Atlantis
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This term has other meanings, see Atlantis (meanings).
Atlantis (other Greek :ττλαντὶς) is a mythical island state.
The most detailed description of Atlantis is known from the dialogues of Plato of Athens; there are also references and comments by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Posidonius, Strabo, Proclus.
The testimony of the ancients about the location of Atlantis is uncertain[1].
According to Plato, the island was located to the west of the Pillars of Hercules, opposite the Atlanta Mountains.
During a strong earthquake, accompanied by a flood, the island was swallowed up by the sea in one day, along with its inhabitants Atlanteans.
Plato indicates the time of the catastrophe as "9,000 years ago", that is, about 9500 BC..
The interest in stories about Atlantis was manifested in the Renaissance.
In modern science, questions about the existence of Atlantis are controversial[2].
There is a specially developed teaching of Atlantology in the late 1950s.
People who are engaged in the search and generalization of any information about Atlantis are called Atlantologists.
Atlantis is a popular object in art.
Content
1 The History of Myth 1.1 Plato's Dialogues 1.2 Other ancient authors
2 Hypotheses of existence 2.1 Atlantis fiction 2.2 Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean 2.3 Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea 2.4 Circumpont region (Black Sea) 2.4.1 The theory of the Black Sea Flood 2.4.2 Indo European expansion 2.4.3 Other links to the region
2.5 Antarctic Hypothesis 2.6 Atlantis in the Andes 2.7 Atlantis in Brazil
3 Atlantis in theosophy 4 In literature and art 4.1 In fantasy literature 4.2 In other literature 4.3 In fine arts and media 4.3.1 In painting 4.3.2 Popular science films about Atlantis
4.4 "Atlantis" in Google Earth
5 See also 6 Notes 7 Primary Sources 8 Literature 9 References
The history of the myth[edit / edit wiki text]
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Plato's Dialogues[edit / edit wiki text]
Plato and Aristotle.
A fragment of Raphael's painting "The School of Athens", 1509
All the information about Atlantis is contained in Plato's two dialogues: "Timaeus "(briefly) and" Critias " (more detailed).
The dialogue "Timaeus" begins with the arguments of Socrates and the Pythagorean Timaeus about the best state structure.
Having briefly described the ideal state, Socrates complains about the abstraction and schematicity of the resulting picture and expresses a desire to " listen to a description of how this state behaves in the struggle with other states, how it enters the war in a manner worthy of it, how during the war its citizens do what is appropriate for them, according to their training and upbringing, whether on the battlefield or in negotiations with each of the other states."
Responding to this wish, the third participant in the dialogue, the Athenian politician Critias, tells the story of the war of Athens with Atlantis, allegedly from the words of his grandfather Critias the elder, who, in turn, retold to him the story of Solon, heard by the latter from the priests in Egypt.
The meaning of the story is as follows: once, 9 thousand years ago (from the period of the life of Critias and Solon, that is, from the VI—V centuries BC), Athens was the most glorious, powerful and virtuous state.
Their main rival was the aforementioned Atlantis.
"This island was larger than Libya and Asia combined."
On it arose "an amazing kingdom in size and power", which owned all of Libya to Egypt and Europe to Tyrrhenia (western Italy).
All the forces of this kingdom were thrown into the enslavement of Athens.
The Athenians stood up for their freedom at the head of the Hellenes; and although all their allies betrayed them, they alone, thanks to their valor and virtue, repelled the invasion, crushed the Atlanteans and freed the peoples enslaved by them.
After that, however, a grandiose natural disaster occurred, as a result of which the entire Athenian army was killed in one day, and Atlantis sank to the bottom of the sea.
The dialogue "Critias", with the same participants, serves as a direct continuation of the" Timaeus " and is entirely devoted to the story of Critias about ancient Athens and Atlantis.
Athens then (before the earthquake and flood) was the center of a large and extremely fertile country; they were inhabited by a virtuous people who enjoyed an ideal (from the point of view of Plato) state structure.
