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Atlantis: Discovered at Last?

Henry G. writes "The BBC is reporting that recent satellite pictures may show the location of the fabled city of Atlantis, as described by Plato. It is in Southern Spain, though, and not on an island as is commonly believed. Here's an image of the concentric rings over the alleged area." This story has gotten a lot of submissions; it's worth noting that it's also shown up off Cyprus, or near Cuba, or is Crete, or... It is worth noting that that Ubar was found this way.

478 comments

  1. Sweet by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 5, Funny
    So when can I get my eternal youth/healing crystal and flying fish glider thingy?

    --
    Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
    1. Re:Sweet by zoloto · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Yup, slow news day.

    2. Re:Sweet by Whitecloud · · Score: 5, Funny
      Dear Lord Dweomer,~

      Looking for not expensive high-quality potions? We might have just what you need.

      _95%0ff for

      all-eternal (y)outh, healing crystal ,-- L-evitra--flying fish gliders .

      -- squirehood practicable meistersinger shifty checkout dr bourn crate wigmake africa anton push stowaway clearheaded multipliable fortitude

      --

      Do you need a website upgrade?

    3. Re:Sweet by Geek+of+Tech · · Score: 1
      >> So when can I get my eternal youth/healing crystal and flying fish glider thingy?

      Any day now. Not only that, but now the public knows the location of yet another Stargate... Great... So much the those aliens...

      --
      Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
  2. Am I the only one... by brejc8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...who can't see any rings in that photo?

    1. Re:Am I the only one... by mrjb · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're in the bottom picture.

      --
      Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
    2. Re:Am I the only one... by ed_g2s · · Score: 0, Redundant

      What are you? blind! They're in the bottom right, there's about seven of them: thin and black......

      wait a minute....

    3. Re:Am I the only one... by Three+Headed+Man · · Score: 4, Funny

      He means ones that weren't drawn in.

      --
      I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood :)
    4. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ach! You must be looking at the wrong picture. The lower one's taken with the Circular Atlantis Polarizer(tm) on.

    5. Re:Am I the only one... by torpor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nope, I don't see it either. I think this is one of those BBC stories that sounded good until they started writing it ...

      What I don't get is why someone just doesn't go there and start having a look around? Great, we've got satellite images ... is that part of Spain really so inaccessible that we can't just call up the local museum operator and have 'em go see if they see Atlantis in their neighborhood... heh heh, okay, scratch that.

      Bad Idea.

      Still, this story highlights just how much we take for granted in archeology today. We can't even deal with language barriers today, here and now, and the issues they can cause for two human beings trying to understand each other ... how on Earth can we be so sure that we've interpreted a few clay tablets here and there correctly? I know this is an arcane science, with its own rules and regulations, but I can't help feeling that such fundamental issues as the difference between the word for "coastal land" and "island" could have radically confused our understanding of ancient history...

      Its like, great, we've got the source, but what the heck kind of CPU does it run on, and what version of the compiler do we use to build the project with? Give someone a "snippet of C" and have them re-build the PC with it ... hmm ... odd analogy I suppose, but I'm just too lazy to smooth out the wrinkles. Like so many archaeologists before me, perhaps?

      That, and the fact that most 'modern' schools of archaeology seem to have been founded by Christian Faith movements over the years, leads me to a very nasty suscpicion that we've completely misunderstood the Ancients, too many times to be sure ...

      --
      ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    6. Re:Am I the only one... by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Am I the only one who can't see the rings in that photo?

      You have to look at them in the n-ray spectrum.

      KFG

    7. Re:Am I the only one... by boaworm · · Score: 1

      Ok, i see the rings.. but there the FSCK is atlantis ?!?! :-)

      --
      Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
      Aristotele
    8. Re:Am I the only one... by snkline · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are very hard to see in the top picture, but it was fairly obvious to me after a couple seconds, although you can only really see the ring pattern well on the right hand side, my brain simply extrapolated(sp?) the other side. Of course I don't think the jump from "a group of rings with two rectangles" to "ITS ATLANTIS!" is justified even if the measurements are close. Actual groundwork will have to be done to see what is really there, if artifacts indicate that there were two temples there to the correct gods (can't remember which ones even though I just read the friggin article) it may well have been the basis for Plato's Atlantis.

      Maybe my college archaeology classes did pay off, I remember looking at arial RS photos back then and wondering how the hell my prof saw the things he did, but by the end I could see them too.

    9. Re:Am I the only one... by D-Cypell · · Score: 5, Funny

      You just have to look harder...

      Once you find try to find..

      * Waldo
      * The wizard
      * A scroll
      * Two mermaids pleasuring each other
      * Poseidon's driving license
      * Plato's lost map
      * Sebastian the crab
      * Cowboy Neal's bathing suit

    10. Re:Am I the only one... by TXG1112 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ob. Mallrats quote:

      I'll tell you what you need is a fatty, boombatty blunt! And then I guarantee you'll see a sailboat, an ocean and maybe even some of them big-tittied mermaids doing some of that lesbian shit!

      --
      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
    11. Re:Am I the only one... by mahdi13 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      What I don't get is why someone just doesn't go there and start having a look around?
      It's located in a Spainish National Park. You need to get permission from Spian to do that...you can't just walk into a National Park anywhere and start digging
      Unless you enjoy prision time...

      But once permission is granted, it's a field day for Field Research
      --
      "Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
    12. Re:Am I the only one... by Jade+E.+2 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I can see what could be rings... They don't match the ones the BBC drew in, though. Here are the ones I can make out, with the red highlights showing the areas I'm extrapolating from. They're not all that concentric... The two close together ones (3rd and 4th) might actually be just one that's farther off center... The outer two are actually clearest after looking at the image for a minute.

      Of course, the whole thing is probably an optical illusion, a la the face on mars, but I'd probably be grasping at straws too after a couple years of searching for (likely non-existent) patterns in satellite images :)

    13. Re:Am I the only one... by wadiwood · · Score: 1

      yeah but to me it seems they got the centre of the circle slightly to the right of where I'd have put it, given the arrangement of white dots, which would extend to make nice concentric circles but don't match the ones they drew on.

      maybe this is how crop circles get started.

      --

      -- it must be true, it's on the internet.
    14. Re:Am I the only one... by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But surely you can just walk in there if it's a national park and see what those big rectangular things are.

      --
      This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
    15. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Try this picture instead, I think you'll be able to make out a large ring.

    16. Re:Am I the only one... by ozbird · · Score: 4, Funny

      Are you trying to start a circular argument?

    17. Re:Am I the only one... by perly-king-69 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IAAA (I am an archaeologist)

      Archaeology is great for looking at the 'duree longue' ... broad sweeps of history and identifying trends therein. eg one can say that over a 100 year period this site switched from using pots made at site y to those made at site z. We can't always say why those changes occurred - although historical facts help. Looking at a single pot can't tell us an awful lot.

      With your C analogy (IAAACP - I am also a C programmer) we'd look at lots of snippets of code identify differences between them, date them (except there is no scientific method for dating code) and hypothesise as to what changes and why.

      Archaeology is not a science, certainly not an 'arcane science'. It's a discipline which employs (amongst other things) scientific techniques, such as C-14 dating.

      --

      --
      This sig is inoffensive.

    18. Re:Am I the only one... by mahdi13 · · Score: 1

      IT should be OK to go there and look around, but they will not be able to get any good evidence since it has been baried for over 2000 years, they will need to dig to find anything worthwhile

      --
      "Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
    19. Re:Am I the only one... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 1

      I can see some of them. They're just really faint.

      Anyone care to create an animation that fades from the first image to the second, and back?

    20. Re:Am I the only one... by macthulhu · · Score: 3, Funny

      I've worked with digital imaging since the mid 80's, done photo enhancement for the police, and have had functioning eyeballs since 1971... I don't see the rings. I think the larger story is the fact that the beach looks like a big strip of bacon. Besides, aside from Patrick Duffy, who gives a shit about Atlantis? Are we looking to outsource some jobs there or bomb them?

      --

      Someday a real rain is gonna come...

    21. Re:Am I the only one... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

      except there is no scientific method for dating code

      Sure there is. Look for deprecated system calls, or relatively new "requirements" (such as stdafx.h in C++ programs in Visual Studio. That really pisses me off.) ...If you're examining the raw data off the disk, look at the encoding. Is it big-endian or little-endian? Or is it ASCII or EBCDIC?

      Then there's less reliable methods such as timestamps

      It still requires some knowledge of how coding practices have changed, though.

    22. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Oh, yeah, a sailboat!

    23. Re:Am I the only one... by sapped · · Score: 2, Funny

      With your C analogy (IAAACP - I am also a C programmer) we'd look at lots of snippets of code identify differences between them, date them (except there is no scientific method for dating code) and hypothesise as to what changes and why.

      Archaeology is not a science, certainly not an 'arcane science'. It's a discipline which employs (amongst other things) scientific techniques, such as C-14 dating.


      Tsk. Tsk. Sure you can. Similar to the Carbon 14 dating you mention, you could date computer code as it switches from C to C++.

      Here, however, is the real kicker. Look at the paragraph above. The first recorded legitimate use of the words "computer code" and "dating" in the same sentence.

    24. Re:Am I the only one... by lachlan76 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The difference between coastal land and island wouldn't necessarily be very different from each other, and could be similar enough to cause translation errors when reading an eroded clay tablet. I study Japanese, so that's where i'll get my example from: the symbols related to water (such as beach, sea island, etc.) all contain the symbol: (ignore the dots, they are there for layout)
      .\|
      ./|
      /.|

      in the symbol (and no, i can't remember the rest of the symbols). So for reasons like erosion, it could be easy to misread coast as island, or similar.

      I'm not great at Japanese, but i know that there are 50,000 of those symbols, and alot are related to each other. I now know 14!

    25. Re:Am I the only one... by Walkiry · · Score: 2, Funny

      > IAAA (I am an archaeologist)

      So, how useful is your little dog for recovering ancient artifacts IRL?

      --
      ---- Take the Space Quiz!
    26. Re:Am I the only one... by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1
      "Tsk. Tsk. Sure you can. Similar to the Carbon 14 dating you mention, you could date computer code as it switches from C to C++."

      But that requires a priori knowledge of how the code changes. By 'scientific' I should have maybe meant 'independent'.

      --

      --
      This sig is inoffensive.

    27. Re:Am I the only one... by golan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sure you can, but Doñana National Park is very well protected and has only some access points wich are somewhat controlled. you cannot get into the park with a car unless you carry a permit.

      The only easy access I know is through the beach, from a tourist town, and it could take you some time as it is a very big park.

      Here you can have a look to a satellite photo of that area. The park, is on the right of the river, in which the photo, by the way, is heading south. Here you can see one which is not upside down.

    28. Re:Am I the only one... by telstar · · Score: 4, Funny
      "What I don't get is why someone just doesn't go there and start having a look around?"
      • 'Cause then they might be WRONG silly! This way they can get media coverage, financial backing, and pump the whole thing up before they admit that what they're seeing is actually the remnants from
      • this.

    29. Re:Am I the only one... by frs_rbl · · Score: 3, Funny

      Spainish National Park ... permission from Spian

      Will you please leave the name of my home country alone? Tanks! ;-)

      --
      This is not my opinion. Actually, it's not even an opinion. And I'm nowhere to be seen near it
    30. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's pretty funny, because I also 'seem' to detect some rings, but interestingly enough they are centered more to the left of both the original rings and yours.

      Unfortunately I don't have a server to put up a similar picture.

