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On the Trail to Atlantis 570

Posted by CowboyNeal from the oh-it's-a-wet-one dept.
Bifurcati writes "Scientists claim to have found the lost city of Atlantis, off the coast of Cyprus. They apparently have used sonar to detect the sunken landmass, and even identify geographical features. They seem confident, but all the same, I wouldn't go buying Atlantian artifacts on Ebay just yet."
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On the Trail to Atlantis More

On the Trail to Atlantis

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  • Predicted (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:27AM (#9016655)
    I don't believe it: Atlantis was predicted to be found in 2012!

    • Re:Predicted (Score:4, Informative)

      by mcx101 ( 724235 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:12AM (#9017124)

      I don't believe it: Atlantis was predicted to be found in 2012!

      And people have searched for it and failed for centuries. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned from that ;-)

      "Scientists claim to have found the lost city of Atlantis, off the coast of Cyprus"

      I thought that the popular theory was that Atlantis was actually in Antarctica. Antarctica once had a tropical climate, and there are remains of tropical rainforests there today.

      • Re:Predicted (Score:5, Funny)

        by mcx101 ( 724235 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:14AM (#9017132)

        Just a link to back up that comment about Antarctica here [pravda.ru].

      • Re:Predicted (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rjelks ( 635588 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:53AM (#9017507) Homepage
        I have a feeling that in 10 to 20 years Atlantis will be just as real as Troy. People searched for that imaginary city for years too. Many mythical cities have turned into fact. I wonder if that would get people interested in archeology for a day or two. Maybe they'll do a Fox special on it. :)

        • Re:Predicted (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Danious ( 202113 )
          Actually, the best theory I've read is by a German geoarchaeologist called Eberhard Zanegger in his book "The Future of the Past", where he identified Atlantis as really being Troy, distorted through the myths of time. When you read both Aristotle and Homer side-by-side, the parallels are striking.

          John.

      • Re:Predicted (Score:3, Interesting)

        by be951 ( 772934 )
        If Antartica was ice-free (or mostly so) a few hundred years ago, why wasn't sea level dozens or hundreds of feet higher? Some Antarctica facts [house.gov]. That water/ice had to be somewhere. Another relevant fact, "Antarctica represents about 9 percent of Earth's continental crust and has been in a near-polar position for more than 100 million years".

        Near cyprus makes more sense to me. Even the theory that Cuba [cdnn.info] is the remains of Atlantis [mysterious-america.net]sounds more plausible than Antarctica.

    • Re:Predicted (Score:5, Interesting)

      by __aatgod8309 ( 598427 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:18AM (#9017141)
      Actually, 2012 is the year the Mayan calendar's cycle ended, which has been picked up as the date for the end of the world by some. (Personally my money's on Atlantis being located beneath the antarctic - google for 'charles hapgood crustal displacement' sometime)

      • Re:Predicted (Score:5, Funny)

        by Lev13than ( 581686 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:37AM (#9017427) Homepage
        Actually, 2012 is the year the Mayan calendar's cycle ended, which has been picked up as the date for the end of the world by some.

        Oh great - now we're going to have to deal with eight years of Y2.012K-inspired panic. You know the hype... "the Pyramid of Uxmal will stop working", "the Tzolkin calendar will start giving the wrong dates for crop planting". About the only upside is that there's going to be a massive run on glyph carvers to make the necessary updates.

      • Re:Predicted (Score:4, Informative)

        by RickHunter ( 103108 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:42AM (#9017925)

        Indeed. Having done some digging on this, the Mayans apparently had an incredibly stupid calendar system. Instead of using the concept of "zero as a placeholder" to get infinite years (which I believe they had discovered), they just kept adding more "layers" (like our days/weeks/months/years) on top. The uppermost cycle is only the uppermost because their civilization collapsed before they got to wrap the counter and add another layer on top.

      • Re:Predicted (Score:3, Informative)

        by Idarubicin ( 579475 )
        Personally my money's on Atlantis being located beneath the antarctic - google for 'charles hapgood crustal displacement' sometime

        Done. It seems to be bunk [skrause.org]. Hapgood suggested that Antarctica shifted through thirty degrees of latitude over a period of centuries(!) He was a historian by training who dabbled in geology, and quite frankly he got it wrong.

        All the evidence we have indicates that tectonic shifts can run up to inches or feet per year--miles per year for centuries is definitely unreasonable.

    • What makes this guy so sure he's found Atlantis and not Ry'leh [cthulhu.org]?

  • StarGate (Score:3, Funny)

    by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:28AM (#9016658) Homepage Journal
    I thought SG-1 discovered Atlantis? BTW: I think this is my first post as a "first" post!

  • Cool. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rolo Tomasi ( 538414 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:31AM (#9016666) Homepage Journal
    Just be careful with those Orichalcum beads.

  • I need more info! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jin Wicked ( 317953 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:32AM (#9016669) Homepage Journal

    This is interesting... I have heard other explanations [unmuseum.org] for Atlantis... but the best one I've heard was on a Discovery channel (I think) special a few weeks ago. Apparently there is an island in the Meditterranean that was highly volcanic at one point, and kind of imploded on itself and caused massive tidal waves and such in the area... I think there's evidence in the surrounding area, but at the time of the documentary they hadn't managed to explore the crater yet. There was news of a rather advanced civilzation there for the time; running water, indoor plumbing, the kind of thing that would be rare in the ancient world -- not spaceships or anything. I tried to find an article on it online, but didn't come up with anything. I wonder if these news items are related (it seemed a very recently made documentary). The articles are rather light on info. Anyone else see this thing or know what I'm talking about? It could've been on one of the History channels too, because I watch those about 90% of the time.

    • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jin Wicked ( 317953 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:34AM (#9016679) Homepage Journal

      Oooh... it was bugging me, so I looked some more; this isn't from the documentary but I'm pretty sure they're talking about the same place:

      http://www.aarp.org/destinations/Articles/a2002-05 -22-destinations_santorini.html [aarp.org]

      • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Informative)

        by soricine ( 576909 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:25AM (#9016844)
        The island in question is Thera (Santorini), which is indeed highly volcanic and still active. From memory, in the late sixties some guy Spiro Marinatos (or something) decided that this had to be Atlantis, because it is comprised of two concentric rings (the rims of the craters). He spent all his money doing sonar profiles of the lagoon, and began excavations on the main island where he uncovered the Cycladic/Minoan town of Akrotiri (a very important site in Aegean archaeology. He argued that Akrotiri was a part of Atlantis, and that Minoan Crete was a province or outlier of this major centre. Not many archaeologists take this seriously.

        Undeniably, the Theran eruption was catastrophic (something like Krakatoa), and around about 1600BC. On Crete, the tidal surge shifted huge stone blocks on the coast. However, the decline of Minoan civilisation is difficult to date (and the source of notoriously vigorous debate amongst archaeologists). The Theran eruption is not generally considered to have marked the catastrophic end of the Minoans. Makes a good Discovery channel story though.

        Atlantis was a didactic figure composed by Plato in order to contrast the civic values of Athens. It's hard to imagine that Plato didn't have his tongue in his cheek when he claimed to have the story third hand from some guy who knew some guy who had heard the story in exotic Egypt.

        Hope Mr Sarmast enjoys his boat ride.

        • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Informative)

          by Sique ( 173459 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:35AM (#9017045) Homepage
          After being to the site of Akrotiri, I have to say: The town of Akrotiri has been destroyed by the volcano several times and rebuilt again and again. Curiously the last findings show wellpreserved walls with beautiful paintings, large storage areas with amphores filled with crops, but no money, no jewels, no dead men and only a small amount of tools. All the buildings are about the same age and have been buried only a few years after they were built. All this is nice for the tourists, but rather disappointing for the archaeologists, because money is a quite good base to set up a timeline and find out about trading routes, and tools are some of the most important things to tell about the niveau of knowledge in a society and to determine cultural roots and relations to other cultures.

          So the theory goes this: When Akrotiri finally was covered by the volcanic outbreak in 1600 BC, the really big bang that destroyed the island was already history, and the people were already in progress to rebuilt it, thus all buildings are about the same age. It was not inhabited anymore. It was a ghost town, where the inhabitants went away before the next outbreak which seemed to be near, taking with them only the things they could carry: Tools, money, jewels, and the animals which could walk on their own. It seems that the last outbreak of the volcano had told them a lesson, and the people of Akrotiri were prepared.

          So if Thera/Santorini was the site of the legendary Atlantis, then all the ancient wisdom the Atlanteans possessed hasn't been lost, but spread around by the people fleeing Akrotiri. So either Thera wasn't Atlantis at all, or the famous Atlantean wisdom wasn't lost by the destroying of their home, but it influenced stronger than before the surrounding settlements and ancient towns.

        • Re:I need more info! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Darkman, Walkin Dude ( 707389 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:24AM (#9017365) Homepage

          Yes but has anyone here heard of the Piraeus map? It apparently comes from the middle ages, and is a depiction of an unknown landmass...

          Its only in the last century that we can discern that the map is, in fact, very similar to Antarctica, only without the ice!

          Someone was talking about it being closer to the equator about 10,000 years ago too. Not that the continent slipped or anything, but that the earth rolled a little, and dropped it south. The massive flooding and earthquakes this would cause explain many a creation myth, also, and the uncanny similarity of same between diverse cultures. The earth rolling may be a bit of a stretch, but sure the entire monstrous mass rotates completely every 24 hours... is it really that far fetched?

          Sorry if I'm a bit light on details, but I haven't had my coffee yet this morning...

          • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:36AM (#9017853) Homepage
            Couple details:

            The Piri Reis Map was drawn in 1513 by a Turkish admiral. The interesting thing is that on the map he describes how his map was created by piecing together and copying 20 much older maps, some going back to ancient Egypt.

            The US Navy map bureau's chief engineer analyzed the map, agreed it was highly accurate, and agreed that the coast line at the bottom could only be the land mass of Antarctica. That coast has been completely obscured by ice for 6000 years.

            Unfortunately, the crackpots have given the word "Atlantis" and the search for very ancient advanced cultures a bad name. I want every smart scientific person on Slashdot to take a long look at the map linked below. The information on that map contradicts every mainstream history book. There's a lot more to the story of human civilization than we currently understand.

            A good picture and story about the map [sacred-texts.com]

            -B

            • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Informative)

              by julesh ( 229690 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @10:26AM (#9018382)
              There's a detailed discussion of the Piri Reis map here [virgilio.it] which shows these claims are almost certainly false.
              • That's a well written piece. I liked it, but the author makes a giant mistake. He repeatedly overlays the Piri Reis map with modern maps to show how wrong it is. The modern maps he uses are standard Mercator projection maps. Mercator was a child when Piri Reis drew his map. The maps Piri Reis copied used a strange type of projection involving spherical trigonometry (which was not "invented" until the 1700s) and were centered around Alexandria, Egypt. Obviously the two maps will look different.

                -B

          • Re:I need more info! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:59AM (#9018068) Homepage

            Piri Reis' map,

            Sorry to burst bubbles here, but it ain't no antarctica without ice. Piri Reis only drew the coast of South America a bit weirdly.

