Atlantis Online
March 19, 2024, 02:48:47 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?
Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/20-did-humans-colonize-the-world-by-boat
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean

Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 15 16 [17] 18 19 20 21 22 23 ... 25   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean  (Read 35226 times)
0 Members and 87 Guests are viewing this topic.
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #240 on: December 27, 2008, 10:34:53 pm »

Time Error?

Assertions that Plato had a vague idea of time and chronology do not seem well-substantiated. As can be seen from his works, Plato was fairly mathematically-minded, since, apparently, he was under the influence of the Pythagorean school. Besides, there is such a natural approximate measure for assessing large spans of time as a generation, and it does not seem likely that Plato did not perceive the distinction between a period covering the life spans of several tens of generations and that encompassing several hundreds of generations. (Hardly anyone would assert that Plato had a vague idea of the distinction between tens and hundreds.)

Any assertion that Solon may have made a mistake in reading the Egyptian hieroglyphs he did not know sufficiently well, should be discarded as Plato explicitly says that Solon did not read the sacred records himself, but was told of their contents by the priest.
Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #241 on: December 27, 2008, 10:35:22 pm »


Another reason for the mistake of multiplication by 10 might have been the misunderstanding by Solon of the numerals in the Egyptian priest's story, which is highly improbable, since, firstly, there are several numerals in the story, and, secondly, the spans of time which these numerals describe are interrelated in the priest's story.

"Solon was astonished at what he heard and eagerly begged the priests to describe to him in detail the doings of these citizens of the past. "I will gladly do so, Solon," replied the priest, "both for your sake and your city's, but chiefly in gratitude to the Goddess to whom it has fallen to bring up and educate both your country and ours - yours first, when she took over your seed from Earth and Hephaestus, ours a thousand years later. The age of our institutions is given in our sacred records as eight thousand years, and the citizens whose laws and whose finest achievement I will now briefly describe to you therefore lived nine thousand years ago; we will go through their history in detail later on at leisure, when we can consult the records." (Tim. 23d-24a)

However, if we do assume that Solon misunderstood the priest, it would be difficult to imagine an Egyptian priest who, around the year 600 B.C. gives the age of civilization in the Nile Valley as 800 years. And it would be an outright impossibility to assume that sacred records could have contained such nonsense, and that "nine thousand years" only appeared in the story in the process of copying, as a result of an accidental substitution of the character denoting thousands for another one, denoting hundreds.

Yet another argument against the alleged mistake of multiplication by ten is the fact that none of the sources dealing with the second millennium B.C., contains any reference to an Atlantis less ancient than the one described by Plato in his narrative about Atlantis, and consequently, either his narrative, after all, is a hoax, or it is really a case of information lost and accidentally retrieved - information going back to a much earlier period.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #242 on: December 27, 2008, 10:36:08 pm »

Dimensions

In "Critias" it is said that the capital city of Atlanteans is surrounded by a plain 2,000 x 3,000 Stades (approximately 370 x 550 km). As we have already said, proponents of various hypotheses requiring some adjustment of Plato's data to suit the existing convenient sites, are fond of using the assertion of a numerical mistake consisting in the multiplication of numerals by ten, not only as regards the time, but also the dimensions of the plain. That is why everything we said above about such a method of interpreting Plato being unable to stand up to criticism from the viewpoint of logic, is applicable to these figures, too.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #243 on: December 27, 2008, 10:36:21 pm »

And in general, if it is suggested that almost all the numerical data are erroneous and should be revised, then, in my opinion, the whole thing becomes somewhat absurd: would it not be easier to cross out Plato's narrative of Atlantis and write their own instead, the parameters of which would be acceptable for them, than attempt to logically substantiate the ultimate dotage ascribed to Plato.

There is yet another argument testifying to the fact that there had never been any mistake of multiplication by ten as regards the dimensions. Plato said that Atlantis was "larger than Asia and Libya combined" (Tim. 24e). Even if we presume that Asia here stands for what is now called the Near East - just a small part of the Asian continent, and Libya - for a small part of North Africa, it is difficult to believe that Plato would describe a territory several dozens kilometers wide, as larger in size than the two of them.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #244 on: December 27, 2008, 10:36:37 pm »

Pillars of Hercules (Heracles)

It would also seem expedient now to dot all the i's and cross all the t's concerning what Plato calls the Pillars of Hercules. Let us read the passage on the parts of territory allotted to Poseidon's sons:

"His twin, to whom was allocated the furthest part of the island towards the Pillars of Heracles and facing the district now called Gadira, was called in Greek Eumelus but in his own language Gadirus..." (Critias. 114b)

In Plato's time, ancient Greeks used the name of Gadirus for the city which was situated where modern Cadiz stands now, on the Atlantic coast of the Pyrenean Peninsula, not far from Gibraltar.

