Atlantis

[Starthane Xyzth]

Or the tale of a lost prehistoric empire may simply be the Ancient Greek equivalent of Star Wars. One can imagine Plato saying: "A long time ago, on a continent far, far away..."

The Greeks loved dramatic fiction and made it a high artform - they may have been the first culture to do so, at least the first to comprehensively record their fiction in a fixed and permanent way. Many of our mass-cultural perceptions and popular images concerning Atlantis are in fact derived from later, and undoubtedly fictional, embellishments in books and movies, where Atlantis is simply a convenient setting for any number of sword and sorcery adventures.

Why shouldn't the underlying setting itself have been equally invented?

 

[terpinator72]

It is also hardly mentioned:

That possibly some of these books/documents written are interpreted as fact, when in fact they were stories meant to be fictional.

how could one tell the difference?

 

[The Devil Inside]

It is also hardly mentioned:

That possibly some of these books/documents written are interpreted as fact, when in fact they were stories meant to be fictional.

how could one tell the difference?

by reading the stories. duh. of course some are fictional. does that mean all of them are?
you cant allow ANYTHING to influence your opinion, can you guys?
sounds to me like a bunch of closed-mindedness.
since you know...we should be trying to discern fact from fiction, why are we making assumptions about the past when none of us were actually there.
atlantis MAY have existed. it may NOT have existed. the point is this: noone here knows. so stop acting like such experts, and acknowledge the fact that some of you MIGHT be ignorant of the truth. i know i do.

 

[Starthane Xyzth]

Well! Excuse US for attempting to fully explore the topic(!) I freely acknowledge that no-one, least of all me, can claim to know the truth behind the Atlantis legend... doesn't stop one theorising.

 

[Ophiolite]

you cant allow ANYTHING to influence your opinion, can you guys?
sounds to me like a bunch of closed-mindedness.
....... so stop acting like such experts, and acknowledge the fact that some of you MIGHT be ignorant of the truth.

In an earlier post I listed three possible identities for Atlantis, noting "The Minoan option is quite well known. The Azores is quite flimsy." I then examined the third option, the Caribbean, providing some plausible evidence. Of this I observed "The evidence is strongly disputed and Heyerdahl's voyages dismissed as irrelevant by many experts, but largely on the grounds that it runs counter to the accepted view. So, not conclusive, but worthy of further consideration."
My post concluded "Plato, certainly used the tale of destruction as a political warning to his contemporaries, but equally he may well have based it upon fact. Atlantis is as mythical as today as Troy was before Schleimann discovered it."

So help me out here Devil, where am I being close minded?

 

[Starthane Xyzth]

So help me out here Devil, where am I being close minded?

As his signature says: he doesn't know.

I think your posts are perfectly intelligent, and most certainly open-minded.

 

[Xylene]

As I understand it, Plato heard about the Atlantis idea when he visited Egypt. The story was doing the rounds there, and he picked it up and took it back to Greece. How long the story had been current in Egypt, I couldn't say. I understand that Plato was told originally that the lost civilisation was located in the Mediterranean, but because of the size of the island of Atlantis, Plato reasoned that it must have been set in the Atlantic Ocean.

However, this much I know is true, in that it's incontestable geological fact. During the coldest period of the last ice age, the world's sealevel was about 130 metres lower than it is now. Look at any map of the Mediterranean, and you'll see that there are many areas which are on the -100 meter bathymetric contour. These islands would be standing about 100 feet out of the water, should the sealevel be reduced to the lowest ice-age levels. Many of them would be visible from the coasts of Europe and Africa, both of which were extended due to the low sealevels. Also, many of the existing islands of the Mediterranean would have been much larger, or combined, or connected to the coast of either Europe or Africa, at the period of lowest sealevel.

Most of these islands would have been inhabited at some stage of their existence. Also, regardless of how quickly the sea advanced at the end of the ice-age, people would have had to retreat from the coasts, and abandon some islands when they disappeared completely. Never mind what happened elsewhere, on the extended coasts of the Americas, Asia or Australasia--there were plenty of islands in the ancient Mediterranean, the disappearance of which could have provided material for any number of stories.

Also stories tend to become exagerated with time and repetition. This is particularly so when the civilisation is seen as some sort of 'Golden Age' that vanished, however suddenly it happened in reality.

 

[SkinWalker]

As I understand it, Plato heard about the Atlantis idea when he visited Egypt.

You apparently haven't read the Timaeus or Critias dialogs. In Timaeus, it is apparent that it was Plato's character "Solon" that visited Egypt, not Plato himself. The only epigraphical source of Atlantis prior to 300 BCE is from Plato, and only in these two dialogs.

From Timaeus:

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable ; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles ; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean ; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits ; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods ; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way ; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

From Critias:

Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them ; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war ; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean.
[...]
And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe.
[...]He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children ; and dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother’s dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest ; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many men, and a large territory.[...]
Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis

These are the only passages that I've noticed that mention "Atlantis," but to get the context of the passages, you'll need to visit these two websites:
http://www.ac-nice.fr/philo/textes/Plato-Works/25-Timaeus.htm
http://www.ac-nice.fr/philo/textes/Plato-Works/26-Critias.htm

It seems very clear that Plato was creating a story or a myth for the purpose of philosophy rather than geography or history. Indeed, the Greek word krissis means "trial" or "judgement" and is the root of the word "critias."

The interesting thing is the mention of the "mud shoal," which does exist past the Strait of Gibralter just in the Atlantic. It is suggested by several geologists, most notably Jaques Collinas-Girard, that this shoal was above sea level following the last glaciation and the Pleistocene up to around 10,000 years ago.

See my discussion on the JC-G vs. GD-M linked in one of my posts in this thread.

In essence, I'm agreeing with much of what you posted, Xylene. I only take issue with the assumption that Plato actually obtained the story from Egypt rather than made it up/improvised it from contemporary (to Plato), oral legend.

 

[Xylene]

My apologies, SkinWalker, I stand corrected. It's been ages since I read those dialogues--about 30 years ago, at least. I misremebered my facts. That said, I will assert that community memory (even if it's only in the form of myth) can last for a long time. However Plato got hold of the story, or whenever he made it up, I suggest that he was using extant myths of the lost lands in the Mediterranean, which had vanished under the rising seas.

As an example of of community memory lasting a very long time, the Australian aborigines have tribal myths of when certain islands were attached to the mainland during a time of lower sealevel. Also, the Irish of the southwest coast have an old legend about the island of Skellig Michael being attached to mainland at some stage in the past. Assuming the story to have some basis in fact, that would only have been true if the sealevel was about 50-60 metres lower than it is today.

 

[Starthane Xyzth]

There are, of course, other mythical islands supposed to have existed in the Atlantic: Avalon, from the Arthurian legend, Hy-Brazil, Groclant etc. and Frisland.
They can't all have been shoals or seamounts exposed in the Pleistocene, because most of the ocean proper is far too deep. Xylene's post about the folkloric ramifications of sea leavel change is very relevent, however...
Here's an earlier thread touching on this subject.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40324&page=1&pp=20

A tamer notion is that Atlantis was actually http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/tara/tara-atlantis.php]Ireland![/URL]