            Here's [bermuda-triangle.org] a good commentary on the matter, with pictures and discussion.

            Here's a writeup [everything2.com] about it. There's also My writeup [everything2.com] on Buache map, which is a simiar "Antarctica without ice" story.

          • Re:I need more info! (Score:3, Informative)

            by STrinity ( 723872 )
            Yes but has anyone here heard of the Piraeus map? It apparently comes from the middle ages, and is a depiction of an unknown landmass...

            Its only in the last century that we can discern that the map is, in fact, very similar to Antarctica, only without the ice!

            The supposed Antarctica on the Piri Reis map is located around southern Brazil and conjoins South America. The more likely explanation is that either Reis ran out of room and warped the coast, or misinterpretted the maps he was using in his work.

        • Re:I need more info! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [orpxnyl]> on Friday April 30, 2004 @12:20PM (#9019641)
          "Atlantis was a didactic figure composed by Plato in order to contrast the civic values of Athens. It's hard to imagine that Plato didn't have his tongue in his cheek when he claimed to have the story third hand from some guy who knew some guy who had heard the story in exotic Egypt."

          That "some guy" was Solon the Great. He was not "some guy." Solon learned of the story from Egyptian priests, and the Egyptians claimed Atlantis fell 9,000 years before them. If you look at the speculative timeline to when Antartica wasn't completely covered in ice, the time jives. The only "Puff Daddy" remixing Plato did to the "story" was that he added the part about the Atlanteans being defeated by the ancient Athenians when Atlantis tried conquering the city and Zeus punished them for it by destroying their continent.

          You ever wonder why the ancient peoples of the Middle East all share a common "flood" myth? Did you bother to check out the Mayan's own origin myths? They [the Mayans] claimed their ancestors fled in boats from a continent to their east that sunk. I'll refuse to raise the von Daniken card about how the Egyptians and Mayans both had pyramids and advanced astronomy skills, but the Atlantis "myth" ties up the loose ends rather easily.

          As for Santorini and the Minoans being the Atlanteans, that theory still receives a passing reference in college courses. My ancient history professor (who is Greek) mentioned it, but he took more pride in the fact that an ancient Greek people [the Minoans] invented the flush toilet thousands of years before Mr. John Crapper.

          • On what basis should we conclude that Plato was making stuff up when he added to the Atlantis story, but that Solon "the great" and the Egyptian Priests he got the story from were telling the truth or something like it?

            And what does being called "the great" have to do with anything? There's tons of fancy gentlemen with fancy titles who are asshats just the same. Plato may have thought Solon was all that, but simply throwing out that he was called "the great" doesn't really do anything to make him other th

      • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:49AM (#9016914)
        Yeah, the old Santorini hypothesis, which still suffers from the same problems, the most glaring of which is that it's called "Atlantis" because its suppose to have been located in. . . wait for it. . .The Atlantic ocean. If it were to be found in the Med it would have been called Mediteris or something.

        Then there's the fact that Plato made it up as a morality tale to scare little children into becoming good little Platonists. It stands to reality as does Geo. Washington's dad's fictitious ex-cherry tree, which there's also no point in going out to look for.

        Nevermind, we can treat it as another Troy if you like, just so long as I'm not expected to invest in the company.

        Everytime someone finds some lumpy sort of thing under the water they immediately start yelling "Atlantis!" whether it actually otherwise conforms to the tale or not. Well, there may well be more than one old city under the water here and there. I'll bet there's hundreds of them, and worth an archeological investigation, but if you find one off the coast of Guam, well, I'm sorry Sparky, that ain't Atlantis.

        "Hey, you won't believe it. I found an unknown '62 Ferrari 250 GTO in an old barn. I'm going to be rich and famous!"

        "Ummmmmmmm, to tell you the truth, dude, it looks rather like a '62 Rambler to me."

        "No, no, look, see, it's got wheels, four of them, and it's front engine-RWD, and a hard top, and like everything."

        "Yeah, but it says "Rambler" on it."

        "Look, if all you're going to do is stand around and nitpick minor differences when I've shown that it corresponds to the image of a 250 GTO in all major details you can just STFU, 'K?"

        KFG

    • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WhiteBandit ( 185659 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:41AM (#9016704) Homepage
      Yup... I caught the very end of it mainly cause I was flipping through the channels and a scene with volcanoes caught my eye. Needless to say I stayed on that channel. :)

      The ancient civilization that they were talking about was the Minoans, who lived on Crete. At least their claims of finding evidence of a civilization make sense. However, whether or not the Minoans were the inhabitants of the fabeled Atlantis is another debate entirely.

    • Re:I need more info! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mkavanagh ( 641055 )
      Santorini. I've been there, and I've seen what remains and has been excavated of the (now underground) city. IIRC it was a part of the advanced Minoan civilisation of Crete, which disappeared for no apparent reason. I guess the economic and environmental damage caused by a volcanic event like this could go some way towards an explanation, but I don't really remember the history too well..since I was only about 7 when I went :)

      http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images/santor ini.jpg [nasa.gov]

      see that island?

    • more info here (Score:5, Informative)

      by snooo53 ( 663796 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:51AM (#9016925) Journal
      I know for a fact the Minoans had a very advanced civilization well over a thousand years before Plato's time, including running water, A/c, etc.. I think this is what you were referring to when you mentioned the volcano, which happened around 1500BC. If that's true, the advanced civilization really not that suprising considering their proximity to Crete (where the minoans were mainly).

