Plato's Atlantis My Theory

[Qoais]

Quoting Wikipedia again:

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans (Greek: Τιτανομαχία), was the ten-year[1] series of battles fought between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titans, fighting from Mount Othrys, and the Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus. This Titanomachia is also known as the Battle of the Titans, Battle of Gods, or just the Titan War.

The stage for this important battle was set after the youngest Titan, Cronus, overthrew his own father, Uranus (the Heaven itself and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother, Gaia (the earth).

Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned her children the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Gaia created a great sickle and gathered together Cronus and his brothers to persuade them to kill Uranus. Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the sickle and placed him in ambush.

When Uranus met with Gaia, Cronus attacked Uranus with the sickle and cut off his genitals, and cast the severed member into the sea. From the blood that spilled out from Uranus and fell upon the earth, the Gigantes, Erinyes, and Meliae were produced. From the spume from his cut genitalia, Aphrodite rose from the sea.

Cronus took his father's throne after dispatching Uranus. He then secured his power by re-imprisoning his siblings the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, and his (newly-created) siblings the Gigantes, in Tartarus.

Gaia, angry at Cronus for keeping his brothers in the same pit Uranus locked them in, made a prophecy that Cronus' own children would rebel against his rule just as he had done to his own father. For fear of his unborn children rising against him, Cronus now turned into the terrible king his father Uranus had been, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea. Rhea, however, managed to hide her child Zeus, by tricking Cronus into swallowing a rock wrapped in a blanket instead.

Rhea brought Zeus to a cave in Crete, where he was raised to adulthood. Later, Metis gave Zeus a potion for Cronus which would cause him to vomit up his swallowed children. Zeus then led his released brothers and sisters in rebellion against the Titans.



Now the Olympians, led by Zeus, declared war against the previous generation of deities, the Titans. The Titans who fought were led by Cronus and included: Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Atlas, Menoetius, the Gigantes, and Campe. The Olympians led by Zeus included: Hades, and Poseidon, assisted by the Hecatonchires (Hundred-handed ones) and Cyclopes, who had been imprisoned by Cronus. It is said the Hecatonchires helped the Olympians by hurling huge stones at the Titans—one hundred at a time. The Cyclopes helped by crafting Zeus' famous weapon, the thunderbolt. They also crafted Poseidon's trident and Hades' helmet of invisibility. Hestia, Demeter, and Hera also supported their brothers.



Having at last won victory after a full decade of war, the three Olympian brothers, according to a single passage in the Iliad drew lots to divide the spoils, granting dominion of the heavens and sky to Zeus, the sea to Poseidon, and the underworld to Hades. The Olympians then shut the defeated Titans within Tartarus, the deepest depths of the underworld. However, since during the war Oceanus and the Titanides (female Titans), Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys, had remained neutral, they were not punished by Zeus. Some other Titans who were not imprisoned in Tartarus include: Atlas, Cronus, and Prometheus and Epimetheus. Zeus gave Atlas a different punishment. Old Uranus, the sky, nearly collapsed onto the earth after the war because so much fighting had occurred below. As a result, Zeus condemned Atlas to hold up the heavens and sky for eternity. In some accounts, Cronus manages to flee after the war, thereby avoiding imprisonment in Tartarus, but is killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt. The Hecatonchires remained to guard over the prisoners of Tartarus.

To me - this sounds very much like (I'm going to say a naughty word!) Sitchin's interpretation of the Sumerian texts. 

Uranus was "heaven itself and ruler of the cosmos".   - Now WHERE would our ancients get the idea that first of all - there's such a thing as the "cosmos", and then second of all, that "heaven" could fight with a "planet"? and that the heavens could "breed" with a planet? 

This sounds to me like a space battle.  Or a description of how the planets came into being or maybe both.  But WHERE would our ancients GET this story?  I mean - think about it.  Here scientists are telling us that we came from cave men or whatever, yet here's this myth that supposedly started BEFORE man existed.  If we developed from a monkey,  .......I don't think so.  This whole ancient "gods" business, and what they could do, is just too complicated for a monkey.