      But then again, our conclusions probably appear to the experts the same as it would appear to us if they tried to figure out what a piece of code does. (excluding the ones that are archeoligist as well as programmer)

    31. Re:Am I the only one... by dasmegabyte · · Score: 2, Funny

      Your microtreatise on programmatic archeology intrigues me. Perhaps one can cut through swaths of code, identifying deprecated practices and using historic information to put a date on these, in much the same way you can track the history of a parcel of land by following the statigraphy. After all, with a wide enough sample, they've even been able to track revisions of the Judeo-christian bible, and identitfy through context, voice and historical record the authors of different passages.

      I think I'll use this argument next time I have to explain to my manager why I'm so lazy with source control.

      Oh, and my wife majored in Archeology, with a minor in theatre...so she can act like she found something! Ba zing!

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    32. Re:Am I the only one... by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

      Say, you're right. It looks like Poseidon was near-sighted...and he has an "M" endorsement, I guess to haul ass around town on a chopped seahorse.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    33. Re:Am I the only one... by xmuskrat · · Score: 1

      It's a sailboat.

      --
      activestudios web design
    34. Re:Am I the only one... by joper90 · · Score: 1

      and my b'day too..

    35. Re:Am I the only one... by parksie · · Score: 1

      stdafx.h is not required in a Visual C++ project. In the *default* project template, precompiled headers are enabled for that header, hence removing it causes trouble.

      Simply disable precompiled headers and you're good to go. That said, it annoyed me when they made it the default >:-(

    36. Re:Am I the only one... by Yemeyeyo · · Score: 1

      Following Popper's criteria, Archeology is certainly a science, because you could formulate falsifiable propositions with it. Within its context, you could affirm for instance, that a certain ancient settlement discovered by a satellite is nothing lesss and nothing more than the mythic city of Atlantis, and this affirmation could be proved to be false. Note that the proposition does not have to be false, only that there must be a way to know if it is false. It is regarded as a pseudo-science by some because they are misled by the lack of "formulas and scientific stuff" in it.

    37. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Amulet of Yendor...

    38. Re:Am I the only one... by sw155kn1f3 · · Score: 1

      > or relatively new "requirements" (such as stdafx.h in C++ programs in Visual Studio. That really pisses me off.)

      You can easily switch off this stdafx.h thing.
      Just switch off precompiled headers.
      Precompiled header is being build through stdafx.h file. You put your rarely modified headers there, such as windows.h, stl headers, mfc/atl headers, you got the idea. Every time you build project, stdafx.h and all contained headers aren't parsed, compiler restores the state it last parsed stdafx.h. That's why putting includes and defines etc at the beginning of file before stdafx.h won't work.
      Did it enlighten you a bit?
      Turn off precompiled headers and you won't need stdafx.h, but your compilation times will skyrocket.
      Morale: don't judge something as stupid before you really know why it's done this way.

      --
      - Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
      - Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
    39. Re:Am I the only one... by smithmc · · Score: 1

      Ob. Mallrats quote:

      Quoting from "Mallrats" is never obligatory, and seldom even advisable.

      --
      Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
    40. Re:Am I the only one... by MrScience · · Score: 2

      You left out Natalie Portman.

      --

      You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco

    41. Re:Am I the only one... by lymond01 · · Score: 1

      I suppose by "scientific" he meant a non-referential way of finding out the date of the code. Knowing the history of the world, we can say this code was written when. But you can't find the date of it by, say, measuring the speed of the electrons with which it was compiled (now there's a horrible analogy to Carbon Dating if I ever heard one...it makes no sense at all, but you might get my drift).

      If the world was obliterated and huge chunks of Earth landed in a solar system a few thousand light years away...would the inhabitants be able to tell how old the code was?

    42. Re:Am I the only one... by Teun · · Score: 1

      I agree with you the centre is more to the (top and left of the drawn lines.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    43. Re:Am I the only one... by Penguinshit · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Is that you, Natalie?

    44. Re:Am I the only one... by FosterKanig · · Score: 1

      I was waiting for the first "The Wizard" reference. You win!!1

    45. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I think you mean
      `
      `
      /
      And, in general, the rest of the kanji will be totally different from other related words, so there really isn't generally that much ambiguity.
    46. Re:Am I the only one... by joper90 · · Score: 1

      nope.. i was going to tell you about me.. but as im not a size 8.. with great breasts and look good.. i guess you won't really be interested.'

    47. Re:Am I the only one... by Vindicator9000 · · Score: 1
      It's a schooner

    48. Re:Am I the only one... by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 1

      Nah, that's too hard. I'll just flip a couple more pages and read Goofus and Gallant.

      --
      taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
    49. Re:Am I the only one... by HiThere · · Score: 1

      They aren't very convincing...but they do seem to plausibly be there, if you assume that most of each was effaced. Even so, I don't see any evidence for some of the rings that were drawn in.

      True? False? Got me. Worth investigating? Yes.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    50. Re:Am I the only one... by asoap · · Score: 1
      Very big park... To far to walk... No access with a car, unless you have a permit...

      Sounds like the perfect opportunity to use a Segway!

      -asoap

      --
      Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
    51. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh, i see... Atlantis just so happens to be in a protected Spanish national park... hmmm... sounds to me like someone wants to create a bunch of hype so that they can get permission to rape the resources of a protected area...

    52. Re:Am I the only one... by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      Compilation times wouldn't be so bad if
      #include <Windows.h>
      Didn't include 100+ files

      Unless of course you
      #defined WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
      in which case it's only 40+.

      <slight exaggeration>

      -Chris

    53. Re:Am I the only one... by javiercero · · Score: 1

      Well most of the place is a very big marsh, so unless you have a Segway that can thread through watter you are going to be stuck in the mud right off the bat.

    54. Re:Am I the only one... by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

      If you saw them you would have 7 days to live. Riiiinnnng.

    55. Re:Am I the only one... by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

      It is very old it is Cuniform. Predates Ascii by 8000 years

    56. Re:Am I the only one... by scotti · · Score: 1

      Ok. The spot in the the other photo is like 10 miles from the river in the photo. Thats if that one photo is showing 60 miles of coastland. That is a pretty short walk from that city right on the coast line.

    57. Re:Am I the only one... by Crispy+Critters · · Score: 1

      And the specific lines of UNIX SysV code illegally placed in the Linux kernel.

    58. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that is like the first thing ive ever laughed hard at on slashdot.

    59. Re:Am I the only one... by Rei · · Score: 1

      I can't see anything in the Ubar picture, either. *shrug*

      Of course, when I saw the header saying that Ubar was found, my mind immediately started wondering when they were going to "find" Tlon and Orbus Tertius, and started wondering who "they" really are, before I realized that I had the spelling wrong... of course, that probably scores an 11 out of 10 on the obscure-references index.

      --
      "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    60. Re:Am I the only one... by Rei · · Score: 1

      You don't need to go into a national park to look for Atlantis. It's safe and sound.

      --
      "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    61. Re:Am I the only one... by Trogre · · Score: 1

      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.

      So tell me, why did you resign?

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    62. Re:Am I the only one... by duplo · · Score: 1

      You dumb bastard, it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat

    63. Re:Am I the only one... by betis70 · · Score: 1

      Ah, Cadiz. What a cool photo.

      --
      I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
    64. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think that Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is very obscure. It has at least three seperate English translations which I know of. Two of them are contained in complete translations of Ficciones which is Borges's most well known work. Google shows 2,860 hits for the title as well.

    65. Re:Am I the only one... by sharkdba · · Score: 1

      It's located in a Spainish National Park. You need to get permission from Spian to do that...you can't just walk into a National Park anywhere and start digging

      But I would think that Spanish government would be interested to find out if there is any merit to this. I mean, if found true not only would that be a drooling place for archeologist geeks, but also a tourist attraction.

      --
      The purpose of life is to find the purpose of life.
    66. Re:Am I the only one... by Rei · · Score: 1

      Yes, but google also has 5,070 references for "I bent my wookie", so I don't think that's too impressive ;)

      --
      "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    67. Re:Am I the only one... by Rei · · Score: 1

      Additionally... as we all know, those google hits don't actually exist until you visit them. Besides, I bet most of the pages were just created to make you think that there actually was a real work by Borges called "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" instead of just fake English translations created by a shadowy cabal, to get you to read about their philosophies. ;)

      --
      "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
    68. Re:Am I the only one... by LardBrattish · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I can't help feeling that such fundamental issues as the difference between the word for "coastal land" and "island" could have radically confused our understanding of ancient history...

      And let's not start to talk about how the difference between "Virgin" and "Young woman" have radically confused our understanding of the Bible...

      --
      What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
    69. Re:Am I the only one... by CableModemSniper · · Score: 1

      What about the Amulet of Yendor?

      --
      Why not fork?
    70. Re:Am I the only one... by amix · · Score: 1

      I can see them clearly and well definable, at least to the right side. I don't see their continuation to the left, but at the right side I can clearly see 4 to 5 well defined curves, that look exactly as the part of circles.

      It will be more easy if you don't try to see sharp circles but instead try to "feel" close. Look a little more unsharp and check out the fields in coloring. Just don't look sharp and you will find the forms. A little imagination is needed, of course, in order to reconstruct the circles.

      It's pretty obvious to me.

      --
      Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
    71. Re:Am I the only one... by amix · · Score: 1

      There is no such thing as a spectrum. When you see it, your mind clearly fools you.

      --
      Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
    72. Re:Am I the only one... by nametaken · · Score: 1

      Actually, at first the Spanish government will voice their approval of the expedition. They'll even commit various federally funded scientists, guides and divers.

      A few weeks in to the project Dr Kuehne will fail to properly attach his first stage to his nitrox tank, forget to check his gauges, and drown.

      A few days later another researcher from the University of Wuppertal will gouge his eye out on a promising (but rusty) relic.

      Spain will voice disapproval with the length of the project, pull its scientists, and implement a facist dictator that claims the search for lost cities is motivated only by hopes for buried treasure.

    73. Re:Am I the only one... by PakProtector · · Score: 1

      You know what? There is no easter bunny! It's just a guy in a suit!

      --

      Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
      man: no entry for woman in the manual.
      "Qua!?"

  3. It must be asked... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...where's Patrick Duffy?

    1. Re:It must be asked... by The+Jarvi · · Score: 1

      wasn't he in the shower the morning after Pam's 1 1/2 year dream sequence??

  4. I think I see it! by johansor · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I squit really hard I can see the face of Bin Laden, or Saddam or whoever it is this week!

    1. Re:I think I see it! by Whitecloud · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is slashdot, what your seeing is Microsofts secret underwater HQ; looking closer through the skylight of the ballroom you can just make out Bill Gates having tea with several of his puppet CEO's that will be in charge after "regime change" at some unnamed pro-linux companies. Over to the left you can see the 2000 box cluster of G4's running the beta of Longhorn, and on the screen you can almost see what his word document says, but the 5 new Clippy wizards are obscuring too much text.

      --

      Do you need a website upgrade?

    2. Re:I think I see it! by Haydn+Fenton · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wierd, when I squint at it, I can see 6 black rings?! Oh.. never mind

    3. Re:I think I see it! by arcanumas · · Score: 2, Funny
      Ahh, yes i see it.
      Hmm, it seems though that the huge cluster of G4's is used to render the clippy wizards.

      And... why is Bill Gates talking to that man in the red costume and the tail?

      --
      Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
    4. Re:I think I see it! by TobiasSodergren · · Score: 2, Funny

      And... why is Bill Gates talking to that man in the red costume and the tail?

      The man in the red costume might be Santa, and the tail could be James Bond. Why he's talking to them, though, I don't know.

