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On the Trail to Atlantis
Bifurcati writes "Scientists claim to have found the lost city of Atlantis, off the coast of Cyprus. They apparently have used sonar to detect the sunken landmass, and even identify geographical features. They seem confident, but all the same, I wouldn't go buying Atlantian artifacts on Ebay just yet."
All I seem to find on this guy is links to buy his book on his "discovery". Great for him. What's his background ? What are those scientific clues he's talking about ? This all seem too vague to be taken as granted right now. Besides, there are so many theories about Atlantis that it'll take more than that to convince me...
First of all "scientists..." in the parent is not accurate. 'Cording to his website, Robert Sarmast "studied aerospace engineering, philosophy and architecture in various US universities for years". In other words, he has no academic qualifications. Also, he's only one person.
Secondly, here's the deal with Atlantis:
The whole story comes from Plato. Plato liked to make sh!t up. You can't even take Platonic narratives as accurate representations of Greek mythology, let alone reality.
The point of the Atlantis story in the Timaeus and Critias is to make a political allegory. Trying to hunt for the "real Atlantis" is like trying to hunt for the "real Oceania" after reading 1984: it's not only dumb, it also misses the point.
Also, Atlantis was 'sposed to be beyond Gibraltar, not off Cyprus - hence the name "Atlantis", 'cause that's where Atlas was supposed to have been.
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Sure atlantis may have been a real place, but you have to do more than just *say* you found it.
But just like Noah's Ark, Atlantis is a magnet for cranks and pseudo scientists. Forget painstaking archeological research - how many books have been and gone that supposedly pinpoint its exact location and toss in a few references to aliens and UFOs? We're in Graham Hancock territory here. I thought it was meant to be off Cuba only last year! Or perhaps not. We'll know more about this latest endeavour if / when a proper scientific paper appears to back it up. We'll know more when these supposed features are actually studied properly.
I reckon given a thousand years the kook brigade will be still looking for Atlantis, that is when they are not busy looking for Minas Tirith, Xanadu and Hogwarts.
If they found an island, and were relatively isolated for hundreds of years, I wonder what technology they managed to create before they sunk (or blew themselves up)
I mean, it's only been a few hundred years since mankind (as we know it) has *really* advanced.
By advanced I mean 'looked for answers'
Imagine if a culture existed that had energy systems more advanced than our own.
They also said that about Shlieman until he found Troy and Mycenae, and Arthur Evans until he excavated Knossos and rubbed it under the archeological establishments noses. The latest example is Frank Goddio who's discoveries in Egypt of the sunken city of Herakleion seem set to make some archeologists and historians eat crow. The point of this little lecture is that sometimes these guys actually get it right and anybody who ridiculed them ends usp looking very, very, dumb. In light of what happened to Herakleion and other sunkens cities found in the around the world it must be considered quite possible that (once you strip away all the modern new age crap about Aliens) the 'Atlantis' legend is based on a real event just like the events of the Illiad and the most convincing location for 'Atlantis' that has been suggested so far is the Mediterranean.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Another example of how you can creatively waste government funding for your personal projects. Atlantis is not even legend or mythology. Besides not even supposed to lie anywhere near Cyprus (rather in the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name...), Plato's Critias an Timaios are the only two dialogues that mention the island. It could very well be that the island never existed at all and was a construct of a philosopher designed for exemplification. Noah's ark however was designed to show why there is only a given number of animals surviving and perhaps it was used to explain dinosaur bones found at the time? Don't know exactly. But proof there will never be, since any old tree on ararat could be a remainder of the ark, and so could any stone that sunk when on cyprus they had a temple standing on the outmost rock over water, and that rock just broke off...
The point I want to make is that absolute proof does only exist in mathematics. Any other discipline is strongly affected by personal beliefs, as the above example shows, where the scientists not even think about Plato's location of all this. Proof stands in the way of faith, and to some people, it is just not understandable that this island with all the peaceful people on it could well be the brainchild of a brilliant mind.The problem now is that some scientists are in desperate need for money (because of their very special opinions probably). So they claim to have found something that everyone knows about, yet too little to be able do doubt the claim (Atlantis, Noah...) and therefore get today's headlines.
One has to be very careful with such pieces of information. They are not meant to be informative in any way, they are just here to be read and nothing more.Black holes were created when god tried to divide by zero
Yeah, the old Santorini hypothesis, which still suffers from the same problems, the most glaring of which is that it's called "Atlantis" because its suppose to have been located in. . . wait for it. . .The Atlantic ocean. If it were to be found in the Med it would have been called Mediteris or something.
Then there's the fact that Plato made it up as a morality tale to scare little children into becoming good little Platonists. It stands to reality as does Geo. Washington's dad's fictitious ex-cherry tree, which there's also no point in going out to look for.