[EagleWind]

Aloha Qoais,

Thank you for your invitation to join the Atlantis Online forum.  I have surfed around and I see the forum contains a wealth of information. I must say that the ambiance is not exactly conducive to creative thinking. The theme is so very red and black, with warning and danger, etc. I think I will hesitate in opening a new thread for now. That being said…

With your kind permission, I would like to join the conversation you already have going on. Thank you for recently posting our Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 world map hypotheses on this thread. It is a fascinating study. If the mural does contain a five-thousand-three-hundred year old world map, it’s extraordinary, and certainly warrants further intense investigation. I am preparing some charts, comparing portions of the mural with bathymetry maps showing the lower sea level. I shall post when I upload them. I hope you will have the opportunity to review them.

Now, I’d like to briefly introduce the location of Atlantis in the Sea of Azov. I know that you, and our forum friends are quite familiar with Plato’s Atlantis dialogues so I will not reference quotes today. I'm sure you will recognize the features I'm discussing:

The Sea of Azov was a vast fertile plain that sank, by tectonic action and became a sea in 9,600 BC, during the massive flooding at the end of the Younger Dryas ice age.  Before the great Atlantis flood, the fertile plain was well watered and the landscape was perfect for canal building. The Saint Mountains to the north contain abundant streams, lakes and forests. To the south, precipitous cliffs line the shore. There is a hill, not very high on any side, located near the sea. To the south of the hill, a paleo-channel extends into the sea beneath Kerch Strait. The hill is now called Mithridat Hill, located in Kerch, Ukraine. From beneath the city of Kerch and surrounding area, world famous, hot and cold healing minerals springs flow abundantly.

Atlantis was a land of farmers and metallurgists. Ukraine is similarly, a land of farmers and metallurgists. Vast farmlands still surround the Sea of Azov. These fertile farmlands are criss-crossed by the most extensive canal system in the world. This area has been known as the breadbasket of Europe for two thousand years, harvesting vast amounts of grains and produce, twice a year. Ukraine supports huge metallurgic complexes, with massive slag piles. Similar to Atlantis, this area contains native deposits of all metals and fluxes, necessary to construct the metal wall coatings of Atlantis, including the rare commodity of Tin.

This brief overview contains quite an extraordinary amount of geographical, geological, tectonic, and hydraulic criteria to match with the description of Atlantis.

Now, in keeping with the flow of the thread, I’ll back up and talk generally about the flow of human history, as is my basic understanding. For about 200,000 years, Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals lived together and their separate cultures remained in about the same primitive state. Suddenly about 40,000 years ago, modern humans burst on the scene and their culture exploded with new inventions. Whether this rapid evolution was instigated by interbreeding, natural genetic mutation or extraterrestrial intervention is intensely debated. In our Atlantis Motherland book we present the gods as adventurous, amorous, androgynous aliens from the Sirius Star System


Then, thirty thousand years ago, inhabitants on the Don River, near the Sea of Azov, were carving needles to sew their clothing, and building tee-pee cities, weaving fish nets, making jewelry and building animal traps. About 22,000 BC massive flooding devastated the landscape. About 20,000 BC, mammoth bone houses, surrounded by tee-pee villages spread across the land. Then at the end of the Younger Dryas ice age there was again massive flooding and a world-wide catastrophe. There occurred a massive die-off of species, especially large mammals, such as mammoths, saber tooth tigers, etc. We should expect that the human population also sustained massive losses. All this devastation corresponds with the date of the destruction of Atlantis in 9,600 BC.

Thanks again for your invitation to join the forum. I look forward to many stimulating discussions.

Live in Harmony. Enjoy life!
EagleWind

[Qoais]

Welcome Aboard EagleWind.
I'm glad you decided to post here, even if you don't open a thread just yet.  It is quite a technological and "informational" forum, but we do chat with each other as well

You are most welcome to join the conversation, and I'm sure we'll have some wonderful discussions.  I find the Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 mural most facinating. Your theory that it's a map is most ingenious and totally logical.  Logic is one of my favorite things.  Scientific facts aside, logic can get one to their goal quicker!!!!!! (That's my theory!)

I've visited your web site many times and appreciate the "fun" stuff as well as the scientific.  It makes sense to me that we were "seeded" from somewhere else, otherwise, where did all our belief in "gods" come from?  Beliefs in a higher power, and stories of these "gods" actually living on the earth?  If we weren't "taught" towards these beliefs, I believe we would still venerate the sun, have a deep seated conviction in our own being and would have possibly developed with a deeper respect for EACH OTHER AS EQUAL and spend our time working for the betterment of all.