    5. Re:I think I see it! by pyrrhonist · · Score: 2, Funny
      And... why is Bill Gates talking to that man in the red costume and the tail?

      He's one of our undercover operatives.

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    6. Re:I think I see it! by Thjorska · · Score: 0

      When I squint really hard, I can see the transit of Venus etched onto my retina.

      --
      Current Karma Status: Roadkill
  5. Yep by programgeek · · Score: 0

    Another month, another theory of the supposable location of atlantis, if there ever was. Well, I have a question, if we discovered atlantis, could the people of slashdot move into it as a geek kingdom :D That'd be so awesome.

    --
    Georgia
  6. We've "found" it dozens of times... by ShinSugoi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    And every single time, it turns out to be false. Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt this will truly turn out to be Atlantis.

    Of course, it certainly would be cool if it was the real deal!

    1. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by D-Cypell · · Score: 1, Funny

      No its definatly it this time. They even found an old sign on the sea-bed that read...

      "Welcome to Atlantis, Birthplace of Ariel (AKA The little mermaid.

      Please drive carefully, flooding possible" ;o)

    2. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "It is worth noting that Ubar was found this way."

      Please note that the F is silent.

    3. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem is that a lot of people looking for Atlantis aren't good scientists and make stupid announcements. There are two reasons why I'm still hoping that we'll find Atlantis. Troy was assumed to be mythological right up until somebody found it. Also, Plato is very clear that Atlantis was a real place. He hears about it from an Egyptian priest who says Atlantis existed 9000 years prior. Many people assume there was a bad translation somewhere from 900 to 9000. That would make Atlantis Minoan Crete. I have faith that Plato knew what he was talking about and we'll find it someday.

      -B

    4. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by Decaff · · Score: 1

      OK - "You are a skeptic."

      I agree with you. The story should have been
      titled "Atlantis discovered at last ... again".

    5. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      I made this comment elsewhere on this thread, but: google about for the Minoan island Thera. It shows strong evidence that points towards the advanced trade civilization of Atlantis.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    6. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      And every single time, it turns out to be false.

      Well, yeah. That's how looking for something works. Until you find it, every place you looked was wrong.

    7. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by nine-times · · Score: 4, Informative
      Plato is very clear that Atlantis was a real place

      This would be meaningful, except for two things...

      1. At that time in human development, "history" amounted to what we might call "mythology". There may be truth behind it, but the stories are meant to be largely symbolic, and had been passed down and altered generation after generation.
      2. Plato never "said" that; Socrates says that in a Dialogue written by Plato. Plato wrote fiction. This is greatly misunderstood- but his Dialogues were PLAYS. Saying "it must be true, Socrates said it in a Plato dialogue" is like saying "it must be true, Hamlet said it in a Shakespeare play."
    8. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by jschottm · · Score: 1

      >Also, Plato is very clear that Atlantis was a real place.
      >He hears about it from an Egyptian priest who says Atlantis existed 9000 years prior.

      Um, right, because Egyptian priests are known to be a fount of reliable information. And actually, the priest alledgedly told Solon, who told Plato. Repeating information told to you by another is hearsay, and is not allowed in courts for very good reasons.

      Anything passed down for generations (be it 900 or 9000 years) is likely to have severe flaws in it, particularly with early man. Oral tradition is widely known to distort the truth, and writing isn't much better. Look at the multiple versions of the bible. Compare Chaucer with modern prose. Now think of how pictographs' meaning could be distorted.

      People believe what they want to believe. I just got yet another one of the "Bill Gates will send you $250 for forwarding this to your friends" e-mails that had been forwarded to hundreds of people within the body of text I got. There are several smart people who should know better involved in the chain, but because it's more fun to believe it's real that fake, it survives.

      Given all that, do you really think there's a mystic land named Atlantas, or do you think it was an alegory for something? Particularly given that it's introduced in texts discussing utopian societies?

      >I have faith that Plato knew what he was talking about

      Would you allow someone to testify against you in court about something they heard from someone else, who heard it from someone else, who obtained the information from written/oral documents that still someone else prepared and passed on?

    9. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by scribblej · · Score: 1

      Can you give me some evidence for your second claim? You're the first person I've heard argue that Socrates was a fictional character, and not a real person.

      I'd love a reference, though - I like learning new things.

      In the meantime, let me point out that there are independent records of Socrates' military service, and Plato is not the only student of Socrates who wrote about him (there was Xenophon, for example).

    10. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by abertoll · · Score: 1

      Not to mention the fact that there's no good reason to think this is Atlantis except that it might get you an article published in the news. Either basic logic escapes these people, or they're doing it on purpose.

      They find a city that no one found before. Well what else could it possibly be except Atlantis? I suppose some people wouldn't have even suspected Atlantis to be in a mountainous region, but obviously these folks didn't fall for that "Atlantis fell into the ocean" story the ancients purposefully tell to try to throw us off.

      Tricky bastards.

      --
      "he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
    11. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by CustomDesigned · · Score: 2, Interesting
      At that time in human development, "history" amounted to what we might call "mythology".

      And this is different today, how? Our culture is loaded with myths of cosmic origin (the scientic guess work doesn't change the lack of direct observation and mythic style of presentation), national origin (George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and crossing the Delaware), and story telling (Superman, Star Wars, Tolkein).

      This is greatly misunderstood- but his Dialogues were PLAYS.

      This is so true. Not only of Plato, but of the Bible and any other literature both ancient and modern. When the director of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was criticized for the implausibility of an ice age developing in three days, he replied, "I had only 2 hours, and the movie is fiction, not a documentary."

      It is worth noting that a story may be both myth and historical reality. A story is mythic because of the way is it told, not because it is untrue. Thus, although you might believe the story of evolution to be historically true, it is nevertheless usually told in a mythic style. "Millions of years ago, the earth was covered with a reducing atmosphere and a complex solution of dissolved chemicals - the prebiotic soup. One day ..." Similarly, I believe that the story of George Washington crossing the Delaware is historical (but not the story about the cherry tree). But both are mythic stories.

      Now having made point about understanding literature in light of its intended style, let me say that a popular style today is "historical fiction". In historical fiction, the background events and significant actions of well known characters are expected to be historical, whereas the actions of other characters and day to day actions of well known characters are fictional - although consistent with the historical background.

      In the same vein, many of Shakespeare's plays were the historical fiction of the day, and it is not unreasonable to use them as a source for what was generally known at the time about Richard III and other historical characters. Similarly, Plato's stories about Socrates are usually considered to be either historical fiction or "based on a true story" - as opposed to pure fiction like Star Wars.

    12. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Julius Caesar was a historical figure, yet he manages to be a Shakespearian character. Maybe he would have been a more appropriate example than Hamlet.

      There are many indications that Socrates was an actual person, but that doesn't mean Plato was writing transcripts of actual conversations. Some Platonic dialogues have characters that would have been historical by the time Plato was writing, and even if any of the conversations took place, it's unlikely that Plato could have been present at more than a couple of them. I'll grant you that Plato even appears as a character in a couple of dialogues, but John Malkovich appeared in "Being John Malkovich" too.

      Plus, there are a few discussions about writing/writers in Platonic dialogues that imply he's carefully crafted each dialogue for a meaning, and that the characters in place and the words put in the mouth of each character are chosen for symbolic purposes.

      Now, if you still don't believe me, and I'd love to have a book handy so I could give you a quote, but Aristotle (who was Plato's student and knew him personally) said something to the effect of "Plato didn't really believe any of the literal meanings of his dialogues" (not meant to be a quote, but something to that effect. I think it was in the Metaphysics, if you want to look it up sometime). Plato's dialogues were meant to be very symbolic and guide you towards some more abstract philosophy that, for strict philosophic reasons, couldn't be written down.

      And on a side note, if you've ever read any Platonic dialogues in the original Greek, it's hard to miss that they're filled with jokes, puns, and sarcasm. What's described is often impossible, or at least very improbable, to the point of being rediculous. It's been said that Plato slept with a copy of Aristophanes' plays under his pillow, and if you don't know, Aristophanes is an obscene satirist.

      So yes, there was a Socrates, and there may be an Atlantis. Just like Shakespeare writing "Julius Caeser" didn't proclude the possibility of there being a real life Julius Caeser and a real life Rome. But that doesn't mean the play is accurate, and I wouldn't want to use a play as my sole source of proof.

    13. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by scribblej · · Score: 1

      Thanks for responding to me. What you say makes perfect sense; it's my mistake for taking your original meaning to suggest Socrates didn't exist.

      I haven't read them in the original Greek (nor anything, for that matter, as I've enough trouble with english) but I have read them, and found parts to be entertaining, as you say.

      Anyhow - thank you for clearing that up.

    14. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by Mondrames · · Score: 1

      Clive Clusser has a novel based on this guy's theory that Troy was actually in England and the Trojan war was fought over Tin.
      Just interesting. Like that 1421 book about the Chinese circumnavigating the globe before Magellean.

    15. Re:We've "found" it dozens of times... by nine-times · · Score: 1
      And this is different today, how?

      Not very different, except for two things:
      1) their myths were better, richer, and spoke to the human condition. Compare Washington crossing the Delaware to the Odyssey
      2) They didn't keep very extensive records, or at least not records of the same sort.

      Similarly, I believe that the story of George Washington crossing the Delaware is historical (but not the story about the cherry tree). But both are mythic stories.

      I'm kinda with you, but I'm a little bothered by definitions of "myth" that amount to "psuedo history" or "anything told in narrative form" or "story-telling". I'm only going to be satisfied with a definition that implies the myths are "true", but the metaphorical truth of the myth takes precidence over the "factual truth".

      For example, people tend to assume that ancient cultures have creation myths are meant to be as empirical as the "big bang" theory, but the cultures were too primative to have an "accurate scientific understanding". It would be more appropriate to say that myths were contrived to be true, but to reach a different level of "truth" than empiricism is capable of. They're meant to reach deeper truths, in which case, if you want to claim Washington crossing the Delaware or The Day After Tomorrow or evolution as myths, then they're piss-poor myths.

  7. Magic Eye by Agret · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey I see it now, its a pony! No wait....its a mule....OH I see it now, it's a city. How silly of me!

    --
    Have you metaroderated recently?
    1. Re:Magic Eye by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      If someone thinks they've found Atlantis, there must be a pony in there somewhere.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    2. Re:Magic Eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You dumb bastard, it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat.

    3. Re:Magic Eye by worst_name_ever · · Score: 1

      All I see is a pile of orichalcum beads...

      --

      In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
    4. Re:Magic Eye by pete-classic · · Score: 1

      A schooner is a sailboat stupid head.

      -Peter

      PS: You stole my post.

      -P

  8. It reminds me of Troy by Three+Headed+Man · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They found a number of concentric rings (from the walls) in Turkey where Troy was supposed to be. Heinrich Schliemann kind of messed up the dig with heavy machinery and falsifying finding "the jewelry of Helen", but the site still had interesting archaeological finds as well.

    --
    I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood :)
    1. Re:It reminds me of Troy by mrtroy · · Score: 1

      It is easier to find me than Atlantis.

      I appologize for the previous joke, its humor or lack thereof is sad.

      This does partially make up, however, for the "is that your real name" questions I receieve from the ditzier crowd that thinks it is only a movie title.

      --
      [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
    2. Re:It reminds me of Troy by Gilmoure · · Score: 0

      Think how bad Troy McClure has it.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    3. Re:It reminds me of Troy by The+Queen · · Score: 1

      Tim, Tim, Benzedrine! Hash! Boo! Valvoline!

