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ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean

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dhill757
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« Reply #225 on: December 27, 2008, 10:05:11 pm »

Atlantis
Strange Places: The Lost Contient of Atlantis
Created 7/26/2001 - Updated 11/11/2004 


"There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes. ... Just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with ... requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times ... " (- Plato, 347 B.C. )
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« Reply #226 on: December 27, 2008, 10:06:54 pm »

Why do some believe in the lost continent of Atlantis? The Reasonable Persons' Guide next searches the net for the fabled sunken land mass. Text borrowed from Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev appears light green text. 1

"Atlantis - according to an ancient Greek myth recorded by Plato, there had once existed a vast island in the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Gibraltar, with fertile soil and densely populated, which sank to the bottom of the sea because of an earthquake. Questions of whether Atlantis has ever existed, and if so, why it vanished, today continue to arouse as much controversy among scientists as ever."

 Map Web Sites


Here are a few on line maps you can use to hunt for Atlantis:

Atlapedia, Expedia, Map Quest, MapBlast, National Geographic.

 On The Source

Plato's dialogs "Timæus" and "Critias" (347 B.C.) may or may not be the first texts which refer to Atlantis, but they are most likely the first to spell it that way.Some claim that the Vishnu Purana (2000 B.C.), the oldest of the Hindu Puranas, tells of "Atala", the "White Island" 2 , but other's disagree saying that "Atala" is one of the seven or islands (" dwipas") "belonging to the nether lokas, one of the seven regions of Patala (the antipodes)." 2 Let's hear about Plato first.


Timeaus and Critias entertain Socrates with "not a fiction but a true story" about the conflict between the ancient Athenians and the Atlantians 9000 years before Plato's time.

Plato speaks of Atlantis in two works -dialogues "Timaeus" and "Critias". Dialogue was a genre widely popular in Ancient Greece, in which information or ideas are not narrated by the author himself, but are presented to the reader by two or more interlocutors addressing each other. Such a genre is convenient for presenting differing views on the same subject and, besides, makes it possible to render the experience cited in support of the deliberations, concrete to the utmost. Therefore, the genre of the ancient Greek dialogues should not be seen merely as short-hand records of actual conversations.

In both dialogues the story of Atlantis is told by a person whose name is Critias, who, according to one of the existing viewpoints, was Plato's maternal great grandfather (1). He narrates word for word to Socrates, Timaeus and Hermocrates, staying at his home, the conversation between Solon and an Egyptian priest. In "Timaeus" the issue of Atlantis is raised along with many others, while the unfinished "Critias", in all probability, was to be exclusively devoted to it. Critias also explains how he himself came to hear the story. He heard it from his grandfather whose name was also Critias, who, in turn, had heard it from Solon himself, who had been a close friend of his father, Dropides.

In his conversation with Solon, the priest, referring to the sacred records, speaks of a powerful country, Atlantis, lying outside the Pillars of Hercules, of the beginning of a war between Atlanteans and the citizens of Athens and of a catastrophe which destroyed both, and resulted in Atlantis sinking to the bottom "in a single dreadful day and night".

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« Reply #227 on: December 27, 2008, 10:07:37 pm »


The priest also says how many years have elapsed since - nine thousand years. Besides, "Critias" contains the myth of the origin of the rulers of Atlantis, the description of its geography, architecture and of its social life, all of which suggests the idea of imagination having been used to make up for the lack of information.

There are several viewpoints on when the dialogues actually took place; similarly, debate continues on correlating the participants in the dialogues, with the historical personalities known from other sources. A question is even raised as to whether it is possible that Plato may have depicted himself as Critias's fourth guest, who did not show up for the conversation because of illness (1). But since different answers to these questions can only change the date of the dialogues by about 20 years at the most, it can be assumed that the dialogues took place around the year 425 B.C., as one of the most widespread viewpoints holds (though Plato himself must only have been about 2 years old at the time). Critias-grandson, Plato's great grandfather, was probably about 80 at the time, and he had heard the story about 70 years before (i.e. around the year 495 B.C.), from Critias-grandfather, when the latter was about 90. Since Critias-grandfather had heard it from Solon himself, who belonged to the same generation as his father, it can be reasonably assumed that the conversation between Solon and the Egyptian priest took place around 600-575 B.C.