I don't know if I'm expressing this very well.  They say the "gods" faught with each other before we existed.  Then it seems, they taught US how fight each other and we've been doing it ever since.  If these "gods" had not interfered, perhaps Neanderthals would have gone on with their ideas of "community living" or "tribes" and when the tribes got too big, they divided and some moved on and established another tribe.  They lived in tribes for protection, to share the work load, etc.  THAT initial way of thinking perhaps would have continued on rather than the way of warring with each other.  Neanderthals didn't know what a "god" was let alone worry about such a thing, and had enough on their plate just trying to survive.  This caused them to unite and stay united.  It's possible they may have developed territorial disputes, but since they all had one common goal, to stay alive, they possibly would have done negotiaiting instead of warring with each other.  So who were these "gods" that taught us we were less than they were, taught us to fight each other, and destroy our own planet?

Suddenly about 40,000 years ago, modern humans burst on the scene and their culture exploded with new inventions.

Yes, I've read this exact sentence before, in scientific papers.  This is not logical thru genetic mutation (which equals cross breeding to me) which, according to scientists in my day, took thousands of years to happen.  Not SUDDENLY.  I know "suddenly" doesn't mean overnight to scientists, but still, in scientific terms of evolution "suddenly" doesn't cut it.

Let me give an example of what I'm trying to show in a logical line of thought:

Humans are mimikers.  When we are born we can't talk, but gradually, our parents make sounds that we copy and eventually, we come to understand what these sounds mean.  According to scientists, early man could not speak.  "Suddenly", they could, but WHO taught them to speak a language that they could understand each other?  Early man would hear the sounds of birds and animals and he would have come to learn what these sounds mean.  He would have copied these sounds and without interferance, would have continued to develop a communication system built on the sounds he heard around him.  We would still be talking in chirps and growls to this day.  BUT, we don't.

[Qoais]

Continuing in that vien, if early men all copied the sounds of the birds and animals, we would all be talking the same language. 

Going back a bit, to the war of the "gods", this war was seemingly between "two races" of "gods".  These "gods" supposedly bred with the indiginous peoples of earth, and therefore, again I say, there should be 2 different DNA's out there.  AND if Sitchin's theory is correct, and the Anunnaki toyed with our DNA, again it indicates there should be 2 DNA's.  However, if man EVOLVED by himself on this planet, there should only be one DNA.  (I'm probably going to get flack about that statement from the techies but that's ok).  I do have a hard time with the dating of things because scientists are continually changing the dates of certain "evolutions" and pushing the time lines farther and farther back. 

For about 200,000 years, Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals lived together and their separate cultures remained in about the same primitive state. Suddenly about 40,000 years ago, modern humans burst on the scene and their culture exploded with new inventions. Whether this rapid evolution was instigated by interbreeding, natural genetic mutation or extraterrestrial intervention is intensely debated.  Then, thirty thousand years ago, inhabitants on the Don River, near the Sea of Azov, were carving needles to sew their clothing, and building tee-pee cities, weaving fish nets, making jewelry and building animal traps. About 22,000 BC massive flooding devastated the landscape. About 20,000 BC, mammoth bone houses, surrounded by tee-pee villages spread across the land. Then at the end of the Younger Dryas ice age there was again massive flooding and a world-wide catastrophe. There occurred a massive die-off of species, especially large mammals, such as mammoths, saber tooth tigers, etc. We should expect that the human population also sustained massive losses. All this devastation corresponds with the date of the destruction of Atlantis in 9,600 BC.

Thanks for posting this EagleWind.  It helps me with the timeline as it is believed to exist now.  I'm sure it will change again when scientists discover something else!  Scientists say that suddenly about 40,000 years ago, after 200,000 years, modern humans burst on the scene.  Kind of a contradiction in theory for scientists if you ask me.  Can they explain away this sudden change with THEIR theories?  Prove it in other words, that this happened spontaneously and not without outside intervention.

Going back to neanderthals copying the sounds they heard, I've seen a number of documentaries where human children have been either raised with animals or left in close accompnyment with animals, and they copy the behavior of said animal.  The other day on the news, there was an article about a woman who had a child, and also had an aviary.  She left the child in the aviary and admitted that she treated the child like a bird.  The child cannot talk as a human, but makes the sounds of the birds, and when it gets upset, flaps it's arms like wings.  There are many recorded instances of human children being raised with/by animals, and they copy that animal.  Therefore, I maintain that when humans found they could flap their jaws, they flapped them in mimicry of what they heard all around them, and that from these sounds, our language would have developed.  True, the language would still be somewhat different depending on what animals were indiginous to the area, but to communicate in animal language, again mimicy would be the key, because everyone would know the "behavior" of animals in given conditions and could mimic this behavior to express themselves.  Most animals growl or snarl when they're angry for instance.  Easy enough to recognize this behavior for what it is.  Etc. Etc.

