The map of the lost city
The city of Atlantis
Atlantis....The lost city....was there any such city....or just a legend???
The Legend of Atlantis
The legend of Atlantis has to be one of the oldest and most spellbinding of all the world's mysteries. It has puzzled both skeptics and believers alike. Where exactly was Atlantis and where is it now? What caused its destruction? Exactly how advanced were the Atlanteans? I hope someday everyone will know the answers to those questions.
Plato, a Greek philosopher, gave us the first known account of Atlantis. Plato was said to have lived from about 428 to 348 B.C. He was a student of Socrates. After studying with Socrates, Plato opened up his own philosophy school. There he began to write his philosophies in a play-type form. These dialogues always featured Socrates as the main character. In the dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he wrote about an amazing place called Atlantis. In Critias, Plato wrote of Atlantis' architecture, engineering, and ceremonies in great detail. Many people, even Plato's own students, thought this place was Plato's own creation, but he argued that Atlantis was real, and filled with more splendors than anyone could imagine.
All races share the story of a great flood that destroyed an entire civilization. The name Atlantis appears in various forms throughout the world. The Canary Islands have a legend involving Atalaya. The Basques of Northern Spain have Atlaintica. The Vikings told the tale of Atli. Northern Africa called it Attala. The Aztecs have Aztlán, and the North American Indians called theirs Azatlán.
Plato said Atlantis was a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere west of the Pillars of Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar). This description has lead to many people believing that Atlantis could have been the Aegean Island of Thera (Santorini) which suddenly blew up. Atlantis was also identified as part of an ancient series of land bridges that stretched across the Atlantic and even out into the Pacific as far as New Zealand. Others say that the Canary Islands are the tops of Atlantis' tallest mountains. Some say that the Bermuda Triangle is the result of Atlantis sinking. The discovery of blue eyes and blondness among some of Africa's Berbers soon led some people to place Atlantis in the Atlas Mountians of modern Morocco and Tunisia. Still others claim that Atlantis was not even on this planet.
According to the continental drift theory, all the continents fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle. If you look at a map, you will see that the continents really do fit together- with the exception of the USA in North America and Western Europe. Could Atlantis be the missing piece?
According to Plato, one of the best splendors of Atlantis was the palace compound located in the heart of its capital. It was ringed by three canals. Plato remarked, "As each king received it [the palace] from his predecessor, he added to its adornment and did all he could to surpass the king before him, until finally they made of it an abode amazing to behold for the magnitude and beauty of its workmanship. The visitors passed through a wall of brass, a wall of tin, and a wall of copper. White and black and red stone quarried from the native rock." He also wrote that 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. This, of course, lead to Atlantis' destruction.
He stated that the Atlanteans appeared to be superlatively fair and blessed, yet they were filled with lawless ambition and power. The Atlanteans started valuing material wealth above goodness-that's where they went wrong. Plato said, "The portion of divinity within them was now becoming faint and weak through being oftentimes blended with a large measure of mortality." The Atlanteans were unable to bear the burden of their possessions. So, "There occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when...the island of Atlantis...was swallowed up by the sea and vanished." Plato doubted that any sign of the lost land would ever be found. "The ocean at that spot, has now become impassable and unsearchable." This contributes to the Bermuda Triangle theory above.
Even though it seems that no one could survive such a tragedy, it is believed that many Atlanteans escaped. One example of this is Edgar Cayce. In April of 1939, he fell into a trance and spoke about Atlantis. "In Atlantis, when there was the breaking up of the land came to what was called the Mayan Land or the what is now Yucatan-entity was the first to cross the water in the plane or air machine of that period." In support of the escape, Atlantis has been hailed for spawning civilizations such as Hellenic Greece, the Mayas & Incas of the New World, and ancient Egypt.