Thus, it follows that, according to Plato, Atlantis vanished in the middle of the 10th millennium B.C.

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« Reply #228 on: December 27, 2008, 10:07:58 pm »

Keftiu

There is an Egyptian myth similar to Atlantis called "Keftiu" that Koudriavtsev does not mention. Keftiu, was an ancient island nation, an advanced civilization that was the gateway to and ruler of all of the lands to the far west of Egypt (Greece, Libya, and beyond). Egyptian records say that Keftiu was destroyed by the seas in an apocalypse. It is possible that Solon carried the legends of Keftiu to Greece then passed them on to his son and grandson, hence the appearance in Plato's writings.

Ancient records of Keftiu contain a number of similarities to Plato's Atlantis, so he may have been retelling (and renaming) the story of Keftiu.

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« Reply #229 on: December 27, 2008, 10:08:43 pm »

Indonesia


Some say the Egyptian story came from an earlier source, namely, from the Hindus in Punt (now Indonesia). Punt was the Ancestral Land (To-wer), the Island of Fire where the Egyptians originated. The Hindus called the sunken continent "Atala" (or "Atalas"), a name remarkably similar to "Atlas" and "Atlantis".  In Dravida, "the pristine language of Indonesia", the suffixes "tis" or "tiv" are "mountain" or "island". (pronounced "tiw"). Therefore, Keftiu of the Egyptians is from Kap-tiv = "capital island". We can see that both the words "Keftiu" and "Atlantis" have roots in the ancient Indonesian language. Indonesia itself being a sunken continent makes a strong argument that Indonesia is itself Atlantis.
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« Reply #230 on: December 27, 2008, 10:09:12 pm »


According to Prof. Arysio Nunes dos Santos. (arysio@atlan.org) of the Atlantis Homepage www.atlan.org during the last Glacial Period water in the continental glaciers made the sea level 330 to 490 feet lower. The shallow bottom of the South China Sea was completely exposed, forming a vast expanse of continental dimensions. Two of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history, Krakatoa and Tambora have been in Indonesia. As the theory goes, a previous eruption of Krakatoa about 10,000 years ago caused a huge Tsunami that did indeed wipe out Atlantis in one terrible day and night. The resulting black soot covered much of the earth including the glaciers. As black surfaces absorb more heat, this caused the glaciers to melt and the seas to rise, permanently covering Indonesia/Atlantis. Plato also mentions seas that are impossible to navigate. This is true of the South China Sea (Indonesia) today due to kelp forests and would have been true due to muck from the volcanic eruption then.

Another supporting claim is that the distribution of O Blood Types shows a migration from Indonesia to Europe via the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans as in the legends of Celts, the Romans and Greeks. The origin of an O-blooded population may be primeval Indonesia and the sunken lands of the region, possibly the site of Atlantis.

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« Reply #231 on: December 27, 2008, 10:09:58 pm »

Canary Islands



If you follow the belief that Atlantis is the Hindu "Atala" or "Atalas" then the Purana locates Atala geographically on the seventh (heat, or climate) zone. According to Col. Wilford (the translator) this is 24 to 28 degrees North latitude: the same latitude as the Canary Islands just off the North African coast. One of the more famous Indian works called the Mahabharata, contains several accounts of a powerful islandic empire in the Atlantic. In these accounts, the island named Atala sank to the bottom during a horrendous war. Atala, "the White Island," is described as an "island of great splendor," and located in the "Western Ocean" (Santi Parva, Section CCCXXXVII).