[Qoais]

I've just finsihed reading a fabulous book called Initiation, by Elizabeth Haich.  I can't remember who recommended it, but I sincerely thank whoever it was. 

It has to do with spiritual enlightenment, and the author's travels thru a number of incarnations, and then goes into great detail about her life when she lived in ancent Egypt and trained as an initiate.  It's extremely well written.

In this book, altho not mentioned by name as Atlanteans, she talks about the original peoples of this earth that were highly spiritual and had knowledge of the energies of the all the earth and cosmos, and knew how to direct thiese energies for their own use, much like we would use a hammer and saw today.  In the course of time, they somehow used these energies wrongly or maybe on purpose , and "de-materilaized" their homeland.  the descendants of this race became the elongated-skull people of ancient Egypt, who were also very spritual and initiated into the knowledge of spiritual enlightenement. (Some - as we know now, were Pharoah's and of the "royal" line).

The last of these "enlightened" initiaites was he who led the people out of Egypt and took the Ark of the covenant with him.  It does explain somewhat how the ark worked, but I won't spoil it for you!

It also explains about the harnessed use of energies that were used  not to "defy" gravity so as to lift things up in the air, but to make "material" objects either heavier than, or lighter than the force of gravity.  (As in lifting the blocks for the pyramids)  To sink a well, a suitable size boulder was chosen, and the energies were applied that made the rock heavier than gravity and it sunk into the earth.  No physical digging necessary.

This book is an autobiography and not fiction. 

[BlueHue]

Quoting Wikipedia again:

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans (Greek: Τιτανομαχία),
Titanomachia is also known as the Battle of the Titans, Battle of Gods, or just the Titan War.

Cronus took his father's throne after dispatching Uranus.his siblings the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes,
 and his (newly-created) siblings the Gigantes, in Tartarus.

, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea. Rhea, however, managed to hide her child Zeus, by tricking Cronus into swallowing a rock wrapped in a blanket instead.

granting dominion of the heavens and sky to Zeus, the sea to Poseidon,
and the underworld to Hades. The Olympians then shut the defeated Titans within Tartarus,
Atlas, Cronus, and Prometheus and Epimetheus.
, Zeus condemned Atlas to hold up the heavens and sky for eternity.
To me - this sounds very much like (I'm going to say a naughty word!) Sitchin's interpretation of the Sumerian texts. 

Dear. . . . QOAIS,


FAIRY  TALES  or  STARRY  TALES  ?  ?
The proof is in eating the Pudding says the old Proverb: About eating:
In The MOTHER  GOOSE Tales the Mother Goat(=planet  Saturn.) tries
to stop the WOLF(= Mars.) from eating her Children, Yet all 11 were eaten
only one hid in the grand Fathers's Clock and survived

( Mr. Wolf should've eaten the Basket not the Hood! )
 Little Red ridinghood (= planet Venus.)was eaten by the space Wolf(= Mars.)
in his guise as Grandma(= Moon.)but the Hunter(- Mercury)
 got her and grandma(= Moon.) out of there !
Afterwards the thirsty Wolf (= mars.)sunk in the well,
 by by the stones in his stomach !


SCHNEEwittchen und die Sieben Zwergen uber den Sieben Bergen. . .
Sometimes planets are even " eating out " !
in SNOWHITE and the seven (!) " DWARFS ",
Snowwhite enters the House of the Seventh( Hour ?)
and she drinks from the tiny gobletts(= globes.)
and she eats   from the tiny plates(= dust-rings.)
and she sleeps in the . . tiny beds(= Orbit-tracks)


this is the same story of Cronos eating Stones for humans
or Planet Venus  flying through the Hydro-Atmospheres of the visible Planets!
where she also cleans up the Planet's formerly shiny Dustrings!


The Mother Goose Stories are not european heritage because
 they are not european Fairytales, because, they originate NOT from France nor Europe
But they were brought in at Paris by the refugy bishop of Pondicherry in 1688
in 1695 Charles Perrault translated them from Sanscrit into French.