Diodor of Sicily in his "Historical Library" writes about Phoenicians as follows:

"...started going beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the sea called the Ocean. And shortly built a city called Gadirus on the peninsula in Europe, close to the strait situated at the Pillars..." (6)

We can only imagine how much the proponents of the Cretan hypothesis must want to adjust Plato's narrative to that hypothesis, to find on the way from Athens to Crete some rocks which allegedly were called the Pillars of Hercules.

Had such rocks really existed, and had Crete or Santorin really been Atlantis, then for the Egyptian priest its inhabitants would have been those who lived "inside the Pillars", while the inhabitants of Athens would have been those who lived "outside the Pillars".

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #245 on: December 27, 2008, 10:37:12 pm »

Where was Atlantis?

If we accept as trustworthy Plato's data concerning the time when Atlantis existed, and its dimensions, and if we resist the temptation of placing this enigmatic land somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, a question arises of where in the Atlantic it was situated and where it is possible to find some evidence of its existence there in the past.

Modern geology has a wealth of data on the geological structure of the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean. All of it, with the exception of the parts of the shelf which are the margins of the continental platforms, is constituted by the oceanic crust. This fully agrees with the notions of the process of the formation of the Atlantic Ocean which exist within the framework of plate tectonics hypothesis, which holds that the continental plates drifted apart from the Mid-Atlantic rift, which was subsequently filled by the magma, which constitutes the oceanic crust (15).

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #246 on: December 27, 2008, 10:37:28 pm »

The map of the Atlantic Ocean bears it out graphically that the outlines of all the continental platforms facing the ocean, ideally fit in with the line of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, connected with the earth-crust rift, from which the continents "are sliding apart"; Africa, South and North Americas, Greenland, Scandinavia and Europe make up a perfectly fitting mosaic, in which there simply is no room for an allegedly lost fragment, particularly of such dimensions as Plato described (See map of the Atlantic Ocean). Besides, today there are no objective data that could give grounds for raising the question that there may have been a subsidence of the earth-crust in the Atlantic Ocean commensurate in scale with the sinking of a big island or a small continent, not only in the last dozens of thousands of years, but even in the whole time of the Atlantic Ocean's existence, which amounts to many dozens of millions of years.

On the other hand, as has already been mentioned, the time when Atlantis vanished, as given by Plato, precisely coincides with the end of the last Ice Age (I would like to remind the readers that Plato speaks of the 10th millennium B.C.). Meanwhile, the changes of the ice sheets volume are closely connected with the so-called glacio-eustatic changes of the sea level, and it is known that during the last glaciation the sea level was considerably lower than at present because a great amount of water was bound up in glaciers.

There are various methods making it possible to come to conclusions about the glacio-eustatic fluctuations in the sea level during the last glaciation, but there is no uniform, commonly recognized notion of the magnitude and the dynamics of these processes. According to the estimates of most researchers, during the maximum of the last glaciation (18-16 thousand years ago) the sea level was 100-170 meters lower than at present:

Due to problems of encoding and fonts, the titles of the Russian sources are given in English translation and marked with an asterisk. [ See table in original work.]

In my opinion, the reconstruction of the glacio-eustatic fluctuations of the sea level at the end of the last glaciation by Richard Fairbanks published in 1989 (9), is one of the most convincing ones. It is based on the radio-carbon datings of the remains of Acropora palmata corals, which develop only in the upper 5 meters of water, from the bottom samples taken at various depths in the area of Barbados Island. Fairbanks explains how he took into account the vertical movements of the earth crust in the area where the samples were taken, but makes a special stipulation that the only way to adequately verify these assumptions and the reconstruction as a whole, is to conduct similar research in other regions.