 Even more remarkably, there is a circular-shaped capital city (Tripura) as in Plato's account. The famed city, with all its inhabitants, is sent burning to the bottom of the ocean (Karna Parva, Section XXXIII).

As still further support, Atala is said to be inhabited by "white men who never have to sleep or eat". (Santi Parva, Section CCCXXXVII) Herodotus, the Greek historian from 450 B.C. describes a tribe of Atlanteans who "never dream and eat no living thing". (History, Book IV). Finally, the god Poseidon is very much involved in the Atlantis story, and likewise in the Sanskrit accounts Varuna (the Hindu Poseidon) is also very much involved with Atala.

So there you have it. Are any more? Sure!

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« Reply #232 on: December 27, 2008, 10:10:42 pm »

Bermuda Triangle


The Bermuda Triangle, is not really much of a triangle at all. It is supposedly bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, but take a look at the map of major ship and plane disappearances and you can see that it's more of a blob. 

The Bermuda blob shape has also been called the Devil's Triangle and a few other things. ( NEW: See our article on the strange creature known as the Bermuda blob. ) Numerous planes and ships have vanished there without a trace, often in good weather or near a landing site or port. It was named in 1945, after the disappearance of six Navy planes and their crews on December 5, a sunny, calm day with ideal flying conditions. Prior to that scores of ships of all sizes reportedly had vanished in the area. As the theory goes, forces emanating from the unknown ruins of Atlantis are responsible for disrupting the instruments of the craft.

I know of no other reason to connect the Triangle to Atlantis at this time.

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« Reply #233 on: December 27, 2008, 10:11:18 pm »

The Azores


The Azores are a group of islands belonging to Portugal located about 900 miles (1500 km) west of the Portuguese coast. Some believe the islands are the mountain tops of the sunken continent of Atlantis.

 The climate in Northwest Europe changed radically caused by the arrival of the Gulf Stream at around 10,000 B.C. (the end of the last Ice Age). If a big island in the location of the Azores was stopping the gulf stream from hitting Northwest Europe, then it suddenly sank, this would explain the climate change and the tale of Atlantis.

 

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« Reply #234 on: December 27, 2008, 10:13:04 pm »

Thera (Santorini)
 The island of Thera, today an active volcano is also known as Santorini. It is located due north of Crete in the Aegean Sea. Thera's eruption in 1,650 B.C. was one of the largest (VEI=6) in the last 10,000 years.



The devastating volcanic explosion may have contributed to the sudden downfall of the Minoan civilization. If the Egyptians read the story in the Minoan language called "Linear A" they might have easily confused the symbol for 100 and the one used for 1000 introducing an error factor of 10. This would put the destruction of Atlantis at 900 year instead of 9000 years before Plato and it would then coincide with the eruption of Thera.

The Minoans could have been advanced and feared enough at the time to have the myth created, but Thera is not large enough to coincide with the story. Also there is no sinking involved, just an eruption.

 Antarctica

The key to this theory is that Antarctica used to be temperate but switched to a more frozen climate due to tectonic plate shifting which occurs every couple thousand of years. This explains Plato's description of a large continent bigger than Asia and Libya and it matches original size described and coastal description of Plato's original map. This also fits with other conspiracy theories regarding Antarctica and it explains why no one has found it. On the minus side, geologists do not believe the earth's crust has or ever could shift that much. Therefore, there would be no way for Antarctica to have been in the Atlantic ocean or for the story to reach Egypt and later Greece. Also, there is no satellite evidence or first person evidence of anything existing in Antarctica...yet.

Now back to Koudriavtsev's work ...

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« Reply #235 on: December 27, 2008, 10:14:23 pm »

Phenomenon Of Atlantis


Hardly anyone in the world knows exactly how many books have been written about Atlantis by the proponents and opponents of the idea that it existed once in the past. Those who have attempted to count them, come up with widely diverging, albeit invariably four-digit numbers. I, for one, have seen bibliographies containing over 500 titles. No doubt, the topic of Atlantis could claim its place among he best-selling topics of the current century.

