In 1944 Hans Pettersson disproved Atlantis in the Atlantic

[cicero]

An important contribution to the Atlantis-in-the-Atlantic question of this thread:

Hans Pettersson disproves 1944 Atlantis in the Atlantic!
http://www.atlantis-scout.de/atlantis-pettersson-english.htm

Pettersson talks about
- sea and land level changes,
- the Azores,
- the 1913 Lecture of Termier,
- the tachylite question,
- etc.

[Forms of Things Unknown]

Look at Zhirkov's work, written after this pile of rubbish, Zhirkov takes a more scientific look at it and proves that it did exist in the Atlantic.

[cicero]

Look at Zhirkov's work, written after this pile of rubbish, Zhikrov takes a more scientific look at it and proves that it did exist in the Atlantic.

O my god, you still believe in the fruitless attempts such as Zhirov's to "see" a sunken continent in the Atlantic?
There are so many obvious reasons why it cannot be ...
And where did Pettersson write "rubbish"?

[Desiree]

Thorwald, you wrote the article, Hans Pettersson didn't. Where is his article?  And you used it just to promote your own Med-based Atlantic theory. Point is, we don't know enough about geology to say that we have all the answers yet, and we know less about the oceans than we know about outer space.

Two points:

1.  Plato does not set Atlantis in the Mediterranean, but in the Atlantic Ocean, read the dialogues, the Greeks knew where the Atlantic Ocean was. Any site you propose in the Med, that is not Atlantis, but one of the myriad civilizations that were there.

2.  We are not proposing a whole continent sunk in the Atlantic, but an island. Islands  rise and fall in the oceans all the time.  Ever hear of Surtsey? Krakotoa?  Santorini?

You are welcome to your opinion, but it isn't Atlantis, why so many Med-based theorists even keep trying to link Atlantis to their favorite sites is beyond me. None of the sites any of you propose bear any resemblance to the land that Plato wrote about, they could just as easily be anything else. I think Atlantis is brought into it because it is "popular," nothing more.

[cicero]

@Desiree:


1. Of course this is my article about Pettersson's book. Did I ever claim something else? Not at all. My name is written on top of the article and only less educated persons are in danger to confuse my article with Pettersson's work.



2. We know enough of the Oceans to say that Atlantis was not there. This is exactly the point of Pettersson's work. Published in 1944. Time to realize this ...



3. Of course Solon and Plato interpreted the Egyptian text in a way that they saw Atlantis in the Atlantic - but is it there? Obviously not. So it is absolutely allowed to think about a misinterpretation of the original Egyptian text. Did you ever hear of scientific methods like historical criticism? To search for a literally fitting Atlantis is not science. None of the historical findings fits perfectly to its ancient descriptions. The art is to find good reasons why some description is wrong ... this is really the basic art of finding Atlantis.



4.  You surely propose the sinking of a very big island ... if you take Plato's text literally. Bigger than two continents added: Asia + Libya in the shape known to the ancients, really a continental-sized island.



5. It is just ignorance to impute to Med-based theorists that they just abuse Atlantis for other purposes. As always, this is valid for some, and for some not.

[Desiree]

Thorwald, let's put this another way:

The Greeks could tell the Mediterranean from the Atlantic! Unless you can prove that they, or Plato didn't, it renders yours and any other Med-based theory null and void.

Like I said NO ONE is proposing that a continent sank in the Atlantic, in Plutarch's, the Life of Solon, he states that Plato gave the Atlantis story some enhancements, this was clearly one.

I've heard the malarkey about how Solon may have misunderstood the story or gotten the symbols wrong. That is unsubstantiated rumor, that is not a fact.

Like I said, Atlantis was in the Atlantic, we just haven't found it yet: the Greeks knew the difference between the two seas. Heck, they even had colonies in Spain while Plato was writing his dialogues. I don't have any idea why so many Med-based theorists try to place it someplace else as most of the places they suggest don't bare even the slightest resemblance to what Plato wrote about.

[cicero]

Look, I think you confuse some things. The original Atlantis story was not written at Plato's time. It was written at the time when Atlantis attacked Egypt. And this record was later found by Solon. So, the question is not whether Solon and Plato knew the Atlantic or not - of course they did. The question is rather, whether the original Egypian author knew the Atlantic. We have to be aware that we only know a kind of Greek transcript of an Egyptian original story which was much older.

And since Atlantis in the Atlantic can be excluded, there is only one possibility left for the existence of Atlantis: That in the course of the account's tradition before (!) Plato a mistake was made. The most likely point in time is the tradition from an Egyptian text into a Greek text at Solon's time.

This is a fully valid argument, yet - of course - Atlantis is still not found.