Before 1695, the stand-up Comedian Chroucho Marks could not have entered the sentence:
" Don't you know your Mother Goose Stories ?"! Every Kid should know them !
In germany the Grimm Brothers translated the Perrault Mother Goose Stories in 1830,
in a book erroneously titled:" ancient German House-Marchen."
( as if they were known in Europe for the past 2.000 years! )


The Pantja- Chantra was probably written in 1000 bc but
was damned by Planet-fobic Censors, in 855 bc
 so the publishers had to rework the script from Planetary behaviour
 to animal behaviour in order to save the narative from further idiotic public CENSORS !


  LOKA-  PALAS  are the 4 Elephants that blow ( Nightly Candle-)stories out
Also the White Elephant was an avatar of the MOON
 and he too was censored by extinction
and the 1.000 " PILLARS"= white Elephants of Ad-Irem
were cut their heads off by the superstitious King Salmanasser-3
 ( later known as the Indian Elephanthead-Basher " SHIVA "
( Greek:" Geriones " .)who was disturbed by flying Elephants
when he was besieging the capital of Atlantis(= Ad-Land.) namely Ras- Aden.

   
Dancing Shiva Nataraya a war-mad king called Salmanasser
The King damned the White Elephants because he thought
 that they were making Earth Quakes by stamping and trumpeting
like Stentors and Tritons when in reality ( unknown to the wicked king.)
these brave, well trained Elephants were warning for an uncoming tsunami
in SouthArabia which was a regular phenomenon when the MOON was yearly once


Moon  Mars Conjunctions cause(d) once Giant Tsunamies
causing Nations to move to foreign Lands
in Conjunction with Mars and thus pulling the Red Sea waters over the Cape of Aden.
The Famous " War of the Gods" ( thus the Titano-machia/ Giganto-machia
in 1055 & 855 bc also happened twice as with Uranos & Cronos Planetary-Stories which,
were even recorded as Children's Fairytales


Sincerely.

   " BlueHue "     dd April-3,  2008

[Qoais]

Hi Blue Hue
Who's theory is this, that the fairy tales, are starry tales?
You're saying these stories are from an earlier time? 

[BlueHue]

DEAR......QOAIS,


The Indian Fairytale book " PANTjA CHANTRA" ( I am not sure of the Spelling )
 Greek:" Songs from PUNT", or the Tales about the FAIRYLAND OF Punt",
Came from Pondicherry ( opposite Madras in East-India.)
to Paris and was adapted for Children by Charles Perrault
 Published in 1695 under the name " Mother GOOSE Tales or
 Contes de Fee de Ma Mere l''Oie ".


They were brand new then and this proves that altough the Mothetr Goose Storybook
 may be 3.000 years old, it fairy contens, was unknown in Europe until Perrault & Grimm
translated them, so the European Fairytales are a fake tradition from " Modern times"
( just like Santa Clause was invented by the Cocacola Advertisment  Dept.Ad'
since from 1935 !)


Fairytale litterature reseachers have determined that the Pantja Chantra Epic book
describes the Heaven Planets as a forest with animals. And the Celestial disasters
were under a taboe so the Astronomers had tro publisgh their ancient Star/ constekllation SURVEYS
in a childish manner to circumvent the Censor authority !


Sorry for this delay in reply! 
 Sincerely " BlueHue" dd April 10 2008

[Qoais]

Ok Bluehue, what does this mean to us regarding Atlantis then?  And why would stories of the history of the planets be censored?  What you're saying is that the story of the war between Athens and Atlantis was an allegory for the myth of the creation of the universe?

This is the theory of Alan Alford, as stated in his book The Atlantis Secret.

Actually, I find the man makes a lot of sense.  If one looks at the story as an allegory for the creation of the universe, which the Greeks accepted as absolutely true, then Plato was telling the "truth". 

[Qoais]

There are a lot of theories about the location of Atlantis out there, and I know it's been said many times, many ways, that one has to understand Plato, to understand what he was talking about.  We have all tried to fit Atlantis into our favorite location, but somehow we can never get ALL the merits of the story, to fit any one location.  Always, we have to kind of fudge a bit, and say maybe Plato meant this, and maybe he meant that.  Maybe, he meant exactly what he said, but we don't understand it.  Or we don't WANT to understand it because there wouldn't be any fun in it anymore.

