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Atlantis: Discovered at Last?
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Jun 07, 2004 07:12 AM
from the so-many-submissions dept.
from the so-many-submissions dept.
Henry G. writes "The BBC is reporting that recent satellite pictures may show the location of the fabled city of Atlantis, as described by Plato. It is in Southern Spain, though, and not on an island as is commonly believed. Here's an image of the concentric rings over the alleged area." This story has gotten a lot of submissions; it's worth noting that it's also shown up off Cyprus, or near Cuba, or is Crete, or... It is worth noting that that Ubar was found this way.
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Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Looking for not expensive high-quality potions? We might have just what you need.
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Parent
Oh, I see... (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess: you're in the US Army and you are just trying to start this rumor in the hopes that you get relocated out of Iraq to the beautiful beaches of Spain, right?
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Re:I think I see it! (Score:5, Funny)
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Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't get is why someone just doesn't go there and start having a look around? Great, we've got satellite images
Bad Idea.
Still, this story highlights just how much we take for granted in archeology today. We can't even deal with language barriers today, here and now, and the issues they can cause for two human beings trying to understand each other
Its like, great, we've got the source, but what the heck kind of CPU does it run on, and what version of the compiler do we use to build the project with? Give someone a "snippet of C" and have them re-build the PC with it
That, and the fact that most 'modern' schools of archaeology seem to have been founded by Christian Faith movements over the years, leads me to a very nasty suscpicion that we've completely misunderstood the Ancients, too many times to be sure
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you enjoy prision time...
But once permission is granted, it's a field day for Field Research
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Informative)
The only easy access I know is through the beach, from a tourist town, and it could take you some time as it is a very big park.
Here you can have a look to a satellite photo [209.15.138.224] of that area. The park, is on the right of the river, in which the photo, by the way, is heading south. Here you can see one which is not upside down [209.15.138.224].
Parent
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Archaeology is great for looking at the 'duree longue'
With your C analogy (IAAACP - I am also a C programmer) we'd look at lots of snippets of code identify differences between them, date them (except there is no scientific method for dating code) and hypothesise as to what changes and why.
Archaeology is not a science, certainly not an 'arcane science'. It's a discipline which employs (amongst other things) scientific techniques, such as C-14 dating.
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure there is. Look for deprecated system calls, or relatively new "requirements" (such as stdafx.h in C++ programs in Visual Studio. That really pisses me off.)
Then there's less reliable methods such as timestamps
It still requires some knowledge of how coding practices have changed, though.
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Wild assumptions in archaeology (Score:5, Insightful)
So how long would you last in your field if you made a huge claim with only the weakest, unsubstantiated data? This Atlantis claim is based solely on one poorly defined image and absolutely NO physical evidence from the ground. The whole story of Atlantis is based on the assumed infallibility of Plato, as if Plato were incapable of being mistaken or believing a bogus folktale.
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Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology (Score:5, Insightful)
We found a 2,500 year old settlement in Europe!
or
WE FOUND ATLANTIS!!
No, they won't get much (any) funding from academic bodies, but they'll get a good publishing deal.
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Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of archealogical sites have been found in the same manner as these photos. The preliminary evidence suggests that it matches Plato's description. We may never know for sure, unless we find a sign on the city limits: Welcome to Atlantis, Population 3,123.
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Re:C-14 dating ... (Score:5, Informative)
It was originally thought that the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere was constant over time. It's been later found out that this is incorrect. In addition there is the 'hard water error' which affects results quite badly. However by correlating dendrochronology dates (very, very precise and accurate) with C-14 dates we have quite a refined system. C-14 dates are represented as a date with an error margin and percentage probability eg 10,000BP +/- 200years at 2 standard deviations.
C-14 isn't a fundemental principle of Archaeology. It's one of many tools that are used.
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Re:You almost got me there .. (Score:5, Interesting)
No it isn't. Many aspects of archaeology are non-repeatable. Excavation is the obvious example. If you cannot have a control and it is non-repeatable then I'd argue that it is not a science.