      As I was writing this I found a good general overview site for Alantis which is a lot more readable than the wikipedia link. Atlantis Info [unmuseum.org] Apparently the website was listed as one of the 50 best science sites by pop sci magazine, so despite it's conspiracy theory-esque look, it seems to be a credible source.

    • Re:I need more info! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by misterpies ( 632880 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:28AM (#9017173)

      I have an even better explanation: it never existed. The main "source" for Atlantis is a description by Plato - a philosopher, not a historian. He was probably using it as a metaphor for his ideas on government. There might have been legends about it before, but there are plenty of legendary places that never existed - or if they did exist, bear little actual resemblance to the legend. There are enough known "lost" civilisations that could have given rise to such a myth without having to invent a large island that sank below the waves.

      If I was this guy, I'd put off looking for Atlantis until they've found the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If he's looking to kill time, he can always join the search for Noah's ark...

    • Re:I need more info! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by anshil ( 302405 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:28AM (#9017384) Homepage
      Argh why do people keep believing atlantis is an island? It was NOT. It was a coast.

      Plato made some errors in the translation, for one example the ten-fold error, he datet antlantis 10.000 years in the past, that cannot be, this would put it rightous into the young stone-age or so.

      The biggest error when translating the Egyptian legends was the error of the island, in ancient Egyptian the word for island and coast is the same. So it could and was likely to be just a coast.

      And beeing a coast atlantis could have been anywhere, it's likely that the Egyptians descriped as Atlantis a place Plato was infact very familiar with, just not realizing they ment Greece after all. Dough!

      Or it also very likely they ment the Persian culture, which has been cultural and technical at that times far ahead.

      http://www.crystalinks.com/atlantistheories.html

  • Indiana Jones (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zarhan ( 415465 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:32AM (#9016673)
    As long as they are not going to find bunch of Oricalcum beads and start converting themselves to higher beings (or making nuclear bombs), good luck for them..

    But the first thing I thought when I saw the news was the good adventure game [adventurecollective.com] by Lucasarts game.

  • Claimed? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CleverNickedName ( 644160 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:32AM (#9016674) Journal
    Doesn't Disney already have rights to the place?

  • let me get this straight (Score:5, Funny)

    by chegosaurus ( 98703 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:33AM (#9016675) Homepage
    They've found Atlantis, and Linux is set to overtake Windows within three years?

  • I'll believe it when I see it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:34AM (#9016678)
    "Scientists" are also planning a trip up Mount Ararat to take photos of "Noah's Ark." I'd like a little verification that there ever WAS an Atlantis first.

    Greek legend holds about as much proof for me as the Bible does proof there was a Noah's Ark, btw.

    • Not so fast (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:26AM (#9016847)
      They also said that about Shlieman until he found Troy and Mycenae, and Arthur Evans until he excavated Knossos and rubbed it under the archeological establishments noses. The latest example is Frank Goddio who's discoveries in Egypt of the sunken city of Herakleion [bbc.co.uk] seem set to make some archeologists and historians eat crow. The point of this little lecture is that sometimes these guys actually get it right and anybody who ridiculed them ends usp looking very, very, dumb. In light of what happened to Herakleion and other sunkens cities found in the around the world it must be considered quite possible that (once you strip away all the modern new age crap about Aliens) the 'Atlantis' legend is based on a real event just like the events of the Illiad and the most convincing location for 'Atlantis' that has been suggested so far is the Mediterranean.

      • Re:Not so fast(long, poss tedious) (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kegster ( 685608 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:41AM (#9017059) Homepage
        Yeah, an awful lot of people back then were made to look very silly when Schliemann found the Tell that is reckoned to have been Troy (it might not have been though, there is no way to know for sure until we find the fuck off great big "Welcome to Troy" sign in the outskirts, which is unlikely to happen, given the techniques of Schliemann and those that followed him[1]). The tale of Atlantis does seem to be partly based on fact and partly allegorical, so there is some basis to the tale, as Plato got the tale from Aristotle, IIRC, who got the story from the Egyptian records. However Plato's Atlantis probably bears as much similarity to the "real" Atlantis as More's Utopia or Butler's Erewhon have to any real world location. The Santorini Hypothesis seems, to me, to be the most likely hypothesis, being the straw that broke the camels back and finally destabilised the trading circle of Mycenae, Minos, the Egytians and the Hittites. Given that the Minoans had been in decline for a long time before hand the eruption probably managed to finish off what remnants were left, and the loss of this trading partner dealt a fatal blow to the Myceneans(thus starting the Greek Dark Ages) and the Hittites. The Egyptians, being the only one of these civilisations to avoid a decline and survive until classical times, and also being anal retentive records keepers, would have recorded these events. Given that the Santorini event would have sent waves all the way to the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, it is not inconceivable that they would have conflated the freak waves with the sudden breakdown of their trading network, thus a civilisation sinking beneath the waves. Plato's Atlantis was pretty much made up, and the reason that he located it in the Atlantic rather than the Med is because, to the Greeks and even the Romans, the Atlantic was the edge of the world, so halfway between this world and the next, a suitable setting for the unlikeliest things to occur (see many Roman quotes about their then new colony of Britannia), so any "evidence" contained in Platos account of Atlantis is tenuous at best, as he was not telling a story to entertain and tell of the great deed of the Heroes of Old, as Homer was (oral traditions and epics such as that often have some basis in fact, such as the Irish epics and the Epic of Gilgamesh), he was telling the story to make a philosophical point, just like the rest of his dialogues. Oh, and to the spods who ask why it is called Atlantis if it was not in the Atlantic, its simple, the ocean was named for the place in the story rather than the other way round. I, personally, suspect that Sarmast is either another Von Daniken (a scummy chancer fleecing the fuckwits) or Berlitz(who is so full of shit that its surprising he hasn't had a rectal prolapse), but, without reading his Book(why no peer reviewed scientific paper I wonder, Schliemann submitted his shit for review, even though most people thought he was nuts), I couldn't conclusively try to blow him out of the water.
        • Yeah, an awful lot of people back then were made to look very silly when Schliemann found the Tell that is reckoned to have been Troy (it might not have been though, there is no way to know for sure until we find the fuck off great big "Welcome to Troy" sign in the outskirts, which is unlikely to happen, given the techniques of Schliemann and those that followed him[1]).