      No, no, you'll get in trouble with the oil company that way! It's ValvolEne, as in, Queen Valvolene. ;-)

      --

      The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
  9. finally at last by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

    the biggest secret of history will be revealed, were the old atlanteans already able to cook pancakes :-)

  10. pareidolia by benploni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably just pareidolia. They know what they are looking for, so they see it in highly ambiguous data. Sure it might be Atlantis, but I remain skeptical until they can produce much more unequivocal evidence.

    1. Re:pareidolia by deadgoon42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree. While I believe that remote sensing techniques can certainly show things like what it supposedly in these pictures, don't let someone tell you they are an expert and then believe them on that basis. If everyone did that then we'd believe all the nonsense that Richard Hoagland preaches about glass tubes on Mars and vast superstructures on the Moon.

      --

      Smeghead every day of the week.
    2. Re:pareidolia by Polkyb · · Score: 1

      You mean like a stone at the side of a dirt track which says "Atlantis 20m"?

      :-)

      --
      I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
    3. Re:pareidolia by quixoticsycophant · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Here's a recent and very striking example of fitting data to preconceived notions: zepplin backwards (flash link).

      As with all of these things, the trick is that you're shown the message while listening to it, and you tend to make it fit. It's even more convincing after a few listens -- it really sounds like, "There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan." Almost poetic.

      So, rings? They have the scientific method backwards. If, say, a meterologist was looking through some satellite photos happened to notice some rings, that is one thing. But some dude looking for rings in satellite photos is totally different.

    4. Re:pareidolia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes but as most people who believe in weird/faith based shit argue to me: "Can you prove it's NOT?"

      ugh

    5. Re:pareidolia by untaken_name · · Score: 1

      Yes but as most people who believe in weird/faith based shit argue to me: "Can you prove it's NOT?"

      Actually, my money's on exactly that. Someone will prove it's not atlantis. I don't really think a city that may or may not have existed is all that weird. It's certainly not faith-based; either it was a city or it was not, and either it was atlantis or it was not. These are things we *can* prove. Just depends on whether anyone does.

    6. Re:pareidolia by Walkiry · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It doesn't have to be pareidolia, it could very well be some ancient settlement. It's the southern coast of Spain, there have been people living there and building towns and small cities for several thousand years. Every "important" western civilization had cities in the mediterranean coast of Spain.

      --
      ---- Take the Space Quiz!
    7. Re:pareidolia by bfg9000 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Here's a recent and very striking example of fitting data to preconceived notions: zepplin backwards (flash link)... As with all of these things, the trick is that you're shown the message while listening to it, and you tend to make it fit. It's even more convincing after a few listens -- it really sounds like, "There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan." Almost poetic.

      Hi, this is Satan. Yeah, you're wrong on this one. It's real. Oh, yeah, and I totally tortured Zepp in a toolshed for a while, but it's HARDLY a little toolshed. It's like 16 x 25. I'm still pissed at Jimmy for that one. I mean, I might not have Led Zeppelin-size money, but I do okay for myself. That "little" thing was just insulting. So to get revenge, I made Page do the Death Wish soundtrack and Plant ended up fronting the HoneyDrippers. That'll show 'em who's boss. One more crack and they're backing Christina Aquilera.

      --

      I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."

    8. Re:pareidolia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I saw those 'tubes' on nasa Mars photos and even Arthur C Clarke talked about them on radio.

      What are they, anyway?

      Are they something? They can't be sand. They are everywhere on Mars. Are they the famous Canals?

    9. Re:pareidolia by gphinch · · Score: 1

      Page already backed P-Diddy, how much worse can you get?

      --
      in bed.
    10. Re:pareidolia by deadgoon42 · · Score: 1

      To me the tubes look like canyons with sand dunes in the bottom. There are very similar structures on Earth that look almost identical. My point was that those people hold themselves up to be experts, but they are usually nothing of the sort. And what really gets me is when they have guests on Coast to Coast AM and they introduce them as a scientist. Just because you are a physicist doesn't mean you know anything about Martian geology. This might come as a shock to some of you, but scientists are only experts in the very limited fields in which they study. For example, an expert in minerology might know next to nothing about hydrogeology even though they are both part of Geology. So unless a so called expert is talking about a field that they are directly involved in, they are probably not an expert at all.

      --

      Smeghead every day of the week.
  11. Illusion Rings! yah! by Moo+Moo+Cow+of+Death · · Score: 0

    This is obviously one of those "cross your eyes, stand on your head, say the alphabet backward while doing the hokey pokey" eye trick games, none of which I could ever see the sailboat with the little man in. I fail :P

    1. Re:Illusion Rings! yah! by kfg · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Did you turn yourself around? It doesn't work if you leave out part of the ritual.

      KFG

  12. Stargate ... what ?! by Shades+McCloud · · Score: 0

    Are you sure this isn't a publicity stunt by the Sci-Fi network? ;)

  13. What's this? by rutger21 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here's an image of the concentric rings over the alleged area.

    Atlantis? Is that a new filter for the Gimp or something?
  14. Looks like a dude. by PeterPumpkin · · Score: 1, Funny

    Is it just me, or does the satellite photo, the last picture in the BBC article, look like Mel Gibson with his nose pirched on his fist?

    1. Re:Looks like a dude. by cammoblammo · · Score: 1

      Hey! I can see that without it being drawn in!

      --

      Cogito, ergo sig.

  15. Look at that mountain toward the left... by dpbsmith · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...you can clearly see Noah's Ark perched about three-quarters of the way up.

    And the skeleton of a dove.

    1. Re:Look at that mountain toward the left... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > And the skeleton of a dove.

      That's not a dove. It's an Angel!

      (Yeah, that Simpsons episode was on yesterday....)

  16. Ahead of the game by dncsky1530 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This site doesn't need "satelites" to prove atlantis exists

    But these days everyone's finding Atlantis

  17. Is it just me... by sirgoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or is anyone else having Heraldo and the vaults of Capone flashbacks?

    (we found it! we found it! Oh, crap...)

    -Goran

    --
    Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
    1. Re:Is it just me... by ActiveSX · · Score: 2, Funny

      Watch as we reveal the mystery of Al Capone's glove compartment...

      "AH HA! Road Maps!!!"

  18. I blame Plato for all this confusion by Timesprout · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why could he not have just whipped out what ever passed for hand held GPS at the time and provided map co-ordinates ? He might have been a decent philosopher but he was a crap travel writer.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
    1. Re:I blame Plato for all this confusion by FraggedSquid · · Score: 0

      Translated entry from Plato's "Roungh Guide to the World"
      Atlantis: Mostly Harmless

      --
      You don't need a lab to make mud.
  19. This is not off-topic by jocknerd · · Score: 3, Informative

    Patrick Duffy played in a short-lived tv series in the 70's called Man from Atlantis.

    1. Re:This is not off-topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh the memories... This was THE first American TV series imported by China. I remember watching it as a kid and thinking it's the coolest thing on earth. Each episode would draw a huge crowd around the TV from the neighborhood (back when TV sets weren't as ubiquitous as is today).

  20. National Park location? by WormholeFiend · · Score: 2

    Let's go there with our metal detectors and see what we can find!

    Finders keepers?

    1. Re:National Park location? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      6 17' West 36 32' North

  21. I can see it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    It's a sailship!

    \Mallrats

    1. Re:I can see it! by zenneth · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      It's a schooner! Oh, a schooner is a sailboat...

      --
      The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
  22. Indy anyone? by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This article reminds me of the great Lucasgame Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

    Screeny here: http://www.sebelinteractive.de/scummvm/images/shot s/indy4_7.jpg

    I hope there will be something interesting to find down there :)

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
    1. Re:Indy anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it really that hard to use some HTML and make that an actual link, fucktard?

    2. Re:Indy anyone? by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 1

      Yup, not so nice person :P

      --
      This is the sig that says NI (again)
    3. Re:Indy anyone? by dinivin · · Score: 1, Funny


      Screeny?!? What, are you 10? It's called a screenshot.

      Dinivin

    4. Re:Indy anyone? by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 1

      Tomato, tomatoe, it's not that important man, calm down.

      ontopic: I wonder if they will find anything interesting, such as a new powersource or new ways of using materials.
      Maybe I've been reading too much books ^-^

      --
      This is the sig that says NI (again)
    5. Re:Indy anyone? by untaken_name · · Score: 3, Funny

      Is it really that hard to use some HTML and make that an actual link, fucktard?

      Ohh...poor AC doesn't know how to get there if you don't make a nice linky-linky for him.

    6. Re:Indy anyone? by sglane81 · · Score: 1

      Maybe I've been reading too much books

      Maybe you're not reading enough.

      --
      This is the Internet. You can say "fuck" here. - AC
  23. I found it too... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And anyone can see the concentric rings :

    http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF -8 &q=north+pole+of+mars

  24. Plato the story teller by Ghost-in-the-shell · · Score: 5, Insightful


    It might be important to note that the sory of Atlantis could and is most likly just that a story. Plato like Homer was a great story teller, he was also had an great impact on many Academic Disciplines.

    While Homers story of The Illiad was based on the real war that happened in Troy, we have no conclusive prof that an island of Atlantis existed. This discovery may provide evidence of the fabled city, but I won't hold my breath just yet.

    --
    -Ghost
    1. Re:Plato the story teller by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It might be important to note that the sory of Atlantis could and is most likly just that a story.

      You think? Gee, I don't know. I'm inclined to believe that prefacing the story of Atlantis with a disertation on the value of constructing false histories for the moral instruction of youth and the less sophisticated of the populace and then employing all the standard literary devices of the time to denote that the story being told was instructional myth is purely coincidental.

      KFG

    2. Re:Plato the story teller by g0bshiTe · · Score: 0

      I agree with Parent post. This is a colossal hoax perpetrated by Plato. I can see him laughing his ass off right now with P.T. Barnum telling Mr. Barnum, "You were right, there is one born every minute."

      Before the flames roll in I know he never actually said that.
      BR>Having said that, a real quote from Mr. Barnum.

      "EGRESS!, Twenty-five cents."

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    3. Re:Plato the story teller by Tassleman · · Score: 0

      but I won't hold my breath just yet

      Boooooooooo, get off the stage!

    4. Re:Plato the story teller by hennie69 · · Score: 1

      Why do you english speaking people always try to translate things? The name is HOMEROS and not HOMER. Last I checked, that was some fat guy from the Simpsons.

    5. Re:Plato the story teller by IANAAC · · Score: 1
      Why do you english speaking people always try to translate things? The name is HOMEROS and not HOMER. Last I checked, that was some fat guy from the Simpsons.

      It's not an English-speaking only thing. It happens around the globe. It's only natural for people to want to translate into something more understandable to them.

    6. Re:Plato the story teller by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      Having said that, a real quote from Mr. Barnum.
      "EGRESS!, Twenty-five cents."

      That's not quite right. He had the problem of getting people to leave a sideshow building, as there was no natural "end" to the show. So he painted a door with the words "This way to the egress." He didn't charge people to leave, he just wanted them out so he could let in the next crowd.

  25. Santorini? by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I always thought that Santorini and its adjacent islands were "Atlantis": it was one big island,but it went pompeii and thus you get a big ring of smaller islands. They have excavated and found ancient stuff, of course, etc. Same with Crete. How far do you think the story of Atlantis travelled geographically?