According to this reconstruction by Fairbanks, during the maximum of the last glaciation the sea level was 121+/-5 meters lower than at present.The graph of the rise of the sea level plotted on the basis of both 14C and 230Th/234U dating methods published by Fairbanks and his colleagues a year later (1), shows that at the time we are interested in, i.e. 11-12 thousand years ago, the sea level was lower than now by 90-95 meters, with a fairly fast rise of the sea level by about 35 m taking place precisely at this time.

Unfortunately, most geographical maps accessible to the public, as a rule, have neither the 100-metre nor the 150-metre isodepth lines. The 200-metre isodepth line on the map of the Atlantic Ocean gives only a very approximate idea of how the coastline must have looked at the time of the last glaciation. Even though an obviously lower sea level is taken, it can be seen that in the area of the present Azores and Canaries, which are most often pointed to as the remains of the sunken Atlantis, there had been no sizeable land. It can also be seen that in the west of Europe, where now the North Sea and the Celtic Shelf are situated, to the south of the British Isles, during the last glaciation, at the time when the sea level was lower, there had existed a vast area of land (See map of Northern Atlantic).

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #247 on: December 27, 2008, 10:37:57 pm »


Besides, at the time when the Scandinavian ice sheet existed, the earth crust beneath it was isostatically depressed under the weight of its mass, while some distance away from it, the crust was uplifted as a result of the so-called isostatic balancing. It is probable that the area of the Celtic Shelf was situated precisely in this uplifted area, so that the relative sea level there was even lower than the mean level by the value of this isostatic uplifting.

Besides the glacio-eustatic fluctuations of the mean sea level, the data on which, as we can see, cannot be considered exhaustive, and the glacio-isostatic effects, neither the chronological nor the quantitative parameters of which have been studied sufficiently well, the relative sea level in the area which is of interest to us may have also been affected by such a factor, which is difficult to assess, as the geoidal changes of the relative sea level, i.e. the changes caused the changing figure of the Earth, which may take place for various reasons. The magnitude of these geoidal changes in some areas, according to some estimates, during late Pleistocene could amount to 50-100 m (23, 226).

Since there are no direct data on the relative sea level in the area of the Celtic Shelf for the period that is of interest to us, the question of the size of the land that existed there remains open and can be answered definitively only as a result of a thorough geomorphological exploration of the area. But, as we can see, there are reasons to believe that at the time which is of interest to us, the land that existed in the west of Europe could extend to the very edge of the continental platform, which means that the modern Celtic Shelf could well have been a plain precisely about two by three thousand Stades.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #248 on: December 27, 2008, 10:38:16 pm »

An Island?

But the Greek word nesos, used by Plato, quite unambiguously is translated as "island", and I have no reasons whatsoever to assume that once upon a time it could have had another meaning as well. In the same vein, the Latin word insula does not seem to allow other interpretations. So, is it possible to equate that area of land in the west of Europe with Plato's Atlantis? I believe, it is, and there are two possible explanations of why the word which means "island" is used for something that actually was not one:

1. What gives grounds for this assumption is what Critias says in the dialogue of the same title about the distortion of names due to their translation from language to language as the story was transmitted:

"Before I begin, a brief word of explanation, in case you are surprised at hearing foreigners so often referred to by Greek names. The reason is this. Solon intended to use the story in his own poem. And when, on inquiring about the significance of the names, he learned that the Egyptians had translated the originals into their own language, he went through the reverse process, and as he learned the meaning of a name wrote it down in Greek. My father had his manuscript, which is now in my possession, and I studied it often as a child. So if you hear names like those we use here, don't be surprised; I have given you the reason." (Critias. 113a-b)

It would seem appropriate to assume that, in being retold and passed so many times over, and in being translated from language to language, and in attempts to grasp the information through the prism of geographic realities which had already changed, a reduction of such notions as "land/ territory/ country" - "island" might have taken place, all the more so that it is unknown if different words existed in the ancient Egyptian language for expressing the notions of "land" and "island"; moreover, there is no information whatsoever about the original (pre-Egyptian) language in which the information which later reached Plato was narrated.

After I have criticized unwarranted assumptions in the Mediterranean hypotheses, and assertions that mistakes had been made in the numerals, the readers may now reproach me for considerably stretching a point in interpreting Plato's narrative. That is why I would like to quote several passages, which, I believe, substantiate the legitimacy of my assumption, if in reading them we abstract ourselves from the word "island" (which I for convenience shall write in slash marks), focusing instead on the context in which it is used.

