Atlantis

Preface: This is not the normal stuff I post here but I liked this topic and so I though I would share this with anyone who wants to read this. So here you go hope you enjoy this. 

Atlantis: Myth or Reality

Plato in Critias describes the death of one of the most advanced civilizations—Atlantis. “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” (Plato, 265). The idea of Atlantis has been a matter of much debate. Some scholars maintain that Atlantis is a myth, claiming that Plato developed Atlantis as a literary device, while others see the story of Atlantis as a historic reality.

Those that take the historic viewpoint tend to look in two places for the mystical island Atlantis. In Timaeus Plato gives a description of where Atlantis was, “due west of the strait which your countrymen tell me you call the Pillars of Heracles lay and island larger than Libya and Asia together” (Plato, 9).  This leads most Atlantis searchers to look for Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. While others maintain that while Atlantis is real we can’t take everything from the Platonic account as gospel because of the poor recoding practices and retellings that occurred during that time period. Thus Atlantis could be real but located in a different place much closer to Greece than originally thought.

The traditional view held by many scholars is that Plato’s account of Atlantis is a myth. Plato routinely would use myths in his writings as devices to make his argument stronger. “It [myth] provided what he termed ‘another road’ to truth (Politicus 268), appealing to the spirit rather than to the intellect” (Forsyth, 76).  According to Forsyth, Plato was more likely to use nontraditional myths, invented stories, as opposed to traditional Greek myths. For the story of Atlantis this is bad news. It seems like Plato is twice as likely to have created it to serve his philosophical purposes as opposed to being an actual event that took place. Forsyth says it this way; “had Plato’s other myths consistently revealed traditional elements that could have some (even slight) historical basis, we could be relatively confident that such was also the case with Atlantis” (Forsyth 77). He then concludes that because this is not the case we should be much more skeptical of the reality of the existence of Atlantis. 

            Myth while not being historically true has a spiritual or moral  “truth” that can be pointed to. Jesus did much of his teaching through parables or stories about people and actions that were not actually historically true. Plato could have been portraying this kind of truth through his story of Atlantis. “It means that the insistence on the ‘truth’ of Atlantis legend by Socrates and Critias should not blind us to the possibility that this ‘truth’ is of spiritual rather than historical kind” (Forsyth 77). Plato often used myths to portray his philosophical ideas and Atlantis could be just one such myth.

In the recent years people have taken to the idea that Plato was talking about a historical incident were an advanced civilization was wiped out in a natural disaster just as Plato described. First while Plato is the most well know source for the Atlantis story there are several references to a similar incident in many cultures. “Berber tribes of North Africa retain their own legend of Attala, a warlike kingdom off the African coast with rich mines of gold, silver, and tin…Attala is now under the ocean” (Berlitz 19). Avalon is an island that the British Celts and Welsh peoples claimed they came from that is now sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. In Spain people claim to trace their heritage back to Atlantis or Atlaintika. In Portugal they claim that Atlantis or Atlantida, once existed close to them and that the Azores Islands, are mountain peaks of the lost continent.  With many Atlantis type stories, a large landmass and advanced civilization that sank into the ocean, should make use think a little bit harder about whether or not there is some truth to Plato’s account. The similarity in the names, Atlantis, Attala, Atlaintika, and Atlantida, also gives us more of inkling that there might be some truth to the account in the Timaeus and the Critias.

            In the Bahamas there have been discoveries of stone roads and walls creating what looks like a city under the water. “Scores of other examples extend through the waters of the Bahama Banks; sometimes forming great stone circles, like Stonehenge” (Berlitz 94). These structures are definitely man made and could not have been a random occurrence. “Many of the stones are of flint-hard micrite, unlike the soft beach rock. The lines of closely fitted stones are straight, mutually parallel, and terminate in cornerstones.” These roads sound like there are manmade and could be part of the lost city of Atlantis.

The second popular theory as to where Atlantis is located is on the island of Thera, which is located north of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. There are a few apparent difficulties with this theory. First the location is not pas the “Pillars’ of Hercules” (Plato 9). The pillars refer to the straight of Gibraltar, which leads out of the Mediterranean Sea and into the Atlantic Ocean. Those that hold to this theory state that Plato heard the story second had therefore some of the particulars are probably mixed up. “The story as told by the priest himself to Solon was probably confused enough, and when it reached Plato it was still more confused” (Balch 389).   This would allow for the island to be located somewhere other than outside the Mediterranean Sea.

The second problem is the size of the island. Plato describes a large land mass “larger than Libya and Asia put together” (Plato 265). Those that hold to a Minoan theory on Atlantis state that there was a miss translation of the symbol for one hundred into the symbol for one thousand when the story was originally told by Solon to the Egyptian priest. This would make the island much smaller. It could have existed in the Mediterranean and would not have to be moved out to the Atlantic Ocean.  “It is also possible that the size of Atlantis increased with each telling of the tale, a phenomenon of oral story-telling still observable to day” (Forsyth 161). This coupled with the miss transcription numeric symbols could have over stated the size of Atlantis.

The miss interpretation of the numeric symbols also answers a third problem dealing with the date of Atlantis. According to Plato Atlantis existed at 9600 B.C. while Minoan Crete civilization peaked from 2000 to 1459 B.C. therefore Minoan Crete could not be the Atlantis civilization. When adjusted for the translation error Atlantis is placed around 1500 B.C. when Minoan civilization is at its height. Atlantis’ destruction is then easily tied to the eruption of Thera, c. 1450 B.C. 

Atlantis is a mystery that will continue down the ages. Both ideas, reality and literary device, have strong points and weaker ones. What we can be sure of is that the story of Atlantis will continue to inspire more exploration of the ocean floor and interest in archeology. This is the true gift of Atlantis, the push to discover and learn about the ancient world. 

Works Cited

Balch, Swift Edwin. “Atlantis or Minoan Crete.” Geographical Review 3.5 (1917): 388   392. Web. Nov. 21 2009.

Berlitz, Charles. Atlantis the Eighth Continent . Toronto: General Publishing Co Limited,      1984. Print.

Forsyth, Phillis Young. Atlantis the Making of Myth. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University    Press, 1980. Print.

Plato. Critias. Trans. R.G. Bury. Cambridge: Harvered University Press, 1929. Print.

Plato. Timaeus. Trans. John Warrington. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1965. Print.