    --
    stuff |
    1. Re:Santorini? by MaynardJanKeymeulen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'be heard that too, actually, while I was there a couple of years ago. I've visited ancient Thera, which was said to be some part of Atlantis. Its beginnings predated the Minoan civilisation, and I was quite developed fot that time. However, since almost the whole island was gone during gigantic volcano eruption, there wasn't many left. (the eruption was also said to have caused the end of the Minoan culture on Crete) Check out this site for more information

      --
      "The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
    2. Re:Santorini? by mat.h · · Score: 1
      If I'm not mixing things up completely, Santorini pulled a Krakatoa (blow up with a big bang), while Pompeii was buried by volcanic ashes.

      And Atlantis can be reached by hijacking a Nazi submarine and some pixel-perfect maneuvering. Bring some orichalcum to get the machinery going.

    3. Re:Santorini? by freshtonic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I visited Santorini about 6 years ago, and our guide said that yes, the island did go Krakatoa (not in those exact words). The island is a horse-shoe shape. One side of the island got completely blown away in the erruption same as what happened to Mt. St. Helens. It's a beautiful place though and well worth checking out. Incidentally, it's also the island where Anne Rice's vampire character 'Marius' lived, and kept the King & Queen of the vampires. I was reading The Vampire Lestat whilst on the ferry from Crete to Santorini. I nearly shat myself. I read that part about Marius on the way...

    4. Re:Santorini? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could add to the Minoan civilization, the Black Sea civilization. the northern part fits Solon's description reasonably well, as does the timing.

      Plato presumably took the information he got from Solon and embroidered it into a cautionary tale.

    5. Re:Santorini? by babbage · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The most interesting explanation I'm aware of for Atlantis -- and all the other western flood myths (Noah's ark, Gilgamesh, etc) goes back even further, to the end of the last ice age, when sea levels were lower and the Mediterranean basin may have been a relatively small, dry basin.

      In H. G. Wells' Outline of History, there is this interesting passage:

      Now, this may seem all the wildest speculation, but it is not entirely so, for if we examine a submarine contour map of the Straits of Gibraltar, we find there is an enormous valley running up from the Mediterranean deep, right through the Straits, and trenching some distance out on to the Atlantic shelf. ... This refilling of the Mediterranean, which by the rough chronology we are employing in this book may have happened somewhere between 30,000 and 10,000 B.C., must have been one of the greatest single events in the pre-history of our race. ... Suddenly the ocean waters began to break through over the westward hills and to pour in upon these primitive peoples--the lake that had been their home and friend became their enemy; its waters rose and never abated; their settlements were submerged; the waters pursued them in their flight. Day by day and year by year the waters spread up the valleys and drove mankind before them. Many must have been surrounded and caught by the continually rising salt flood. It knew no check; it came faster and faster; it rose over the tree-tops, over the hills, until it had filled the whole basin of the present Mediterranean and until it lapped the mountain cliffs of Arabia and Africa. Far away, long before the dawn of history, this catastrophe occurred.

      So, we have a huge cataclysmic event that would have been common to all the people living in the Mediterranean basin, possibly going up past the Bosporous to the Black Sea.

      And because nearly all ancient communities seem to have sprung up along sea coasts and river banks, it seems reasonable to assume that the ancient coastline of the Mediterranean (and Black Sea) would have been thickly populated, while the "inland" areas that form the current coastline would have been populated sparsely if at all.

      With that in mind, it seems obvious that whatever remains of any civilizations that preceded ones like Greece & Egypt would have been in areas that are now submerged. The survivors of this cataclysm would have been dispersed across the region, where their stories may well have evolved into the various flood myths that have been handed down to us today. This would help explain why nearly all of these civilizations have flood myths, while also explaining why these stories vary so much.

      It seems reasonable to me...

    6. Re:Santorini? by Quelain · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It would be a good story, except that it happened ~5 million years ago. That event defines the Miocene/Pliocene boundary.

      --
      Cthulhu loves you.
  26. maybe i'm stpid, but... by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    how do they confirm it is atlantis?

    will they find a stone fragment with the words "downtown atlantis, exit 43" in ancient greek?

    no seriously: how does a mythical city of unknown location be "proven" to be this old city versus that old city?

    why can't their find of this ancient city stand on its own as exciting and important? why link it to a dubious unprovable myth?

    it seems to me that there is no way to say either this city or that one is atlantis itself, or am i missing something

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by snkline · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, for the sake of argument here I will assume Plato wasn't just writing fiction when he wrote about Atlantis, I think he was, but we don't know for sure. Anyways Plato described Atlantis (In one of his dialogs, Citias I think?) with quite a bit of detail. Talking about the rings, and temples, and giving measurements for these things. So if a city was found matching these descriptions in exacting detail, we might as well call it "Atlantis"

      Of course I doubt such a place really existed. I havn't read the dialogue where he talks about this in a long time, but I seem to remember that he was supposedly telling a story he had learned from a Greek named Solon, who had learned the story from an Egyptian priest. So even if Plato thought he was telling the truth, I'm not sure I would trust such a third hand account.

    2. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by tomzyk · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know you meant this as a rhetorical question, but I'll bite anyways.

      Q: how do they confirm it is atlantis?
      A: When they find some artifacts in the vicinity and can carbon date them back from 9000 years ago. When they can find proof of the animals and/or technology that existed there according to the one-and-only document that even mentions the city.

      Q: why can't their find of this ancient city stand on its own as exciting and important?
      A: Because the human-race has this drive to solve puzzles and find proofs and explanations of any and everything. The city of Atlantis is no different from Noah's Ark, Solomon's Temple, Eden, or even the laws of physics; people will continually search for them until they find inexplicable proof (whether it exists or not) that they exist.

      Q: why link it to a dubious unprovable myth
      A: Short answer: in hopes of acquiring more research dollars.

      And finally...
      Q: maybe i'm stpid, but...
      A: You are correct, because you can't spell "stupid". ;-)

      --
      Karma: NaN
    3. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by snkline · · Score: 1

      Well after doing a quick google, it seems that it wasn't even supposed to be a third-hand story but more of a fifth or sixth hand story.

    4. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by jayhawk88 · · Score: 1

      why can't their find of this ancient city stand on its own as exciting and important? why link it to a dubious unprovable myth?

      Because if you claim to have discovered the ancient city of Bor-Ing, nobody but a bunch of furry-toothed archeologists give a rats ass. If you claim to have discovered Atlantis, your name gets in papers around the world and if you play your cards right you get some grant money out of the deal.

    5. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "A: When they find some artifacts in the vicinity and can carbon date them back from 9000 years ago. When they can find proof of the animals and/or technology that existed there according to the one-and-only document [sacred-texts.com] that even mentions the city."

      So you're saying that 9000 years ago there was only one city in existence. Oh ok. That sure simplifies things.

    6. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Must... fight urge... to feed... the... Trolls....

    7. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > So you're saying that 9000 years ago there was only one city in existence. Oh ok. That
      > sure simplifies things.

      "The village of Chatal Huyuk is the largest Neolithic site in the Near East covering 13 hectares. It was founded in c.7000 BC and the settlement grew rapidly and became a prosperous and well-organized community."

      http://users.hol.gr/~dilos/prehis/prerm5.htm

    8. Re:maybe i'm stpid, but... by randomaxe · · Score: 1

      Q: how do they confirm it is atlantis?
      A: When they find some artifacts in the vicinity and can carbon date them back from 9000 years ago.


      Don't you mean 11,000 years ago? Atlantis was supposed to be 9000 years old in Plato's time, and he died in what, 347 BCE? So unless the city was actually lost under a huge glob of some serious anti-aging cream...

  27. No.. this is a different lost city by SamiousHaze · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thats the lost city of R'lyeh...

    1. Re:No.. this is a different lost city by Ubergrendle · · Score: 1

      Isn't that in Aquilonia?

      --
      John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
    2. Re:No.. this is a different lost city by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      Yeah, right next to the author's house. (At least that's what the map said.)

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  28. One Atlantis of Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It strikes me that there will be many cities lost to flooding throughout history. Just because they've found one sunken city doesn't mean that it's the same city Plato was talking about, surely?

    IIRC, the Greeks attributed their stories of Atlantis to a travelling Egyptian. So even the Greeks got the information second hand, and probably wouldn't have been able to uniquely identify Atlantis.

  29. The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Dagny+Taggert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    would be if we discovered a very old, very advanced civilization that threw historians a curveball. For example, what if some ancient civilization was just as advanced as us but nuked themselves out of existence? This could explain much: the gods of Greek mythology, etc. Just a thought.

    --
    Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
    1. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by agurk · · Score: 1

      That would make prior art easy to find - making the patent system work.

      They doubleclicked their PDAs in Atlantis too..

    2. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by tomzyk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The neatest thing about this, IMHO... would be if we discovered a very old, very advanced civilization that threw historians a curveball

      Actually, that's EXACTLY what Atlantis was: a VERY old, VERY advanced civilization. They supposedly weren't as advanced as we are today, but they were FAR more advanced than the rest of the world was back in the day... and they existed 9000 years before Plato's time.

      what if some ancient civilization was just as advanced as us but nuked themselves out of existence?

      I've pondered this many times and I keep coming to the same conclusion: If this was true, we would have found SOME evidence of their existence by now. I highly doubt that any really technologically advanced civilization that could create an atomic bomb wouldn't expand their culture beyond a handful of cities. We should have found towers on mountains by now, no? I don't think it very likely that when they wiped themselves out, they destroyed every miniscule building they had ever created.

      --
      Karma: NaN
    3. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Darkman,+Walkin+Dude · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah I followed up the information on the "mysterious sea peoples" mentioned in the BBC article, apparently a crowd of raiders that made short work of most of the civilistions in the area at that period, and I was immediately struck by the similarities between stories of them and some very ancient Irish legends.

      These talk about a people called the "Fomors" (or various other names) who were also known as the "Sea Demons" from the south, who enslaved Ireland for a period, before being defeated by a coalition of tribes. The leader of these fomors was apparently one "Balor of the evil eye", whose giant evil eye could apparently turn men to ash on the battlefield with its "gaze like the sun". He was beaten by one of the warlords of the time, and the story goes that the destruction of the eye caused a great explosion, the area around which was accursed for hundreds of years afterwards.

      There are other bits and pieces like that, but it really makes you wonder...

    4. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, maybe Tolkien drew some inspiration from that legend...

      Dan East

    5. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > There are other bits and pieces like that, but it really makes you wonder...

      Oh come on, what sort of halfwitted fool believes that? It's clearly referring to the advanced weaponry of the Go'auld!

    6. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are other bits and pieces like that, but it really makes you wonder...

      Yeah like why each civilization in the known universe creates a drink sounding suspiciously like gin & tonic.

    7. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There very well might have been an ancient civilization that wiped itself out with nukes.

      There's a lot of writing within one of the Indian (Hindu?) holy books that tells of gods flying in air ships, firing thunder and other such terrifying weapons at each other. Sorry, I can't find anything in my bookmarks, or recall anything specific. However, there is evidence that there were nukes back then in india: a city was found irradiated and destroyed from 8,000 years ago.

      Quite fascinating, as it totally destroys our conceptions of the past. If you ask me, we're quite pompous to assume that we're evolving to be more intelligent as time goes forward, just because we don't see evidence of the ancients being as advanced as we are (ie, silicon-based electronics and other machinery). That means little - they could have been more advanced spiritually, temporally, with medicine, or any other number of things. There is evidence that ancients accomplished many great, amazing scientific and engineering feats, most of which we have little if no explanation for (the Pyrimids, some artifacts found in China, many various ruins, Stonehenge, etc.)

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    8. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

      never heard of those legends, but there are mentions of flying chariots (vimana) in ancient holy vedic texts, one of which was ridden by prince who launched a thunderbolt arrow at his enemies, which caused a column of smoke to rise in the sky... enemy soldiers had to jump in rivers to try and save themselves...

      it's an account commonly referred to by the "ancient astronaut" believer crowd as proof of semi-prehistoric nuclear war and spaceships.