Namely, everything was ordered by the rulers and soldiers who lived separately from the main agricultural and handicraft mass on the Acropolis by the communist community.
The modest and virtuous Athens is contrasted with the arrogant and powerful Atlantis.
The ancestor of the Atlanteans, according to Plato, was the god Poseidon, who met with the mortal girl Kleito, who gave birth to ten divine sons from him, led by the eldest, Atlas, between whom he divided the island and who became the ancestors of his royal families.
The central plain of the island stretched in length for 3 thousand stadia (540 km), in width — for 2 thousand stadia (360 km), the center of the island was a hill located 50 stadia (8-9 kilometers) from the sea.
Poseidon surrounded it with three water and two land rings for protection; the Atlanteans threw bridges over these rings and dug channels, so that ships could sail along them to the city itself or, more precisely, to the central island, which had 5 stadia (a little less than a kilometer) in diameter.
On the island stood the temples, lined with silver and gold and surrounded by the Golden statues, Royal Palace, was filled with ships shipyard, etc., etc.
"The island on which stood the Palace, (...) and the earthen ring and the bridge width plyr (30 m) kings swept the circular stone walls and bridges have passages to the sea everywhere put the towers and gates.
They mined white, black and red stone in the bowels of the middle island and in the bowels of the outer and inner earth rings, and in the quarries, where there were depressions on both sides, covered with the same stone from above, they arranged parking for ships.
If they made some of their buildings simple, then in others they skillfully combined stones of different colors for fun, giving them a natural charm; they also turned the walls around the outer earth ring around the entire circumference into copper, applying metal in molten form, covered the wall of the inner shaft with cast tin, and the wall of the acropolis itself with orichalcum, emitting a fiery brilliance."
In general, Plato devotes a lot of space to describing the unheard of wealth and fertility of the island, its densely populated, rich natural world (even elephants lived there, according to the author) , etc.
As long as the divine nature was preserved in the Atlanteans, they neglected wealth, putting its virtue above it; but when the divine nature degenerated, mixing with the human, they wallowed in luxury, greed and pride.
Outraged by this spectacle, Zeus planned to destroy the Atlanteans and called a meeting of the gods.
At this point, the dialogue — at least, the text that has come down to us ends.
In this description, it is not difficult to discern Plato's ideals and the reality surrounding Plato.
The "Timaeus" models the situation of the Greco Persian wars, but in an idealized form; the Athenians who defeated the arrogant Atlanteans are not real Athenians of the V century BC with all their shortcomings, but ideal virtuous sages, partly resembling the Spartans, but morally much higher than them; they perform their feat alone, without sharing glory with anyone, and at the same time do not use the victory to create their own empire (as the real Athenians of the V century BC did), but generously grant freedom to all peoples.
But in the description of Atlantis there are features of the Athenian sea power hated by Plato, with its indefatigable desire for wealth and power, constant expansion, entrepreneurial trade and craft spirit, etc.
It is believed that Plato's original goal was to denounce the Atlanteans, depicting them as a completely negative example of greed and pride generated by wealth and the pursuit of power — in a kind of dystopia, opposed to utopian Athens; but when Plato began to describe Atlantis, he got carried away and for purely artistic reasons created an attractive image of a luxurious and powerful power, so that Atlantis, as a utopia, completely eclipsed the pale outline of poor and virtuous Athens.
It is possible that this discrepancy between the idea and the result was the reason that the dialogue was not finished.
Other ancient authors[edit / edit wiki text]
Modern Atlantologists tend to refer to the mention of Atlantis stories about the Atlanteans — an African (obviously Berber) tribe in the Atlas mountains, about which Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder speak; these Atlanteans, according to their stories, did not have their own names, did not see dreams and were eventually exterminated by their neighbors troglodytes; Diodorus Siculus also reports that they fought with the Amazons.
As for Atlantis itself, the popular opinion was reduced to the phrase (attributed to Aristotle) that "(the creator himself) made it disappear"[3].
This opinion was opposed by Posidonius, who, being interested in the facts of land subsidence, on this basis found the story plausible (Strabo, Geography, II, 3.6).
