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That's this week's theory, anyway - http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/15/bronze-age-sardinia-archaeology-atlantis

One theory that came out a few years ago I feel supplies the basis behind the Atlantis legend. Most of the Mediterranean was dry land up to the end of the last Ice Age. There was a land bridge between the Med and the Black Sea which was breached when the water level in the Black Sea rose due to the ice water melt when the ice sheet retreated. This resulted in large scale flooding in the Med area. There have been a number of discoveries recently of submerged remains in the Med, recently there was a broken monolith found off the coast of Sicily which supports the theory that there was a civilisation that was submerged due to rising water levels thousands of years ago- http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/underwater-stonehenge-monolith-found-off-coast-of-sicily-150806.htm

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 17, 2015, 01:49:15 PM
That's this week's theory, anyway - http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/15/bronze-age-sardinia-archaeology-atlantis

It should be testable - the buried settlements should be covered in marine sediments.  Such impact events would also cause a circular wave, so there should be similar sediments in other areas of the Western Mediterranean.

And obviously the Sardan were Atlanteans displaced by the sinking who rampaged round the Med until they ended back where they'd started

There's bound to be at least one Chronology which makes this possible  :-[

Jim

Maybe these were the 'Sea Peoples' - mystery where they came from would be solved if their land had flooded...

I love the way the "geophysicist and tidal-wave expert" just casually drops a comet into the sea at a nice, low velocity, at precisely the correct angle and exact place required, a convenient, if lazy, deus ex machina explanation for something he can't instantly account for otherwise. Oddly, he doesn't go on to explain why there's no evidence for widespread depopulation and massive destruction for hundreds to thousands of kilometres around said impact zone, had a comet genuinely been responsible (an object liable to produce a massive airburst, aside from any surface impact - see for instance the effects of a, by contrast to a comet, tiny object which produced a smaller-scale airburst, but little sign of an impact, that devastated a forest area about the size of modern Greater London in the Stony Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 on this Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event); not the last word, but a handy summary).

[Yes, I appreciate 20 km/sec may not seem "low velocity", by comparison to, say, the archetypal "speeding bullet" (which would be left like the proverbial tortoise in the hare's wake by such a speed), but as bodies orbiting within the Solar System in the Earth's vicinity have a velocity range which runs from roughly 11 to 72 km/sec, 20 km/sec is remarkably slow!]

Slightly confused by your comment Adrian, as my understanding was it was the Med which flooded the Black Sea at some stage in the late to post-glacial period, c.5600 BC, not the other way round. How massive and sudden such a flood may have been, remains open to debate. Couple of useful summaries on Wikipedia, for the Black Sea "deluge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis), and massive outburst flooding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outburst_flood) concepts more generally (this latter also has notes on the Med during the last glacial period, suggesting sea level there had dropped by just 110-120 metres; that monolith off Sicily was only about 40 metres below modern sea level).

Problem in all the "Atlantis" scenarios - and there are a good many more stories than just Atlantis about lands reclaimed by the sea - is that there are plenty of genuinely-identifiable examples, some of which are still happening now, so claiming a specific place as "Atlantis" is never really going to work. Until somebody finds clear inscriptions identifying it as such, at least!

[The "Lost lands" Wikipedia page here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_lands) has an interesting list of such real and mythological places, including many lost to the sea, for instance.]

Didn't Herodotus place it off Cyrenaica?

Quote from: Mark G on August 18, 2015, 07:37:28 AM
Didn't Herodotus place it off Cyrenaica?

Not exactly.

"After another ten days' journey there is again a hill of salt, and water, and men living there. Near to this salt is a mountain called Atlas, whose shape is slender and conical; and it is said to be so high that its heights cannot be seen, for clouds are always on them winter and summer. The people of the country call it the pillar of heaven.

These men get their name, which is Atlantes, from this mountain. It is said that they eat no living creature, and see no dreams in their sleep."  - Hdt IV.184

This tribe is named after the Atlas mountain and not the Atlantic continent, which is principally mentioned in Plato's dialogue Critias (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180%3Atext%3DCriti.%3Asection%3D108e).

Quote"Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Heracles and all that dwelt within them; which war we have now to relate in detail. It was stated that this city of ours was in command of the one side and fought through the whole of the war, and in command of the other side were the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes and has created a barrier of impassable mud  which prevents those who are sailing out from here to the ocean beyond from proceeding further. Now as regards the numerous barbaric tribes and all the Hellenic nations that then existed, the sequel of our story, when it is, as it were, unrolled, will disclose what happened in each locality; but the facts about the Athenians of that age and the enemies with whom they fought we must necessarily describe first, at the outset,—the military power, that is to say, of each and their forms of government. And of these two we must give the priority in our account to the state of Athens.

[various divine doings and a long digression on the state of very early Greece omitted]

But before I begin my account, there is still a small point which I ought to explain, lest you should be surprised at frequently hearing Greek names given to barbarians. The reason of this you shall now learn. Since Solon was planning to make use of the story for his own poetry, he had found, on investigating the meaning of the names, that those Egyptians who had first written them down had translated them into their own tongue. So he himself in turn recovered the original sense of each name and, rendering it into our tongue,  wrote it down so. And these very writings were in the possession of my grandfather and are actually now in mine, and when I was a child I learnt them all by heart.

... Poseidon took for his allotment the island of Atlantis and settled therein the children whom he had begotten of a mortal woman in a region of the island of the following description. Bordering on the sea and extending through the center of the whole island there was a plain, which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and highly fertile; and, moreover, near the plain, over against its center, at a distance of about 50 stades, there stood a mountain that was low on all sides. Thereon dwelt one of the natives originally sprung from the earth, Evenor by name, with his wife Leucippe; and they had for offspring an only-begotten daughter, Cleito. And when this damsel was now come to marriageable age, her mother died and also her father; and Poseidon, being smitten with desire for her, wedded her; and to make the hill whereon she dwelt impregnable he broke it off all round about; and he made circular belts of sea and land enclosing one another alternately, some greater, some smaller, two being of land and three of sea, which he carved as it were out of the midst of the island; and these belts were at even distances on all sides, so as to be impassable for man;  for at that time neither ships nor sailing were as yet in existence. And Poseidon himself set in order with ease, as a god would, the central island, bringing up from beneath the earth two springs of waters, the one flowing warm from its source, the other cold, and producing out of the earth all kinds of food in plenty. And he begat five pairs of twin sons and reared them up; and when he had divided all the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he assigned to the first-born of the eldest sons  his mother's dwelling and the allotment surrounding it, which was the largest and best; and him he appointed to be king over the rest, and the others to be rulers, granting to each the rule over many men and a large tract of country. And to all of them he gave names, giving to him that was eldest and king the name after which the whole island was called and the sea spoken of as the Atlantic, because the first king who then reigned had the name of Atlas.

[family tree excursus omitted]

So all these, themselves and their descendants, dwelt for many generations bearing rule over many other islands throughout the sea, and holding sway besides, as was previously stated, over the Mediterranean peoples as far as Egypt and Tuscany.

Now a large family of distinguished sons sprang from Atlas; but it was the eldest, who, as king, always passed on the scepter to the eldest of his sons, and thus they preserved the sovereignty for many generations; and the wealth they possessed was so immense that the like had never been seen before in any royal house nor will ever easily be seen again; and they were provided with everything of which provision was needed either in the city or throughout the rest of the country. For because of their headship they had a large supply of imports from abroad, and the island itself furnished most of the requirements of daily life,—metals, to begin with, both the hard kind and the fusible kind, which are extracted by mining, and also that kind which is now known only by name but was more than a name then, there being mines of it in many places of the island,—I mean "orichalcum," which was the most precious of the metals then known, except gold. It brought forth also in abundance all the timbers that a forest provides for the labors of carpenters; and of animals it produced a sufficiency, both of tame and wild. Moreover, it contained a very large stock of elephants; for there was an ample food-supply not only for all the other animals which haunt the marshes and lakes and rivers, or the mountains or the plains, but likewise also for this animal, which of its nature is the largest and most voracious. And in addition to all this, it produced and brought to perfection all those sweet-scented stuffs which the earth produces now, whether made of roots or herbs or trees, or of liquid gums derived from flowers or fruits. The cultivated fruit also, and the dry, which serves us for nutriment, and all the other kinds that we use for our meals—the various species of which are comprehended under the name "vegetables"—  and all the produce of trees which affords liquid and solid food and unguents, and the fruit of the orchard-trees, so hard to store, which is grown for the sake of amusement and pleasure, and all the after-dinner fruits that we serve up as welcome remedies for the sufferer from repletion,—all these that hallowed island, as it lay then beneath the sun, produced in marvellous beauty and endless abundance."