[Desiree]

You're wrong again, Thorwald, first off, we don't know when the Atlantis story was written, could have been 1,000 years before Plato, could have been 9,000 years before Plato, as the story says. Your theory is pretty much just a guess then, depending on them knowing very little. But boats existed even as far as 10,000 years ago.  Islands like New Zealand, Crete, England, and many others were settled well before 10,000 years ago.

As for this being taken from an Egyptian account, well, sure, but the story isn't on any of their temples  so until you can find an Egyptian inscription that clearly has these errors you're talking about, that is just a guess, too.

Take the story for what it is, though: the Egyptians were enslaved by Atlantis, as were all the others within the Pillars of Hercules. Several times it is stated that Atlantis was situated outside the Pillars. I have a hard time believing that either the Greeks or Egyptians would get that wrong when they mentioned it so many times during Timaeus and Critias.

[cicero]

I have a hard time believing that either the Greeks or Egyptians would get that wrong
when they mentioned it so many times during Timaeus and Critias.

Well, the reason for this is surely that you are not familiar with the usual mistakes common in all the ancient literature.
The existence of boats and settlement does not mean that there is knowledge about these countries.
The known geographical horizon widened slowly step by step ... very slowly.
And this is not a guess, this is academically supported fact.

One of the basic mistakes of most (not all) Atlantis searchers is that they concentrate on the Atlantis story,
but do not see Plato's whole work, not the works of other Greeks, not the works of other non-Greek authors.
The picture becomes much richer by this and many strange things in Plato's dialogues become much clearer.

Atlantis in the Atlantic? I do not have a hard time to believe this - because I know there is no chance for this.
Not at all. Not geologically, not philologically.
But may everybody believe what he likes to believe.

[Desiree]

The existence of boats and settlement does not mean that there is knowledge about these countries.
The known geographical horizon widened slowly step by step ... very slowly.

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! The date is being pushed back all the time.

Looking at it logically, though, the Mediterranean is not that far away from the Atlantic. How can you possibly think that the  Egyptians had no knowledge of it when we know how long boats have been around?  It would be understandable if you are talking about someplace in the Pacific Ocean.

As for supposedly not knowing the works of the other historians (and I was the one who first quoted Plutarch to you, which you apparently didn't know), Herodotus knew of the Atlantic, too, and he wrote before Plato. Likewise, Hellanicus also wrote of a fragment dealing with Atlantis, too, and he, not Plato, was the one that first coined the term. We would probably have more references if we could decode Linear A because the Minoans probably knew of it, too.

And, you don't have to believe Atlantis in the Atlantic, its where Plato sets it! Like I said, your Atlantis is obviously something else as it bears no resemblance to the writings.

[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! :-)

[Desiree]

No problem, Thorwald, I like these kinds of discussions, too. The one obvious error is that Atlantis was the size of Libya and Asia combined, no way something that large could sink. Everything else, I am ready to open to suggestions. First, I take issue with your idea that Hellanicus bears no relationship to Plato. Here is the fragment that survives:

‘Poseidon coupled with Celaeno, and their son Lycus was settled by Poseidon in the Isles of the Blessed and made immortal.’

Celaeno could be another name for Cleito. As for the Isles of the Blessed, well, that's obvious: they have long been known as the Canary Islands!  The Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco could be a remnant of the Atlantean empire, whose LANDMASS may not have been as big as Libya and Asia combined, but perhaps their SEA EMPIRE. The empire could have been this chain of islands, seaports of the coast of Morrocco, and seaports off the course of Spain. A calamity could have stricken one of these areas and the Egyptians or Phoenicians, whoever had the original story, not knowing how big Atlantis really was, thought the whole place was probably destroyed.

There are pyramids on the island of Tenerife:

   

Archaeologists date them more recently, but, like I said, they date everything recently! And, according to the legends, the Guanches of the Canary Islands originally told tales of their homeland having been destroyed in a calamity.

Not to mention, the Lixus ruins:







Notice how the older, larger building blocks look like they are done in a different style? Maybe other civilizations built atop them, also, the later Roman and Carthaginian constructions have mostly fallen, while the older polygonal-style walls remain in place.

I am thinking that Atlantis was an island someplace in the Atlantic that sunk, anywhere from 2,000 to 9,000 BC, and that it was the empire that was as large as Libya and Asia combined, not the territory itself. I also believe in the war that the Greeks and Atlanteans supposedly fought, which a lot of Atlantis theorists try and dismiss. I don't think they were the Sea People, but maybe there were also various Sea People that Egypt faced, some from the east, some from the west maybe in an earlier age.

[Desiree]

One last piece of the puzzle that I forgot to mention. A mosaic of Poseidon has also been found in Lixus, Poseidon being the supposed  creator of Atlantis, of course:



What are the odds?