Of great interest is what Critias says after concluding the description of the capital city of Atlanteans:

"I have given you a pretty complete account of what was told me about the city and its original buildings; I must now try to recall the nature and organization of the rest of the country. To begin with the region as a whole was said to be high above the level of the sea, from which it rose precipitously; the city was surrounded by a uniformly flat plain, which was in turn enclosed by mountains which came right down to the sea. The plain was rectangular in shape, measuring three thousand Stades in length and at its midpoint two thousand Stades in breadth from the coast. This whole area of the /island/ faced south, and was sheltered from the north winds." (Critias. 117e-118a)

As we see, the description is rather contradictory. The thing is that in the Greek text, after Critias says that having described the city, he will proceed to the narration about the nature of the rest of the territory (tes d allas khoras os e phusis), he actually returns to the description of the city as the place (topos) situated high above the sea level, from which it rises precipitously, after which he contrasts it (de) with the flat plain surrounding the city. Such an interpretation of the logic of the passage is borne out by the use in the same passage of two words - khoras and topos, which semantically must refer to different notions, hence, it was only the city that was situated high above the sea level, but not the plain. And again there is no indication whatsoever of land surrounded by the sea on all sides. The only image evoked by this description is that of a city on a hill rising precipitously from the sea, and the flat plain surrounding it, enclosed on three sides by mountains.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #249 on: December 27, 2008, 10:38:48 pm »


This description suits in every detail, the land that once existed in the west of Europe: the mountains are the present Ireland, Great Britain and, possibly, the north-western part of France; the plain itself, which now constitutes the Celtic Shelf to the south of the British Isles fits the dimensions specified by Plato, and the edge of the continental platform faces south-southwest. Not far from this edge, at about 48 d 16-29' N and 8 d 46-59' W, there is a remarkable underwater hill called the Little Sole Bank marked on sufficiently minute maps. The top of the hill is 57 meters (Cool below the sea surface, while the average depth around it is 160-170 meters. The hill is located approximately in the middle of the greater length of the plain in question (See map of the Celtic Shelf).

Of course, the coastline of any island should form a closed circuit, and its length can be roughly estimated, as well as the width of the island. Plato's Critias, however, while giving in minute detail the dimensions of the plain adjoining the city, and giving the length of the canal encircling it, says nothing of the dimensions of the island as such, except that it was "larger than Asia and Libya combined". Many researchers into the Atlantis issue also complain that nothing is said about the width of the mountain belt which surrounded the plain on the side of the land.

Besides, it is not quite clear to what we owe the emergence of the stereotype, according to which Atlantis was situated "to the west" of Gibraltar, or "facing" it.

Thomas Taylor's translation reads:

"For at that time the Atlantic sea was navigable, and had an /island/ before that mouth which is called by you the Pillars of Hercules." (Tim. 24e)

Desmond Lee in his translation uses the English word "opposite" to describe the location of Atlantis in relation to the strait:

"For in those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an /island/ opposite the strait which you call (so you say) the Pillars of Heracles..."

The Greek preposition pro used by Plato in this passage means only that the island was situated "before" the strait, i.e. outside the Mediterranean, which means that the logical extension of its meaning towards denoting "immediately beyond", "right before" or "facing" (which gave rise to the traditional "to the west of") - is nothing but the second-guessing zeal of Plato's translators.

Nowhere does Plato call Atlanteans "islanders"- as a rule, the only specific point he makes is to emphasize the same contrast - that they did not live on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea:

"We must first remind ourselves that in all nine thousand years have elapsed since the declaration of war between those who lived outside and all those who lived inside the Pillars of Heracles." (Critias. 108e)

And this is how he describes the territories controlled by Atlanteans:

"They and their descendants for many generations governed their own territories and many other islands in the ocean and, as has already been said, also controlled the populations this side of the straits as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia." (Critias. 114c)

Let us also note that nowhere does he speak of the territories controlled by Atlanteans in terms of areas, describing only the length of the coastline. In all probability, it is connected with the geographical outlook of the time, shaped by the fact that people travelled mainly by sea, and maybe also by the specific features of population distribution in conditions of the Ice Age.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #250 on: December 27, 2008, 10:39:16 pm »

Let us now once again return to the already quoted passage about the distribution of allocations between Poseidon's sons.