Nevermind, we can treat it as another Troy if you like, just so long as I'm not expected to invest in the company.
Everytime someone finds some lumpy sort of thing under the water they immediately start yelling "Atlantis!" whether it actually otherwise conforms to the tale or not. Well, there may well be more than one old city under the water here and there. I'll bet there's hundreds of them, and worth an archeological investigation, but if you find one off the coast of Guam, well, I'm sorry Sparky, that ain't Atlantis.
"Hey, you won't believe it. I found an unknown '62 Ferrari 250 GTO in an old barn. I'm going to be rich and famous!"
"Ummmmmmmm, to tell you the truth, dude, it looks rather like a '62 Rambler to me."
"No, no, look, see, it's got wheels, four of them, and it's front engine-RWD, and a hard top, and like everything."
"Yeah, but it says "Rambler" on it."
"Look, if all you're going to do is stand around and nitpick minor differences when I've shown that it corresponds to the image of a 250 GTO in all major details you can just STFU, 'K?"
KFG
It's an island so of course there are ruins "leading" into the ocean (sea to be exact). Most cities were built on the coast lines because it meant better transportation.
There is another thing which makes the whole discovery bogus; there are no Cypriot myths about Atlantis. If it is so close why aren't there any?
In case people don't know what this is about, the AC refers to the prediction made by Edgar Cayce. Pure hokum but the Cayce story is rather interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
The only existing written records which specifically refer to Atlantis where written by Plato
... how much do we KNOW about anything that happened 9000 years ago.. and we have a lot of technology to aid us now that did not exists during those times...
The story is about the conflict between the ancient Athenians and the Atlantians 9000 years before Plato's time. How likely is it that this actually exists?
Plato wrote about a conversation between Socrates, Hermocrates, Timeaus, and Critias.
How likely is it that any of those four people knew about a civilisation 9000 years before them
I don't believe that there is anything worth looking for.. but then again, just my opinion.. I accept the fact that I could be wrong, although I find this highly unlikely.
I have an even better explanation: it never existed. The main "source" for Atlantis is a description by Plato - a philosopher, not a historian. He was probably using it as a metaphor for his ideas on government. There might have been legends about it before, but there are plenty of legendary places that never existed - or if they did exist, bear little actual resemblance to the legend. There are enough known "lost" civilisations that could have given rise to such a myth without having to invent a large island that sank below the waves.
If I was this guy, I'd put off looking for Atlantis until they've found the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If he's looking to kill time, he can always join the search for Noah's ark...
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Uh... a pyramid is the simplest way to build a tall structure that won't easily fall down. So their appearance all over the world doesn't really mean anything.
As for the civilisation being more advanced, that could have been because they were on an island that was cut off from the mainland which was infested with barbarians. The islanders could then develop their technology in peace.
There is a small matter of things called 'boats', which have been used for tens of thousands of years. 'Barbarians' are rarely that barbaric and are usually pretty good at getting places.
It really is not worth taking Hancock seriously: He never goes for a simple explanation of things where there is a more complex one he can come up with, and he as never lets facts get in the way of a good story.
Columbus landed in the Americas and called the natives Indians because he thought he landed in India. That seems to have withstood time. Even the Indians didn't try to change that. Giving a random name to stuff kinda funny. Now we call a group of people African Americans, although non of them come from or have even traveled to Africa. The term is even used for people who are not even American. Amazing.
like Polish Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans or Israeli Americans (=Jewish Americans?)... the list of goes on. I don't mean to insult anybody but it seems every time I
talk to a group of Americans I get the feeling nobody in America is just 'Plain American' anymore.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I have a feeling that in 10 to 20 years Atlantis will be just as real as Troy. People searched for that imaginary city for years too. Many mythical cities have turned into fact. I wonder if that would get people interested in archeology for a day or two. Maybe they'll do a Fox special on it. :)
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"...and may be the source of the myth of Atlantis."
It's this last claim that is questionable. Plato can't even keep key geographic details about Atlantis consistent. The "myth of Atlantis" was born in the 19th century. Before that time, people who read Plato agreed that Atlantis was a fictional utopia for talking about politics.
Atlantis is "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away." When Plato talks about Atlantis, he puts it both in an inconcievably distant past and in a location that was inconcievably inacessible to his contemporaries. With a wink and a nod, he tells us that this knowledge comes down through an improbable series of occult channels. Then he gets to the meat of the story about a corrupt but powerful kingdom overthrown by a rag-tag group of sincere rebels.
The basic problem is that Atlantis is not a story about a place. It is a story about politics. It is such a sweeping hypothetical conflict that Plato had to set it in a place that never really existed. Atlantis is to politics what Narnia is to theology.