          The tale of Atlantis does seem to be partly based on fact and partly allegorical, so there is some basis to the tale, as Plato got the tal

    • Re:I'll believe it when I see it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by condensate ( 739026 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:32AM (#9016864)

      Another example of how you can creatively waste government funding for your personal projects. Atlantis is not even legend or mythology. Besides not even supposed to lie anywhere near Cyprus (rather in the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name...), Plato's Critias an Timaios are the only two dialogues that mention the island. It could very well be that the island never existed at all and was a construct of a philosopher designed for exemplification. Noah's ark however was designed to show why there is only a given number of animals surviving and perhaps it was used to explain dinosaur bones found at the time? Don't know exactly. But proof there will never be, since any old tree on ararat could be a remainder of the ark, and so could any stone that sunk when on cyprus they had a temple standing on the outmost rock over water, and that rock just broke off...

      The point I want to make is that absolute proof does only exist in mathematics. Any other discipline is strongly affected by personal beliefs, as the above example shows, where the scientists not even think about Plato's location of all this. Proof stands in the way of faith, and to some people, it is just not understandable that this island with all the peaceful people on it could well be the brainchild of a brilliant mind.The problem now is that some scientists are in desperate need for money (because of their very special opinions probably). So they claim to have found something that everyone knows about, yet too little to be able do doubt the claim (Atlantis, Noah...) and therefore get today's headlines.

      One has to be very careful with such pieces of information. They are not meant to be informative in any way, they are just here to be read and nothing more.

  • Of cause (Score:2, Funny)

    by S3D ( 745318 )
    They were using zero-point energy powered flying submarine Aurora-X to locate it. They also located ancient underwater nazy base destroyed by UFO crash nearby.

  • Too vague (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alcoyotl ( 157542 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:36AM (#9016686) Homepage Journal
    All I seem to find on this guy is links to buy his book on his "discovery". Great for him. What's his background ? What are those scientific clues he's talking about ? This all seem too vague to be taken as granted right now. Besides, there are so many theories [atlan.org] about Atlantis that it'll take more than that to convince me...

  • Better article (Score:5, Informative)

    by HolyCoitus ( 658601 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:37AM (#9016688)
    Article from the Guardian with more details [guardian.co.uk]

    Personally, I don't see this turning into much. Claims like this have been made before, without much coming of it. The details are short, which is generally not a good sign for something like this.

  • Can't believe this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:44AM (#9016716)
    According to Plato, Atlantis can be found westward of the "Heracles columns", Gibraltar. Atlantis location should be somewhere in the atlantic ocean, probably near Cuba.

    • Sea-level rises and submerged islands (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cjellibebi ( 645568 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:33AM (#9017040)
      About 10000 years ago, this planet was just ending it's ice-age. This meant that a lot of the sea-water was frozen into the expanded polar ice-caps. According to calculations, sea-levels at that time were about 100 metres below what they are today. With such a huge rise in sea-levels, it is inevitable that whole islands would be submerged under the sea.

      Plato's work refers to the location of Atlantis as beyond the "The Pillars of Hercules" which is now known as the strait of Gibraltar. This is the gateway between the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic ocean. This of course is quite far from Cyprus. According to measurements of the bottom of the sea, if the sea-level dropped by 100 metres, a new archipelago of islands would be exposed just beyond the straits of Gibraltar. This is a probable location for Atlantis.

      As for the civilisation being more advanced, that could have been because they were on an island that was cut off from the mainland which was infested with barbarians. The islanders could then develop their technology in peace. Seeing that the story took place some 9000 years ago, even 7000 year old technology would seem advanced to outsiders. When the flood came, either everyone on the island drowned, or those that escaped did not manage to establish their advanced civilisation on the mainland (those pesky barbarians again).

      Another theory about submerged civilisation being more advanced is that at the time of the end of the ice-age, the lands that are submerged now were more fertile than other lands. Climate models of India have shown that 10000 years ago, the part that is now above sea-level was a desert, and the part now below was fertile. The land could have been fertile because it had remained underwater so long before the last ice-age, and rivers could have been continuously been depositing sediments on the sea-floor. The fertile land encouraged agriculture which made the peoples more sedentary in nature, and thus more likely to become advanced. The people on the highland remained hunter/gatherers, were more nomadic, and consequently, did not develop as well.

      I can't find links for everything offhand, but do have a look at Graham Hancock's web-site [grahamhancock.com].

      • As for the civilisation being more advanced, that could have been because they were on an island that was cut off from the mainland which was infested with barbarians. The islanders could then develop their technology in peace.

        There is a small matter of things called 'boats', which have been used for tens of thousands of years. 'Barbarians' are rarely that barbaric and are usually pretty good at getting places.

        It really is not worth taking Hancock seriously: He never goes for a simple explanation of th

      • Re:Sea-level rises and submerged islands (Score:5, Interesting)

        by perly-king-69 ( 580000 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:07AM (#9017283)
        Hancock is a charlatan and his theories are based on multiple false premises. He's just a new von Daniken, peddling bad science to the uneducated masses. That's why you find his theories in books sold at Borders rather than in peer-reviewed journals.