In Desmond Lee's translation:

"His twin, to whom was allocated the furthest part of the /island/ towards the Pillars of Heracles and facing the district now called Gadira, was called in Greek Eumelus but in his own language Gadirus..."  (Critias. 114b)

In Thomas Taylor's translation:

"But the twin son that was born immediately after Atlas, and who was allotted the extreme parts of the /island/, towards the pillars of Hercules, as far as to the region which at present from that place is called Gadiric..."

Taylor's translation in this case is closer to the original, since the Greek epi to, like the Latin pars ad, almost always means "as far as to", "right up to", "bordering on". The reader will probably agree that but for the word "island" the description would accurately suit the district in the south of modern Portugal which is the part of Atlantic coast closest to Gibraltar (See map of Western Europe).

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #251 on: December 27, 2008, 10:39:28 pm »

2. The narration of Atlantis in Plato's "Critias" begins with the myth of its origins (about Evenor and Leucippe, Poseidon and Cleito), which includes a description that baffles most of the translators and interpreters. Not only is it contradictory in itself, indeed, it contradicts most of the subsequent descriptions of Atlantis, which we have already discussed (as regards the dimensions of the plain and the size of the hill):

"At the center of the island, near the sea, was a plain, said to be the most beautiful and fertile of all plains, and near the middle of this plain about fifty Stades [9.65 km] inland a hill of no great size," (Critias.113b)

- Lee translates, and makes a footnote that by saying "at the center of the island" Plato meant "midway along its greatest length".

Taylor translates the passage as follows:

"Towards the sea, but in the middle of the island, there was a plain..."

In the Latin translation the word media is used here, which means "middle". In Plato's original the phrase katade meson is used, which means "around the middle", "approximately in the middle", with the word mesos (meson is its case form) usually implying the middle of a linear segment, while for the notion of "center" another word exists. Besides, a long island, whose length considerably exceeds its width, must have two longer sides, and if it were really the description of an island, then an indication should have been given, the middle of which side is meant. So, without a stretch, this description could only be understood as the middle of a certain segment of the coastline.

On the other hand, the myth may well go back to a much earlier time, before the maximum of the last glaciation, when the sea level had not yet gone down to its lowest mark, and this place became a hill on the coast of the sea, but was still an island proper (Seemap of the Little Sole Bank). Considering the situation from this viewpoint

- firstly, eliminates all the contradictions, i.e. it becomes clear, why "near the middle of this plain about fifty Stades inland", while the plain measured "three thousand Stades in length and at its midpoint two thousand Stades in breadth from the coast" and was "larger than Asia and Libya combined", and why the hill was "of no great size" while "the region [of the city] as a whole was said to be high above the level of the sea, from which it rose precipitously";

- secondly, makes it possible to assume that in relation to Atlantis the word "island" is used, because the central part of the city, surrounded by a canal (water ring) and situated on the top of the hill which used to be an island, historically continued to be called "King's Island" or "Poseidon's Island". Hence, possibly, the use of the word "island" in relation to the whole city and country by all who transmitted the narration, including Plato.
Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #252 on: December 27, 2008, 10:39:44 pm »

Diodor of Sicily on Atlantis

It may seem that in justifying the legitimacy of questioning that what Plato persistently calls "an island" was actually one, we digressed too much into the realm of hypothetical assumptions, so let us turn now to the mention of Atlantis contained in the "Historical Library" by Diodor of Sicily. The opponents of the view that Plato's Atlantis really existed in the past, claim this mention cannot be seen as a reliable cross reference source because it was made three centuries after Plato, whose works Diodor, in all probability, was familiar with, but they prefer not to quote it, since its distinction from Plato's narration is all too obvious in its very structure (in particular, it does not contain any information about a war with the pre-historic Athens), in its geographical reference points and in the details of the myths quoted. By the same token, the enthusiasts of searching for Atlantis do like to quote verbatim passages from Diodor of Sicily because the recognition of some geographical details contained in Diodor's writings makes the substantiation of search for the remains of Atlantis not only on Crete or Santorin, but also on most of the islands they have their eye on, highly questionable.

