Atlantis: Discovered at Last? 478
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.
Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
I think I see it! (Score:4, Funny)
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?
Re:That would be Andalusia, infidel swine! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I think I see it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think I see it! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Looking for not expensive high-quality potions? We might have just what you need.
_95%0ff for
all-eternal (y)outh, healing crystal ,-- L-evitra--flying fish gliders .
-- squirehood practicable meistersinger shifty checkout dr bourn crate wigmake africa anton push stowaway clearheaded multipliable fortitude
Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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
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
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
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].
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.
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.
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Tsk. Tsk. Sure you can. Similar to the Carbon 14 dating you mention, you could date computer code as it sw
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
So, how useful is your little dog for recovering ancient artifacts IRL?
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.
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.
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.
You almost got me there .. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
I almost belived you were an Archeolog up until you wrote that..
For something to be a science, you have to be able to do studies, using methods based on theories, and to get results that can be independently verified by repeating the study by peer scientists.
Archeology is exactly that ..
If you want an example of something that is not science, take psychoanalysis as an example. It's not even a theory, and as such, can't be disproofed. Everything is based on two subjects of Freud that he found interesting, and used to get him out of his financial troubles.
I'm sure he is laughing hysterically in his grave.
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.
Re:You almost got me there .. (Score:5, Insightful)
No it isn't. Many aspects of archaeology are non-repeatable. Excavation is the obvious example.
Excavation is not about digging dirt, the main part, and the one that matters is to not destroy anything that matters and rigorusly documenting every aspect of it.
That way you can "repeat the study" later by other archeologs, and based on new theories and/or information, possibly reach a totally different conclusion.
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.
Exacty, and archeology is *exactly* like other sciences in that matter. Physics, for example is not *truth*, but merely a collection of our best efforts to describe the universe we live in.
A new *truth* can be found tomorrow and change the way we think about reality. Take the size and shape of the universe as an example, there are more than one theory about that one.
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.
Re:C-14 dating ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calibration amounts are generally relatively small, so it's not a big deal. Creationists like to pretend that they're huge (they're not), or that all dating mechanisms are calibrated (most aren't; carbon dating is unusual). The most reliable dating methods, BTW, are methods like isochron and concordia/discordia methods, which have built-in error checking.
Probably the best indicator of the reliability of carbon dating in the general case is its correspondance to other dating methods, particularly (as was mentioned) dendrochronology. Different fossilized tree records, while showing somewhat varying levels of the different carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, show, to a good degree of accuracy, the *same* varying levels.
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:3, Interesting)
in the symbol (and no, i can't remember the rest of the symbols). So for reasons like erosion, it could be
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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.
Pareidolia is very common (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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
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!
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 :)
Re:Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
It must be asked... (Score:4, Funny)
This is not off-topic (Score:3, Informative)
We've "found" it dozens of times... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it certainly would be cool if it was the real deal!
Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... (Score:4, Interesting)
-B
Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... (Score:5, Informative)
This would be meaningful, except for two things...
Could it be Keftiu (Atlantis' story parent) (Score:4, Interesting)
This could very easily be Atlantis. Minoan Crete never made sense (it never sunk) - Santorini island made more sense as most of it blew up (flooding Minoan Crete). It seems to me, though, that it was described as "west of Egypt" and that island's really NW.
Magic Eye (Score:3, Funny)
It reminds me of Troy (Score:5, Interesting)
Concentric ring forts (Score:5, Interesting)
pareidolia (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pareidolia (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Re:pareidolia (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at that mountain toward the left... (Score:3, Funny)
And the skeleton of a dove.
Ahead of the game (Score:3, Interesting)
But these days everyone's finding [science-frontiers.com] Atlantis
Re:South America (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
(we found it! we found it! Oh, crap...)
-Goran
National Park location? (Score:3)
Finders keepers?
Indy anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Screeny here: http://www.sebelinteractive.de/scummvm/images/sho
I hope there will be something interesting to find down there
Re:Indy anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
Ohh...poor AC doesn't know how to get there if you don't make a nice linky-linky for him.
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
Santorini? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Santorini may be Atlantis. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's consider the following:
1. Thera in its heyday had a very advanced civilization by ancient standards with things like surprisingly modern plumbing systems!
2. The island of Crete--90 miles south of Thera--had more or less the same type of civilization on Thera.
3. When Thera's volcano did that catastrophic eruption, not only did most of the island sink into the sea from the eruption but it also created a massive tsunami wave that wiped out most of the smaller and larger human settlements on the north coast of Crete 90 miles south. That explains why there was considerable water and mud damage to Knossos.
4. If Solon had properly translated what he heard from the Egyptians in the 7th Century BC, he would have placed the destruction of Atlantis at 900 years, not 9,000 years before his time. 900 years would almost match perfectly the time Thera did its final eruption from Solon's contemporary perspective.
Re:Santorini? (Score:5, Interesting)
The most interesting explanation I'm aware of for Atlantis -- and all the other western flood myths (Noah's ark, Gilgamesh, etc) goes back even further, to the end of the last ice age, when sea levels were lower and the Mediterranean basin may have been a relatively small, dry basin.
In H. G. Wells' Outline of History [amazon.com], there is this interesting passage:
So, we have a huge cataclysmic event that would have been common to all the people living in the Mediterranean basin, possibly going up past the Bosporous to the Black Sea.
And because nearly all ancient communities seem to have sprung up along sea coasts and river banks, it seems reasonable to assume that the ancient coastline of the Mediterranean (and Black Sea) would have been thickly populated, while the "inland" areas that form the current coastline would have been populated sparsely if at all.
With that in mind, it seems obvious that whatever remains of any civilizations that preceded ones like Greece & Egypt would have been in areas that are now submerged. The survivors of this cataclysm would have been dispersed across the region, where their stories may well have evolved into the various flood myths that have been handed down to us today. This would help explain why nearly all of these civilizations have flood myths, while also explaining why these stories vary so much.
It seems reasonable to me...
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
Troy. (Score:3, Insightful)
The same could be said of some of the biblic places.
And who knows? We may find one day a place that inequivoably is identified as Atlantis.
Re:Troy. (Score:3, Informative)
Thus the story of Troy was a myth in the sense that the ride of Paul Revere is a myth. False, invented by a poet, but historical.
The story of Atlantis is a st
Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I doubt such a place really existed. I havn't read the
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".
One Atlantis of Many? (Score:4, Insightful)
IIRC, the Greeks attributed their stories of Atlantis to a travelling Egyptian. So even the Greeks got the information second hand, and probably wouldn't have been able to uniquely identify Atlantis.
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.
Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... (Score:5, Informative)
Quite a way down in the section entitled 'Radioactive Ash in Rajasthan, India'. As they point out it fits with peoples preconceptions and a willingness to believe that there is some esoteric layer to history.
The various other pieces of 'evidence' are interesting but inconclusive. There's quite a good description of them in 'Fingerprints of the Gods' by Graham Hancock who goes in for that sort of thing.
Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah I followed up the information on the "mysterious sea peoples" mentioned in the BBC article, apparently a crowd of raiders that made short work of most of the civilistions in the area at that period, and I was immediately struck by the similarities between stories of them and some very ancient Irish legends.
These talk about a people called the "Fomors" (or various other names) who were also known as the "Sea Demons" from the south, who enslaved Ireland for a period, before being defeated by a coalitio
How do you find... (Score:3, Funny)
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
Atlantis: Discovered Again? (Score:4, Informative)
Atlantis: Discovered Again?
It makes the story more consistent with facts.
--
virve
no rings, no rectangles... (Score:5, Funny)
picture. But I clearly see a big cache of WMD in the lower left corner.
Obviously.... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Final truth? (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you define which is the real Atlantis? I bet there are many forgotten cities that distantly match description written almost 3000 years ago.
Can Atlantis be identified without a doubt? If so, then how?
Just fudge the numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just fudge the numbers (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of units of measurement used in ancient times were subjective like this. The best (by which I mean "Augh! Worst!")example is the stathmos, which simply meant "a day's march."
A day's march how? On foot? Horseback? Chariot? With or without a supply train? Jogging? On flat ground? Broken terrain? Roads? The correct answer is "yes," which means that this unit can vary disgustingly depending on the circumstances. A day's trudge through the Amazon and a day's travel on horseback along a plain are both a stathmos, though they're very different distances.
There's other examples of this, such as the talent, defined as the weight a man could carry on his back comfortably, and therefore something between fifty and eighty pounds. It was used both as a simple unit of weight and as a unit of currency, so you'll see people paying reparations of fifty talents or whatnot to the neighbouring state - which drives people up the wall when the authour's not specifying what the talents are of!
Units of measurement were also different from town to town. Standardized weights and measures are newfangled.
The stadia isn't quite so flexible, but the definitions of it I've seen are still based off other units the Greeks used, so yes, enough uncertainty kicks in that we could be off by some significant factor either way. He could have subscribed to a William Tarn-esque "make shit up" school of thought, it's true, but he could also be right. I'd need to take a better look at what he's written to see whether the shoe fits or whether he had to perform some unrequired surgery.
-PS
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...
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.
Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC (Score:4, Interesting)
Excavating the site (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
South Pole (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:South Pole (Score:3, Interesting)
SO My question (Score:3, Funny)
Great but... (Score:3, Interesting)
As little as we know about alleged Atlantis, one thing is sure from Plato's tales -- Atlantis was beyond the Pilars of Hercules (Gibraltar Strait). So anything on the Atlantic, Pacific or Indian Ocean is a good candidate, whether it is in Amercia, Asia or Antarctic.
Anything on Mediterranean Sea, or Black Sea is NOT beyond the Pilars of Hercules.
Robert
Plato. Sigh. It's about Athens and Sparta, Folks. (Score:4, Informative)
Plato's references to Atlantis, specifically, are basically a sequel to his Republic, which is in turn an idealized version of the Spartan state. The Republic is mostly about an anti-democratic reaction to the direction Athens chose to go. The Atlantis myth is essentially a way of describing early Athens as virtuously fighting against an outside invader. Plato was using his created myth, to quote a skeptic's article on this, as a "noble lie." [csicop.org]
The specific physical characteristics being cited in this article are so ludicrously overgeneral that I'm amazed they don't have more than one match to go on. All you have to know is what the article says: "The features were originally spotted by Werner Wickboldt, a lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast who studied photographs from across the Mediterranean for signs of the city described by Plato." This is another Heinrich Schliemann. They'll be planting golden masks next.
(Hey, I've found another ancient city of Troy! It's an Anasazi settlement. Go ahead... prove it ain't. Or maybe Atlantis was on Santorini. Or was that Troy? Or Tyre. Yeah... Tyre.)
Re:Plato. Sigh. It's about Athens and Sparta, Folk (Score:4, Interesting)
Plato's work describes a rather agressive and widespread empire. Hindu legends of the Deva Nahusha also tell of a similar, widespread empire around the same time. Atlantis is not mentioned by that name anywhere outside of Plato's work, but strikingly similar entities are told of in other place under different names.
There's lots of other myths and legends in other cultures around the world that seem to point to some sort of largish civilization at the time Atlantis was supposed to have peaks. No UFOs, no advanced technology, no silliness... just *something* that is, for the most part, still undiscovered. It's not a big deal, really. So the dawn of civilization gets pushed back a bit. So what? It'd be interesting. Look at Caral in Peru. That discovery pushed back the birth of city life and organized farming in the "New World" a full 1000 years in one shot.
As for the features being spotted by an Atlantis enthusiast, well, use scientific method here: who else is looking for it? ;-)
Why hasn't the US hired him... (Score:3, Funny)
I mean if he can pick out Atlantis from that one picture.. he should be able to find every hiding spot in Iraq..
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)
Most compelling recent theory (IMHO) is... (Score:4, Interesting)
That "Atlantis" referred to most of Indonesia, under the South China Sea [atlan.org], since it was a full continent rather than a bunch of islands during the last ice age [atlan.org]. It's pretty novel, and I can't recall any other work putting forth this theory (ie, anything on TLC - heh).
A Brazillian Professor has a pretty informative site about this [atlan.org] where he talks about his research. Since they added a forum [atlan.org], it seems that more other people than I realized have been following this as well.
How does this work, you say? Well, if you consider the mediterranian philosophy of flat earths and rings going out, they considered the "Atlantic Ocean" to be a sort of "world ocean", not the specific ocean we call it today [atlan.org]. Plus, there are a whole other number of Atlantis "checklist items [atlan.org]" that the area has in its favor that really don't exist in the Mediterranian or South America (ie, lots of elephants, dual rice harvests, etc...)
Anyway, now that it's posted... I'd be interesting in seeing some other Slashdotters' opinions about it.
=)
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.