        In one of his books he 'proved' the existence of an ancient civilization c.10,000 years old by the location of 'sacred' sites which mirrored constellations. Of course, he selectively picks the sites (ignoring inconveniently located ones) to match the star patterns.

        An excellent BBC documentary debunked his theories showing how you could use the same technique to plot locations of sites in Manhatten against similar 10,000 year old constellations. When questioned on screen about this he was visibly squirming in his seat. Priceless!

  • Excellent. (Score:2, Funny)

    by paul248 ( 536459 )
    I hope they find those infinite power crystal thingies down there.

  • Yeah I've seen it (Score:5, Funny)

    by onebuttonmouse ( 733011 ) <obm@stocksy.co.uk> on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:49AM (#9016732) Homepage
    Coca cola plant, Delta hub.. oh Atlantis, right.

  • Question (Score:5, Funny)

    by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:56AM (#9016755) Journal
    So how come Atlantis is still the lost city if people keep discovering it? :\

  • Atlantis is Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tarantolato ( 760537 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00AM (#9016762) Journal
    First of all "scientists..." in the parent is not accurate. 'Cording to his website, Robert Sarmast "studied aerospace engineering, philosophy and architecture in various US universities for years". In other words, he has no academic qualifications. Also, he's only one person.

    Secondly, here's the deal with Atlantis:

    The whole story comes from Plato. Plato liked to make sh!t up. You can't even take Platonic narratives as accurate representations of Greek mythology, let alone reality.

    The point of the Atlantis story in the Timaeus and Critias is to make a political allegory. Trying to hunt for the "real Atlantis" is like trying to hunt for the "real Oceania" after reading 1984: it's not only dumb, it also misses the point.

    Also, Atlantis was 'sposed to be beyond Gibraltar, not off Cyprus - hence the name "Atlantis", 'cause that's where Atlas was supposed to have been.

    • Re:Atlantis is Stupid (Score:4, Informative)

      by kid zeus ( 563146 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:29AM (#9016858)
      Get your 'deal' straignt.

      Atlantis was mentioned by more than Plato. It was in Herodotus' writings as well, and he claimed the Egyptians recorded its existence (he studied in Egypt). Among the description given was that it was populated by pygmy elephants. Surprise, surprise, but the remains of pygmy elephants have been discovered on several Cycladean islands.

      The island in the Mediterranean (and, btw, Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean) that an earlier poster referred to is the modern island of Santorini.

      Santorini/Fira was part of the Minoan civilization. The volcanoic eruption there that buried the city on the island and likely destroyed the Minoan civilization was far larger than Krakatoa, in fact one of the largest eruptions ever. The Minoans were contemporaries of the ancient Egyptians, and had a marvelous culture. They had little in the way of barriers or fortifications or, as far as we can tell today, much of a military presence. Of course it's hard to be sure, but they seemed to have focused mostly on trade, and their the remains of their language Linear B as found on tablets seems to have been used for inventory records and transactions. They had lively and beautiful arts, their women went around with bustiers showing off their uncovered breasts, and they had bull-dancers who, instead of slaughtering a bull with shaven horns by wearing him down with picodrs and men on armored horses with spears before allowing the 'brave' torero into the ring, performed gymnastics over and on top of the wild bulls. They also had indoor plumbing, including toilets.

      What Atlantis is represented as today is a myth. That doesn't mean it wasn't originally routed in what most people at the time would have found to be a balmy paradise.

      • Re:Atlantis is Stupid (Score:5, Informative)

        by NearlyHeadless ( 110901 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:33AM (#9017405)
        Atlantis was mentioned by more than Plato. It was in Herodotus' writings as well, and he claimed the Egyptians recorded its existence (he studied in Egypt).
        As far as I am aware, this [tufts.edu] is the only thing in Herodotus that supposedly refers to Atlantis:
        CLXXXIV. Another ten days' journey from the Garamantes there is again a salt hill and water, where men live called Atarantes. These are the only men whom we know who have no names; for the whole people are called Atarantes, but no man has a name of his own. [2] When the sun is high, they curse and very foully revile him, because his burning heat afflicts their people and their land. [3] After another ten days' journey there is again a hill of salt, and water, and men living there.
        Near to this salt is a mountain called Atlas, whose shape is slender and conical; and it is said to be so high that its heights cannot be seen, for clouds are always on them winter and summer. The people of the country call it the pillar of heaven. [4] These men get their name, which is Atlantes, from this mountain. It is said that they eat no living creature, and see no dreams in their sleep.
        Who knows if there's any relation to Plato's Atlantis?

        You also said:

        Among the description given was that it was populated by pygmy elephants. Surprise, surprise, but the remains of pygmy elephants have been discovered on several Cycladean islands.
        Plato didn't say they were pygmy elephants, just elephants.

    • Re:Atlantis is Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dabadab ( 126782 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:12AM (#9017125)
      But don't forget, not so long ago Troy was also believed to be non-existant.

    • Not stupid, just complicated (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Evil Pete ( 73279 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:25AM (#9017740) Homepage

      I've always been fascinated by the legend, especially after reading the work trying to identify Thera (Santorini) as the origin of the legend, for a recent analysis of Thera see this transcript from the BBC [bbc.co.uk]..

      Recently I studied up on Atlantis quite a bit trying to sort it out once and for all to my own satisfaction.

      Just about every location on the face of the Earth has been nominated as a candidate for 'good' reasons. After wading through all of them and comparing them to Plato's accounts (Timeus and Critias) your head starts to spin a bit. Goddam confusing.