    9. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by G00F · · Score: 1

      Now I once had a roommate who was very relegious and read toons of biblical type books, and books explaining those books, etc.

      And according to him, he beleaved that in Noah's time, there was very advance people who thought they were better than god, hence the reason why god floodded the earth. Now I don't have a bible time line in front of me, but Noahs time was about 9000 years before Plato . . . And the flood would most certainly make a city sink.

      --
      The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
    10. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by protohiro1 · · Score: 1

      You know, it would destroy our conception of the past if there was any evidence at all to support your thesis. And rense.com doesn't count. This site has numerous articles with very dubious claims, including UFO pictures and articles questioning the veracity of the holocaust. There are, incidentaly, plenty of explanations for the Pyrimids. The egyptians had a written language which makes it easier to figure things out. Mostly because we can read their language. The pyrimids are giant piles of stone. Technology wise they are relatively simple. The real challenge was organization.

      --
      Sig removed because it was obnoxious
    11. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by smallfries · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, that is likely to be a hoax. There is a good debunking of it on this page

      Quite a way down in the section entitled 'Radioactive Ash in Rajasthan, India'. As they point out it fits with peoples preconceptions and a willingness to believe that there is some esoteric layer to history.

      The various other pieces of 'evidence' are interesting but inconclusive. There's quite a good description of them in 'Fingerprints of the Gods' by Graham Hancock who goes in for that sort of thing.

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
    12. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually, that's EXACTLY what Atlantis was: a VERY old, VERY advanced civilization. They supposedly weren't as advanced as we are today, but they were FAR more advanced than the rest of the world was back in the day... and they existed 9000 years before Plato's time.

      You are rather gullible, my friend.

    13. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you ask me, we're quite pompous to assume that we're evolving to be more intelligent as time goes forward, just because we don't see evidence of the ancients being as advanced as we are

      We're not going to ask you. Nobody assumes we're becoming more intelligent. We're more advanced because we learn. And once writing was figured out we were able to progress much more quickly.

    14. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      According to Judean mythology, the world itself is less than 6000 years old

    15. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Tripster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I tend to agree with you on this, there sure are some shady areas of our past we just can't explain and what scares me is they are so recent geologically and yet evidence is so hard to find.

      Look at our ancient cities, we're finding them but they're like 6,000 years old or so, well considering the planet is 4.5billion years old there is surely a lot of stuff we just haven't discovered or has been completely eradicated by the natural recycling forces that happen on our planet.

      We can't keep our own stories straight either, biblical texts are really just stories for the most part but they've been strewn out as "the word of God" and millions of little lemmings follow the texts to the word which has them living a dillusional existence at best.

      Look at Elvis, he's been officially dead for 25 years or so but we already have all kinds of fables running around about him, including him alive still (resurrection!) and there are several versions of his infamous chicken recipe. And this from a society with advanced technology and writing skills.

      One thing I've been thinking about recently is what if there was an intelligent dinosaur? If said intelligent dino only built structures from wood I highly doubt any evidence would exist 65million years after they died out.

      Today we have more metal products around that will survive longer, but even then it is estimated that 1billion years after we're gone there will be no evidence left on the planet that we existed in the first place.

    16. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "And according to him, he beleaved that in Noah's time, there was very advance people who thought they were better than god, hence the reason why god floodded the earth. Now I don't have a bible time line in front of me, but Noahs time was about 9000 years before Plato . . . And the flood would most certainly make a city sink."

      The problem with that is that Noah WASN'T Noah. The Babylonian account of the flood and the "Noah" character is far older than the Hebrew account. Moses pulled a "Puff Daddy" and sampled the Babylonian account he learned from studying in the Egyptian King's library and remixed it into a Hebrew account. Notice I didn't call the Egyptian King "Pharaoh" because that wasn't a real title. Pharaoh means "king's palace." Its a Hebrew mistranslation. Its like referring to President Bush as "White House."

      You also have to contend with the Egyptian accounts of the Great Flood as well as people like the Mayans who also claimed they were from an island to their East that sank.

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    17. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by CptNerd · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Actually, that's EXACTLY what Atlantis was: a VERY old, VERY advanced civilization. They supposedly weren't as advanced as we are today, but they were FAR more advanced than the rest of the world was back in the day... and they existed 9000 years before Plato's time.

      You are rather gullible, my friend.

      Not necessarily. Some tribe that figured out how to work copper would be "very advanced" over the others that were still using stone and antler tools. IANAA, but I can see the discovery of using copper wasn't a single point, where one fellow watched metal come from these rocks next to the fire, and published a story about it in the "Prehistoric Times." :-)

      It was most likely a continuum, where people took quite some time to figure out cause and effect, and which rocks worked and which didn't, and how to consistently get the same results, etc. etc. Not to mention convincing the doubters, persuading the shamans not to kill the discoverers, not getting accidently killed by disasters or fights with other tribes before figuring out good weapons to make.

      So, yeah, a "very advanced civilization" could have existed in many locations during the time that copper technology was being developed.
      --
      By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
    18. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 1

      "There are, incidentaly, plenty of explanations for the Pyrimids. The egyptians had a written language which makes it easier to figure things out. Mostly because we can read their language. The pyrimids are giant piles of stone. Technology wise they are relatively simple. The real challenge was organization."

      The funniest piece of speculation about the nature of the pyramids I heard on "Unscrewed with Martin Sargent" on G4TechTV. The guest claimed the pyramids were an elaborate form of an ancient sewage system. I laughed so hard when I heard that.

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    19. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 1

      "One thing I've been thinking about recently is what if there was an intelligent dinosaur? If said intelligent dino only built structures from wood I highly doubt any evidence would exist 65million years after they died out."

      C'mon, you are sampling off an episode of *Star Trek Voyager* with that assumption (or the advanced ancestors of the imbletards known as the Sleestaks on *Land of the Lost*). :) In the episode of Voyager, they encountered a humanoid species of dinosaurs who had left the Earth and were spacefaring, but they believed in a primitive version of monotheism that didn't accept the concept of evolution so the Earth was a myth. They had left the planet before the asteroid hit the planet 65 million years before.

      There is one scientist connected to SETI that did speculate that the Velociraptors did evolve into a humanoid species and could've become advanced. He did note that there would be no physical trace of any of their buildings considering how long ago that would've happened. What is fascinating about that idea is that if Atlantis did exist and is under the Antartic ice, then perhaps it wasn't a human city and we have this cultural myth that is a prehistorical remembrance of a different species (*interestingly enough, they found remains of velociraptors on an island off Antartica a couple of months ago - it made the headlines, again by BBC News). This isn't a hard leap of faith considering many scientists claim that legends of things like Bigfoot and the Yeti are prehistorical remembrances of a particular 10 ft. tall ape that existed before Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals supposedly hunted them into extinction.

      But again, its all speculation.

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    20. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Yes, but what about the 'mass burial pit' they found at the bottom of what was then a nearby river? The remains there indicated radiation as well, and it's postulated that the people ran from the city to cool their skin.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    21. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Har har.

      Actually, there are quite a few people that claim we're evolving forward into higher life forms. Most of them call themselves "evolutionists" or more coloquially, "scientists".

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    22. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by imroy · · Score: 2, Informative


      Ah, yet another person who misunderstands evolution. Evolution says no such thing about "evolving forward into higher life forms", that's just an asumption that a lof of people make.



      Evolution is simply a method to optimize and organism for its environment. For example: down here in Australia we have these little creatures called Koalas. You may have seem photos of them. They eat eucalyptus (sp?) leaves, and nothing else. It happens that these leaves aren't very nutritious and have a lot of toxins that take a long time to break down. Because of this, koalas conserve their energy by spending most of their time sleeping. And their brains are quite tiny.



      Now, are koalas a higher life form? No. But its ancestors did find a plentiful food source that was being eaten by little else. They adapted to eat the leaves and became the animal we have today.

    23. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by dvk · · Score: 1

      > One thing I've been thinking about recently is what if there was an intelligent dinosaur? If said intelligent dino only built structures from wood I highly doubt any evidence would exist 65million years after they died out.

      Sorry to bust the feeling of original discovery for you, but "Evolution" by Stephen Baxter explored the idea pretty well :)

      --
      "The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
    24. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by dvk · · Score: 1

      > The pyrimids are giant piles of stone. Technology wise they are relatively simple. The real challenge was organization.

      Hmm... Perhaps Ancient Egyptians discovered Six Sigma? :)

      [ Disclaimer: I am fortunate enough to not even know what Six Sigma is other than it's somehow management related and Bad For You ]

      -DVK

      --
      "The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
    25. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with that is that Noah WASN'T Noah. The Babylonian account of the flood and the "Noah" character is far older than the Hebrew account. Moses pulled a "Puff Daddy" and sampled the Babylonian account he learned from studying in the Egyptian King's library and remixed it into a Hebrew account. Notice I didn't call the Egyptian King "Pharaoh" because that wasn't a real title. Pharaoh means "king's palace." Its a Hebrew mistranslation. Its like referring to President Bush as "White House."

      Huh?

      Egyptians were around prior to Babylonians.

    26. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by waveclaw · · Score: 1
      what if some ancient civilization was just as advanced as us but nuked themselves out of existence?


      I've pondered this many times and I keep coming to the same conclusion: If this was true, we would have found SOME evidence of their existence by now.

      Even heard of the Mysterious Pyraminds of the Gobi Desert? This discussion reminds me of them.

      Considering how friendly the natural world has been to our artifacts, the 'leaves no trace' problem is a hard argument to make. We are now designing things that *should* last 10,000 years, but most of Western Civilization (and presumably any other human society besides the Egyptian and Mayans) has not built on that time scale.

      Fortunately, if - this is a BIG if - someone did make nukes and wipe themselves out, those nukes would have had to be pretty clean. That is, the would have to not leave obvious traces in the mineral record like WWII did. Of course, there are always biological WMDs and good ol' genocide by knife, a.k.a. one stab wound at a time.
      --

      "You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
    27. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Darkman,+Walkin+Dude · · Score: 1

      Heheh... to enter the realm of wild speculation here, there is another Irish legend (much earlier than the sea raiders one) that tells of an island ruled by wise bronze dragons.

      Hardly conclusive evidence for intelligent dinosaurs, especially as most of these stories were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation for thousands of years, but worth mentioning all the same...

    28. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 1

      "Hardly conclusive evidence for intelligent dinosaurs, especially as most of these stories were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation for thousands of years, but worth mentioning all the same..."

      It may not be conclusive evidence, but myths often have a basis in some ancient fact, even if it is just a kernel of truth (no, not a Linux reference) with eons of embellishments added to it.

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    29. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Shadowlore · · Score: 1

      We should have found towers on mountains by now, no?

      No, not necessarily. That would only be the case if we assume they were just like us. While it is human nature (arrogance or just lack of external viewpoints) to assume that prior civilizations would look like us, we don't really have any reason to believe they have to be.

      For example, looking at the directions the Germans went in WWII compared to the allies shows striking differences, yet they nearly acheived the same essential end results. The technology is fundamentally different.

      Even today there are things vacuum tubes do that we can't do in solid state or via transistors. It is not difficult to conceive of a technology that ook a different route: one of vaccum tubes as opposed to the digital route we are on.

      There is this idea of zero point energy as well. If the suspicions of it's potential are even a third accurate, a ZPE weapon would be far more devastating than a nuclear one, and likely w/o the radiological contamination. Much of the exploration of ZPE uses what we consider "dead" technology. What if a prior civilization (assuming for sake of discussion it existed) went this route?

