Atlantis from Plato Sight

History - The Lost City of Atlantis
Plato started all the hoopla about the lost city of Atlantis.

Plato
Around 350 BC, Plato wrote about a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean that went under the ocean waves in one day and one night. It took two books to describe the history and details of this almost magical island. For years people have been looking for this mysterious lost city, Atlantis. Plato described Atlantis as a island nation existing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was said to be populated by a great a powerful race and was a center for trace and commerce during that era. The sheer scale of everything he said about Atlantis, from the grandeur of its buildings tot he enormous timescale involved, have provided a controversial debate that has extended for over 10,000 years. Plato claimed to have gotten his information from his family. The fact that Plato would never perpetrate a fraud involving deceased members of his revered family, and the common knowledge that Plato was never known for wholesale fabrication, indicates that Plato indeed told the story as a truthful account of this mysterious civilization.

Living In Atlantis
Plato describes the Atlantians as great engineers and architects. There were palaces, harbors, temples and docks. The capital city was built on a hill and surrounded by rings of water, which were joined by tunnels large enough for a ship to sail through. A huge canal connected the outer rings of water to the ocean. On the outskirts of the capital city there were huge fields where farmers grew the city's food. Past the field there were mountains where wealthy villagers lived. Plato goes great detail about the amazing buildings - complete with hot and cold fountains, shared dining halls and stone walls covered with precious metals. Atlantis was described as being remarkably modern for its day. It was said to have many man-made canals used for navigation and water supply. The people there were very wealthy and had considerable natural resources such as abundant plants and wildlife. Some believe that the inhabitants of Atlantis were even more 'advanced' than our modern civilization (and possibly wiser) contradicting the prevailing view of a slow, steady, linear ascent of human civilization from primitive beginnings to our modern technological society. In fact, some believe that that not all Atlanteans died in their cataclysmic event but rather survived and are the ancestors of all of our modern day 'intelligent' people. Given this belief, all of our modern day technology is simply a rediscovering of the knowledge and information possessed by the Atlantean culture.
Surrealistic tales of Atlantean intelligence propose that they had developed such technologically advanced mechanisms such as time machines, machinery to transport themselves into some sort of altered dimension, futuristic weaponry, and advanced communication devices. Some tales indicate that the Atlanteans had perfected cloning of their powerful race and/or had created intelligent robotic clones of themselves. And some tales tell of a 'alternate Earth' that the Atlanteans periodically visited, possibly by the use of the previously mentioned portal machinery.

Atlantis - Just A Story?
For over two thousand years the story of Atlantis was just a story. Then, in the late 1800s, an American named Ignatius Donnelly became fascinated with the story and wrote a book called Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, which became a bestseller. Ignatius studied flood history from Egypt to Mexico and believed that Plato was recording an actual natural disaster. Since then, several books have been written about the lost city.

Atlantis - Facts And Fiction
The most believable theory about Atlantis came from the Greek archaeologist Angelos Galanopoulos in the late '60s. He theorized that around 1500 BCE, a massive eruption from a volcano ripped apart the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean and probably wiped out most of the civilization on the Greek islands and regions of Greece. Angelos suggested this disaster is the one that sank Atlantis. If this is so, then he must have his dates wrong - or does he? He reasons that when the story was being translated, the Egyptian symbol for 100 (a coiled rope) was mistaken for the symbol for 1000 (a lotus flower). This changes the date from 9000 years ago to 900 years ago. The only thing wrong with this explanation is that Plato specifically said the city was near the Pillars of Hercules, which are thought to be nowhere near Greece.

The Destruction
As time passed, legend has it that as their wealth and knowledge reached unfathomed levels, the people began to falter and become greedy. Some legends tell us that as punishment, the God Zeus pummeled the metropolis and the entire island nation sank into the city killing all of its habitants. Some take a more practical view and believe that an earthquake of great flood destroyed the metropolis ins a single night of terror. Others believe the Atlanteans, reaching unbelievable levels of success, simply self-destructed and destroyed themselves.

Where Could Atlantis Be?
The exact location of the lost city of Atlantis has been questioned by many people, like British Royal Air Force photo interpreter J.M. Allen. He is convinced Atlantis is in Altiplano, near the Andes Mountains, in Bolivia. The famous psychic channeler Edgar Cayce believed the remains would be found off the coast of Florida near Bimini Island. Other people think it's lost somewhere in Central America, the China Sea or Africa. Others believe that Atlantis is nothing more than a myth. Some historians believe that the Atlanteans actually survived their cataclysm and migrated to other places. Common belief is that their migration took them to Egypt where the continued to forge new and innovative methods of technology. This theory concludes that that the great Egyptian marvels, such as the Sphinx and the great Egyptian writings. Others feel that Solon, the supposed family member who originally passed the story on to Plato, may have mistaken Egypt itself for the city of Atlantis.
Some researchers believe that the shifting continents may have displaced Atlantis to a location not nearly as close to the Atlantic Ocean as Plato described. Prevailing evidence using advanced calculations indicates that the lost civilization may indeed lie under the ice of Antarctica.
Bimini Island - possible site of Atlantis (5995 bytes)Other researchers and readings from the infamous Edgar Cayce, indicate that Atlantis may have been located near the Bimini Island in the Bahamas. There is evidence that the Bimini Island may have once been a mountain region with the largest part of the island now submerged beneath the ocean. Cayce believed that Atlantis actually suffered three destructive events. The first destroyed their major power source (what the power source was in not known). The second actually split the islands into 3 separate entities. The third and final catastrophe caused all three of the islands to sink into the sea. Cayce concluded his reading of the City of Atlantis with a warning - between 1958 and 2008 our modern society would be presented with the same opportunities and challenges that the Atlanteans faced. Our response to those challenges may dictate our fate just as it did the Atlanteans.

Map of Atlantis off China Coast (7801 bytes)Probably the most sound scientific explanation of the location of Atlantis places it off the southern coast of China. This location of this site makes if somewhat difficult to study but a general scientific consensus of the world's 'map' around the end of the Ice Age indicates that a great portion of that continent is now located underwater. Depth studies of the region also indicate that there are three areas that are particularly shallow, all being less than 100 meters under the water.

This is the easiest answer - Atlantis is fiction. It was made up to suit the purposes of Plato's dialogues.
For:
Nothing to prove. Timaeus and Critias are simply stories.

Against:
It is stated several times within the dialogues that the story is true and a parts about the impassable sea and the true continent on the other side of Atlantis tend to indicate a more detailed knowledge that a fictional story

Thera & The Minoan Civilization
There are some compelling similarites between the destruction of Thera and the destruction of Atlantis.....
For
* The island of Thera, a volcanic island, was destroyed around 1500 BC by an explosion which caused more than half of the island to sink into the sea.
* Artifacts found on the island indicate a sophisticated culture, probably part of the Minoan Civilization.
* There is evidence pointing to trade between the Minoans and Egyptians. The Egyptians would certainly have been aware of the destruction or at least the tremedous damage done to one of their trading partners.
* We'll examine this possibility in more detail in upcoming issues of Enigma.

Against
* Proponents of this theory claim that Plato's date of 9000 years ago should really have been 900 years ago: somewhere along the line either Solon or Plato made a mistake. If the story was 900 years ago it would place Atlantis in the time frame of the Minoan civilization on Crete and Thera. Conveniently overlooked in this thinking is that in Timaeus the priest tells Solon that ancient Athens and Atlantis preceeded Egypt by a thousand years. Egypt however existed and was known to have existed since long before 1500 BC, the time of Crete and Thera. The times just don't add up unless you assume the Egyptian priest was ignorant of his own recorded history.