Secondly, although archaeology uses many scientific techniques, it is fundamentally subjective. Once you've excavated a site, got dates from objects and contexts one is still left with the subjective opinions of the primary excavator. What was Stonehenge for? Different archaeologists have different views, though they all may agree on the layout, size and age of the site. And don't even get started on Biblical archaeology!
Even before that though subjectivity comes into play - where do we dig? where are the bounds of the excavation? what methods of excavation are we going to use?
Check out some of the writings of Ian Hodder or Phil Barker to explore some of these ideas further.
BTW, IAAA.
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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Seeing what you're looking for.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're looking for something spesific, it's easy to find it.. our mind is good at recognisong patterns, even when they arn't there. Off course, this is what leads people to see cities om Mars, Lenin in their shower curtain [badastronomy.com] and, in this cause, traces of Atlantis. It's called pareidolia, and it's more common than you might think.
PS: I urge everyone to visit the link and explore the site - it's a good read and quite interesting as well as funny.
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And even what you're *not* looking for (Score:5, Interesting)
Michael Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things" does a decent job of summing up the problem and how it works with ideas like this: People's minds are wired to look for patterns. They look for patterns that relate to other patterns they're familiar with, mostly, or those are the ones they think they see anyway. Show me a Rorschach blob, or a random scattering of data, and I'm going to try to figure out what it means. Faces on Mars! My fate, written in the tea leaves! Your character, in the lines on your palm! And so on.
In the case of Atlantis, though, it takes a special kind of thinking to ignore all the obvious political context for Plato -- his and his family's opposition to the way Athens had gone, the whole Republic-as-an-ideal-Sparta thing -- but to seize on the few physical details he describes for Atlantis. They're not missing the forest for the trees: they're imagining the forest where they imagine there's a tree. Based on two rectangles near some concentric circles, no less. Yow.
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe my college archaeology classes did pay off, I remember looking at arial RS photos back then and wondering how the hell my prof saw the things he did, but by the end I could see them too.
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
Once you find try to find..
* Waldo
* The wizard
* A scroll
* Two mermaids pleasuring each other
* Poseidon's driving license
* Plato's lost map
* Sebastian the crab
* Cowboy Neal's bathing suit
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll tell you what you need is a fatty, boombatty blunt! And then I guarantee you'll see a sailboat, an ocean and maybe even some of them big-tittied mermaids doing some of that lesbian shit!
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the whole thing is probably an optical illusion, a la the face on mars, but I'd probably be grasping at straws too after a couple years of searching for (likely non-existent) patterns in satellite images :)
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Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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We've "found" it dozens of times... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it certainly would be cool if it was the real deal!
It reminds me of Troy (Score:5, Interesting)
Concentric ring forts (Score:5, Interesting)
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pareidolia (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pareidolia (Score:5, Interesting)
As with all of these things, the trick is that you're shown the message while listening to it, and you tend to make it fit. It's even more convincing after a few listens -- it really sounds like, "There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan." Almost poetic.
So, rings? They have the scientific method backwards. If, say, a meterologist was looking through some satellite photos happened to notice some rings, that is one thing. But some dude looking for rings in satellite photos is totally different.
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Re:pareidolia (Score:5, Funny)
Hi, this is Satan. Yeah, you're wrong on this one. It's real. Oh, yeah, and I totally tortured Zepp in a toolshed for a while, but it's HARDLY a little toolshed. It's like 16 x 25. I'm still pissed at Jimmy for that one. I mean, I might not have Led Zeppelin-size money, but I do okay for myself. That "little" thing was just insulting. So to get revenge, I made Page do the Death Wish soundtrack and Plant ended up fronting the HoneyDrippers. That'll show 'em who's boss. One more crack and they're backing Christina Aquilera.
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Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
(we found it! we found it! Oh, crap...)
-Goran
Plato the story teller (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be important to note that the sory of Atlantis could and is most likly just that a story. Plato like Homer was a great story teller, he was also had an great impact on many Academic Disciplines.