Anyone wishing to read further can continue the account here (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180%3Atext%3DCriti.%3Asection%3D115b).  Suffice to say the description is not of Sardinia.

Quote from: Sharur on August 17, 2015, 09:22:17 PM
I love the way the "geophysicist and tidal-wave expert" just casually drops a comet into the sea at a nice, low velocity, at precisely the correct angle and exact place required, a convenient, if lazy, deus ex machina explanation for something he can't instantly account for otherwise.

Rationale for a favoured viewpoint can indeed be extremely selective, especially when it comes to ignoring the consequences of proposals posited in such rationale.

QuoteProblem in all the "Atlantis" scenarios - and there are a good many more stories than just Atlantis about lands reclaimed by the sea - is that there are plenty of genuinely-identifiable examples, some of which are still happening now, so claiming a specific place as "Atlantis" is never really going to work. Until somebody finds clear inscriptions identifying it as such, at least!

Or we find buildings, roads etc. on the Atlantic seabed, considering there are probably not all that many competing cultures in that particular region.  If inscriptions in Atlantean script turn up, who would be able to read them? ;)

I got my information from a couple of books on the topic Alstair, the view was it was the land bridge between the Black Sea and the Med which broke, leading to the flooding of the Med.

Then they may well be wrong about the direction of flooding Adrian. The Mediterranean is much bigger than the Black Sea and is fed by the Atlantic as well as by many rivers including the mighty Nile. I think its accepted that the Med breaks through to the Black Sea.
Roy

But was there not a land bridge near where the Straits of Gibraltar are which was breached as well? There was not enough water in the Med for it to be open to the Atlantic before the Black Sea land bridge was breached, if there was then those buildings and monoliths would not have been on dry land at the time. One theory has it that the Black Sea land bridge fell, causing a tsunami that then swept down the Med, drowning the civilsation there and the on-rushing water also breached the land bridge near the Atlantic end and this then completed the destruction of the Med civilisations.

I thought that the low water levels in the Mediterranean were for a similar reason to those in the English Channel - an Ice Age.  If the English channel could have a land bridge and be attached to the Atlantic, then surely the Med could?

I'll try and check the source books I have about this Anthony, although I have a recollection that most of the water in the Med basin pre-wall breach was in the form of lakes and rivers.

Quote from: valentinianvictor on August 19, 2015, 04:13:02 PM
But was there not a land bridge near where the Straits of Gibraltar are which was breached as well?

The Med (re)filled from the Atlantic about 5 million years ago (the "Zanclean flood" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood)), quite a bit earlier than the 5600 BC date for the Black Sea episode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis).

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 19, 2015, 04:45:36 PM

Quote from: valentinianvictor on August 19, 2015, 04:13:02 PM
But was there not a land bridge near where the Straits of Gibraltar are which was breached as well?

The Med (re)filled from the Atlantic about 5 million years ago (the "Zanclean flood" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood)), quite a bit earlier than the 5600 BC date for the Black Sea episode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis).

Thanks Duncan. Been offline for a couple of days, and assumed the links I gave earlier (including this "Black Sea deluge" one) had answered these which-sea-level-was-lowest questions, but apparently not in all cases!

Quoting a key passage from the "massive outburst flooding" Wikipedia link in my Aug 17 posting:

The Mediterranean did not dry out during the most recent glacial maximum. Sea level during glacial periods within the Pleistocene is estimated to have dropped only about 110 to 120 metres (361 to 394 ft). In contrast, the depth of the Strait of Gibraltar where the Atlantic Ocean enters ranges between 300 and 900 metres (980 and 2,950 ft).

[You can find references for these points on that Wikipedia page.]

I've been following the whole "Black Sea deluge was the Biblical flood" story, with variants, in geological academia and less reliable places, since it first appeared about twenty years ago on and off, but it's tended to become a bit circular and tedious over time, often arguing without sufficient evidence either way, so I've not kept up with it in recent years as closely as I once might. The Wiki pages seem the most useful quick summaries to me certainly, and they are helpfully referenced.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 18, 2015, 12:10:27 PM
Or we find buildings, roads etc. on the Atlantic seabed, considering there are probably not all that many competing cultures in that particular region.

Don't say that, there's a whole menagerie of supposed or lost Atlantic lands to chose between. Johnson's Phantom Islands of the Atlantic and Babcock's Legendary islands of the Atlantic deal with partially overlapping sets of examples.

Ultimately, though, all such combinations of mediaeval imagination and inept mapmaking seem to reflect a loose grasp of geography rather than drawing upon the relics of different Atlantic cultures.  'Hy Braseal' and the like, including the unmentioned Lyonesse - plus Ireland's Fomor legends - all seem to boil down to memories and extensions of legends concerning later Atlantis.  Odd islands (Demons' Isle, Emerald Isle) either do come and go, perhaps for volcanically related reasons, or have had their positions or purported existence refined by later and more accurate cartography.

As far as I can see, this still leaves just the one Atlantic culture and homeland, that of Atlantis.  Plato's descriptions in the Critias and Timaeus pretty much exclude anything in the Mediterranean and suggest an approximately tropical, though not necessarily equatorial, latitude.

The existence of megalithic rings in western Europe and northern Africa (see Mzora (https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/the-mysterious-moroccan-megalithic-menhirs-of-mzora/)) are just one possible pointer to an Atlantic culture of remarkable planning and engineering capabilities.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 23, 2015, 01:38:33 PM
As far as I can see, this still leaves just the one Atlantic culture and homeland, that of Atlantis. 

Quote
As far as I can see, it leaves us with none.

QuotePlato's descriptions in the Critias and Timaeus pretty much exclude anything in the Mediterranean and suggest an approximately tropical, though not necessarily equatorial, latitude.

How do you figure? Plato has it "opposite" the Pillars, which surely suggests a similar latitude, well north of the Tropic of Cancer.

QuoteThe existence of megalithic rings in western Europe and northern Africa (see Mzora (https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/the-mysterious-moroccan-megalithic-menhirs-of-mzora/)) are just one possible pointer to an Atlantic culture of remarkable planning and engineering capabilities.

Why'd you locate that culture anywhere else than in Europe and Africa, where the megaliths are? Explaining the ill-known by the completely unknown doesn't get us anywhere.

Quote from: Andreas Johansson on August 23, 2015, 05:11:40 PM

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 23, 2015, 01:38:33 PM
Plato's descriptions in the Critias and Timaeus pretty much exclude anything in the Mediterranean and suggest an approximately tropical, though not necessarily equatorial, latitude.

How do you figure? Plato has it "opposite" the Pillars, which surely suggests a similar latitude, well north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Mainly the fruits and the elephants; the latter are not noted for populating temperate zones, although I freely grant that in Biblical and classical times many could be found north of the Tropic of Cancer.  Atlantis would anyway have been a substantial continent covering a fair amount of latitude, given that the Azores and Bahamas may be surviving remnants.

Quote

QuoteThe existence of megalithic rings in western Europe and northern Africa (see Mzora (https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/the-mysterious-moroccan-megalithic-menhirs-of-mzora/)) are just one possible pointer to an Atlantic culture of remarkable planning and engineering capabilities.

Why'd you locate that culture anywhere else than in Europe and Africa, where the megaliths are? Explaining the ill-known by the completely unknown doesn't get us anywhere.

Because the distribution of the megaliths is eccentric, suggesting a centre of gravity from beyond Western Europe and Africa.  It seems to be established nearer the seaborne fringes than the centre of either continent, and is established on not one but both continents.

I'm not sure that the source can bear such a close literal reading.
Do the "real" animals that populate a fictional land tell us anything?

As an aside... I'm not familiar with this subject at all, but is the atlantis story seen as part of the catastrophic flood mythos? Or is it seen as another phenomenom?