In the II century.
Elian, who was, in fact, only a collector of jokes, among other things, reports how the kings of the Atlanteans dressed in the skins of male "sea sheep", and the queens wore a headdress made of the skins of females of these unknown animals[4] to emphasize their origin from Poseidon.
In the fifth century, the Neoplatonist Proclus, in his comments on the Timaeus, tells about a follower of Plato, Krantor, who, around 260 BC, specially visited Egypt to learn about Atlantis and allegedly saw columns with inscriptions telling her story in the temple of the goddess Neith in Sais.
In addition, he writes: "The fact that an island of this character and size once existed is evident from the stories of some writers who explored the surroundings of the Outer Sea.
For, according to them, in that sea in their time there were seven islands dedicated to Persephone, and also three other islands of enormous size, one of which was dedicated to Pluto, the other to Ammon, and then to Poseidon, whose dimensions are sos they built a thousand stadia (180 km); and their inhabitants, he adds, have preserved the traditions coming from their ancestors about the immeasurably larger island of Atlantis, which really existed there and which ruled all the islands for many generations and was also dedicated to Poseidon.
Now Marcellus has described this in the "Ethiopica"."
This Marcellus is unknown from other sources; it is believed that his "Ethiopica" is simply a novel.
Hypotheses of existence[edit / edit wiki text]
Check the neutrality.
There should be details on the discussion page.
Atlantis fiction[edit / edit wiki text]
The most common opinion among historians and especially philologists is that the narrative about Atlantis is a typical philosophical myth, the examples of which are full of Plato's dialogues.
Indeed, Plato, unlike Aristotle and even more so historians, never set out to tell the reader any real facts, but only ideas illustrated by philosophical myths.
To the extent that the story is verified, it is refuted by all available archaeological material.
Indeed, there are no traces of any developed civilization in Greece or in the west of Europe and Africa, either at the end of the glacial and post glacial periods, or in the following millennia.
It is significant that the supporters of the historicity of Atlantis often ignore the verifiable part in the dialogues (including the theme of Athenian civilization, which plays an important role) and focus their research exclusively on the unverifiable — Atlantis.
Further, the source of information is declared to be the Egyptian priests (who were reputed in Greece to be the guardians of the mysterious ancient wisdom); however, among the many ancient Egyptian texts, nothing has been found that even remotely resembles the story of Plato[5].
All the names and titles in the text of Plato are Greek[6], which also testifies more in favor of their composition by Plato than the reproduction of any ancient legends by him.
True, Plato explains this by the fact that Solon de translated "barbaric" names into Greek; but such treatment of names was never practiced in Greece.
In addition, Atlantis fit perfectly into Plato's scheme of the involution of political forms — their gradual transition to more primitive forms of existence.
According to Plato, first kings ruled the world, then aristocrats, then the people (demos) and, finally, the crowd (ohlos).
Plato consistently found the power of the aristocracy, the people and the crowd in the history of the Greek polis.
But he could not find the power of the "God like kings" who created powerful powers in Greece.
In this sense, Atlantis fits perfectly into the logic of Plato's socio philosophical theory.
As for the destruction of Atlantis, it is obvious that, having composed this country, Plato had to destroy it simply for external plausibility (to explain the absence of traces of such a civilization in the modern era).
That is, the picture of the death of Atlantis is dictated entirely by the internal tasks of the text.
The most plausible hypothesis about the sources of a story called two events during the life of Plato: the defeat and death of the Athenian army and Navy during the attempted conquest of Sicily in 413 BC, and the death of Gelika town in the Peloponnese in 373 BC (Gelika was flooded in one night in the earthquake, accompanied by a flood; for several centuries, it remains a good view under the water and sand).
Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean[edit / edit wiki text]
Places in the Atlantic Ocean where various researchers have placed Atlantis
The pillars of Hercules (the tracing paper of the Phoenician "pillars of Melkart") in antiquity has always been called the Strait of Gibraltar (and directly the rocks of Gibraltar and Ceuta).