Diodor of Sicily mentions Atlantis in passing as it were, but even the small passages containing at least some meagre indication of where it was situated, cast a serious doubt on the view that Plato's dialogues may have served as a source of inspiration and geographical information for Diodor. They also give us grounds to believe that he could not have been speaking of an island situated in the Mediterranean or "opposite" Gibraltar, but rather - of the outlying areas of the European continent along the whole Atlantic coast:


"...the Atlanteans, dwelling as they do in the regions on the edge of the ocean and inhabiting a fertile territory..." (5) <

"Their first king was Uranus, and he gathered the human beings, who dwelt in scattered habitations, within the shelter of a walled city... and he also subdued the larger part of the inhabited earth, in particular the regions to the west and the north." (Ibid.)

"...the kingdom was divided among the sons of Uranus, the most renowned of whom were Atlas and Cronus. Of these sons Atlas received as his part the regions on the coast of the ocean... " (Ibid.)

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #253 on: December 27, 2008, 10:40:17 pm »

Climate

Paleoclimatology today has a wide variety of methods, including paleobotanic ones, which make it possible to forma fairly clear idea of the climate during the last glaciation. Without describing in detail the distribution of climatic zones in the regions of Europe, I would like to note only that the temperature decreased with distance from the sea and with altitude above the sea level much more steeply than in the present conditions, i.e. the climate on the whole was much more continental (21, 34), and the zones with a moderate sea climate most suitable for habitation were located in the not-too-wide strip of land along the seacoasts. (The climatic conditions of all the other territories were so harsh, that they were not conducive to a settled way of life, which ruled out the very possibility of the development there of such forms of culture that we associate with civilization. That is why the paleolithic settlements discovered by archaeologists, dating to the same period, in no way contradict this hypothesis.)

The climate of the territory in question for a number of reasons must have been extremely favorable.

Firstly, the vast territory in close proximity of the ocean was only slightly elevated above the sea level.

Secondly, the plain was protected from northern winds and the cold influence of the ice sheet covering Scandinavia, exactly as in Plato's narrative, by the mountains, albeit not high, which encircled it.

Thirdly, during the last glaciation a warm current, now known as Gulf Stream - North Atlantic Drift and washing the shores of western and northern Europe, must have washed the shores of the territory in point.

Report Spam   Logged
dhill757
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 3896



« Reply #254 on: December 27, 2008, 10:40:34 pm »

Travelling to the Opposite Continent

For finding the answer to the question of where Atlantis was situated, the passage describing its whereabouts in relation to landmarks other than the Pillars of Hercules is of particular interest:

"...from it [Atlantis] travellers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the whole opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called the ocean." (Tim. 24e-25a)

In Thomas Taylor's translation it reads as follows:

"...and afforded an easy passage to other neighboring islands; as it was likewise easy to pass from those islands to all the continent which borders on this Atlantic sea. For the waters which are beheld within the mouth which we just now mentioned, have the form of a bay with a narrow entrance; but the mouth itself is a true sea. And lastly, the earth which surrounds it is in every respect truly denominated the continent."

The argument about whether America is implied in this passage or not, can be veritably endless. But such a vision of the ocean surrounded by land, is strange, to say the least, for Plato of Greece or even for his imagination. Indeed, Greeks themselves did not know of America. So, this is a serious argument in support of the idea that Plato really possessed some information which had been lost long before his time, and that thanks to him, we have received uniquely ancient recorded information.

The phased character of sailing to the "opposite continent" in itself suggests the idea of the not-too-high level of navigation skills. The manner of action described would be appropriate for the Vikings' voyage to the island of Newfoundland, rather than for Columbus's search of a westward route to India. It is conventionally believed that both ancient Egyptians and the ancient Greeks we know of, sailed the seas on their ships, keeping to the coast and never losing sight of it. The style of ancient geographical descriptions that have reached us, testifies to that - "if you sail along such-and-such a coast in such-and-such a direction for so many days, you'll get to such-and-such a place": so does the fact that no evidence has been found that either Greeks or Egyptians were familiar with the principles of navigation used in sailing the open seas. In my opinion, there are no serious grounds for believing that matters were different as regards Plato's Atlanteans and ancient Athenians.

Taking into account these considerations, we can see that in "Timaeus" a very accurate description is given of the route from the west of Europe to the above-mentioned island of Newfoundland via Iceland, Greenland and smaller islands, which, given a lower sea level, must have been more numerous on the way.

Report Spam   Logged
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 15 16 [17] 18 19 20 21 22 23 ... 25   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy