Atlantis found?

[korax 4]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4011545.stm

Quote[/b] ]American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus.

The team spent six days scanning the Mediterranean sea bed between Cyprus and Syria using sonar technology.

They believe they found evidence of massive, manmade structures beneath the ocean floor, including two straight, 2-km (1.25 mile) long walls on a hill.

They say their discoveries match accounts of the city written by Plato.

'Greatest coincidence'

Team leader Robert Sarmast said the walls appear to be sited on a flat-topped hill where the temples of Atlantis once stood.

Myth or reality? It is said to be a place of beauty and wealth

He intends to use the sonar data to make a three-dimensional computer image of the site, 1.5km below sea level, before returning for further research.

"The hill, as a whole, basically looks like a walled, hillside territory and this hillside territory matches Plato's description of the Acropolis hill with perfect precision," he said.

"Even the dimensions are exactly perfect, so if all these things are coincidental, I mean, we have the world's greatest coincidence going on."

However, Mr Sarmast and his team are not alone in believing they have found the lost city of Atlantis.

Sonar technology was used to survey the sea bed off Cyprus

Other researchers have placed it off the coast of Spain, Cuba and the south west of England, as well as under the South China Sea.

The story of Atlantis, a fabled utopia destroyed in ancient times, has captured the imagination of scholars ever since it was first described by the philosopher Plato.

Writing more than 2,000 years ago, he depicted a land of fabulous wealth, advanced civilisation and natural beauty.

This is pretty interesting, but I cant wait for someone to actually go down there and prove them wrong  

[theavonlady 2]

Oooooooooooooooooooh! Under an hour away from here!

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

I reckon this is an ancient Mycenean (or even older!) city that they found, totally unrelated to Atlantis.

Don't forget, Atlantis is meant to be just off the pillars of Herakles, ie. Gibraltar. There was a story about a structure resembling Atlantis just off the Costa del Sol last year...

[Colossus 2]

Maybe we will find aliens and Preditors on Atlantis

If they ever find out that Atlantis excist they would have to re-think

some things in history, it's a possibility.

[denoir 0]

Unlikely. The story of Atlantis goes back to Plato, who reported it as hearsay coming down to him from remote ages. From there, the story has been built up.

As Ex-Ronin said, it's most likely unrelated.

[raedor 8]

Quote[/b] ]"The hill, as a whole, basically looks like a walled, hillside territory and this hillside territory matches Plato's description of the Acropolis hill with perfect precision," he said.

i like it. it's long time ago that i laughed so much. how stupid can humans be?

[Gadger 0]

Unlikely. The story of Atlantis goes back to Plato, who reported it as hearsay coming down to him from remote ages. From there, the story has been built up.

As Ex-Ronin said, it's most likely unrelated.

But still, if the size and scope of this "city" is big enough to be compared with Atlantis it is still a very significant find, and maybe a whole "unkown" civilisation that could re-write the history books.

[raedor 8]

if it is a "unknown" civilization it has to be very old. very, very, very old. older than the egyptians...

that'd be damn intresting.

[bonko the sane 2]

theres dozens of underwater cities and man made structures all over the world, Mankind has predominantly lived by the sea side for eons, and after the last big glatiation , as the sea level rose dramaticly most of those settlements were engulfeld in water(+\- 18000 b.c).

Still, quite interesting issue, because noone really knows much about those times, also, someone found some very interesting rock formations off the western coast of India, which if proven manmade could somewaht explain the origins of the Sumerians, universily accepted as the founders of civilization, but still of unknown ancestry (speculation places them as coming from the east, i.e: india?).

[ebns72 0]

OMFG!!!! ATLANTIS!! There is like no way that could ever possibly be the remains of an old volcano! I mean, like its physically impossible that that wall is just the edge of a crater. I can't believe it, a hill underwater...it MUST be atlantis. What other explanation is there? That canal...omg...that was definately man-made, no way pouring lava could have made something like that...

WOW! If it is in fact an old city, this is the first time an underwtaer city has ever been found!

[walker 0]

WOW! If it is in fact an old city, this is the first time an underwtaer city has ever been found!

Er No

Cleopatras Alexandria was found recently underwater. One of the bible cites sodom or ghomora has been traced to below the dead sea. Another submerged city was found on the greek mainland (dont remember its name). There are others off the coast of India that are submerging as we type. Venice goes the same way and probably most of Louisiana and Florida will soon be under the sea due to global warming.

As to Atlantis most people now place it as being a city on a small island at the center of Santorini in the middle of the caldera of the volcano. The volcano is one that lays dormant for thousands of years. The caldera formed a perfect harbour and Atlantis it self being on the plug raised up by the volcano in its center to form an island and linked by bridges to the main island of Santorini.

http://www.mmtaylor.net/Holiday2000/Legends/Atlantis.html

A fresco map painted in Akroteri a town on the lea slope of the volcano uncovered from the volcanic ashes about 30 years ago, clearly depicts the main city of Santorini (probably source of the Atlantis myth) just before the time of the eruption. It exactly matches platos description.

Big version of the pic http://www.mmtaylor.net/Holiday....ity.jpg

They would probably have had geothermal heating for nice spa pools and maybe even cooking (I saw this being done in a volcanic vilage in the himilayas) hot running water in every house.

The position of Santorini in the middle of the Mediteranian would have made it a perfect spot for a trading center. Atlantis was probably very rich.

Yeh all together a perfect spot. Until it blew up.

I think the Santorini hypothosis is the best bet for a real source of the Atlantis legend but I think it is a high probability that many cities that were lost on eruptions earthquakes and wars all contributed to the legend.

Now this place if it is a city is probably somewhere else. It is strange it is so deep. Most submerged cities are only 10s of meters deep, and are formed by land slide earthquake and volcanic activity.

Kind Regards Walker

[-=BT=- Matty R 0]

[ig]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40525000/jpg/_40525997_atlantiscomputerap.jpg[/img]

OMFG!!!! ATLANTIS!! There is like no way that could ever possibly be the remains of an old volcano! I mean, like its physically impossible that that wall is just the edge of a crater. I can't believe it, a hill underwater...it MUST be atlantis. What other explanation is there? That canal...omg...that was definately man-made, no way pouring lava could have made something like that...

WOW! If it is in fact an old city, this is the first time an underwtaer city has ever been found!

i think this guy needs to be put away.. err i was watching something about 2 year ago saying they had found Atlantis.. just another thing for someone to sell to the news.. and btw theres loads of volcanos under the sea which form mad things..

2nd its not realy an underwater city if you no what i mean.. thousends of years ago Atlantis would not of been under the sea.. its just like that now cos of the ice age and the melting of the ice and loads of other things..

Remove image tags when quoting please - Placebo

[denoir 0]

WOW! If it is in fact an old city, this is the first time an underwtaer city has ever been found!

Er No

He was joking  

Quote[/b] ]It exactly matches platos description.

Actually, Plato's description indicates something continent-sized. In short something that would be very difficult to miss with today's satellite technology.

There is the evidence from sea floor spreading and plate tectonics, and from mapping the ocean floor which shows quite unmistakably that there could have been no lost continent  on anything like the timescale proposed.

People seem to enjoy a good myth though.  

It's actually funny as there are plenty of real lost civilizations that are equally exciting. My personal favourite is the  cycladic culture (some 3000 years BC). They had some cool, very avant-garde art:

[raedor 8]

my favourite are the people of tartessos even though i've never been there.

[ebns72 0]

hehe, I was being sarcastic in my post above

Do I think they found Atlantis? Probably not. There are too many buried ancient cities to decipher which one would be Atlantis if it was found. Do I think they found an ancient city? Definately possible. Do I think they just found a weird old volcano formation? Most likely.

The point of my other post was that I think they are jumping to conclusions too fast. It doesn't bear enough distinction as of now-it is simply a few sonar hills. It would need to be investigated.

Do I think plato was lying when he wrote the legend? I don't think a man like himself would make up bull. I think he wrote what he thought. Does Atlantis really exist? That is the mystery. Personally, I think it did exist, but it is so ancient and buried and ruined that it will never be recognized or found.

[Leveler 0]

Wow ! another one, scratch 5000...

I even read someone claiming Atlantis was all of south america.

On a serious note, Atlantis most probably paraphrases the events that happened during 1200 BC in the island of Thera and Crete. Such a catastrophe would be impossible for survivors to forget.

[walker 0]

Hi Denoir

Quote[/b] ]It exactly matches platos description.

Actually, Plato's description indicates something continent-sized. In short something that would be very difficult to miss with today's satellite technology.

I was refering to the description of the shape not the inexactitude of the measurements; which if you read the following passage says that Plato was reporting the writings of Critias who was recording the report of Solon of Athens to Critias's Grandfather. And that Solon could have miss translated Egyption numbers leading to his figures being out by a factor of ten. Hence times being out and an island becoming a continent. Also we have to consider that if it was the capitol of the minoan empire that once ruled Greece. The Athenian Plato was somewhat biassed and wanted the enemies, that the greeks had replaced, to seem big and dangerous. We must after all remember the passage is Plato saying look what happens when you go against the gods like those damned Minoans. It is Plato playing Goebels.

Quote[/b] ]The only original reference we have to the name "Atlantis" comes from Plato, who wrote about it in two of his dialogues. Timaeus has only a very brief mention, but there is a long description in Critias, reproduced here with comments. Some say that he invented the whole story (just as they used to say that Homer invented the story of the Trojan War). They argue that Plato introduced Atlantis only as a fiction to illustrate how a refined and elegant society can be destroyed in a moment by jealous gods. One of the arguments they use is that the Greek names mentioned by the Egyptian priests are all names considered to be lower-class, and if the story had been true, they would have used more normal Greek names. On the other side, others say that while Plato may have used the Atlantis story in this way, he introduced it differently from his other fictitious parables, in a way that suggests that he, at least, believed it might have been true.