QuoteBecause the distribution of the megaliths is eccentric, suggesting a centre of gravity from beyond Western Europe and Africa.  It seems to be established nearer the seaborne fringes than the centre of either continent, and is established on not one but both continents.

Not really wanting to get drawn into this one but I think you should pin down your meaning of megalith.  Megalithic building techniques are widespread, not just found on the fringes of Europe, but you may have particular classes of monument in mind.  Also, a "fringe" distribution could be accounted for by a greater importance of seaborne movement in cultural transmission - ideas don't have to radiate from a centre.

Quote from: Erpingham on August 24, 2015, 09:51:31 AM

Not really wanting to get drawn into this one but I think you should pin down your meaning of megalith.  Megalithic building techniques are widespread, not just found on the fringes of Europe, but you may have particular classes of monument in mind.  Also, a "fringe" distribution could be accounted for by a greater importance of seaborne movement in cultural transmission - ideas don't have to radiate from a centre.

Specifically stone circles with solar orientation.  Implications of other megalithic constructions worldwide we can happily consider; many of these tend to make at least some people think of vanished high-tech civilisations who could move, align and fit the things.

Seaborne movement in cultural transmission can indeed account for 'fringe' distributions; the essential question being whether it is possible to pin down the origin of the culture that was transmitted.

One might note in passing that while the stone circles, and indeed other megaliths such as isolated menhirs or constructions involving massive stone slabs, are indeed stone and thus conceptually suited to a mesolithic or neolithic era, they are rather larger and more sophisticated in their grouping than the kind of stones we would expect to be in use.

Quote from: Dangun on August 24, 2015, 07:57:00 AM
Do the "real" animals that populate a fictional land tell us anything?

That begs a very important question. :)

Quote
As an aside... I'm not familiar with this subject at all, but is the Atlantis story seen as part of the catastrophic flood mythos? Or is it seen as another phenomenon?

If Sir means, does Plato present it as a catastrophic flood mythos, the answer is no.  He presents it as history, or at least a tradition of history.

For a resume of catastrophic flood traditions plus a soupcon of etymology, feel free to drop in here (http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/atlantis-and-deluge.html) (and never mind the site label).

I hardly dare mention this, but:

https://ospreypublishing.com/the-wars-of-atlantis .

::)

I find the origin of the story more interesting than the unlikely reality of what the Atlantis story has become.

For example, I wonder if the Atlantis story share a genetic literary history with the closely related flood myths/pseudo-history - Utnapishtim, Atrahasis, and Noah etc.
Or alternatively is it just an unrelated and different cultural memory of some poor littoral community being wiped out by deglaciation, a river flooding, tsunami or other seismic event?

Its clearly not a Namazu-like explanatory myth.

Quote from: Dangun on August 25, 2015, 04:31:52 AM
... I wonder if the Atlantis story share a genetic literary history with the closely related flood myths/pseudo-history - Utnapishtim, Atrahasis, and Noah etc.

If this were the case, would it not require a good deal of cultural imagination by peoples noted for a very down-to-earth general attitude?  I cannot help thinking that the origin of flood myths tends to be floods.

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Or alternatively is it just an unrelated and different cultural memory of some poor littoral community being wiped out by deglaciation, a river flooding, tsunami or other seismic event?

Here we could have an extensive discussion about natural catastrophe and folk memory.  Major historical floods (pick any few along the Yangtze or Yellow River in historical times) tend to leave a bare record in the archives but no 'universal deluge' myth.  While a peasant's village is pretty much his world, and a flood obliterating his village might subjectively be deemed a world-destroying flood, it is not peasants who write literature, but kings and the scribes of kings.  Ergo, a flood that is deemed to affect the world would presumably as a minimum need to affect the entirety of a literate kingdom and its neighbours in order to qualify for incorporation among the august ranks of flood legends.

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Its clearly not a Namazu-like explanatory myth.

True: the end of Atlantis was not perceived as anything like quakes resulting from the raging of a gargantuan catfish, and interestingly deals with the submergence of a continent as opposed to a flood per se.  Floods, even world-spanning ones, eventually subside, whereas sunken continents apparently take rather longer to re-emerge than the Holocene period timeframe.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 25, 2015, 01:08:32 PM
Major historical floods (pick any few along the Yangtze or Yellow River in historical times) tend to leave a bare record in the archives but no 'universal deluge' myth.  While a peasant's village is pretty much his world, and a flood obliterating his village might subjectively be deemed a world-destroying flood, it is not peasants who write literature, but kings and the scribes of kings.  Ergo, a flood that is deemed to affect the world would presumably as a minimum need to affect the entirety of a literate kingdom and its neighbours in order to qualify for incorporation among the august ranks of flood legends.

But impressiveness scales with civilization...

...the earlier in history an event occurred, the less impressive it will need to be in reality to effect recorded history.
I think its quite conceivable that the (at least) 4000 year old Sumerian flood/deluge myth, might have been inspired by a rather modest town being unexpectedly destroyed by a flooding river.

(Religions are also good examples of this.)

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 25, 2015, 01:08:32 PM
True: the end of Atlantis was not perceived as anything like quakes resulting from the raging of a gargantuan catfish, and interestingly deals with the submergence of a continent as opposed to a flood per se.  Floods, even world-spanning ones, eventually subside, whereas sunken continents apparently take rather longer to re-emerge than the Holocene period time frame.

That might again be investing the source with more literal truth than it can bear.
Why should we ascribe the claim that the city sank, with precision, especially when the whole story is so dubious?

There have been hundreds of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes around the Mediterranean that have wiped out towns, and I am not sure I would trust any author of this period to differentiate one disaster from another, when clearly their information regarding location, geography etc. is so weak.

Its possible that something precise is being described, but this robust cultural meme has probably mutated so far from the historical event that we'll never be able to tell.

(A complete tangent... This reminds me of why I like Lord of the Rings. Its not like a Greek myth which to me often seems arbitrary and inelegant. But Atlantis is an eerily compelling  mix of possible history and myth.)

Quote from: Dangun on August 25, 2015, 03:11:54 PM

But impressiveness scales with civilization...

...the earlier in history an event occurred, the less impressive it will need to be in reality to effect recorded history.

I would respectfully disagree about this linear relationship between impressiveness and temporal distance BC.  Impressiveness is largely a matter of impressionability, which may be a function of culture but does not seem to be a function of age: classical historians BC were happy to consider a storm which blew into the faces of the enemy an act of nature, while Christian authors AD would readily ascribe it to an Act of God; miracle rather than meterology.

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Why should we ascribe the claim that the city sank, with precision, especially when the whole story is so dubious?

Not least because Atlantis as described by Plato or remembered by Mesoamerican peoples was a continent and not a city. 

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There have been hundreds of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes around the Mediterranean that have wiped out towns, and I am not sure I would trust any author of this period to differentiate one disaster from another, when clearly their information regarding location, geography etc. is so weak.

But is it weak?  How do we judge this?

Regarding geography and catastrophes, let us consider a classic classical account, namely Pliny's description of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by Vesuvius.  His geography was spot on, and he correctly differentiated which towns were wiped out.  (It would of course be surprising if things were otherwise, as he was an eyewitness. ;) )

Taking a broader example, in 373 BC the city of Helike was wiped out in a single night; an earthquake caused subsidence and a tsunami eliminated the population and submerged the city.  Diodorus seems to be our main source for the account, and he identifies the city and as far as we can judge the cause of destruction with complete accuracy (see this article (https://tourguidegirl.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/sunkencitiesofancientgreece/)).  The site was subsequently visited, not least for verification, by Eratosthenes, Pausanias, Strabo, Ovid and Pliny.  The congruence and accuracy of their information enabled researchers to rediscover the city (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/17/science/17CITY.html).

I trust classical authors to get their catastrophe-related geography sufficiently correct to tell us where to look.

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(A complete tangent... This reminds me of why I like Lord of the Rings. Its not like a Greek myth which to me often seems arbitrary and inelegant. But Atlantis is an eerily compelling  mix of possible history and myth.)

The Akallabeth, or Downfall of Numenor, in the Silmarillion has some remarkable Atlantean overtones.  But I do agree about certain Greek myths ...