Thus, Plato places Atlantis directly behind the Strait of Gibraltar, near the coast of Spain and present day Morocco.
Morocco among the Greeks, as a country in the extreme West, is the seat of the titan Atlas (Atlas), to whose name the name of the ocean and the Atlas ridge go back; undoubtedly, the name of Atlantis also goes back to him — "the country of Atlanta" (in the later dialogue "Critias" Plato calls the first king of the country Atlas and derives the name from him; but initially, apparently, the name meant simply "the country lying in the extreme West").
One of the Iki Stones with a Map of the North (top in the center) and South America (bottom in the center), on the left the lost Continent of Mu, on the right Atlantis[7] According to another version, this is a scheme of ritual butchering of a jaguar carcass, adopted by the Quechua Indians
The most consistent supporters of the real existence of Atlantis appealed to the same considerations, pointing out that according to Plato it could only be located in the Atlantic Ocean and nowhere else.
In particular, they noted that only in the Atlantic Ocean can fit a land of the dimensions described by Plato — the central island of 3000x2000 stadia (530x350 km), and several large accompanying islands.
N. F. Zhirov was an ardent apologist of this version.
From his point of view, Atlantis was located in the area of the Azores, and was once a surface part of the Mid — Atlantic Ridge.
The large area of the island at that time was explained either by the lower level of the world ocean, or by the consequences of an earthquake, or by a combination of factors.
A similar version is held by Michael Baigent.
Many researchers searched for Atlantis in the area of the Balearic and Canary Islands.
Vyacheslav Kudryavtsev in the magazine "Around the World" suggested, based on the texts of Plato and data on the last glacial maximum (which ended 10 thousand years ago, which corresponds to the time specified in the "Critias"), that Atlantis was located on the site of the current British Isles, Ireland, northwestern France and the Celtic shelf south of the British Isles with its capital on the current underwater hill Little Sol with a peak from the surface of 57 meters and surrounding depths of 150-180 meters, and drowned as a result of melting glaciers[8].
Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea[edit / edit wiki text]
Plato's story about Atlantis can be considered as a myth, based on real historical events, during which a previously successful civilization died or fell into decline as a result of a natural disaster (earthquake, flood or some other cataclysm).
Such a historical event can be the eruption of a volcano on the island of Santorini and the subsequent decline of the highly developed (by the standards of that time) Minoan civilization in the Mediterranean Sea.
In this case, the area of Atlantis cited by Plato and the events 9 thousand years ago are considered as an exaggeration, and the island of Crete and the island of Santorini (another name — Fira, in ancient times — Strongila), partially destroyed by a volcanic explosion and the collapse of the caldera, are the prototype of Atlantis.
The ancient Minoan civilization that existed in Crete and the neighboring islands really declined after the eruption of a volcano and its explosion on the island of Strongila in the XVII century BC, that is, not 9000, but 900 years before Plato.
The catastrophic eruption of the volcano" in one day and a disastrous night " led to the destruction of the island, the creation of a huge tsunami that hit the northern coast of Crete (the largest part of the island metropolis) and other islands in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, and was accompanied by earthquakes.
Volcanic ash covered the fields on the islands and the coast of the mainland within a radius of hundreds of kilometers, which, with a layer thickness of more than 10 cm, makes them unsuitable for cultivation for a year or more, thereby causing famine.
Given the local wind rose, the main part of the ash should have fallen in an east southeast direction, without affecting Greece and Egypt.
At the same time, the Minoans, like the Atlanteans described by Plato, really had military clashes with the Achaeans who inhabited mainland Greece (since they were actively engaged in piracy).
And the Minoans were indeed defeated by the Achaeans, although not before the natural cataclysm, but only after it.
According to the well known description of Plato, the island of Atlantis inside had a concentric channel through which ships could sail, with exits to the open sea.
This corresponds in shape to an island volcanic caldera with an annular shaft and a central island.
Geological studies of the Santorini islands and bottom sediments in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea show that earlier there was an older caldera on the site of the current caldera, formed as a result of a similar eruption about 20,000 years ago.
