not about the island Atlantis.

> We would probably have more references if we could decode Linear A because the Minoans probably knew of it, too.

Yes, maybe. You come closer to my thoughts :-)

> .... Atlantic, its where Plato sets it!

I would say differently. It's where Plato believed it to be, because ...
... because Plato is not the author but an interpreter of the Atlantis account.
Like we today interpret his Greek account, Plato (or better: Solon and the priest) were interpreters of an Egyptian account.

> your Atlantis is obviously something else as it bears no resemblance to the writings.

If you (for example) do not search for a continental-sized island,
then your version of Atlantis "bears no resemblance to the writings", too?
If you interpret (with good reasons) I am allowed to try the same.

Thanks for discussing! :-)