According to Plato, Solon of Athens travelled to Egypt to avoid being an undue influence on his successors as leaders of Athens. While there, he met Egyptian historians who told him a strange story about a great island empire that had vanished under the sea in a single day many centuries earlier. On his return to Athens, Solon told this story to the grandfather of Critias, who wrote it in a manuscript Plato said still existed, and on which Plato based his own stories.

Assuming that Plato told the truth as he understood it, and that the actual event on which the story was based was the catastrophic explosion of Thera in 1650 BC,, the linkage between the actual event and Plato's telling is quite tenuous, covering a span of some 1200 years. It goes from the event through whoever told the Egyptians about it, to several centuries of Egyptian archivists, to Solon, to Critias's grandfather's manuscript, and finally to Plato. None of these links can be relied on for accuracy of detail, though if the Egyptians kept written records, they would have remained unchanged up to Solon's time, and Solon might have transcribed them. If such written Egyptian records ever existed, modern archaeologists have not found them. However, if we accept the thesis that the vanished island of Atlantis was Thera while the vanished empire was the Minoan, many details of the event survived the retellings with surprising accuracy, despite the large errors of time, place, and size.

To begin with, we have to ask how the Egyptians would have heard about the event, because that would affect the way they interpreted it. Egyptians were not great sea traders. They were visited by sea traders, mainly from Byblos and Kheftiu, which is ordinarily understood to be Minoan Crete. Egypt maintained a client-state relation with Byblos over a couple of thousand years, and it would have been the place from which they got most of their foreign news. Egyptian record-keepers were notoriously uninterested in foreigners. Most were simply classed as barbarians or "vile Asiatics", except when specific treaties were made (such as with the Hittites). The main exception to this was the people of "Kheftiu". They alone were taken to be a people on a par with the Egyptians. Kheftiu traders and embassies were well known to the Egyptians, and are recorded in several tomb paintings. The fact that the Egyptians actually noted the disappearance of an empire and thought the story worth telling some centuries later makes it a rather special empire, not one of the undifferentiated "vile Asiatics.". And it would have been an empire known to someone with whom they traded.

The transmission between the Egyptians and Solon is problematic because it would have been verbal, in a language in which Solon was unlikely to have been totally fluent. Either they would have talked through an interpreter, or Solon would have relied on his command of Egyptian. He could easily have got the main thrust of the story right while misinterpreting some details. In particular, some authors have argued that it would have been easy for Solon to confuse two Egyptian counting units, effectively making time spans and distances too great by a factor of ten.

http://www.mmtaylor.net/Holiday2000/Legends/Atlantis.html

To a large extent we will never know because the library at Alexandria no longer exists. Whether it was Ceasar or Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria who burned it down is hard to say. My Betting is on Ceasar. Probably they both burned parts of it.

Which ever of them did it, it was without doubt the greatest sin of ancient times.

Kind Regards Walker

[Leveler 0]

Plato is the Goebbels of antiquity? Where did you get that sh*t? Evidently, Plato did not spread this story far and wide in the athenian crowds with the purpose of uniting them against a ''lesser'' race, nor was the greek mainland ever ruled by the kingdoms of crete and the aegean (although they were trading competitors). To add a bit more to your rants, the capitol of the ''minoan empire'' was in knossos (south of modern day Heraklion) in Crete. It is far more likely that the ancient catastrophe passed on as a legend in all the surviving kingdoms (egypt being one of them) and Plato being who he was passed on the story intact (errors or not) for the perspective reader to find and judge..

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Quote[/b] ]The Athenian Plato was somewhat biassed and wanted the enemies, that the greeks had replaced, to seem big and dangerous. We must after all remember the passage is Plato saying look what happens when you go against the gods like those damned Minoans. It is Plato playing Goebels.

Errrrrr, Plato lived around 400BC, about a century before Alex the Great.

The Minoan Empire fell about a millennium before Plato, it existed from around 3100BC to 1420BC, when the Mycenaen Empire took over (Mycenean Empire was one of the main anti-Troy alliances.)

Think about it - an entire millennium!!! Not only that, but Athens was founded around the same time as the Minoan Empire fell - hence, the Minoan Empire never ever ruled over Athens.

Furthermore, the Minoans originated from Crete, and they are therefore Greeks as well.

Next time you want to throw mud at our history, back it up with proper facts and sources, instead of senseless drivel

[nephilim 0]

muhahaha

so wot......

found atlantis.....

GEEEEEZ i found an ancient coin once..... so wot?

[DarkLight 0]

muhahaha

so wot......

found atlantis.....

GEEEEEZ i found an ancient coin once..... so wot?

Riiiiiiiiight...

[bonko the sane 2]

Furthermore, the Minoans originated from Crete, and they are therefore Greeks as well.

my dear ex-ronin, far from wanting to offend your sense of nationality, i just want to point out that there was no such thing as Greeks that far into the past, the "greek" tribes and culture came from the north and it difered widely from the autochtenous mediterranean matriarcal society, which incidentaly based much of itself in mid-eastern and egyptian culture.

i.e: the Minoans and a bunch of other peeps that lived there well before the Doric arrived