However, in terms of size, all known calderas are much smaller, according to Plato, "Libya (the ancient Greek name for Africa) and Asia combined."
This discrepancy can be explained firstly by exaggeration and distortions accumulated over hundreds of years of oral transmission of legends about real events (especially since the real size of Asia and Africa was unknown to the Greeks at that time), and secondly, these dimensions can be comparable to the actual size of the maritime Minoan power, which stretched not only to the Cycladic Islands, Crete and Cyprus, but also to the coastal areas of Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa (as in the subsequent Phoenician and Greek colonies).
A fairly detailed presentation of this version, with a comparative analysis of Plato's texts and actual materials obtained by the end of the XX century by history, archeology, geology and related sciences, is available in the book of Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, employee of the S. I. Vavilov Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences I. A. Rezanov " Atlantis: fantasy or Fantasy eality?"
(M., "Science", 1975).
This version of the essence and death of the so called Atlantis is not particularly popular, largely because in this case the aura of mystery that has enveloped the very concept of Atlantis for centuries is lost.
For most people close to this topic, it is much more interesting and fascinating to fantasize about the perfect Atlanteans, the mysterious orichalcum, a huge country with a highly developed civilization that suddenly disappeared, etc .
One of the visual confirmations of this is the size and content of this article, as well as the abundance of near scientific opuses and works of art of various genres on this topic.
The documentary "Atlantis The Evidence", BBC, ("Atlantis was here", TV channel" Culture"), clearly explains the probability of the connection of the concept of" Atlantis " with the eruption of a volcano on the island of Santorini.
The global nature of the volcanic eruption on the Dash gives rise to assumptions about the flooding of the Black Sea at about the same time, when the height of the tsunami reached tens of meters, and the most direct connection with the biblical legends about the "world flood", when waves of tens of meters sweep away everything on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and, perhaps, only help to open the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles with the highest pressure on the tectonic plates.
Circumpont region (Black Sea)[edit / edit wiki text]
The theory of the Black Sea flood[edit / edit wiki text]
Before and After the Flood (by Ryan and Pitman)
Reconstruction of the size of the lake that existed on the site of the Black Sea
Main article: The theory of the Black Sea flood
The prototype for the events of the legend of Atlantis could serve as a catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea, which may have occurred in the sixth millennium BC[9].
It is assumed that during this Black Sea flood in less than a year, the sea level rose by 60 meters (other estimates range from 10 to 80 meters[10]) due to the breakthrough of the Bosphorus by Mediterranean waters.
The flooding of large areas of the northern Black Sea region could, in turn, give an impetus to the spread of various cultural and technological innovations from this region to Europe and Asia[11][12].
Indo European expansion[edit / edit wiki text]
Events such as the formation and collapse of the Indo European community, which led to the beginning of a large scale Indo European expansion at the end of the IV millennium BC, can also be associated with the legend of a prosperous Atlantis and its death .
Geographically, these events are tied to the regions adjacent to the Black Sea.
Thus, one of the hypotheses of the location of the homeland of the peoples of the speakers of the Proto Indo European language, proposed by V. A. Safronov, belongs to the Danube (North Balkan) region.
The hypothesis also suggests linking the emergence of writing, fortified cities, division of labor, centralized management, the emergence of social classes and the emergence of the first civilization based on the Vinca culture to this community[13].
When comparing the Platonic legend with the events of the IV millennium BC, the coincidence in time is achieved by the interpretation proposed by A. Ya.
Anoprienko of the period specified by Plato in 9000 years as 9000 seasons of 121-122 days[11][non authoritative source? 39 days].
Other bindings to the region[edit / edit wiki text]
To the west of the Black Sea, the Lower Danube Plain is clearly discernible, surrounded by mountains.
The rectangle has dimensions of 534 km by 356 km (3000 by 2000 stages at 178 meters/stages).
The circle is drawn around the island of Zmeiny, located 35 km east of the Danube Delta
The Romanian researcher Nicolae Densuseanu identified the Atlas Mountains in his work "Prehistoric Dacia" (1913)