      I looked at exactly what Plato said in his story to try and find if there was a possible consistent story, and any inconsistencies. I wont bore you with most of what I found but basically, Plato was very insistent that it was based on a true story, unusually so. However, even if we accept that it does not mean he didn't take extensive liberties even if there was an element of truth (e.g. legends of the destruction of Santorini).

      Plato said a civilisation existed just beyond the Pillars of Heracles 9,000 years before Solon (about 11,600 years ago), which coincidently matches the end of the last ice age. But I've seen weirder coincidences. But it turns out the Pillars we know as the Pillars of Heracles (Hercules) were not the only ones, there were lots of them. So it could have been anywhere. And there are inconsistencies in the description of the island that translate into 'Plato made that bit it up' as far as I can see. But other bits seem, subjectively, to be not part of such reworking.

      The trouble is if you start cutting out parts of the story you end with such a vague story it could refer to almost anywhere ... funnily enough one of the better suggested places for Atlantis is Indonesia .. heh heh. But I still think the story was influenced by real past events then dramatised for current political and social comment. The real influences could have been Thera and a more recent city, whose name I forget, that was destroyed by tidal wave and claimed ground liquefaction. I was starting to view the whole thing as just an invention of Plato using bits of stuff known from other cultures (try reading Herodotus sometime with an eye to look for bits you could use , there is a lot of source material for such a story) but then I saw that documentary on the BBC. Unfortunately, the website doesn't have one image I saw in the doco ... they showed a mural found at Akrotiri showing the form of the island before the eruption and it was in the form of a broken ring with a central island , and the main city was on the central island. Which would mean that if that is Atlantis then it has been vapourised , its gone, kaput. Interestingly this idea of access from the sea through rings of water to the central city is the way Plato describes the layout of Atlantis and the reference to hot springs etc means he thought it was volcanic. So maybe some legend did survive to Plato's time and made it into the story. As for whether such a large, relatively advanced civilisation existed as in the story, well just re-read your copy of "Guns, Germs and Steel" and tell me where the crops are ... zip. Only in the Middle East, no such continent as Atlantis would be big enough for the genetic diversity for major crops to arise. And the grains haven't shown up all over the place ... therefore no Atlantean culture.

      Well I've ranted longer than I expected. Must say investigating this stuff was just sooo interesting and I came across some of the most amazing things. I guess I was most impressed by reading Herodotus, when I read it at school I skipped most of the leadup to the war, but the leadup describes just how incredible the ancient world was, amazing.

      As for Cyprus. Gees gimme a break. Well I must admit that one thing that is mentioned in the legend is a metal called Orichalcum that in the s

  • Scientists? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brad Mace ( 624801 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00AM (#9016763) Homepage
    Scientists don't make grandiose claims before they've even left to do their investigation. They're also fond of graphs, data, pictures, and other tidbits that make their claims more than "the one that got away".

    Sure atlantis may have been a real place, but you have to do more than just *say* you found it.

  • As almost every Greek knows (Score:5, Informative)

    by FunctionalMethod ( 751923 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00AM (#9016766)
    Atlantis is nothing more then the combination of 2 events.

    1) The explosion of the volcano on the greek island Santorini, which sunk part of that island

    2) The end of the Minoan civilization

    http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord? 78 72

    Quote:
    " The eruption of Santorini in 1650 B.C. was one of the largest in the last 10,000 years...The eruption probably caused the end of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, and may be the source of the myth of Atlantis."

    and

    http://www.decadevolcano.net/santorini/santorini .h tm.

    • "...and may be the source of the myth of Atlantis."

      It's this last claim that is questionable. Plato can't even keep key geographic details about Atlantis consistent. The "myth of Atlantis" was born in the 19th century. Before that time, people who read Plato agreed that Atlantis was a fictional utopia for talking about politics.

      Atlantis is "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away." When Plato talks about Atlantis, he puts it both in an inconcievably distant past and in a location that was inconciev

  • Robert Sarmast (Score:5, Funny)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:03AM (#9016778)
    Here's his biography [originpress.com] which was written in promotion of one of his books (so it's pretty biased to make him come off well).

    Sarmast works in architecture, and describes himself as a "mythologist". He is very interested in "ancient mysteries". He supports himself by doing "odd jobs" and as his hobby studies "Atlantology" and travels. His "research" is privately funded.

    What is pretty funny, is that his biography states he cooperates with "specialists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)". They even supplied him with "a digitized file of the existing raw data ... a document that was over 2,500 pages long". I can imagine the following conversation between two of those "specialists":

    S1: "That crackpot is on the phone again."

    S2: "Please, not now. Besides, it's your turn to talk to him."

    S1: "Come on, I'm busy."

    S2: "Just blow him off."

    S1: "Then he'll just phone again in a few hours."

    S2: "I have an idea. Let's give him some data that will really keep him busy for the next six months."

    S1: "What data?"

    S2: "Just give him everything."

    S1: "But he won't be able to do anything with it. It's just raw data!"

    S2: "That's the point. He's a crank. He has studied Atlantology, for Christ's sake. He is used to immerse himself in meaningless stuff!"

  • Old news (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 ) <rrw@hell.pl> on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:04AM (#9016780) Journal
    This is old news.

    Atlantis is a lost colony of the Ancients. There will be series about it [scifi.com] starting around July, 22 episodes or so.

    Robert

    PS ;)

  • Scientist? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pollock ( 453937 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:04AM (#9016781) Homepage
    I'm not convinced that "scientist" is an accurate description of the "US researcher" involved.