While Homers story of The Illiad was based on the real war that happened in Troy, we have no conclusive prof that an island of Atlantis existed. This discovery may provide evidence of the fabled city, but I won't hold my breath just yet.
Re:Plato the story teller (Score:5, Insightful)
You think? Gee, I don't know. I'm inclined to believe that prefacing the story of Atlantis with a disertation on the value of constructing false histories for the moral instruction of youth and the less sophisticated of the populace and then employing all the standard literary devices of the time to denote that the story being told was instructional myth is purely coincidental.
KFG
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Santorini? (Score:5, Interesting)
maybe i'm stpid, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
will they find a stone fragment with the words "downtown atlantis, exit 43" in ancient greek?
no seriously: how does a mythical city of unknown location be "proven" to be this old city versus that old city?
why can't their find of this ancient city stand on its own as exciting and important? why link it to a dubious unprovable myth?
it seems to me that there is no way to say either this city or that one is atlantis itself, or am i missing something
Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Q: how do they confirm it is atlantis?
A: When they find some artifacts in the vicinity and can carbon date them back from 9000 years ago. When they can find proof of the animals and/or technology that existed there according to the one-and-only document [sacred-texts.com] that even mentions the city.
Q: why can't their find of this ancient city stand on its own as exciting and important?
A: Because the human-race has this drive to solve puzzles and find proofs and explanations of any and everything. The city of Atlantis is no different from Noah's Ark, Solomon's Temple, Eden, or even the laws of physics; people will continually search for them until they find inexplicable proof (whether it exists or not) that they exist.
Q: why link it to a dubious unprovable myth
A: Short answer: in hopes of acquiring more research dollars.
And finally...
Q: maybe i'm stpid, but...
A: You are correct, because you can't spell "stupid".
Parent
The neatest thing about this, IMHO... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, that's EXACTLY what Atlantis was: a VERY old, VERY advanced civilization. They supposedly weren't as advanced as we are today, but they were FAR more advanced than the rest of the world was back in the day... and they existed 9000 years before Plato's time.
what if some ancient civilization was just as advanced as us but nuked themselves out of existence?
I've pondered this many times and I keep coming to the same conclusion: If this was true, we would have found SOME evidence of their existence by now. I highly doubt that any really technologically advanced civilization that could create an atomic bomb wouldn't expand their culture beyond a handful of cities. We should have found towers on mountains by now, no? I don't think it very likely that when they wiped themselves out, they destroyed every miniscule building they had ever created.
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Oh brother, here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for its not being an island and all the other bits we ignored to make the data fit the model.
KFG
no rings, no rectangles... (Score:5, Funny)
picture. But I clearly see a big cache of WMD in the lower left corner.
Antiquity link (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from a great deal of speculation about correlations between Egyptian records, tales of the Peoples of the Sea, and a selective reading of the Dialogues, the only "data" the author points to are the satellite images which may be the remains of rectangular structures. Nothing in situ to indicate dating.
As there is almost certainly evidence of Bronze Age settlements practically anywhere one cares to dig along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, this article is roughly the equivalent of speculating that an unattributed burial in a 6th century Wessex tomb must necessarily be the remains of Arthur.
Just fudge the numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a chain of islands called the Mid Atlantic ridge, which, if the water level were lowered 300-500 feet (as it was before the end of the ice age) would be a very large island. You could even call it an island continent.
Plato said atlantis was 9000 years before him, or about 11,500 years ago. We've only learned in the past couple of decades that almost exactly at that time, the mean temperature of the earth raised a significant amount in a short amount of time. If a bunch of ice (North America had a mile-thick layer of ice) melted all at once, and you lived on an island continent, it would seem that your island sank into the ocean.
Someday I'll be proven correct. I just know it.
Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC (Score:5, Interesting)
In ancient times, all oceans were known as the Sea of the Atlanteans, which is where the name Atlantic came from.