The special attention that Plato's narration about Atlantis gets can be accounted for by the fact that the country described in "Timaeus" and "Critias" does not fit in with our present-day ideas of the history of humanity, and the date of its vanishing, as recorded by Plato, goes back to unprecedentedly early times. If we treat this narration as trustworthy, a new and more comprehensive model of the history of mankind's development is essential. The idea seems attractive to many, in view of the numerous blank spots and contradictions in the existing concept of the history of humanity (for instance, such as the vast span of time between the emergence of an anatomically modern Homo Sapiens and the development of the first civilizations, the dating of which, by the way, is receding into the past, coming ever closer to the time when Atlantis existed according to the dialogues, as new archaeological data emerge), all the more so, that the text which could bring about a revision of the existing model is authored by Plato, who stands with Socrates and Aristotle as one of the shapers of the whole intellectual tradition of the West.

At the same time, most scholars believe that Plato's narrative about Atlantis stands by itself, that it is not directly corroborated or indirectly echoed by anything, and in itself does not give sufficient grounds for such a revision. The mention of Atlantis by the ancient historian Diodor of Sicily in his "Historical Library" is not considered by most scholars to constitute a reliable cross-reference, since it was made three centuries after Plato, whose works Diodor must have been familiar with.

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« Reply #236 on: December 27, 2008, 10:14:41 pm »

Regrettably, most of the Atlantis enthusiasts are swayed by emotions, and this lures them away from the commitment to scientific correctness. Many researchers into the issue have been engaged in searching for, and making a collection of, similarities in the material culture and languages of the peoples of the Old and the New Worlds, but their finds make it possible to pose some questions rather than give well-substantiated answers to them. The more ardent enthusiasts even claim that they have found in the epos (? -Xeno) of many peoples of the world what they call "direct indications" of the Atlantean descent of these peoples. Deluded by wishful thinking, they often fall prey to perverted logic: "If the 'Belt of Pyramids' exists, it follows that Atlantis also existed in reality."

If we add to the above-listed that the topic of Atlantis has long been attracting un diminishing interest of mystics and occultists of all stripes, UFOlogists and other people like that, who would like to indulge in their fantasies of the "Mystical Crystals of Atlanteans" or of the secret storage places of Atlanteans' bodies in Tibet, it becomes clear why the problem has virtually become something of a scientific curiosity and is only suitable for another film about the adventures of Doctor Indiana Jones. This is the reason why even if scientific data coming to light as time goes by, are interpreted in the context of Atlantis, as a rule, it is done in a biased way and has little in common with a balanced scientific approach.

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« Reply #237 on: December 27, 2008, 10:15:05 pm »

Fact or Fiction? Viewpoints

Without claiming to present an exhaustive survey of the existing viewpoints on the issue, I would like to list only the ones I believe to be the most widespread.

* Some believe that Atlantis is Plato's invention from beginning to end, which he needed to expound his ideas of an ideal state.

* Others, who do not consider Plato's narration to be an invention, persevere in trying to interpret it in a way which would make it possible to link it with the already explored archaeological sites. Thus, some of them contend that none other than the island of Crete is Plato's Atlantis, claiming also that Greeks used the name of the Pillars of Hercules, mentioned by Plato, not for what is now called the Strait of Gibraltar, but for some rocks which were situated on the way from Athens to Crete. Given such an interpretation, it becomes imperative for them to bring the date of the vanishing of Atlantis given by Plato, in line with the time of the decline of the Minoan civilization, established by archaeologists, and link it to the explosion of Thera/Santorin.