The OP was quite correct in his assertion that, in Europe at least, a move to sedentism brought on technological innovations. It's known as the 'neolithic revolution.' Essentially we stopped being hunter-gatherers and started domesticating animals - we became farmers. Once you make the transition from moving around to settling in a permanent location you require a different set of tools (pots to store things, permanent housing to live in etc) and this is impetus for technological innovations which helped found our societies.
Incidentally this stuff started not in Asia Minor, not Europe.
Some things about African society may surprise you. For instance, Africans were producing carbon steel approximately 800 years before Europeans had mastered the skill of doing so.
Speaking as an ancient historian of course.
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I wish I could find a girl that liked "those science show thingies".
C'mon, it wasn't a bad attempt at spelling a foreign placename. Talk about nit-picking!
Also please link to this apocryphal BBC documentary of yours that depicts Hancock "visibly squirming in his seat."
Any good?. It's the science programme called Horizon and has won awards in many countries. The transcript is available here.
From the transcript:
Hancock put in a total of 8 complaints about this programme to the Broadcast Standard Agency. Just one was upheld. If you look on Hancocks website he holds this up as a victory for him. He doesn't mention that this complaint was dismissed:
The programme had created the impression that he was an intellectual fraudster who had put forward half baked theories and ideas in bad faith, and that he was incompetent to defend his own arguments.
Adjudication: [The Commission] finds no unfairness to Mr Hancock in these matters.
Until you do, you are no more than a common naysayer with absolutely nothing but empty accusations hiding behind the opinions of others.
Well, I've now done that and Hancock is still a charlatan, fraudster and practices bad science. Please - next time don't post anonymously. There's no need to hide!
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On what basis should we conclude that Plato was making stuff up when he added to the Atlantis story, but that Solon "the great" and the Egyptian Priests he got the story from were telling the truth or something like it?
And what does being called "the great" have to do with anything? There's tons of fancy gentlemen with fancy titles who are asshats just the same. Plato may have thought Solon was all that, but simply throwing out that he was called "the great" doesn't really do anything to make him other than Just Some Guy, to me.
Perhaps there really was a world-spanning flood of some kind, but that doesn't lead directly to Atlantis = teh real. Who's to say Solon's alleged Egyptian priests didn't embellish the flood story with some myth about a mysterious city of power, or whatever, simply to make some sort of point to their subjects and worshippers--much the way Plato embellished the story to make a point to his own audience?
Really, at this point you probably should play the Von Daniken card, and get it over with.
But what about this Von Daniken card, anyway? I bet if you looked a little closer, you'd discover that the differences between the Egyptian and Aztec pyramids are more significant than the similarities. After all, the similarities can all be explained by two things: A universal human urge, common to all cultures in all times and places, to build monuments; and certain technological restrictions in the field of construction materials and methods. These civilizations didn't have steel-reinforced concrete, heavy-duty cranes, or any of the other things that allow you to build anything other than a slope-sided, tapering structure. What else were they going to build? The Petronas Towers? They didn't need space aliens or spooky Atlantean apocalypses to clue them in on popular construction methods being used halfway around the world--they just needed the physical facts of the their immediate environment.
Meanwhile, purpose of the Egyptian pyramids is to act as a tomb, and the focus of the Egyptian pyramids is a chamber deep inside. Once the dead king was entombed, the Pyramids were never entered again, but were admired only from the outside. On the other hand, the Aztec structures were temples that saw constant use, and their focus was a ceremonial altar space at the top. And that's just for starters, some obvious and important differences in purpose and usage.
Finally, what about the mathematics? Only mythical Atlanteans, space aliens, and modern civilization have what it takes to figure out math? I think the basic principles of counting and calculating are accessible enough for the Egyptians and Aztecs to have figured them out on their own, independently. No need to resort to metaphysical conspiracy theories to explain why anybody besides Modern Man figured out how to add numbers together and count the cycle of years.
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I mean shifted as a unit, not like in the movement of the plates, but shifted all together like if the peel of an orange moved around the inside. This means that at some point antartica (part of it anyway) was in a more tropical like climate.
What? The standard theory of continential drift has Antarctica positioned somewhere around the latitude of central Peru and Argentina, which is far north enough to have a tropical climate. You don't need these additional theories of shifting to explain this.
Indeed, Antarctica is believed to have had a rich and varied mammal population, and until they all became extinct, it was probably quite distinct from those on other continents because of its isolation.
I'd argue that it has the most probable (and certainly best-supported from actual evidence) explanation of the Piri Reis map - Chinese navigators circumnavigated the globe from 1421-1425, and drew up maps along the way.
One slight problem -- if the Piri Reis map does indeed show Antarctica, then it shows it as part of the South American landmass, making circumnavigation impossible. If Reis based it on this purported Chinese expedition, then where are the Straits of Magellan?
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