      They may not have needed the infrastructure we currently have, and thus may not have the remnants we expect. Many truly groundbreaking discoveries have been when we were looking for one thing, yet somehow found another.

      Of course, there's always the Stargate, too. ;)

      On the topic of Atlantis, I've often thought if it existed it was most likely Antarctica.

      --
      My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
    30. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      Actually, there are quite a few people that claim we're evolving forward into higher life forms. Most of them call themselves "evolutionists" or more coloquially, "scientists".

      Buddy, If ignorance were cornflakes, you'd be General Mills.

    31. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by Tripster · · Score: 1

      Hehe, I didn't mean I believed intelligent dinos existed. I tend to think that with this really old universe we seem to exist in there's plenty of room for intelligent dinos somewhere though :-)

      All I know is this life thing is freaky sometimes.

    32. Re:The neatest thing about this, IMHO... by smallfries · · Score: 1

      Have you seen this pit with your own eyes? Do you not undertand that a hoax is still a hoax even if it claims that it isn't. Odd that really, seems to take some thought process to understand, go on try...

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  30. Whoa by scubamage · · Score: 1

    I'm not a geological historian, but it seems that (despite the annual claims of finding this place) there's a lot more evidence than usual. It's kind of interesting. Working off of the evidence Plato left us, this place seems to fit the bill a heck of a lot more than Schlieman's so called "Troy."

  31. How do you find... by Coos · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... the location of an allegorical tale to teach us the evils of materialism?

    1. Re:How do you find... by Hittite+Creosote · · Score: 1
      the location of an allegorical tale to teach us the evils of materialism?

      This is Slashdot. Try either Richmond, Washington or Lindon, Utah.

    2. Re:How do you find... by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

      Easy. You enlist the help of the Faerie Queen. That is, of course, if neither Adam nor Eve is available.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    3. Re:How do you find... by Blackhalo · · Score: 1

      I usually find one in the bedside drawer of most Southern hotel rooms.

      --
      "There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
  32. Oh brother, here we go again by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "This is the only place that seems to fit [Plato's] description," he told BBC News Online.

    Except for its not being an island and all the other bits we ignored to make the data fit the model.

    KFG

    1. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by telstar · · Score: 1
      "This is the only place that seems to fit [Plato's] description," he told BBC News Online.
      • Except for its not being an island and all the other bits we ignored to make the data fit the model.


      • Don't worry ... by the time the make a movie about it, it'll be an island again.

    2. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by mbbac · · Score: 1

      Actually, as described by Plato, Atlantis could be located anywhere including Utah. It's surrounded by concentric rings of water.

      --

      mbbac

    3. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by leomekenkamp · · Score: 1

      Further down the article mentions that 'island' may have been a false translation. If we take another piece of text from a long time ago, we can clearly point out how translating can be very difficult. Even using another tense (4th par.) can cause problems.

      --
      Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
    4. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by kfg · · Score: 1

      Atlantis is not surrounded by concentric rings of water. The hilltop citadel of Cleito was surrounded by concentric moats and the citadel lay outside Atlantis proper (that is to say where the populace lived, as the function of the moats was to keep the Atlanteans themselves out, as is the general purpose of palace moats everywhere).

      The moats have nothing to do with Atlantis's status as an island.

      KFG

    5. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by kfg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ah yes, "may have been" is the stock in trade of the Atlantis finder.

      I'm familiar with the vagueries of translation. I do some now and again. Typically though I'm called upon to translate translations. Make them both grammatically and idiomatically correct.

      A while ago I was called upon to translate just two words in Italian as seen on a gasoline advertisment.

      "Su Misura"

      Transliterated that's "on measure." An Italian had already translated it into English as "Made to Measure", which would make perfect sense in English if the product involved were a man's suit, but is idiomatic nonsense when applied to gasoline (which is why it was brought to me in the first place). I translated it as "Custom Blended", which is incorrect in any literal sense, but perfectly correct in meaning.

      Of course I had advantage in that, unlike the examples you provide of translating texts of a dead language, I was working with living languages. If I'd needed to I could have sat down with an Italian language scholar and dicussed that matter. It makes a big difference.

      And that's just the case with Plato and the story of Atlantis. Plato wasn't trying to translate some ancient Egyptian text in some archaic version of the languge. He claims to have got it from Solon who spoke Egyptian at least converstionally and who got the story directly in coversation with an Egyptian mystic/scholar in Egypt. Plato himself went to Egypt, learned Egyptian and studied there for a goodly time with Egyptians who spoke Greek (where he could also confirm the report of Heredotus that the Egyptians claimed to have circumnavigated Africa by sea before Plato was born).

      No, the "may have been a flase translation" thing won't fly.

      Especially since the whole story really originated, in Greek, in the mind of Plato. There is no older text.

      KFG

    6. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by leomekenkamp · · Score: 1

      With all this as background information, that makes the "flase transition" theory indeed improbable. I did not know this, since I am not that much into history, let alone Plato cum suis. ;-)

      Back to the original post: the 'Atlantis seekers' and other pseudo-scientist like no-men-on-the-moon Hoagland and 'Mr 10,500 BC' Duval indeed seem to leave out 'facts' or even make them up as it suits them. Merely replying to their non-scientific works with "that's a bunch of baloney" would make 'us' no better than 'them', whatever the /. moderators think.

      That is why I responded. You came back with a well build argument that takes away an important pillar of the article's theory; for this I thank you.

      --
      Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
    7. Re:Oh brother, here we go again by RedWizzard · · Score: 1

      And consider the source: (the scientist making the claims). He's got some pretty out there ideas.

  33. I, for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Welcome our new Atlantian overlords.

  34. Mediteranean Rising by Gleef · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mediteranean Sea has been rising for as long as it's existed (it's essentially a big basin that's filling from the other water sources around it). Cities have been built on the coast of the Mediteranean for millenia.

    If we call any sunken city in the Mediteranean "Atlantis", we'll never get any work done. There are just too many of them.

    --

    ----
    Open mind, insert foot.
    1. Re:Mediteranean Rising by quinkin · · Score: 4, Insightful
      What's rising? The sealevel? Is the land subsiding?

      The Mediterranean Sea is still a connected sea - the Straits of Gibraltar aren't THAT narrow - so it can hardly fill from the surrounding water sources (sealevel rises aside).

      Q.

      --
      Insert Signature Here
    2. Re:Mediteranean Rising by Gleef · · Score: 1

      Roughly six million years ago, tectonic forces isolated what Geologists call the Tethys Sea. The area has more evaporation than precipitation, so it dried out, with occasional floods. Roughly 4.5 million years ago, a slight increase in sea level allowed the Atlantic to flow in through the Straits of Gibraltar.

      It's been filling ever since. Evaporation is fierce, and the higher it gets, the less pressure is on the Straits, so it's filling pretty slowly now. Still, in some areas the water level goes up roughtly a meter every 500 years, and that adds up when you're talking about a 2500 year old port town. There are dozens of underwater ancient cities along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
    3. Re:Mediteranean Rising by quinkin · · Score: 1
      Well ok, but I can't find any evidence to support this hypothesis.

      "In the Mediterranean the evaporation of water from the surface is so great that the incoming fresh water from the rivers which empty into the Med will not keep it filled, and as a result salt water from the Atlantic Ocean flows in through the Straits of Gibraltar to keep the Mediterranean level with the Atlantic Ocean. By evaporation this salt water is concentrated in the Med, just like in salt ponds such as are at the south end of the San Francisco Bay (and in many other places in the world) . Thus the water of the Mediterranean is more salty, and hence more dense, than the Atlantic Ocean water. Also the Mediterranean water is warmer, due to the heating by the sun. The Atlantic Ocean water is cooled by the circulation of the Gulf Stream from the cold Arctic region." - Old Meddies Research.

      So the Med doesn't receive enough FRESH water to sustain the evaporative loss, hence the Atlantic is the supplement. Sure there have been cyclical evaporation/refill events in the past, but the last refill is 4.5 Million years ago as you noted. If it is still filling now, that is a pretty slow flowrate...

      If you read the Meddies article it refers to the outflow of seawater from the mediterranean as well. Surely this would not occur if the Med was lower than the Atlantic.

      Q.

      --
      Insert Signature Here
    4. Re:Mediteranean Rising by Gleef · · Score: 1

      OK, the comments here, and some other reading I did on the side, certainly make it clear to me that the situation is more complex than my original understanding. From what I remember, water flows from the Mediteranean out into the Black Sea. You say water flows out from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean as well. The Suez canal shouldn't make an appreciable difference, and certainly had no effect before it was built.

      If evaporation is faster than the influx of fresh water (rain+rivers), and the only two seawater connections are net outgoing, where's the water coming from?

      Also, my understanding that the Mediterranean water level is rising is based on what archaeologists told me verbally. Since they need to know what land and water are doing as part of their job, I took that as pretty sound. This was further backed up by the sheer number of archaeological sites that are cities submerged just off the coast, most of the ones I know about are in the eastern mediterranean. This was even further backed up by reading discussions of Venice's problems, where they often mention the rising level of the Mediterranean as a given.

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
  35. I do wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Atlantisians were such an advanced civilisation, why did the build their civilisation on a dodgy piece of real estate? Surely, they would have known about volcanic islands and the danger of land sinkage,

    1. Re:I do wonder... by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      The RE/MAX rep assured them that eveything was fine, and they had to move fast to close the deal.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  36. Atlantis: Discovered Again? by virve · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think there was a error in the headline. It should read:

    Atlantis: Discovered Again?

    It makes the story more consistent with facts.

    --
    virve

    1. Re:Atlantis: Discovered Again? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      The very fact it has been "discovered" again means this new "discovery" should be taken with a pinch of salt. That's what they meant (and indeed implied rather obviously) - the question mark is unneccesary.

    2. Re:Atlantis: Discovered Again? by virve · · Score: 1

      The very fact it has been "discovered" again means this new "discovery" should be taken with a pinch of salt. That's what they meant (and indeed implied rather obviously) - the question mark is unneccesary.

      I hate to make the point clearer: That was exactly what I meant. Atlantis seems to be discovered on a regular basis. Discoveries of Atlantis should be taken with a shovelful of salt unless somebody comes up with impressive direct archaeological evidence rather than some invisible rings and rectangles on a satellite picture.

      --
      virve

  37. The Donovan Game by thuh+Freak · · Score: 1, Funny

    i'm skeptic. if this is atlantis, then where is the poets, the farmers, the magicians, and the other so-called gods of our legends? though, gods they were! and as the elders of our time choose to remain blind, let us ...hail atlantis! but isn't it supposed to be 'down below the ocean: where i want to be' (repeat ad nauseum)?

    --
    I wish that I was a catfish.
  38. no rings, no rectangles... by UnderAttack · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't make out rings nor rectangles in that
    picture. But I clearly see a big cache of WMD in the lower left corner.

    --
    ---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
  39. Oh, I see... by tomzyk · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can see the face of Bin Laden

    Let me guess: you're in the US Army and you are just trying to start this rumor in the hopes that you get relocated out of Iraq to the beautiful beaches of Spain, right?

    --
    Karma: NaN
    1. Re:Oh, I see... by DrEldarion · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't think it's to go see the beautiful beaches...

    2. Re:Oh, I see... by WormholeFiend · · Score: 2, Funny

      "in the hopes that you get relocated out of Iraq to the beautiful beaches of Spain"

      Carlos don't surf!