QuoteI trust classical authors to get their catastrophe-related geography sufficiently correct to tell us where to look.

Perhaps the transmission route is important?  Plato is, I think, reporting a story told about Solon (who was a revered figure from the past) who had got chatting to some Egyptians who told him a story which they claimed they had a record of about Athens and their war with Atlantis 9,000 years before.  Looks somewhat tenuous even if you suspend belief. 

Quote from: Erpingham on August 25, 2015, 07:08:49 PM
Looks somewhat tenuous even if you suspend belief. 

Not quite as tenuous as it may seem, in that the Egyptian priesthood do seem to have had reliable records about most things, and it really comes down to what they had with regard to Atlantis.  Egyptian culture did go back a fair bit, well into the 'predynastic' period, so extended back into the right kind of timeframe.  And Atlantis would be the kind of realm that made a lasting impression.

There would be the possibility of a little bit of adaptation between Solon and Plato; there is an excellent yardstick for what happens when Greeks get hold of Egyptian source material, and that is the Oedipus story.  The identities of the principal characters were concealed by the adoption of stage names (Laius = 'left-footer'; Oedipus = 'swollen legs/feet'; Polyneices = 'many quarrels'; Eteocles = 'dutiful'; etc.) but the story, although transferred from Egyptian Thebes to Greek Thebes, is recognisably that of the Amarna period (Akhenaten etc.) towards the end of the 18th Dynasty.  Despite the 'laundering' of the basic account the amount of detail that is preserved is incredible, even to where Tutankhamun was wounded in his final duel (this matches the evidence from the 2004 computer tomography scan).

On balance I would consider the Egyptian records about Atlantis to be good, if by 'good' we mean likely to get correct the approximate geographical placement and the question of existence, with useful details as an optional extra.  I would also expect a little bit of Grecian flavour to have crept in between Solon and Plato along with the Grecised versions of the names, albeit not enough to distort the essentials of the story.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 26, 2015, 12:01:54 AM
Not quite as tenuous as it may seem, in that the Egyptian priesthood do seem to have had reliable records about most things, and it really comes down to what they had with regard to Atlantis. 

Again, this might be ascribing the source with precision it cannot bear.
Since we have no evidence for Plato's Atlantis, Plato's "I met this guy in bar who had just got back from a holiday in Egypt, and he'd met a priest in a bar..." is less than compelling.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 26, 2015, 12:01:54 AM
Taking a broader example, in 373 BC the city of Helike was wiped out in a single night; an earthquake caused subsidence and a tsunami eliminated the population and submerged the city.  Diodorus seems to be our main source for the account, and he identifies the city and as far as we can judge the cause of destruction with complete accuracy (see this article).  The site was subsequently visited, not least for verification, by Eratosthenes, Pausanias, Strabo, Ovid and Pliny.  The congruence and accuracy of their information enabled researchers to rediscover the city.

There is a difference between the two examples.
A tsunami in 373BC is far more knowable for us, than an Atlantian war in 9000BC.
And as you suggest, 373BC was very knowable for contempories, whereas Plato had little hope of knowing anything about 9000BC.

Quote from: Dangun on August 26, 2015, 01:17:31 AM

Since we have no evidence for Plato's Atlantis, Plato's "I met this guy in bar who had just got back from a holiday in Egypt, and he'd met a priest in a bar..." is less than compelling.

At least when thus misrepresented. ;) 

In the Timaeus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180%3Atext%3DTim.%3Asection%3D21e) [21a to 24e]:

Quote"In the Delta of Egypt," said Critias, "where, at its head, the stream of the Nile parts in two, there is a certain district called the Saitic. The chief city in this district is Sais—the home of King Amasis,—the founder of which, they say, is a goddess whose Egyptian name is Neith, and in Greek, as they assert, Athena. These people profess to be great lovers of Athens and in a measure akin to our people here. And Solon said that when he travelled there he was held in great esteem amongst them; moreover, when he was questioning such of their priests  as were most versed in ancient lore about their early history, he discovered that neither he himself nor any other Greek knew anything at all, one might say, about such matters. And on one occasion, when he wished to draw them on to discourse on ancient history, he attempted to tell them the most ancient of our traditions, concerning Phoroneus, who was said to be the first man, and Niobe; and he went on to tell the legend about Deucalion and Pyrrha after the Flood, and how they survived it, and to give the genealogy of their descendants;  and by recounting the number of years occupied by the events mentioned he tried to calculate the periods of time.

Whereupon one of the priests, a prodigiously old man, said, "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek." And on hearing this he asked, "What mean you by this saying?" And the priest replied, "You are young in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with age. And this is the cause thereof: There have been and there will be many and divers destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means. For in truth the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time Phaethon, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a thunderbolt,—that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in  the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies in the heavens which move round the earth, and a destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals. At such times all they that dwell on the mountains and in high and dry places suffer destruction more than those who dwell near to rivers or the sea; and in our case the Nile, our Saviour in other ways, saves us also at such times from this calamity by rising high. And when, on the other hand, the Gods purge the earth with a flood of waters, all the herdsmen and shepherds that are in the mountains are saved,  but those in the cities of your land are swept into the sea by the streams; whereas In our country neither then nor at any other time does the water pour down over our fields from above, on the contrary it all tends naturally to well up from below. Hence it is, for these reasons, that what is here preserved is reckoned to be most ancient; the truth being that in every place where there is no excessive heat or cold to prevent it there always exists some human stock, now more, now less in number. And if any event has occurred that is noble or great or in any way conspicuous, whether it be in your country or in ours or in some other place of which we know by report, all such events are recorded from of old and preserved here in our temples; whereas your people and the others are but newly equipped, every time, with letters and all such arts as civilized States require and when, after the usual interval of years, like a plague, the flood from heaven comes sweeping down afresh upon your people, it leaves none of you but the unlettered and uncultured, so that you become young as ever, with no knowledge of all that happened in old times in this land or in your own. Certainly the genealogies which you related just now, Solon, concerning the people of your country, are little better than children's tales; for, in the first place, you remember but one deluge, though many had occurred previously; and next, you are ignorant of the fact that the noblest and most perfect race amongst men were born in the land where you now dwell, and from them both you yourself are sprung and the whole of your existing city, out of some little seed that chanced to be left over; but this has escaped your notice because for many generations the survivors died with no power to express themselves in writing. For verily at one time, Solon, before the greatest destruction by water, what is now the Athenian State was the bravest in war and supremely well organized also in all other respects. It is said that it possessed the most splendid works of art and the noblest polity of any nation under heaven of which we have heard tell."

Upon hearing this, Solon said that he marvelled, and with the utmost eagerness requested the priest to recount for him in order and exactly all the facts about those citizens of old. The priest then said: "I begrudge you not the story, Solon; nay, I will tell it, both for your own sake and that of your city, and most of all for the sake of the Goddess who has adopted for her own both your land and this of ours, and has nurtured and trained them,—yours first by the space of a thousand years, when she had received the seed of you from Ge and Hephaestus, and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization as set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed: the full account in precise order and detail we shall go through later at our leisure, taking the actual writings.

Let me repeat that last bit: the full account in precise order and detail we shall go through later at our leisure, taking the actual writings.  This, then, was Solon's source and the basis of Plato's derivation.

QuoteLet me repeat that last bit: the full account in precise order and detail we shall go through later at our leisure, taking the actual writings.  This, then, was Solon's source and the basis of Plato's derivation.

You are overstretching your source here.  We don't know that Solon ever had the conversation because this comes from a story told by Critias.  It could be something Plato made up, it could be something Critias made up, it could be something Critias heard in the Agora one day or it could be something recorded by Solon in writings that have not survived.  We can't tell.  I haven't read the whole work in context but are we sure the purpose of this story was to provide an origin myth for Atlantis at all?

Quote from: Erpingham on August 26, 2015, 02:16:30 PM
You are overstretching your source here.  We don't know that Solon ever had the conversation because this comes from a story told by Critias.

Can I clear up a point here?  The Timaeus and Critias, which contain the bulk of our Greek material for Atlantis, are two of the Socratic dialogues penned by Plato.  Opinion varies as to whether they were verbatim transcripts of dialogues or simply invented dialogues for the purpose of instruction.  Either way, we anyway have a number of sources (notably Plutarch and Herodotus) which tell us that Solon did visit Egypt and while there he learned quite a lot from the Egyptians.

It may also be of interest to know that Solon was a friend of, and distantly related to, Plato's great-grandfather's grandfather's great-grandfather. :)

Quote
  It could be something Plato made up, it could be something Critias made up, it could be something Critias heard in the Agora one day or it could be something recorded by Solon in writings that have not survived.

If it was something Plato made up, it should be confined to Plato and Plato alone.  However certain Mesoamerican peoples preserved a tradition of a continent (http://www.ancient-atlantis.com/mesoamerican-traces-atlantis/) which sank under the waves and from which their ancestors fled.

""Aztec" is an umbrella term for numerous ethnic groups that spoke the ancient Nahuatl language in the region that is today known as Mexico. Europeans became aware of them in the 15th and 16th Century, but they were present in Central America long before. The word "Aztec" was given because these people claimed to have originated from an "island in the east" called "Aztlan" that had sunken ages ago."

It looks as if both sides of the Atlantic preserved a tradition of a continent with much the same name which perished in much the same way.  For Plato to invent a drowned continent with a name which happens also to be the name of the Nahuatl drowned continent would be an extraordinarily unlikely coincidence.

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I haven't read the whole work in context but are we sure the purpose of this story was to provide an origin myth for Atlantis at all?

A painless run through of the relevant dialogues can be found here (http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/topics/atlantis/timaeus_and_critias.html) together with a quick who's who of the cast.  Incidentally, Greeks in general and Athenians in particular do not seem to have thought in terms of 'providing an origin myth': they were interested to know where things - and peoples - came from, and scraped together such information as they could on the matter.  Regrettably they were also infested with playwrights who tended to interpolate their own 'take' in film-maker style, but the Critias and Timaeus and material therein do not seem to have gone anywhere near a playwright between Solon and Plato.

For those not enamoured of link-clicking, I should perhaps mention the relevant parts of Plato's family tree (note there are two individuals named Critias) and the 'chain of evidence'.

Solon - Athenian traveller, poet and lawgiver who lived from approximately 638-559 BC. According to Plato it was he who learned the story of Atlantis from an Egyptian priest.
Dropides - Critias' great grandfather who was told the story of Atlantis by Solon, a distant relative and close friend.
Critias - Son of Dropides and grandfather of the Critias who takes part in the dialogues. It was he who related the story of Atlantis to the Critias of the dialogues.
Critias - The Critias of the dialogues and Plato's great grandfather.

Plato's motivations in producing the story and whether there is any truth behind it is solid ground for debate  but I think when we start quoting New Age gurus as a reference source, it's time for me to step out.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 26, 2015, 09:04:02 PMIf it was something Plato made up, it should be confined to Plato and Plato alone.  However certain Mesoamerican peoples preserved a tradition of a continent (http://www.ancient-atlantis.com/mesoamerican-traces-atlantis/) which sank under the waves and from which their ancestors fled.

""Aztec" is an umbrella term for numerous ethnic groups that spoke the ancient Nahuatl language in the region that is today known as Mexico. Europeans became aware of them in the 15th and 16th Century, but they were present in Central America long before. The word "Aztec" was given because these people claimed to have originated from an "island in the east" called "Aztlan" that had sunken ages ago."

It looks as if both sides of the Atlantic preserved a tradition of a continent with much the same name which perished in much the same way.  For Plato to invent a drowned continent with a name which happens also to be the name of the Nahuatl drowned continent would be an extraordinarily unlikely coincidence.

Even the website that you link to doesn't call Aztlan a "continent", merely an "island".  Nor am I aware of any evidence for the Atlantis website's claim that Aztlan was submerged; Moctezuma I sent men to look for it, which suggests the Aztecs thought it was still around - and allegedly they found it. I can see no reason to locate Aztlan in the east; while your website says that there is no evidence in Aztec writings to locate it in North Mexico, northwards is precisely where Moctezuma sought it. The map in Codex Boturini seems to put the island in a lake, not the ocean, and one later collection of Aztec tales says it was an island in the "Lake of the Moon". So no Mesoamerican evidence for a "drowned continent" at all.

Plus the Aztecs/Mexica themselves reckon to have left Aztlan about the 12th C AD - a bit late for Atlantis.

The internet is a dangerous place to use for historical research. "It ain't necessarily so" should always be at the forefront of ones mind. That said, the Wikipedia page on Aztlan is pretty good for anyone interested in the facts as most people know them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztlan

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 26, 2015, 09:04:02 PM
For those not enamoured of link-clicking, I should perhaps mention the relevant parts of Plato's family tree (note there are two individuals named Critias) and the 'chain of evidence'.

Solon - Athenian traveller, poet and lawgiver who lived from approximately 638-559 BC. According to Plato it was he who learned the story of Atlantis from an Egyptian priest.
Dropides - Critias' great grandfather who was told the story of Atlantis by Solon, a distant relative and close friend.
Critias - Son of Dropides and grandfather of the Critias who takes part in the dialogues. It was he who related the story of Atlantis to the Critias of the dialogues.
Critias - The Critias of the dialogues and Plato's great grandfather.

Accepting for a moment that the 'chain of evidence' was real... Solon was born approximately 200 years before Plato.
I don't know any stories from my 18th century ancestors, but i'd imagine the intervening corruption would be significant.
Mind you this corruption of the Atlantis story would be minor compared to the damage done having spent 8500 years in an Egyptian bar.

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 26, 2015, 10:34:38 PM
So no Mesoamerican evidence for a "drowned continent" at all.

Actually there is plenty but most of it is not on the internet.  As Richard (T) points out, the internet has significant limitations as a research tool, and for that matter as a source of evidence, and very often the requisite evidence only surfaces in partial dribs and drabs on websites maintained by people with an 'aliens' agenda or an esoteric occult approach, such as here (http://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/kabbalah-of-the-mayan-mysteries/1075-the-egyptian-mayan-relationship-.html), which requires a certain amount of separating wheat from chaff (as opposed to chucking away the entire crop on the grounds that it is unwinnowed).

An interesting feature (mentioned in the ancient-atlantis.com site linked previously) is:

"The Toltec are said to have come from "Tollan" the "field of reeds". This is also the place the even older Maya claim to have come from. The ancient Egyptians refer to a sunken island "in the west" (from their perspective), as the "island of reeds"."

The Sargasso Sea is generally supposed by Atlantologists to mark the site of the lost continent, or at least an important portion of it.  This ocean area is known for its dense masses of seaweed.  Neither Nahuatl nor Ancient Egyptian has a word for 'seaweed', at least not in dictionaries I have been able to find, 'reed' (aacatl in Nahuatl, i in Egyptian) apparently having to double for the purpose.

Complicating the issue is that the planet seems to have lost more than one continent (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_churchward02.htm).  To lose one is unfortunate, to lose two looks like carelessness; but there we are.  This is important when considering Mayan records, as these have a characteristic end-of-Atlantis story and apparently timing but refer to the lost continent as 'Mu'.

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 26, 2015, 10:34:38 PM
Even the website that you link to doesn't call Aztlan a "continent", merely an "island".

The Nahuatl for 'island' (peten) can also mean a province or region, the underlying idea apparently being that is it 'round' (pet).  By default, as Nahuatl-speakers were aware of only one continent (theirs), peten would have to be their way of designating any land other than their own.

Quote from: Dangun on August 27, 2015, 09:16:55 AM
Accepting for a moment that the 'chain of evidence' was real... Solon was born approximately 200 years before Plato.
I don't know any stories from my 18th century ancestors, but I'd imagine the intervening corruption would be significant.

One has to ask why.  What would actually be corrupted?

Quote
Mind you this corruption of the Atlantis story would be minor compared to the damage done having spent 8500 years in an Egyptian bar.

We have earlier encountered, and dealt with, the idea that corruption of textual information is a function of time; in fact it is an artefact of scribal practice of the time in which it is retranscribed.*  And unless the relevant records had been immersed in beer, I cannot see that 8,500 years of storage would have had an adverse effect upon them beyond the possible deterioration of their physical form requiring retranscription, which is where scribal practice matters.

