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Science

Atlantis Found. Again. 671

Posted by Hemos from the yet-another-location dept.
Tufriast writes "Paul McCartney and Mythic eat your heart out! BBC News has an interesting revelation regarding the lost city of Atlantis: "American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus."" Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
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Atlantis Found. Again. More

Atlantis Found. Again.

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  • More to the point ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) * on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:42AM (#10819655)
    But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

    In today's USA political climate, any such suggestion smacks of rabid anti-bible terrorism. Better watch them words, pardner!

    • Re:More to the point ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:46AM (#10819699)
      Atlantis clearly never existed. Everyone knows that earth appeared suddenly on a friday about 6000 years ago, and nothing has changed since. And anyway, if it did exist, everyone who died was evil. 'cept for Noah, he was cool. And a pigeon. And an olive tree, apparently. Hang on, who wrote this crap, anyway?
      • Wikipedia's pages on various religious topics have little tidbits like this sprinkled all over ( one [wikipedia.org], two [wikipedia.org], three [wikipedia.org]).
        • Several professors of archeology claim that many stories in the Old Testament, including important chronicles about Moses, Solomon, and others, were actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah (7th century BCE) in order to rationalize monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Evidently, the neighboring countries that kept many written records, such as Egypt, Persia, etc., have no w

        • Re:More to the point ... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by theMerovingian ( 722983 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:10AM (#10819890) Journal

          including important chronicles about Moses, Solomon, and others, were actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah

          It is important to note that the Bible does make mention of Moses recording historical and legal material in written form, as in Exodus 17:14, 24:4, and 34:27, and in Numbers 33:2. Modern scholarship would suggest that these words of Moses were passed down and later recorded in the form that we have today.

          Read the first few chapters of this book for a Christian perspective on the same topic:
          The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament. Ed. William LaSor, David Hubbard, and Frederic Bush. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI. 1996.

        • Re:More to the point ... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:12AM (#10819912)
          Oh, it's in Wikipedia. It must be true.

          • Re:More to the point ... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) * on Monday November 15, 2004 @02:46PM (#10822815)
            Oh, it's in Wikipedia. It must be true.

            Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you...

            I thought I was the only one sitting here scratching my head and murmuring "WTF?!?" every time wikipedia was cited as if it was some kind of legit reference on par with Britannica. I'm guessing that on that parallel Bizarro world where blogs are regarded as journalism, the wikipedia can be viewed as a reference, but, man, I'm sure glad I don't live there...

        • Also, I should mention that the oldest records we have of written Hebrew are from around 1000 BC.

          See here [infoplease.com]

          It's not like Moses was trying to encrypt the 10 commandments on his laptop... We're talking the Bronze Age here, after all.

        • Someone better tell the Egyptions. Apparently there is a movement in Egypt [nrk-online.com] to sue Israel for reparations because Moses took their gold during the "Exodus".

        • Re:More to the point ... (Score:3, Informative)

          by CODiNE ( 27417 )
          Anyone who has read Josephus knows these claims to be false. He wrote to the Greeks using non-Hebrew sources to prove the age of his people. History from the Egyptians, the Greeks, Phoenicians and others all showing historical meetings with kings such as Solomon and David. Biblical accounts such as the Queen of Sheba coming to visit Solomon were actually mentioned in the records of the visiting person as well. Specifically I'm talking about "Against Apion" which was written around A.D. 93-100, in which
        • http://www.universalway.org/Foreign/origins.html

          "It is the position of many Biblical researchers that most of the Old Testament comes from other, more ancient writings.
          Even ** Jewish ** writers admit that most of the Hebrew writings were merely taken freely from Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and even Greek sources.

          - Horace Meyer Kallen, at one time a professor at the Jewish New School of Social Research, said that the Book of Job was lifted bodily from an early and obscure Greek play.

          - Scientist and
        • You know, my longstanding position on religion is that its a great idea so long as humans stay the hell away.

          What do I mean by that? Probably not what you think.

          I simply do not trust the validity of a book that has been handled, mishandled, and passed through so many corrupt hands. We KNOW things have been added, removed, and generally manipulated.

          That being said I do believe in God, but rather than read a book that may or may not be intact, I preffer to just goto the source. If I do the best I can in

      • X-posted from a friend's blog (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bleaked ( 609151 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @11:31AM (#10820785)
        The Nature of the Universe (a gooey mass of old theories and new ideas)
        Pondering the subjective experience of time flowing way to fucking fast, i've come to yet another latest view on what i think the universe is and how it behaves.

        I recently checked out a lecture on cosmology at the University given by a leading cosmologist in his field who informed me that omega is not equal to 1.

        Quick background: Once upon a time scientists discovered the red shift, which is essentially the Doppler effect applied to light and shows that every galaxy in the universe is moving away from us. From this they decided that the universe must be expanding, and of course, an expanding universe leads to the question of whether or not this universe will continue expanding forever or eventually shrink back to a "big crunch". I was currently under the impression that they'd figured out that the universe would eventually shrink down and that it had simply existed forever and would exist forever going through cycles of blowing up, forming stars and planets etc etc etc and then shrinking down again only to blow up again.

        But now i've got some guy with a Ph.D. telling me that the latest theory is that the universe will actually continue expanding forever, and even crazier than that, it appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate.

        OK, that trips me the fuck out. If there is any gravity at all, how could it possibly continue expanding faster and faster without any external energy being added to the system??? And they explain this away by not only creating "cold dark matter" but also creating "dark energy" which apparently makes up 75% of the universe's mass and has a repulsive quality stronger than gravity's attractive property. Or something. Idk, i need to read more about this. One day. When i have more time (in the past).

        But i want to take this experimental evidence that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate and play around with it.

        Because there are other theories out there.

        First of all there is the theory that maybe this whole time speeding up thing isn't a subjective effect but rather that time really is speeding up. And since i can't think of anyone with a Ph.D. from whom i've ripped this theory off and i came to it by my own thinking, i'm calling it my theory, until someone proves me wrong.

        So like i can't even remember why i started thinking that time was speeding up, but look at the implications. If time is speeding up, that means it was once going a lot slower. Let's say that around 5,000 revolutions around the sun ago time was going really really slow. In fact, let's say the graph forms an asymptote and that at a certain point in time it was approaching infinity and essentially not moving at all. Now, let's assume that in the first "day" after this asymptote time was going so slow that it what we consider a second actually took a million of our years, or even....4.6 million if you want to entertain science and religion...

        If this were true, "God" could have easily created the heavens and the earth in one day. Hell the guy had millions or billions of years to do it. We could even stretch this so far as to perfectly match it up with how long science thinks it took from the big bang until we had a solar system and a relatively cooled earth. And the next day would be going a little faster, not quite as much could have been done in that second "day", and so on and so forth throughout the creation story, eventually by the 6th day there were human beings already and eventually that exponential curve hit that special point where the timelessness felt in Eden started moving fast enough to record and these primeval beings felt the effects of aging and pain. I think this can explain quite nicely why life expectancy was so much higher back then too: Methuselah didn't live any longer than any of us, but it sure as hell felt like 900 some odd years to him!

        From this I also thought about extrapolating the graph to try to predict the future. One extra

    • Re:More to the point ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @11:11AM (#10820539) Homepage
      What I don't get is why the headline for this article is half content, half editorializing. They've been doing this a lot more recently. When did this site become "Slashdot: Editorials for Nerds. Opinions of strangers that don't matter."?

  • More than one story that fits? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fracai ( 796392 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:43AM (#10819673)
    OR perhaps all the stories originated from one actual occurance, but have become distorted through years of relay from one generation to the next.

    • Re:More than one story that fits? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by krymsin01 ( 700838 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:46AM (#10819703) Homepage Journal
      It's just as likely that a few stories migrated into other cultures via cultural diffusion. Want to see this in action? Look at the Christian Bible.

    • Plato made it up this parable. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Charles Dodgeson ( 248492 ) <jeffrey@goldmark.org> on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:52AM (#10819757) Homepage Journal
      In "western" civiliation there is no history of this story prior to Plato. Plato has a fictional character, Timeos (sp?), tell the story of Atlantis. The story is an obvious parable illustrating Plato's ideas about how things decline.

      • Re:Plato made it up this parable. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:15AM (#10819942) Homepage

        Plato goes out of his way to say that the story NOT a parable and that Atlantis really existed.

        The information he's relaying is third or fourth hand and has been translated at least once (possibly multiplying all the numbers by 10).

        I keep an open mind about Atlantis because Troy was ficticious right up until someone found it.

        -B

        • Re:Plato made it up this parable. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:53AM (#10820321) Homepage
          I keep an open mind about Atlantis because Troy was ficticious right up until someone found it.

          That's an interesting comparison, but at least there are indications that the Illiad, along with being a good story, may have been intended to be a sort-of "historical account". Certainly, as with many oral traditions, historical accounts become mythologised, re-interpreted with each generation, and generally skewed. However, since we don't anything like written documentation of the creation of "The Illiad", and it was supposed to be the story of how the Greek peoples united into being, together, "Greek", I find the idea that there was some historical intention hard to argue with.

          We are much more certain, however, about Plato. Plato was essentially a writer of fiction, and it's commonly agreed that he had little intention of being historically accurate. That being said, it's hard to know for sure if the Atlantis myth from the dialog was even a common Greek myth at the time, or if Plato invented it out of thin air.

          Additionally, with the discovery of Troy, an ancient city which archeological evidence seems to indicate was distroyed by Greeks at about the right time frame was discovered in about the right area, and many people agree that it is likely to be the city being referenced in the stories of Troy. However, this evidence verifies very little of the Greek's historical accounts of the war with Troy.

      • why post when you don't know? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It has become painful to read slash-dot lately with so many people posting replys when they don't know the subject.
        It was not just Plato who talked about Atlantis (like we talk about, say, Chicago), but also the Eygyptians and the Hindus in Vedic manuscripts that still exist!

        Yes, there is a lot of BS when we discuss antideluvian civiliazations. And, yes, there are lies and mis-truths from modern entrenched elites such as the mafias that run the archiology and anthropology departments world wide who seem t

        • Re:why post when you don't know? (Score:4, Informative)

          by abhinavnath ( 157483 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:04PM (#10821745)
          Where do the Vedas talk about Atlantis? Nowhere.

          Indian mythology does include a city that was submerged - Dwaraka - but this is completely different from Atlantis because
          a) it was a coastal city, not an island
          b) there's a modern city called Dwaraka, more or less where the Mahabharata says Dwaraka is supposed to be
          c) there are a bunch of submerged ruins near modern Dwaraka*
          Which leads to the hypothesis that there was once a historical city, which submerged due to rising sea levels/land subsidence/other geological weirdness, whose inhabitants resettled nearby. No resorting to missing continents or racial memory or UFOs.

          (cf. Current Science 86(9):1256-60 (10 May 2004))

          "If you don't know, don't say."

          Wait... have I been trolled? Dammit.

        • Re:why post when you don't know? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Thomas Miconi ( 85282 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:34PM (#10822056)
          It was not just Plato who talked about Atlantis (like we talk about, say, Chicago), but also the Eygyptians and the Hindus in Vedic manuscripts that still exist!

          Hm, do they talk about Atlantis as in "Large island, situated next to an even bigger continent which encompassed the whole ocean, the people of which invaded Northern Africa and Southern Europe and were defeated by the Greek about 9000 years B.C." ?

          Or do they talk about it as in "big city in the sea, Gods angry, city sunk" ?

          There are several candidates for "the city that inspired the myth of Atlantis", Santorini being the most credible one. It is even possible to imagine that Atlantis and other myths about Atlantic islands refer to real locations (be it Madeira, Capo Verde or even American archipelagos). Nevertheless it is still much more plausible that Plato made the whole thing up.

          There are spirals that are found on rocks in Celtic ruins, in Spain, in North Africa and also on ruins in the American Southwest! The Hopi say these are 18 year moon-cycle calanders for observing the cycles of the moon. And yet pick up a book on the Celts and the authors don't know what these are.

          Are you seriously telling us that because two people use spirals, they must have the same function ? Regardless of the fact that they are separated by a whole ocean and a whole continent, and that their last common ancestor was probably among the first modern humans to come out of Africa ? Not only that, but are you seriously ridiculing authors who do not mention this "possibility" ?

          The Zuni's of the American Southwest have recently been shown to most likely have been decendant from Buddist pilgrims from Japan

          No they have not. This hypothesis was stated by a given researcher, based on significant evidence, and may well be true. But as of now there has been no DNA study or archeological finding to prove this theory.

          That's your problem. You don't understand the meaning of the word "show". That's why the "mafia" (i.e. people a bit more cautious than you) look down on you and your ilk, as they should. That's also why they hold academic positions, and you don't.

          Thomas-
      • I've just read through the many replies to my original post. Instead of trying to reply to each, I'll try to sum up here.
        Troy
        Many people correctly pointed out that for a long time people believed that the story of the Trojan war was a myth, but archologistis have found something that shows signs of being Troy.

        But consider how limited the finding is: there was a city in about the right place that seemed to have been sacked at about the right time (among other occassions). It is reasonable to suspec

    • Stories of fire-breathing dragons are also common among almost all of the world's cultures. That doesn't make it any less likely that they are all handed down from one great experience.

      Look at it this way -- there have been thousands of human cultures, each with thousands of items in their individual mythologies. Statistically, there's a pretty good chance that out of all those items, at least one or two will match up.

      Unfortunately, most people are too stupid to figure this out, so idiots keep wasting mon

      • Re:More than one story that fits? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Vinnie_333 ( 575483 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:19AM (#10819988)
        "Stories of fire-breathing dragons are also common among almost all of the world's cultures. That doesn't make it any less likely that they are all handed down from one great experience."

        Hey, maybe dragon mythos does have basis in fact. If you ask this guy [apologeticspress.org]. He claims they were dinosaurs that forgot they were suppose to be extinct.

      • Chinese dragons control the element of water. It is believed possible for fish under certain exceptional circumstances to become dragons. There are no Chinese fire-breathing dragons. Chinese dragons are also not evil (though they aren't necessarily good - more like a force of Heaven which can be benevolent but also wreck destruction depending on whim. Who can understand Heaven really?), whilst Western dragons are usually portrayed as evil.
        • You're partially correct. Chinese dragons are most certainly not all evil; in fact, few are evil at all. There are stories of them breathing fire though: the Futs Long, who create volcanos when they leave earth to travel to heaven, are described sometimes has breathing flame. Since the Chinese' dragon's head is styled after a kind of mythical deer which is always aflame, this isn't too surprising.

    • Re:More than one story that fits? (Score:5, Funny)

      by caseydk ( 203763 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:14AM (#10819929) Homepage Journal

      Everybody knows that Atlantis exists in another galaxy and was recently found by a multi-national Stargate team who found that much of the city was still operational and solar powered.

      I think they even started making a documentary series about this.

    • projection (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 )
      Of course any relic found off the coast of the mediterranean will be picked up by the press and others as "Atlantis." The new agers (and sometimes some smart person you know) will rant and rave about time machines, solar lasers, etc. Its really sad to see so-called educated people buy into any conspiracy theory. The same was (and still is) true with the mythological Noah's ark. In the 70s there was no shortage of articles on how some relic found somewhere was the "true ark" and no shortage of clergy men

  • Atlantis -- antarctica? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by madaxe42 ( 690151 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:44AM (#10819675) Homepage
    I remember reading a while back about the possibility that Atlantis had been on the Northern edge (yep, that'll be all of them) of the Antarctic continent, before we entered the current ice-age (we're in an interglacial at the moment, technically still an ice age). See levels would have been higher, but Antarctica/Atlantis would have had a climate similar to modern britain.

    Contrasting this, early greek explorers who went to 'Atlantis' noted that the natives were 'red skinned with horse-like hair', almost identical to Christopher Columbus' description of Native Americans!

    • Re:Atlantis -- antarctica? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:58AM (#10819816) Journal
      Unfortunately history of civilisations is not seriously considered anywhere prior to 10,000 BC, and probably more realistically 6,000 BC. There is no significant historical evidence pre-ice age that homo sapiens were anything more than small nomadic bands. Primitive language was probably available, as well as iconogaphy and basic tools. Large groupings of people would have been nigh-impossible in the absences of farming, husbandry, and written language.

      Its an interesting hypothesis, but historical record does not support the notion. It would be an interesting theory though... HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard certainly filled in the pre-Ice Age gap nicely in the realm of fiction. :)
      • Seeing as there is a documented sea level rise that took place at the end of the last Ice Age Glacial Period that was a couple hundred feet anyhow, it is likley that there are several sites that had some city building going on that are now below the surface of the sea [hermetics.org]. In some cases, the land extended out dozens of miles beyound the current shoreline.

        This allowed Indonesia to be connected to mainland Asia, as well as Tasmania to Australia. I am uncertain as to the extent of the European Coast line [ornl.gov], althoug

  • Does this mean... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) * on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:44AM (#10819677) Homepage
    Does this mean Disney will now claim rights to all of the artifacts, and will release toys packaged with Happy Meals.

  • Kent Brockwell reporting (Score:4, Funny)

    by Aquatopia17 ( 710847 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:44AM (#10819684)
    Well I for one welcome our new alien over--I'm sorry, I'm reading from the wrong story. Well I for one welcome our new lost civilization overlords...

  • It was found months ago!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cyberlotnet ( 182742 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:45AM (#10819687) Homepage Journal
    Where have you been hidding in a hole or something? I have been watching a elite team explore this place every friday night on the sci-fi channel, get with the program why don't you!

  • Idea (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Seanasy ( 21730 )
    Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

    Hey, here's an idea. The primary job of an editor is to edit not editorialize.

    Sheesh.

  • its about the benjamins (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theMerovingian ( 722983 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:48AM (#10819717) Journal

    Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

    If you're an archaeologist, it's alot easier to get funding for your excavation if you make it sound like your project has major ramifications to the history of humanity.

    It's just good business to call it Atlantis.

  • No, No, No. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jaruzel ( 804522 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:48AM (#10819718) Homepage Journal
    They've got it all wrong. Atlantis can only be reached via the stargate using an 8 digit address!

    Tsk, don't these people know anything?

  • Atlantis? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chardish ( 529780 ) <chardish@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:48AM (#10819720) Homepage
    I want to know why everyone assumes the name of this discovery is Atlantis. How can we know the name of an ancient civilization we discover before we discover it?

    Anyway, wouldn't Mediterranis be far more appropriate, given its location?
  • Funny, I don't recall any aboriginal dreamtime stories about Atlantis.

    You'd think that 40,000 year old cultures would have the edge on that sort of thing.

  • Stiry of Atlantis was an allegory; it was not real (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:50AM (#10819733) Journal
    Atlantis NEVER existed!

    From
    http://skepdic.com/atlantis.html
    >>>>>>>>>>>
    Atl antis is a legendary island in the Atlantic, west of Gibraltar, that sunk beneath the sea during a violent eruption of earthquakes and floods some 9,000 years before Plato wrote about it in his Timaeus and Critias. In a discussion of utopian societies, Plato claims that Egyptian priests told Solon about Atlantis. Plato was not describing a real place any more than his allegory of the cave describes a real cave. The purpose of Atlantis is to express a moral message in a discussion of ideal societies, a favorite theme of his. The fact that nobody in Greece for 9,000 years had mentioned a battle between Athens and Atlantis should serve as a clue that Plato was not talking about a real place or battle. Nevertheless, Plato is often cited as the primary source for the reality of a place on earth called Atlantis. Here is what the Egyptian priest allegedly told Solon:

    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. (Timaeus)

    The story is reminiscent of what Athens did against the Persians in the early 5th century BCE, but the battle with Atlantis allegedly took place in the 8th or 9th millennium BCE. It would not take much of an historical scholar to know that Athens in 9,000 BCE was either uninhabited or was occupied by very primitive people. This fact would not have concerned Plato's readers because they would have understood that he was not giving them an historical account of a real city. To assume, as many believers in Atlantis do, that there is a parallel between Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Plato's Critias and Timaeus is simply absurd. And those who think that just as Schliemann found Troy so too will we someday crack Plato's code and find Atlantis are drawing an analogy where they should be drawing the curtains. Plato's purpose was not to pass on stories, but to create stories to teach moral lessons. What can we expect next from these lost scholars? A search for the grave of Cecrops, the serpent-tailed first king of Athens? The discovery of the true trident of Poseidon? ....

  • Sonar isn't enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gadgetfreak ( 97865 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:50AM (#10819735)
    I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but making claims about finding Atlantis based on preliminary sonar imagery might be jumping the gun a little bit. In a sea that's been heavily travelled since human kind first built boats, it could be a lot of different things. Even if it's a civilization, it could be one of many Mediterrannean settlements that nobody knew was missing.

    My point is that until they come up with some underwater photos, artifacts, or both, it's a bit early to claim that they found something that might not have even existed in the first place.

  • Would be nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gr8Apes ( 679165 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:51AM (#10819753)
    if they finally did find the actual atlantis. They believe they've found the real Troy [allaboutturkey.com], finding the real Atlantis will hopefully put much speculation to rest.

    Personally, I'm just eager to see what they find, if it is found. Ancient archeological surprises are pretty cool, as it always astounds me how relatively advanced some of these civilizations were, to only fall back into ignorance before we finally moved into the modern age.

  • Atlantis = Plato's fairytale. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DeafDumbBlind ( 264205 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:53AM (#10819771)
    The only mention of the place comes from Plato. He was telling a story about an evil, technologically superior force( The Atlantians) getting defeated by the 'just and moral' Athenians. Plato was telling a tale with similar themes to Star Wars, etc : The just and moral will overcome the wicked and powerful.

    There was nothing more to it. No other historians wrote about it, none of Plato's contemporaries made any mention of it.

    Now, were there civilizations that got zapped by a flood/volcano/earthquake, etc? Sure.

    But was there an advanced civilization on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that got its ass kicked by the Greeks sometime between 1200-10000 BC (Depending on if you take Plato's words of 10k years literarly or not)?
    Doubt it.
    • There was nothing more to it. No other historians wrote about it, none of Plato's contemporaries made any mention of it.

      You mean those of his comtemporaries whom we currently have knowledge of did not write about Atlantis?

      You can find dozens of examples of names and places written about in the bible that many claimed were fairy tales since there were no other records of them. Pontius Pilate, Belshazzar, etc...

      In this case the believer of the historical document takes the same stance as the evolutionist

  • Lost /. post of Atlantis! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:55AM (#10819784) Homepage Journal
    Looks like the existance [slashdot.org] of this story has been lost too!

  • again? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by calibanDNS ( 32250 ) <brad_staton@@@hotmail...com> on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:55AM (#10819786)
    The AP article can be found here, on CNN [cnn.com].

    Just how often [science-frontiers.com] do we have to "solve" [atlan.org] the mystery [abc.net.au] of Atlantis [in-sourced.com]? When will the media accept that not every sunken city Atlantis, and that it probably isn't the last time that someone will find a site sunken by volcanic activity. Most of these discoveries are occuring in an area with large amounts of Volcanic activity, so doesn't it just make sense that these cities are there?

  • I read this, but am a little suspect... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @09:56AM (#10819796)
    I also read an article about the same event on CNN I believe (I am too lazy to post the link). In anycase, the side-scanning sonar did pick up what appear to be walls which do fit exactly the description of Atlantis (60-70 exact points corallate directly to the description of Atlantis).

    But I say I am skeptical about this discovery. Mainly because of who funded the expedition. It cost about $250k, which was raised by proceedes from book sales and donations, with the largest donation of $60k comming from a "Tourisim" society/acency in Cypris. Well, where does "Atlatis" show up? Off the coast of Cypris...