As far as they were concerned, standing on the shores of the Eurasian continent and Africa, the ocean surrounded them. To them the Atlantic wasn't what we now know as the Atlantic, it constituted the whole ocean. This puts paid to the argument that Atlant-is is in the modern Atlan-tic. It could be, but there are lots of other ridges and sub-oceanic plateaus in other parts of the ancient 'Atlantic' ocean that would have succumbed at the same time as the mid-Atlantic ridge...
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Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting to note though is that this pretty much means that Atlantis isn't in the Med.
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FFS! Atlantis again (Score:5, Informative)
It has as much objective reality as More's Utopia and Butler's Erehwon. It even had the same purpose, to illustrate a philosophical point and "demonstrate" Plato's idea of an ideal society.
It just happened that Atlantis was a handy cultural peg to hang it off, somewhat like Avalon and Lyonesse is today for some people.
There have been numerous candidates for Atlantis, but the outstanding one, IMO, is Santorini.
That island, part of the of the Minoan civilisation, blew its top somewhat spectacularly, and was probably a contributory factor to the collapse of the Minoan, Mycenaean and Hittite empires, who just happened to be trading partners with the Egyptians at the time.
The Egyptians, being anal-retentive record keepers kept some records of this, and these, in garbled form, are probably what inspired Plato to use the island as the home for his ideal civilisation.
Given the effects of this massive explosion on the weather (shitty crops practically guaranteed throughout the region), which would have negatively effected the economies of the Mycenaeans and Hitties.
The loss of contact with the Minoans (who were in a decline at the time anyway, so this probably played a large part in finishing them off) would likely have pushed them over the edge as well. Both of those regions (the Anatolian Plateau and southern Greece) being somewhat marginal environments to start with, having low annual rainfall, poor and shallow soil, and high summer temperatures).
This probably would have made it into the Egyptian annals as something along the lines of "those Greek and Turkish bastards haven't turned up so far this year to hawk their tat, no great loss, but a bit of a pain in the arse. Also we have been having some really shitty weather this last year, on the plus side, the surf was wicked last summer. Wonder if they are related? - Amememhat"
This also would quite likely have been mythologised to a certain extent from the tales of survivors.
No need for the tortured logic and papering over the cracks here, it all depends on fairly well understood factors, a big fuck off explosion, the fragility of civilisations based on gift-giving economies and ties of obligation, especially in somewhat marginal environments, and a bit of garbling and mythologisation over the years.
Mix an ambitious philosopher looking for a name to hang an idea off, and Viola! a ready made myth for people to chase incessantly, and for con-men in the mould of Von Daniken and Hancock to make a good living off.
supposed sites for Atlantis (Score:5, Informative)
Mythology being quite entertaining to me, I've read of most of the supposed sites. There is an island called Thera, located off the coast of Crete. It seems to me that if anything found so far is the fabled Atlantis, this is it. [atlantia.de] Archological digs show that they had both hot and cold running water, as well as a very advanced trade. Prior to the erruption, there was a circular cove around the island. There are significant enough similarities between Plato's Atlantis and Thera for there to be a very convincing arguement for this site. The disaster of the volcanic erruption would fit the timeframe of the other legends surrounding the survivors of Atlantis - for instance, the Spanish conquistadors that slayed the white-skinned men on the northwestern coast of Africa that claimed to be from such a society (I think? my memory is sketchy.)
I suspect people aren't making conclusive claims about Thera being Atlantis yet because there simply aren't enough interesting historical mysteries to get funding for. Atlantis is a pearl in almost everyone's eyes, thus people keep searching - finding various other interesting things - in the name of searching for Atlantis.
After all, once you've found all the easter eggs that they said there were, you're not going to want to keep looking, as it's not likely you'll find anything - or so you think.
so basically... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mediteranean Rising (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mediterranean Sea [worldatlas.com] is still a connected sea - the Straits of Gibraltar aren't THAT narrow - so it can hardly fill from the surrounding water sources (sealevel rises aside).
Q.
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