    A google search [google.com] for Robert Sarmast doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

  • I wouldn't go buying Atlantian artifacts on Ebay (Score:4, Funny)

    by Orgazmus ( 761208 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:09AM (#9016796)
    You mean that the authentic statue i bought was a ripoff?

  • Don't tell the kooks but ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:13AM (#9016809)
    ... Atlantis is a myth. The only person who mentions the place was Plato and he may have made it up to illustrate an argument. It doesn't mean it actually existed or that if it did that Plato wasn't passing on highly distorted stories he had heard somewhere. After all, the Mediterranean is wracked by seismic activity so perhaps there was a civilization that was snuffed out by a particularly nasty event.

    But just like Noah's Ark, Atlantis is a magnet for cranks and pseudo scientists. Forget painstaking archeological research - how many books have been and gone that supposedly pinpoint its exact location and toss in a few references to aliens and UFOs? We're in Graham Hancock territory here. I thought it was meant to be off Cuba only last year! Or perhaps not. We'll know more about this latest endeavour if / when a proper scientific paper appears to back it up. We'll know more when these supposed features are actually studied properly.

    I reckon given a thousand years the kook brigade will be still looking for Atlantis, that is when they are not busy looking for Minas Tirith, Xanadu and Hogwarts.

  • Hidden depths (Score:5, Funny)

    by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 ) <tim DOT almond AT gmail DOT com> on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:46AM (#9016902) Homepage
    Did they find Patrick Duffy's career whilst they were there?

  • NOT what the article says (Score:4, Informative)

    by rbowen ( 112459 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:13AM (#9016989) Homepage
    A self-styled "scientist" (not scientists) claims to think he might know where Atlantis is, and is about to start looking. That's not the same thing as having found it. The English gramtical construct "believes Atlantis found off Cyprus" means that he thinks it will be found there - ie, he thinks it's there - not that he has already found it.

    The article is a whole 5 sentences, and is very clear.

  • Good Week for Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:21AM (#9017012) Journal
    So, let me get this straight. So far this week, we've seen an article revisiting cold fusion as being possible now, and one that somebody's found Atlantis.

    If I don't see one about Sasquatch being located coming up (and that he uses Linux) before the end of the week, I'm going to be terribly disappointed.

  • Atlantis? Bah! (Score:3, Funny)

    by lurwas ( 518856 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:24AM (#9017016) Homepage
    Atlantis is for sissys.

    The Big question is where is R'lyeh?

    And don't give me: 47 degrees 9 minutes south, 126 degrees 43 minutes west,
    they have already looked there...:P

  • You can't find something that never existed... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by muffen ( 321442 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:21AM (#9017152)
    The only existing written records which specifically refer to Atlantis [activemind.com] where written by Plato [activemind.com]

    The story is about the conflict between the ancient Athenians and the Atlantians 9000 years before Plato's time. How likely is it that this actually exists?

    Plato wrote about a conversation between Socrates, Hermocrates, Timeaus, and Critias.
    How likely is it that any of those four people knew about a civilisation 9000 years before them ... how much do we KNOW about anything that happened 9000 years ago.. and we have a lot of technology to aid us now that did not exists during those times...

    I don't believe that there is anything worth looking for.. but then again, just my opinion.. I accept the fact that I could be wrong, although I find this highly unlikely.

  • Fortean Times Article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Luminous ( 192747 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:52AM (#9017235) Journal
    There was a small article in Fortean Times [forteantimes.com], two months ago I believe, that was essentially a 'build your own Atlantis' where all you had to do was find some submarine structures that vaguely fit Plato's description and call it Atlantis.

    Heck, there is even an entire magazine Atlantis Rising [atlantisrising.com] which discusses the all so many possible places for Atlantis to be.

    Fundamentally, though, to claim Atlantis is inside the boundary of the Mediterranian Sea seems slightly faulty, but then again ancient civilizations were sketchy on detail regarding the regions that seemed lifetimes away. It would be like asking an American which side of Africa Zimbabwe is on.

  • Plato's Atlantis (Score:4, Informative)

    by Walrus99 ( 543380 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:12AM (#9017643)

    The two dialogs of Plato's which describe Atlantis are the Timeaeus and Critias. It is on-line at: Atlantis [activemind.com]

    The Timeaeus only refers to Atlantis in two paragraphs. The Critias has a longer description, but it ends in the middle of the dialogue.

    You can draw your own conclusions.

  • Atlantis (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @09:39AM (#9017900) Homepage Journal
    I was under the impression that Atlantis was only used as a fictitious example, a parable, from the early Greek philosophers, to teach the destruction of a socity to those who might not otherwise understand it.

  • "Greeted with barely concealed mirth" (Score:3, Funny)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @10:30AM (#9018428) Homepage
    Assuming this isn't a hacked site--and it certainly looks OK--please note that that ABC News Online Australia [abc.net.au] article concludes:

    "The alleged discovery has been greeted with barely concealed mirth by the Mediterranean island's tourism office."

    Editorializing a bit, are we?

  • Sarmast's website! Not posted 'til now? (Score:5, Informative)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @12:06PM (#9019475)
    Here it is: http://www.discoveryatlantis.com/ [discoveryatlantis.com]. The story submitter's links sucked. The first was only one paragraph and misspelled Sarmast's last name, the second was hardly better. The wiki reference was ok for background info. Anyway, here's the press release that started it all, http://www.discoveryofatlantis.com/800/press.htm [discoveryofatlantis.com], and from there are links to some actual bathymetric maps, etc., of the region: sea level lower 1.6 km [discoveryofatlantis.com], 3D seafloor [discoveryofatlantis.com], and others.

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