*There is an interesting facet to this arising from AI scanning limitations in our digital era: words such as 'coining' can be rendered 'coming' and vice versa.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 27, 2015, 01:51:11 PMNeither Nahuatl nor Ancient Egyptian has a word for 'seaweed', at least not in dictionaries I have been able to find, 'reed' (aacatl in Nahuatl, i in Egyptian) apparently having to double for the purpose.

Other dictionaries suggest "ācpatl", "āpachtli", and just possibly "cuitlahuac" (which seems to be of uncertain meaning) as possible Nahuatl words for seaweed, or at least more specifically for water-plants than the generic ācatl.

QuoteWe have earlier encountered, and dealt with, the idea that corruption of textual information is a function of time; in fact it is an artefact of scribal practice of the time in which it is retranscribed.

Identifying one source of data corruption does not mean that you've identified the only one.

QuoteAnd unless the relevant records had been immersed in beer, I cannot see that 8,500 years of storage would have had an adverse effect upon them beyond the possible deterioration of their physical form requiring retranscription, which is where scribal practice matters.

One issue would presumably be translation from whatever storage medium was used.  They date from 5000 years before Egyptian writing and 2000 years before the earliest known human protowriting (according to wikipedia).   The story does not tell us how Atlanteans stored information or what language it would be in (Atlantean?), but some degree of transcription/translation would be needed.  Alas, Solon is not recorded as having seen the records so did not pass down the generation a description.

Although it goes against the Waterson "accept the text at face value" doctrine, it may be worth asking why Plato included the story in the first place.  Although I have very little knowledge in the matter, it would appear from reading the translation and the coverage on the internet, he is more interested in the Athenians' part of the story.  The ideal Athenian state, natural leader of the Greeks,  defeats the corrupt, decadent, imperialistic Westerners from Atlantis (though loses its armed forces doing it).  We are confronted with the possibility that Solon's meeting with an Egyptian priest and the detailed description of Atlantis is just set dressing for the main purpose of political discussion.

Quote from: Erpingham on August 27, 2015, 02:57:07 PM... he is more interested in the Athenians' part of the story.  The ideal Athenian state, natural leader of the Greeks,  defeats the corrupt, decadent, imperialistic Westerners from Atlantis (though loses its armed forces doing it) ...

Which reminds me - do those who believe in the reality of Plato's Atlantis story also believe in the existence and military power of Athens 9,000 years before Plato's day? Or do they at that point believe in corruption of the data?

Most proponents of an historical Atlantis allow themselves enormous freedoms with Plato's text. On the Thera/Santorini identification, frex, Plato was wildly wrong about the island's location and size as well as the timing and manner of its end. The degree of distortion assumed leaves one wondering how any connection to anything real whatsoever could be demonstrated. Someone consistently accepting the story at face value, complete with ca 9400 BC urban civilization in Athens, would be refreshing.

One problem for Athenian pride would be that events c.9,400 BC would presumably have involved the Pelasgian rather than the Ionian version of Athens.  Any glory would thus be dimly reflected rather than earned, but with most cultures this is less of a problem than one might expect: in 19th century Britain Caratacus (invariably 'Caractacus') and Arthur were national heroes by virtue of geography rather than ethnicity.

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 27, 2015, 02:29:56 PM

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 27, 2015, 01:51:11 PMNeither Nahuatl nor Ancient Egyptian has a word for 'seaweed', at least not in dictionaries I have been able to find, 'reed' (aacatl in Nahuatl, i in Egyptian) apparently having to double for the purpose.

Other dictionaries suggest "ācpatl", "āpachtli", and just possibly "cuitlahuac" (which seems to be of uncertain meaning) as possible Nahuatl words for seaweed, or at least more specifically for water-plants than the generic ācatl.

Thanks for that, Duncan.  Usage and applicability will be the next layer to check out if this aspect becomes important.

Quote

QuoteWe have earlier encountered, and dealt with, the idea that corruption of textual information is a function of time; in fact it is an artefact of scribal practice of the time in which it is retranscribed.

Identifying one source of data corruption does not mean that you've identified the only one.

Nor does it mean there is more than one in a particular case.  One might expect possible slips where translation is involved, but only one translation would be required, from Ancient Egyptian to Greek.  Changes in linguistic usage in Ancient Egyptian over time would have minimal effect on account of priests being traditionalists and retaining the 'old tongue' for longer than most of the population, minimising the number of updates necessary to make an account intelligible.

Quote from: Erpingham on August 27, 2015, 02:57:07 PM
We are confronted with the possibility that Solon's meeting with an Egyptian priest and the detailed description of Atlantis is just set dressing for the main purpose of political discussion.

Even if only intended as background or even just backdrop, such relative sidelining does not per se falsify the information provided.

Hang on - I've never encountered an Atlantis believer in the flesh, so to speak, so I just want to check - Patrick, is it your posiiton that Plato's account of Atlantis is historically accurate in (pretty much) every detail? That Atlantis really was a continent in the Atlantic which disappeared without trace about 9000 BC? That Athens and Egypt (at least) supported literate civic societies in 9000 BC? That in Egypt's case at least, this literate society was continuous down to historical times? That the Atlanteans fought a war with the Athenians at that time of which Plato preserves an accurate record? That these same Atlanteans are also the ancestors of the Aztecs? That none of these literate city dwelling societies have left any archaeological trace (or extant literary trace before Plato)?

I also don't think you should walk away quite so quickly from that earlier post:

Quote
If it was something Plato made up, it should be confined to Plato and Plato alone.  However certain Mesoamerican peoples preserved a tradition of a continent which sank under the waves and from which their ancestors fled.

""Aztec" is an umbrella term for numerous ethnic groups that spoke the ancient Nahuatl language in the region that is today known as Mexico. Europeans became aware of them in the 15th and 16th Century, but they were present in Central America long before. The word "Aztec" was given because these people claimed to have originated from an "island in the east" called "Aztlan" that had sunken ages ago."

It looks as if both sides of the Atlantic preserved a tradition of a continent with much the same name which perished in much the same way.  For Plato to invent a drowned continent with a name which happens also to be the name of the Nahuatl drowned continent would be an extraordinarily unlikely coincidence.

Is it not well established that Aztlan was not an island, was not in the east, did not sink, and the Aztecs did not leave it ages ago? If according to the Aztec's own account they lived in Aztlan around 1100 AD, 1,500 years after Plato and 10,000 years after the destruction of Atlantis, how can Atlantis and Aztlan be the same place? How do you conclude that 'Aztlan' and 'Atlantis' are the same name?

I'm curious not so much because I think there is a discussion to be had about the reality of Atlantis, but because belief in Atlantis is itself an interesting (if depressing) cultural phenomenon. The website you referenced blatantly falsifies and misrepresents its evidence, so how should one go about sorting the wheat from the chaff on such a site? What reason is there to suppose that there is any wheat? That is what I meant by saying that the internet is not a good source for real information on this sort of topic.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 27, 2015, 01:51:11 PM
One has to ask why.  What would actually be corrupted?

Its just a very long version of the children's game "chinese whispers" or the "big-fish" story phenomenom whereby that big fish keeps getting bigger.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 27, 2015, 01:51:11 PM
We have earlier encountered, and dealt with, the idea that corruption of textual information is a function of time; in fact it is an artefact of scribal practice of the time in which it is retranscribed.*  And unless the relevant records had been immersed in beer, I cannot see that 8,500 years of storage would have had an adverse effect upon them beyond the possible deterioration of their physical form requiring retranscription, which is where scribal practice matters.

I could be wrong, but I can't remember any reference to a textual tradition for this story? Solon heard it "in a bar" from an Egyptian... we don't know where he got it from?

I'll ask a broader form of this question...
Do we know anything about 9000BC from any literary sources, in any geography, on any topic?
(The earliest examples of writing I think are about 5C to 6C. but that is a slightly different question.)

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 27, 2015, 03:21:37 PM
Which reminds me - do those who believe in the reality of Plato's Atlantis story also believe in the existence and military power of Athens 9,000 years before Plato's day? Or do they at that point believe in corruption of the data?

Duncan raises a good point.
To try establishing the sources credible transmission might be overthinking it, when some of its claims - that  Athens was a military power in 9000BC - are clearly false.

QuoteDo we know anything about 9000BC from any literary sources, in any geography, on any topic?

If we are just following the internal logic of the story, we wouldn't expect to.  Civilisations arise and fall in cycles, punctuated by catastrophes (floods or fiery events from the heavens).   Their records are all destroyed and, indeed, they forget all about their previous civilised state.

While convenient in plot terms, I think even Patrick would acknowledge archaeological difficulties with this theory.

To take these points in order of posting:

Quote from: RichT on August 27, 2015, 09:56:19 PM
Hang on - I've never encountered an Atlantis believer in the flesh, so to speak, so I just want to check - Patrick, is it your position that Plato's account of Atlantis is historically accurate in (pretty much) every detail?

No.  Quite a bit has been 'Grecised' though the broad essentials are correct.  The initial point to be made was that Plato's account is quite incompatible with Sardinia being Atlantis, but what Atlantis actually was and when it was is quite another question.

I would also not use the word 'believer', but rather someone who almost reluctantly ended up being persuaded by what he kept finding.  I went through the customary stages of complete disbelief, complete credulity and finally a degree of knowledge.

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That Atlantis really was a continent in the Atlantic which disappeared without trace about 9000 BC?

Stretching roughly from the Bahamas to the Azores.  Dates for disappearance vary between 11,600 and 8,400 BC, with 9,000 BC being an average.

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That Athens and Egypt (at least) supported literate civic societies in 9000 BC?

Literate priesthoods, yes.  Not so sure about the civic societies, but possible.  The invention of writing by 'Thoth' is ascribed to the later Atlantean period (where apparently it was much frowned upon because it was felt that people would no longer bother to exercise their memories) and hence would have predated both cultures.

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That in Egypt's case at least, this literate society was continuous down to historical times?

The literate priesthood, yes.  One may note that the further archaeologists look into Egypt's 'predynastic' (really pre-Manetho) history, the more there is to find.

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That the Atlanteans fought a war with the Athenians at that time of which Plato preserves an accurate record?

He (or his quondam Egyptian source) preserve a record that there was a war and who won.  I would prefer rather more detail.  Present-day Greeks incidentally have a certain amount of extra tradition on the subject, involving beam weapons and mirror countermeasures, and I seem to recall encountering a similar reference in one of our fringe Greek sources (perhaps Deipnosophistae?), so it would seem there was more to tell about this particular escapade.

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That these same Atlanteans are also the ancestors of the Aztecs? That none of these literate city dwelling societies have left any archaeological trace (or extant literary trace before Plato)?

The Atlanteans appear to have been the original 'red race' of which certain Amerindians are either descendants, members of the same grouping, or both.  Archaeological traces are doubtless there, but we would need to look for them under e.g. early Mayan cities (fancy digging up Chichen Itza?), and present dating of pre-Spanish events in Central and South America does not seem particularly reliable.  I realise that the argument: "the evidence is under existing cities" is not going to convince anyone until something is actually found, but that is nevertheless where one would have to look.

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I also don't think you should walk away quite so quickly from that earlier post:
<snip>
Is it not well established that Aztlan was not an island, was not in the east, did not sink, and the Aztecs did not leave it ages ago? If according to the Aztec's own account they lived in Aztlan around 1100 AD, 1,500 years after Plato and 10,000 years after the destruction of Atlantis, how can Atlantis and Aztlan be the same place? How do you conclude that 'Aztlan' and 'Atlantis' are the same name?

Frankly it is not 'well established', but rather the currently fashionable academic view, which is by no means the same thing.  It was not the Aztecs who came up with the AD 1100 date: this is an artefact of modern historians and in my view no more to be relied upon than Bishop Ussher's 4004 BC date for the creation of the world, which was arrived at by very similar means.  There is indeed not much that is 'well established' about the Aztec origin story, except that they thought their ancestors had come from a place called 'Aztlan'.  When a bearded man dressed in black arrived by ship from the east, they thought he was a deity from the land of their ancestors, an interesting consideration given current scholarship's emphasis on the supposed siting of 'Aztlan' in northern Mexico.

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The website you referenced blatantly falsifies and misrepresents its evidence ...

An example being ... ?

Quote from: Dangun on August 28, 2015, 03:51:10 AM
I could be wrong, but I can't remember any reference to a textual tradition for this story? Solon heard it "in a bar" from an Egyptian... we don't know where he got it from?

He would have been in a temple, not a 'bar' ::), and I did post the following quote from the Timaeus:

Upon hearing this, Solon said that he marvelled, and with the utmost eagerness requested the priest to recount for him in order and exactly all the facts about those citizens of old. The priest then said: "I begrudge you not the story, Solon; nay, I will tell it, both for your own sake and that of your city, and most of all for the sake of the Goddess who has adopted for her own both your land and this of ours, and has nurtured and trained them,—yours first by the space of a thousand years, when she had received the seed of you from Ge and Hephaestus, and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization is set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed: the full account in precise order and detail we shall go through later at our leisure, taking the actual writings."

'Writings' would appear to indicate a textual tradition.

Quote
Duncan raises a good point.
To try establishing the source's credible transmission might be overthinking it, when some of its claims - that  Athens was a military power in 9000BC - are clearly false.

The proof of this assertion being ... ?

Quote from: Erpingham on August 28, 2015, 09:37:44 AM

QuoteDo we know anything about 9000BC from any literary sources, in any geography, on any topic?

If we are just following the internal logic of the story, we wouldn't expect to.  Civilisations arise and fall in cycles, punctuated by catastrophes (floods or fiery events from the heavens).   Their records are all destroyed and, indeed, they forget all about their previous civilised state.

While convenient in plot terms, I think even Patrick would acknowledge archaeological difficulties with this theory.

Curiously enough, Colonel James Churchward discovered throughout India numerous tablets detailing events which he ascribed to C.12,000-14,000 BC, as they dealt with the Pacific continent of Mu and its loss.  He was able to learn and read the languages involved - and was sufficiently convinced of what he found to spend 65 years on the subject.  Preservation of records is not a problem provided they are placed in a reasonably secure location (e.g. under a pyramid or a particularly well-built temple).  Finding them afterwards is the challenge.

Getting the academic world to bother with them is, however, something of an impossibility.

Curiously enough, when Herodotus was talking to the Egyptian priesthood, they told him:

"Thus far went the record given by the Egyptians and their priests; and they showed me that the time from the first king to that priest of Hephaestus, who was the last, covered three hundred and forty-one generations, and that in this time this also had been the number of their kings, and of their high priests. [2] Now three hundred generations are ten thousand years, three generations being equal to a hundred. And over and above the three hundred, the remaining forty-one cover thirteen hundred and forty years. [3] Thus the whole period is eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; in all of which time (they said) they had had no king who was a god in human form, nor had there been any such either before or after those years among the rest of the kings of Egypt. [4] Four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to experience; twice he came up where he now goes down, and twice went down where he now comes up; yet Egypt at these times underwent no change, either in the produce of the river and the land, or in the matter of sickness and death."

Given that Herodotus is deemed to have visited Egypt c.450 BC, this would suggest that Egyptian records began around 11,790  BC.  Hence perhaps the most valid argument that could be advanced concerning doubts regarding sources is an apparent 3,340-year inconsistency between the date of commencement of Egypt's culture between Solon's priest and Herodotus', or that the records began c.3,000 years before the culture.

We may note in passing the reference to the earth reversing its rotation (or being inverted, which would have the same apparent effect) four times during this 11,000+ year period. This suggests scope for four major planetary catastrophes, and it is interesting that the Hopi have a tradition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_mythology#Four_Worlds) that three worlds have so far been destroyed and we are living in the fourth.  By itself it seems just a tale for children; in conjunction with Herodotus' mention it is food for thought.

Tempting as it is to discuss such matters further, and enticing though the potential prospect of army lists for 11,000-8,000 BC might be, I feel we are (I am) straying a little from the original point of the thread, namely whether Sardinia was in fact Atlantis, which I feel we can confidently answer in the negative.

Though if anyone wants to continue this discussion ...

One avenue to test this theory must surely come with genetic studies.
Given that Atlantis must by its position have been in contact with both Europe and the Americas surely we'd see a sign of more modern European genes appearing in the American population long before they should have done.
At the very least the continent would be a bridge to allow populations to reach the Americas without doing the whole trudging through Asia first.

Jim

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 28, 2015, 02:17:40 PMIt was not the Aztecs who came up with the AD 1100 date: this is an artefact of modern historians

That's not completely true, is it? The Aztecs (the 16th-century Nahuatl-language Annals of Tlatelolco, and several pictorial codices) provide the year 1 Tecpatl, and while various modern interpretations put this at 1064, 1116, or 1168, a date around 1100 seems fairly clear.

It is also my understanding, incidentally, that the several Aztec pictorial codices which show accounts of the migration from Aztlan do not involve crossing an ocean.

QuoteThough if anyone wants to continue this discussion ...

Alas, I'll have to decline.  My hierarchy of evidence (archaeology, geology, critical approach to literature) is too incompatible in this case.  However, I wish you well in your search for Atlantis, on whatever plane that may be.

There is another possible location of 'Atlantis' that has passed most researchers by.

Tenerife has been mooted as the location of Atlantis. Thor Heyerdahl investigated the structures on Tenerife known as the Pyramids of Güímar and was convinced they were connected to an indigenous people known as Guanches. This is a link to these interesting people- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanches. Some researchers have poo-pooed the idea that these pyramids are ancient structures, believing they were constructed during the 19th century. However, they appear to have been unaware of Pliny the Elders writings where, drawing upon the accounts of Juba II, king of Mauretania, he stated that a Mauretanian expedition to the islands around 50 BC found the ruins of great buildings, but otherwise no population to speak of (Pliny, "Natural History" Bk 6 ch 37). The same researchers also appear to have been unaware of a 15th Century Spanish woodblock picture of a Guanche dressed in a cloak standing on one of the pyramid structures, so destroying the 19th century building theory.

Heyerdahl attempted to show a link between the South American cultures and the Guanche culture through examining pottery and other artifacts found on Tenerife which show show a remarkable likeness to each other. There is also a theory that the Guanches are linked to the Berbers in North Africa. A theory put forward is that the ancestors of the Berbers, using the prevailing winds, which blow sand from the Sahara over the Canaries and forming the famous dunes there, and the water currents, landed on Tenerife and the other islands and formed colonies. these colonies then used the same winds and water currents to sail over to South America to form colonies there and then used the winds and currents to sail back again.

I've visited the Pyramids at Güímar and I am of the belief they may well be the structures Pliny the Elder was discussing.

Quote from: Patrick Waterson on August 28, 2015, 02:17:40 PM

Quote
Duncan raises a good point.
To try establishing the source's credible transmission might be overthinking it, when some of its claims - that  Athens was a military power in 9000BC - are clearly false.

The proof of this assertion being ... ?

Just simply that there is hardly any evidence for Athens before what? 2000BC?
There is hardly any evidence of any city, anywhere, before about 4500CE and no evidence of Greek agriculture that would facilitate a city..
So the idea of Athenians in 9000BC is unreasonable.

Thanks Patrick, good to know exactly where you are coming from.

QuoteThough if anyone wants to continue this discussion ...

Not me, thanks. I have no time for this sort of stuff, and agree it has no place on this forum.

Quote from: Jim Webster on August 28, 2015, 02:31:00 PM
One avenue to test this theory must surely come with genetic studies.

Blood group studies have often been quoted as suggesting a common 'link' between certain Amerindian and European populations, with Basques turning up quite often.

I am not sure if anyone has yet undertaken any relevant genetic studies beyond analysing the Guanches (see Adrian's post quoted below).

Quote from: valentinianvictor on August 28, 2015, 02:42:15 PM
There is another possible location of 'Atlantis' that has passed most researchers by.

Tenerife has been mooted as the location of Atlantis. Thor Heyerdahl investigated the structures on Tenerife known as the Pyramids of Güímar and was convinced they were connected to an indigenous people known as Guanches. This is a link to these interesting people- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanches. Some researchers have poo-pooed the idea that these pyramids are ancient structures, believing they were constructed during the 19th century. However, they appear to have been unaware of Pliny the Elders writings where, drawing upon the accounts of Juba II, king of Mauretania, he stated that a Mauretanian expedition to the islands around 50 BC found the ruins of great buildings, but otherwise no population to speak of (Pliny, "Natural History" Bk 6 ch 37). The same researchers also appear to have been unaware of a 15th Century Spanish woodblock picture of a Guanche dressed in a cloak standing on one of the pyramid structures, so destroying the 19th century building theory.

Heyerdahl attempted to show a link between the South American cultures and the Guanche culture through examining pottery and other artifacts found on Tenerife which show show a remarkable likeness to each other. There is also a theory that the Guanches are linked to the Berbers in North Africa. A theory put forward is that the ancestors of the Berbers, using the prevailing winds, which blow sand from the Sahara over the Canaries and forming the famous dunes there, and the water currents, landed on Tenerife and the other islands and formed colonies. these colonies then used the same winds and water currents to sail over to South America to form colonies there and then used the winds and currents to sail back again.

I've visited the Pyramids at Güímar and I am of the belief they may well be the structures Pliny the Elder was discussing.

Indeed: this is not so much an alternative candidate for Atlantis as yet another surviving part of the continent.  The Wikipedia article on the Güímar pyramids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramids_of_G%C3%BC%C3%ADmar) fails to mention either Pliny or the woodcut; I suspect an agenda there, as it is very insistent on the 19th century being the time of construction: one might say an evident selection of selective evidence.

Quote from: Dangun on August 28, 2015, 03:12:37 PM
Just simply that there is hardly any evidence for Athens before what? 2000BC?
There is hardly any evidence of any city, anywhere, before about 4500CE and no evidence of Greek agriculture that would facilitate a city..
So the idea of Athenians in 9000BC is unreasonable.

Looking at the implications of Plato's Timaeus, if there was indeed a cataclysm that took most of the fertile soil of Greece with it, surviving city ruins might also be in short supply.  However the materials would have to go somewhere, and I suspect may be located by a patient penetrative search of the surrounding seabed.  Unfortunately this is not the sort of project that gets readily funded, having a high cost and low likelihood of yielding conclusive results, or at least results that academics would find conclusive.  No on-site stratigraphy = no dating.

Quote from: Duncan Head on August 28, 2015, 02:39:45 PM

That's not completely true, is it? The Aztecs (the 16th-century Nahuatl-language Annals of Tlatelolco, and several pictorial codices) provide the year 1 Tecpatl, and while various modern interpretations put this at 1064, 1116, or 1168, a date around 1100 seems fairly clear.

It is also my understanding, incidentally, that the several Aztec pictorial codices which show accounts of the migration from Aztlan do not involve crossing an ocean.

That is not in mine humble opinion safe to conclude: they show a man on a boat crossing water (Codex Boturini (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_codices#/media/File:Aztlan_codex_boturini.jpg)) or a man on a high place on an island with what appear to be multiple cities (Codex Aubin (http://pudl.princeton.edu/viewer.php?obj=mg74qn39s#page/6/mode/2up)), or both (Codex Aztlatitlan (http://www.academia.edu/2559149/The_Hidden_Codes_of_Codex_Azcatitlan)).  None of this need suggest anything other than a departure from an island continent.

The dating is indeed interpretation, and may be missing out a temporal cycle or two.  These Mesoamerican calendar systems tend to run in ever-increasing cycles and I suspect one or more overlying cycles have been missed.

Well, if you're prepared to posit calendrical cycles we don't actually have any evidence for, then no date is safe. Obviously the Aztecs left Aztlan to escape the Chicxculub meteor.

If anyone is interested to note the extant classical and pre-classical sources for Atlantis, this page (http://www.atlantisquest.com/Timeline.html) has a good listing.  It is part of this site (http://www.atlantisquest.com/index.html), which maintains a very down-to-earth and common-sense approach to the subject - and Duncan will be pleased to observe that the site author shares his own view about the Nahuatl codices.

Definitely worth a look if interested in the subject - and it eradicates a lot of myths.