Hence, rise is given to the hypothesis that the span of time between the vanishing of Atlantis and the conversation between Solon and the priest is actually 10 times shorter, and that the mistake was made either when Egyptian priests were copying the sacred records (it is suggested that the characters denoting 100 and 1000 in the Egyptian system of writing are alike) or because Plato himself, like all his contemporaries, had little sense of time and dating. The same thesis of a mistake of multiplication by ten is used by the proponents of the Cretan Atlantis as regards the dimensions of the island, for the numbers Plato gives in "Critias" do not quite fit in with their theory, to put it mildly. Similar arguments are used to substantiate a variety of hypotheses, including some according to which Atlantis was situated not even in the Mediterranean Sea, but in the Sea of Marmaraor the Black Sea.

* Yet others, fervently believing in the truthfulness of the information provided by Plato, rush to search for Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. They have already announced, at different times, that the Azore, Canary and Bahama Islands, as well as some other more or less suitable ones, are the remains of Plato's sunken island. They also like to juggle with suggestions of mistakes in the numerals as regards the dimensions of Atlantis.

Let us endeavor to analyze once again Plato's narration, comparing its basic elements and their interpretations with some fairly credible facts, and try to formulate one more hypothesis, which, in my opinion, hardly has more weak points, vulnerable to criticism, than the already existing ones.

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« Reply #238 on: December 27, 2008, 10:15:34 pm »

Plato's Invention?

First of all, it is highly doubtful that Plato would have had to invent Atlantis to expound his ideas of an ideal state system, - indeed, he had previously expounded them more than once in his other works, without any geographical hoaxes.

Secondly, in "Timaeus" itself there already exists - and is actively used by Plato - an object only too suitable for setting forth utopian concepts - the pre-historic Athens, so the supposition that Plato needed to invent specifically for the purpose a second, let alone such an exotic one as Atlantis, seems rather far-fetched.

Thirdly, it is not clear how the assumption that under the name of Atlantis Plato depicted an ideal state, correlates with the fact that in "Critias" none other than Plato himself had already exposed the "degeneration" and decline that preceded the vanishing of Atlantis.

And fourthly, the explanation of how the information of Atlantis came to Plato's notice, does not seem to contain logical contradictions, which in itself enhances its credibility. It also sounds convincing that events of such ancient history are narrated to Solon by none other than an Egyptian priest, and the way he explains why Greeks had lost their historical memory.


"You are all [Greeks] young in mind," came the reply: "you have no belief rooted in old tradition and no knowledge hoary with age. And the reason is this. There have been and will be many different calamities to destroy mankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, lesser ones by countless other means...

But in our temples we have preserved from earliest times a written record of any great or splendid achievement or notable event which has come to our ears whether it occurred in your part of the world or here or anywhere else; whereas with you and others, writing and the other necessities of civilization have only just been developed when the periodic scourge of the deluge descends, and spares none but the unlettered and uncultured, so that you have to begin again like children, in complete ignorance of what happened in our part of the world or in yours in early times...

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« Reply #239 on: December 27, 2008, 10:17:52 pm »


You remember only one deluge, though there have been many, and you do not know that the finest and best race of men that ever existed lived in your country; you and your fellow citizens are descended from the few survivors that remained, but you know nothing about it because so many succeeding generations left no record in writing". (Tim. 22d-23c)

Of course, the archaeological data on which modern ideas of the past of humanity are based, is vast. But the history of Earth has seen a lot of natural cataclysms of enormous proportions, and we cannot completely discard the possibility that the historical memory of humanity has indeed been curtailed, due to the destruction of material evidence by a catastrophe more violent than the ones we know of in the so-called "historical time". (Just imagine what the picture of life on Earth in the 19th century would have looked like a thousand years later, if both Europe and North America had been erased from the face of Earth by some catastrophe.)

In my opinion, the most serious argument in favor of the assumption that Atlantis had not been invented by Plato, is that the time when it vanished, as indicated by Plato, and the circumstances of its vanishing described by him (the sinking into the deep of the sea) coincide with the data which, no doubt, were inaccessible to Plato, on the time of the end of the last Ice Age and a substantial rise of the level of the World Ocean that accompanied it.

http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000958;p=5

http://www.xenophilia.com/zb0011.htm
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