Alan Alford does make sense, when he says that the story is an allegory for the creation of the universe. 
He also explains that the puzzle of Atlantis is, that on one hand, Plato was adamant that the island had sunk in the Atlantic Ocean, and equally adamant that the story was absolutely true.  On the other hand, modern scientists have mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean with modern technology, and found no trace of any sunken island. 

Alford's theory is that the story was an allegory for the myth of the creation of the Universe.  An encrypted account of a secret tradition which had been preserved for milennia by the mystery schools of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece.  In this way, Plato's story of Atlantis may be seen as a "true story", as the ancient sages believed that the myth of creation was an absolutely true account of how the universe had been brought into being.

[Qoais]

Since I like Alford's logical approach to this conundrum, I thought I would post some of his reasoning for his theory:  (If this has already been posted somewhere else, I apologize)

Problems with the Popular Conception of Atlantis

Problem 1:  Plato

As much as Atlantis-hunters would wish plato to have been a historian in the mould of Herodotus or Thucydides, he was not.  And nor was he a geographer in the mould of, say, Hecataeus.  On the contrary, Plato was a philosopher and a part-time mythologist.  Moreover, he was not even an ordinary philosopher,  rather, he was a 'true philosopher", whose interests lay primarily in metaphysical, otherworldly matters.  Therefore, if there is any truth behind Plato's account of Atlantis, it is unlikely to have anything to do with history or geography; rather, it should be rooted in myth, mysticism, esotericism and the metaphysical world.

[Qoais]

...continuing

Problem 2:  Herodotus

It is highly significant that Herodotus, the so-called "father of history", said nothing at all about any war between Athens and Atlantis.  writing almost a century before Plato, Herodotus was widely travelled (he had visited Egypt where the Atlantis story supposedly came from) and was  very knowledgeable about military history.  But as far as he was concedrned, the greatest wars of history had been those between Greeks and Persians, notably the battle of Marathon (490 BC), the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis (480 BC), and the battle of Plataea (479 BC).  Moreover, in regard to the battle of Plataea, Herodotus tells a highly revealing story of a bragging contest between the Athenians and the tegeans in which each side listd their greatest military accomplishments.  Here, the Athenians recited their heroism at the battle of Marathon, but spoke also of the achievements in "ancient times" - their intervention in the war of "the Seven against Thebes", their repulsion of the Amazonians who had invaded Attica, and their instrumental role in the Trojan War.  But as for the idea that their ancestors had repulsed the invasion of Atlantis, the Athenian soldiers said nothing at all - a very strange omission of Plato's account contained any historical truth.

Plato's story is also called into question by several other statements made by Herodotus.  the greatest danger ever faced by the Athenians, he said, was when the Persian army had invaded Attica and instigated the battle of Marathon (490 BC).  The biggest armed force ever assembled, he said, was that of the Persian king Xerxes (480 BC).  The bigest island in the whole world, he said, was Sardinia.  And the earliest sea empire in the Mediterranean, he said, had been forged by King Minos of Knossos.  All of these claims fly in the face of Plato's claim, nearly a century later, that Atlantis had been the biggest island in the world and had assembled the largest army ever, to forge the first sea empire of the Mediterranean.

Thus spoke the historian Herodotus who, had he lived a century later, would hve been highly sceptical of the historicity of Plato's story.

[Qoais]

....continuing

Problem 3:  Socrates

Socrates was one of the greatest intellectuals of his day, and yet when Critias introduced the story of Athens' heroic victory over Atlantis, he responded by saying: "Tell me though, what was that ancient deed our city performed...?  I've never heard of it."  If the athenian victory had been magnificent in a historical sense, or even in an orthodox mythical sense (as in their involvement in the Trojan War or the earlier epic battle "the Seven against Thebes"), then Socrates certainly would have heard of it.  QED.  We must be dealing here with a myth and, moreover, with a new myth - perhaps a  variation on a theme.

[Qoais]

...continuing

Problem 4:  The Saite Calendar

That a cataclysm could have instigated the beginning of a calendar nine thousand years before the time of Solon (c. 9600 BC) is not implausible.  Nor is it implausible that such a calendar could have been preserved for nine thousand years and handed down for posterity via the egyptian Saites (compare the Hebrew calendar which is today nearly six thousand years old).  It is therefore possible that Solon (or perhaps Plato himself), learned the date of the Atlantis cataclysm from the Egyptian priests at the town of Sais.  But the important question is this:  is it really likely that the date of the cataclysm originated in this way?

In fact, everything we know about ancient Egypt argues against the possibility.  Archaeologists have found no evidence at all for a calendar of this ilk.  Nor is there any such evidence in the Egyptian texts, which generally refer to ancient events in the vaguest of terms.  Moreover, even when we do find numbers in these texts, they usually turn out to be sacred, symbolic or rounded, the latter suggesting some imaginative ex-post rationalisation by the priests.  To presume, as some researchers do, that the Saites possessed a calendar dating back nine thousand years (to a time one thousand years earlier than the foundation of their own state) is to go far beyond what can be justified.

There is more.  Why is it that the Saite tradition preserved only the date of the Atlantis cataclysm?  After all, Plato had the Egyptian priest claim that several cataclysms had occurred after the sinking of Atlantis, including the famous flood of eucalion.  and yet nowhere in Egypt, nor in Plato, nor anywhere else in the Greek writings, do we find any record of the dates of these subsequent cataclysms.  If Solon (or Plato) really did receive the date of the Atlantis cataclysm from the Egyptian priests, why did he not also receive the dates of the other, more recent events?

my note - maybe other dates and disasters WERE spoken of, but Plato was only referencing THIS one to use in his story.

There is another problem, too.  Why is it that only the Egyptian Saites preserved the date of the Atlantis cataclysm?  If the event was historical and as dramatic as Plato suggests, then it would have affected much of the world and would have been rcorded in other ancient traditions.  But, despite the prevalence of worldwide flood myths, no record has ever been found pointing to the date 9600 BC.

In summary, it is a leap of faith to suppose that the Egyptian saites had access to the purported date when no-one else in the world did; it is a further leap of faith to suppose that the Egyptian records were entirely destroyed (from an archaeological perspective); it is a further leap of faith to suppose that Solon had access to these records when no-one else did; and it is a leap of faith, too, to suppose that Solon's testimony fell into the hands of Plato and no-one else.  To go with all these suppositions is to hop, skip and jump into the land of improbability.  And there still remains the awkward problem of explaining how Plato (or the egyptians, if one prefers) knew the date of the atlantis cataclysm but not the dates of the three, more recent cataclysms that followed it, including the well-known flood of Deucalion.

A more likely explanation for the date of the war is that Plato was speaking idiomatically and that "nine thousand years ago" signified "nine aeons ago", i.e. an infinitely long time ago. 

[Qoais]

...continuing

Problem 5:  Lost Civilisations

The implication of the historicist argument is that two highly advanced civilizations - Atlantis and Athens respectively - existed c. 9600 BC, and yet, according to archaeologists, civilization began much more recently, c. 4000 BC (in the lands of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia).  How, then, could the two fantastic civilizations described by Plato have existed more than five thousand years earlier, during what archaeologists call "the neolithic period"?  The idea is controversial to say the least.

(my note - I don't necessarily believe in these dates for the beginning of our existance but he does have a point that so far, we haven't found evidence of an "advanced" civilization that far back)

As regards Atlantis, Plato placed the former island in the Atlantic Ocean.  On this point, his language is unequivocal.  atlantis had been in the great Ocean, in the atlantis O cean, in the realm of Atlas, opposite the Pillars of Heracles (the straits of gibraltar) and, fully consistent with this, the Atlantians had directed their histilities against Europe and Asia.  to look for Atlantis anywhere else but the Atlantic Ocean is to totally ignore what Plato actually wrote.  Unfortunately for Atlantis-hunters, this leads to a fundamental problem, namely that scientists have nowadays mapped the floor of the atlantic Ocean, in outlilne, using echo sounders, "Geosta" radar and multibeam sonar, without discovering any trace of the sunken island or continent as described by Plato.  the historicist interpretation of Plato's Atlantis is thus stringly contradicted by scientific evidence.

Moreover, there is equally strong evidence against the idea of a 10th millennium BC civilization in Athens in Greece.  The earliest temples in Athens, for example, have been dated archaeologically to only the 8th century BC; below their foundations there is only virgin soil.

On the face of it, then, as we enter the 21st centruy AD, the notion of two highly advanced civilizations fighting a worldwide war c. 9600 BC would seem to be a complete fantasy.

Rather, the date of "nine thousand years ago" is surely idiomatic for "an infinitely long time ago", as suggested earlier.