Atlantis was Sardinia

[Patrick Waterson]

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 [21a to 24e]:

"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.

[Erpingham]

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.

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?

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

  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 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.

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 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.

[Erpingham]

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.

[Duncan Head]

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.

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.

[RichT]

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

[Dangun]

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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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, 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.  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'.

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.

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?

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.

[Duncan Head]

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.

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.

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.

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

[Erpingham]

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.

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.

[Duncan Head]

... 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?

[Andreas Johansson]

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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[RichT]

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:

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.

[Dangun]

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.

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.)

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.