Atlantis has had an impact on every culture. In 1675, Olof Rudbeck, a Swedish scholar, used Homeric sailing directions to Ogygia and located Atlantis in Sweden. English poet William Blake, believed that the Atlantean King, Albion lead the last of his subjects to Britain, where they became Druids. Charles-Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a French scholar, translated a Mayan manuscript in 1864, that described the story of an ancient land that had sunk into the ocean after a great catastrophe. In 1882, Philadelphian politician, and avid reader, Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published his book Atlantis: The Antedefuvian World. The world's reception of his writings was so great, Donnelly was elected to membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Atlantis, The Lost City
The city of Atlantis, if you hear about it, one would think that it would be located in the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name. But researchers have been looking for this continent for years. The continent was mentioned in many religions and folklores, that it became a possibility that it truly does exist. But if it does, where is it and has it been found by scientists yet, or have they think they have found the Lost City or Continent of Atlantis?
The great philosopher, Plato, wrote in his Critias, that he believed that a great continent was extremely technologically advanced, and that this continent had been destroyed and lost by a rush of ocean covering the evidence to us to this day. Plato had believed that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. In fact, the reason why the Atlantic Ocean is called such today, is because of the Atlantean theory. Plato believed that Atlantis was a sunken continent approximately the size of Libya and Asia put together. That would be about 5 to 10 million square kilometers hidden below a large oceanic surface!
Monoliths, similar to the monoliths in Easter Island, supposedly are a "signature" of the Atlantean culture. Some believe this culture survived on to Islands and lands such as Easter Island and other various areas still leaving scientists and archeologists befuddled. Pyramids, such like those found in Egypt and other ancient sites, are also a supposed "signature" of the Atlanteans.
Plato believed that Atlantis had a great army, probably of around 1.2 million armed men. He also believed that the army had a vast number of chariots. Horses were definitely used. This was the theory that had caused many to believe that the horse that evolved from Asia became domesticated in Atlantis. This remains a striking detail, because scientists and archeologists cannot determine precisely when the domestication of the horse occurred.
Elephants are supposedly also a very big part of the Atlantean culture. Plato even writes himself:
"There were a great number of elephants in the island, for there was ample provision of food for all sorts of animals...including for the animal which is the largest and the most voracious of all."
The strange part about the elephants, is that the epoch in when the continent of Atlantis was supposedly alive and flourishing, mastodons and mammoths were abundant, and the elephant did not come about until approximately the supposed time when the continent of Atlantis was believed to have "fallen" into the ocean, the same time when mastodons and mammoths became extinct.
It must be remembered, that Plato had written Critias in 360 BCE. This was where it all started, with Plato's words:
"Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Hercules and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. The progress of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to Athens."
Where did Plato's revelation of the continent of Atlantis come from? Plato's revelation was told to him by a man named Solon, who in turn received the information about Atlantis from the ancient Egyptians. If it's just a story, it is one heck of an intriguing one! A thrilling reality to this wonderful piece of writing, is that the end of the transcript has been lost. What was at the end of the transcript...we will never know. He talked of Gods and spirits that made the islanders what they were. An ancient influence that could have come from anywhere. Could it have come from the stars? And is it just plain mythology, or is there a glimpse of truth in the evidence?
What is interesting, is that what Plato described is also described in the Bible as the "Great Flood". Could the continent of Atlantis be the true "Garden of Eden?"
Some scientists believe that the sinking of Atlantis was caused by a great "Ice Age." Pillars are abundant on the oceanic floors, but are these pillars naturally made or manmade?
The "Sleeping Prophet", also known as Edgar Cayce, had believed he was an Atlantean himself. He was a prophet that believed that spirits spoke to him in his dreams. The dreams revealed revelations of great extent for his own life and many others. His prophetic visions attracted many people, which in turn made many seek out his help in life through his "seeing eye." Cayce believed that he was being told his clairvoyances from Atlantean gods and spirits.
One prophecy that Edgar Cayce had made, did not come to pass, this was regarding the lost continent of Atlantis. Cayce prophesized that the lost island of Atlantis would emerge from the ocean in 1968 or 1969. Cayce also suggested that the island was located near the Bermuda island of Bimini.
The lost continent to this day, has many possibilities of where it could "be," however, no scientific evidence that is strong enough to prove Atlantis had existed has been yet found. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!