    • They were looking around Cypress... what you expected them to get a donation from the Argentinian Tourism board for their research in the waters off Cypress? It's not like the Donation from the Cypress Tourism Board made them pick the location, they'd already picked the location, and got a donation from the locals.

  • Altantis sure gets about (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hieronymus Howard ( 215725 ) * on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:00AM (#10819835)
    Altantis seems to be very mobile. It's been spotted in Cyprus now. Last time it was Ireland [cnn.com], before that it was in Spain [bbc.co.uk] and then Gibraltar [bbc.co.uk]
    Prior to that it was in the mid atlantic [bbc.co.uk] where it moved to from Greece [bbc.co.uk]. Of course, it's original location was off the coast of Cornwall [bbc.co.uk].

    • Re:Altantis sure gets about (Score:4, Funny)

      by radtea ( 464814 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @11:34AM (#10820813)
      Yeah, pretty soon we'll be having people reporting where Atlantis isn't:

      "Crypto-archeologists today reported that they found no sign of Atlantis off the coast of North Dakota. This is a striking new development in Atlantis Studies, which have previously shown that Atlantis once covered 98.7% of the Earth's surface area."

      --Tom

  • Really Big Floods (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jea6 ( 117959 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:01AM (#10819840)
    Really big floods aren't an outrageous mythical proposition. [nationalgeographic.com] Neither is an anti-religion bias.

  • BBC News is missing actual photography (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:03AM (#10819845) Journal
    ... so here is one from some swedish news: a bunch of urns [aftonbladet.se]

    Surprisingly that picture doesn't seem very common in related stories from a Google News search.

  • I wouldn't get all excited (Score:4, Interesting)

    by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposer@alum. m i t.edu> on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:06AM (#10819872) Homepage

    Any new archaeological find is potentially interesting, but I wouldn't get all excited about this, for two reasons. First, nothing much is known. Sonar doesn't tell you very much, not even whether it is really an archaeological site. It is all too common for people to decide that something must be manmade because the edges are too straight or something like that, only for it to turn out to be a natural geological formation. Without further evidence, we won't know what this is.

    Secondly, supposing that these are the remains of a city, what makes this one more exciting than any other? I submit that what makes it exciting is the association with the Atlantis legend of a particularly advanced society. But that is precisely the part of Plato's story that is most likely false. Even if his story is based on a real city that was submerged, it was most likely an ordinary city of its time, perhaps well off by the standards of the day, but not the amazingly advanced civilization of sci-fi movies. We can't of course rule it out entirely, but we will only have reason to believe it if actual evidence is found, and at present there isn't any.

  • The Lost City of Altalanta! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Vinnie_333 ( 575483 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:07AM (#10819880)
    Atlanta was more than just a delta hub. And the caffeine can really speed up the evolutionary process. Wooo doggies!

  • Why does everyone say that this city is lost? (Score:3, Funny)

    by zzyzx ( 15139 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:13AM (#10819925) Homepage
    I know exactly where it is. It's at the intersection of I-75, I-85 and I-20. I go there all the time. What's the big deal?

    What?

    Oh AtlantIS.

    Sorry.

  • It's Like Star Trek (Score:4, Funny)

    by ReciprocityProject ( 668218 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:16AM (#10819954) Homepage Journal
    Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods.


    In related news, the stories of voyagers traveling back in time and interacting with the present-day citizens of Earth, being a common threat in all five of the Star Trek series, as well as one of the movies, is proof that the events of Star Trek will all become real historical facts.

  • Is there a better URL? The Minoans are fascinating (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ultraworld ( 822170 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:25AM (#10820039)
    I'm fascinated by the culture of the ancient Minoans, that lived in this area during the late Bronze Age. The Atlantis myth is almost certainly about them. They thrived for at least 2000 years, until a series of volcanic events around 1700 BC that appear to have destroyed their major cities (and others) and ended in the assimilation of their culture into others, most notably the Mycaenians - the ancestors of the ancient Greeks, and the beginnings of a long dark age in the Mediterranean that halved the population or more, lasted several hundred years and reduced many area cultures to pre-literacy. Our historical era begins in the dawn of literacy out of the ashes of this time.

    The Minoan millennia's history is still almost completely unguessable. Archaeological sites that exist are difficult to find, sometimes obscured by this volcanic action, water (changing sea levels) or by the massive desertification that occurred in North Africa. There may be still much to learn from seawrecks on the bottom of the Mediterranean, though.

    These events probably also formed the factual basis for the Biblical plagues of Egypt. (huge volcano-caused climate changes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. resulting in a 'nuclear winter' lasting several years in which a significant portion of the Northern Hemisphere's population died of starvation.) The volcanic caldera of the present-day Aegean island of Santorini was probably the location of this explosion. The surviving Minoans clearly were scattered across the world...the Phoenecians, the Carthaginians, and many other ancient Semitic cultures (the Sephardic Jews and the Arabs) may all be descended from them. So were the Pelasgians. And perhaps the Philistines of the Biblical era.

    The Minoans were probably the real proto-Greeks.

    They are truly an enigma. It appears that they lived most of this time in peace, indeed, the remains of their cities that we have found never have walls. They had indoor plumbing, flush toilets, buildings up to five stories high. There are traces of their influence all the way from Spain to India. They were probably the model for Tolkien's "Numenorians", as well as many cultural myths.. Read Platos "Critas' and "Timmaeus' for his version of the story.. Its fascinating. They were Europe's first advanced civilization... Their written language (what little that we have) Linear A has still not been deciphered and it is one of the great mysteries in linguistics...and cryptology..

  • It'd be Funny (Score:5, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:27AM (#10820053) Homepage Journal
    If one of these bozos eventually did find Atlantis and it turned out there really was an ancient evil sleeping there just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

    Ah well, one can dream...

  • Plato's Atlantis, not just any Atlantis (Score:5, Informative)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:29AM (#10820076) Homepage Journal
    Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
    -Hemos, from the original post

    Hemos tries to make a good point, but reduces himself to ineffectual sarcasm -- evidently because he didn't RTFA.

    Yes, many cities were flooded and sunk in ancient times. Yes, these events have become mythologized as a generic Atlantis.

    But the article makes very clear: the discovers believe that *this* Atlantis is the Atlantis of Plato, because the dimesions and layout of the sunken city closely correspond to Plato's descriptions.

    -kgj

  • No Chinese myths of lost civilisations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tehanu ( 682528 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:41AM (#10820182)
    In Chinese mythology, there is a story of a great flood. The tale is very different from the Noah story though. Also given the nature of the story I suspect that this is due to a great flooding of the Yellow River rather related to the tales of a great flood in Asia Minor and Europe. But I can't remember any tales of a lost civilisation that disappeared beneath the waves. There are the mythological 5 emperors who were advanced in wisdom, technology, helped the Chinese people, etc. but they were very firmly based in China. I guess this means that Atlantis if it exists can't be around the Asian region then?

  • Erm, localisation problem. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 ) <rrw@hell.pl> on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:49AM (#10820259) Journal
    Every time someone finds submerged (or even simply abandoned) ruins, he claims that he has found Atlantis. Completely disregarding the only sure thing from Homer's tales, that if it even existed, Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

    You can argue all you want, that "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" means "far, far away", but that still doesn't change the fact, that Cyprus, Crete, Santorini are right in the middle of Hellenistic domain!!! Hence neither "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" nor "far, far away".

    Abandoned or submerged ruins of ancient civilization? Sure. Atlantis? No fucking way!

    Move along, nothing to see here.

    Robert

  • Floods (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @10:51AM (#10820297)
    Maybe there are myths about really big floods, because there have been really big floods.

    No, I'm not talking about the earth being 6000 years old and Mosasaurs being proof of evolution.

    For example, the Great Flood myth that pop up around the Persian Gulf all stem from the fact that the Persian Gulf filled up only about 9000 years ago. Well it may have gone from marsh to it's current form sometimes in there. Likewise it's a stretch, but not too much of one to have some of those myths derive from the end of the most recent Ice Age and the rising of the water levels from that.

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