    3. Re:Oh, I see... by cynic10508 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Let me guess: you're in the US Army and you are just trying to start this rumor in the hopes that you get relocated out of Iraq to the beautiful beaches of Spain, right?

      It's totally pre-emptive in case the Moors try to invade again.

    4. Re:Oh, I see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This would be great action film: Al Qaida and Bin Laden seeking for crystal with supernatural powers and USA spy/army/arheologist trying to stop them...

  40. The inevitable outcome by AppHack · · Score: 1

    Then Geraldo excavates the lost city of Atlantis on live television and finds ...

    ... Al Capone's vault.

  41. stargate by millahtime · · Score: 1

    oh no, what does this do to Sci Fi channels Stargate: Atlantis.

    1. Re:stargate by rlp · · Score: 1

      So Sci-Fi channel is doing a new series about an elite team or explorers who travel through the Stargate to ... Spain?? No doubt in search of a lost recipe for paella.

      --
      [Insert pithy quote here]
  42. Seeing what you're looking for.. by WegianWarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're looking for something spesific, it's easy to find it.. our mind is good at recognisong patterns, even when they arn't there. Off course, this is what leads people to see cities om Mars, Lenin in their shower curtain and, in this cause, traces of Atlantis. It's called pareidolia, and it's more common than you might think.


    PS: I urge everyone to visit the link and explore the site - it's a good read and quite interesting as well as funny.

    --
    Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
    1. Re:Seeing what you're looking for.. by stecoop · · Score: 1

      Following several links from the Shower seen you will find that another web site calls it SIMULACRUM. And It was quite interesting.

    2. Re:Seeing what you're looking for.. by Zareste · · Score: 1

      When I start up a Windows computer, I want to see a desktop that's not shrouded with spyware and pop-ups and errors. Do I see that? Nope.

      I think this pareidolia stuff is all in your head.

      --
      I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
    3. Re:Seeing what you're looking for.. by richyoung · · Score: 1

      I've always wanted to start a tortilla company that used a special press to imprint the image of Jesus in, oh, say, every thousandth tortilla. Imagine the word of mouth sales!

      --
      6. Audible Alarm (not shown)
      -from a Cuisinart product owner's manual.
  43. Finally, we have the evidence by fotoguzzi · · Score: 1

    Incontrovertible proof of the weapons of mass destruction.

    --
    Their they're doing there hair.
    1. Re:Finally, we have the evidence by NickeB · · Score: 0

      Destroying mass is against the laws of physics, clearly these atlanteans are up to something nasty.

  44. disbelievers unite by x_tender · · Score: 1, Funny

    No. This is not Atlansis at all. That's a simple targeting area for ancient spacemen to practice. To drop SPace Marines, or may be some bombs. Be a sceptic. There was not Atlantis at all.

  45. Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Never trust anyone who tries to prove anything with stades. The truth is that we have no idea what the length of a stade really is.

    The modern value is based on the estimate of the circumference of the earth by the ancient greeks. This value is then used to prove how amazingly accurate their estimation was. Bit of a circular argument really.

    So the suggestion that a stade could be 20% out and that would make this Atlantis is just optimistic. It could very well be 50% out in the other direction making this an odd but decidedly non-mythical bit of Spain.

  46. Obviously.... by gilroy · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... this is just a PR stunt by the Sci Fi Channel to hype their new series, Stargate: Atlantis.

    1. Re:Obviously.... by tomzyk · · Score: 1

      Obviously.... ... this is just a PR stunt by the Sci Fi Channel to hype their new series, Stargate: Atlantis.

      Yeaahhhhh, no. Unless, of course, the SciFi Channel has been planning this television series for the past hundred years or so. Look around, there's another "scientist" that "discovers Atlantis" in a different part of the world every 3 months nowadays, and (who woulda thought) it NEVER fits the complete description from Plato.

      --
      Karma: NaN
  47. Antiquity link by rwebb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The original Antiquity article is here.

    Aside from a great deal of speculation about correlations between Egyptian records, tales of the Peoples of the Sea, and a selective reading of the Dialogues, the only "data" the author points to are the satellite images which may be the remains of rectangular structures. Nothing in situ to indicate dating.

    As there is almost certainly evidence of Bronze Age settlements practically anywhere one cares to dig along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, this article is roughly the equivalent of speculating that an unattributed burial in a 6th century Wessex tomb must necessarily be the remains of Arthur.

    --
    Trusted by cats.
  48. Slashdot's version of: Medical weightloss miracle! by Libertarian_Geek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Other similar headlines include:

    Proof of Dark matter?
    Cold Fusion Finally?
    SCO's last gasp?

    Is it just me, or are some /. stories starting to have tabloid feel?

    --

    www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights

    www.fairtax.org
  49. This is off-topic by tomzyk · · Score: 1

    And now, bring on the South Park jokes regarding Skuzzle-Butt...

    --
    Karma: NaN
  50. You've got more chance of finding Atlantis... by Aphrika · · Score: 1
  51. Final truth? by Dexter77 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, in near future we will have dozen places that claim to be Atlantis. Is this going to be as with Santa Claus. There are atleast ten different countries claiming to be Santa's home countries.

    How do you define which is the real Atlantis? I bet there are many forgotten cities that distantly match description written almost 3000 years ago.

    Can Atlantis be identified without a doubt? If so, then how?

  52. Troy. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was believed to be a mythical place, thanks in great part to the Illiad, but it was eventually found.

    The same could be said of some of the biblic places.

    And who knows? We may find one day a place that inequivoably is identified as Atlantis.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Troy. by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is one major difference. Homer was writing about events set in historical time, only 400 years or so before in fact, involving historical people whom many people at the time of writing could clearly and accurately trace their own lineage to, in a land not only accessable but well known and colonized. A story of his own culture's recent history.

      Thus the story of Troy was a myth in the sense that the ride of Paul Revere is a myth. False, invented by a poet, but historical.

      The story of Atlantis is a story heard from a friend who heard it from a wise man at the edge of the world who said it happened 10,000 years before beyond the edge of the world.

      In the modern idiom that translates into:

      "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. . ."

      KFG

    2. Re:Troy. by ckathens · · Score: 1

      You might want to check your archaelogy books a little better. What the Turkish govt calls "Troy" was found by the illustrious Heinrich Schliemann, a pseudo-archaelogist. He's the same man who likely made the "mask of agamemnon" himself for a publicity stunt to make Mycenae a big hit. There are many articles about the site commonly known as Troy in archaelogical journals but not many believing that this is the actual site of Troy.

    3. Re:Troy. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is one major difference. Homer was writing about events set in historical time, only 400 years or so before in fact, involving historical people whom many people at the time of writing could clearly and accurately trace their own lineage to, in a land not only accessable but well known and colonized. A story of his own culture's recent history.

      Homer wasn't writing - oral tradition, remember?

      As to the historicity (is that a word?) of events 400 years before "the time of writing", I should point out that it is VERY difficult to pin down ancestry 400 years into the past - some of my more determined relatives have been trying for decades, and there are still holes in their lists that one could drive a truck through. And our records of such things are more thorough than the bronze-age Greek records.

      Do you consider 400 years ago "recent history"? Just curious, since 400 years ago includes things like the 30-Years War, Jamestown, and the Armada - hardly things most would consider "recent". Though no doubt archeologists define "recently" more liberally than most of us....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    4. Re:Troy. by kfg · · Score: 1

      Do you consider 400 years ago "recent history"?

      Yes. Very recent.

      In terms of the Greek dark ages where things moved so slowly that ever minor changes in clothing fashion might take hundreds of years it's an almost infintesimal span of hisory.

      And in a slave owning culture where citizenship was dependant on ancestry, not birth, and a Bardic tradition (which you bring up) in which it was common to memorize the Illiad and Odyssey, it was a fairly easy task to keep track of one's antecedents. One's very life could depend on it.

      Do not confuse the way things are today with the way things were then. In the modern era we rely on record keeping. If the records are lost than the history is lost, often within a single person's lifetime. If the records are lost you may loose knowledge, but not citizenship of your nation. I cannot trace my Romanian peasant ancestry. It was erased 60 years ago, within my mother's lifetime. If my mother had been taught her ancestry then I could also be taught. I'm still an American citizen, however, with all the attendant rights. I have not been reduced to the status of alien peasant or a slave, so it doesn't really matter, which is why my mother wasn't taught her ancestry in the first place.

      On my father's side, however, I can go back to Hugh Capet. The blood is blue. The line remains traceable for over 1000 years because to certain people that ancestry mattered a good deal.

      KFG

    5. Re:Troy. by Razor+Blades+are+Not · · Score: 1

      Exactly.
      400 years is nothing in the history of kings. Not everyone in ancient Greece could trace their lineage back four centuries. Some of them might not even know their fathers name.
      But when you claim descendance from Ancient Kings (or Gods!), you sure better know who fathered whom.

      (On a side note, on my mothers side, I'm a distant bastard of Henry VIII - which really kind of annoys her, since she's a member of the Richard III Society.)

  53. Just fudge the numbers by Wizzo1138 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I love this part:
    ...the ancient unit of measurement used by Plato - the stade - may have been 20% larger than traditionally assumed. If the latter is true, one of the rectangular features on the "island" matches almost exactly the dimensions given by Plato for the temple of Poseidon.
    And if the mile is 10000% larger than we tradtionally assume, I only have a one-mile trip to work.
    --
    Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
    1. Re:Just fudge the numbers by zenneth · · Score: 1

      And if the mile is 10000% larger than we tradtionally assume, I only have a one-mile trip to work. I assume you're an astronaut? Either that, or you've got one hell of a commute.

      --
      The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
    2. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Wizzo1138 · · Score: 1

      I'm just now getting some caffeine. Math skills should be working in the next hour or so. :)

      --
      Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
    3. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      100 miles is not that much of a comute

    4. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      100 miles is not that much of a commute

      It is if you're riding a bicycle.

    5. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Zibblsnrt · · Score: 4, Informative
      (IAAH) One of the problems with determining ancient units of measurement is that they don't give them to us in convinient modern units. We only know what a classical stadia was within a certain range, so there's going to be an uncertainty there.

      A lot of units of measurement used in ancient times were subjective like this. The best (by which I mean "Augh! Worst!")example is the stathmos, which simply meant "a day's march."

      A day's march how? On foot? Horseback? Chariot? With or without a supply train? Jogging? On flat ground? Broken terrain? Roads? The correct answer is "yes," which means that this unit can vary disgustingly depending on the circumstances. A day's trudge through the Amazon and a day's travel on horseback along a plain are both a stathmos, though they're very different distances.

      There's other examples of this, such as the talent, defined as the weight a man could carry on his back comfortably, and therefore something between fifty and eighty pounds. It was used both as a simple unit of weight and as a unit of currency, so you'll see people paying reparations of fifty talents or whatnot to the neighbouring state - which drives people up the wall when the authour's not specifying what the talents are of!

      Units of measurement were also different from town to town. Standardized weights and measures are newfangled.

      The stadia isn't quite so flexible, but the definitions of it I've seen are still based off other units the Greeks used, so yes, enough uncertainty kicks in that we could be off by some significant factor either way. He could have subscribed to a William Tarn-esque "make shit up" school of thought, it's true, but he could also be right. I'd need to take a better look at what he's written to see whether the shoe fits or whether he had to perform some unrequired surgery.

      -PS

      --
      "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
    6. Re:Just fudge the numbers by CaptainAvatar · · Score: 1

      Good post. Another variable ancient unit was the hour - of which there were 12 between sunrise and sunset. So the length of an hour depended on latitude and time of year.

      --
      The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
    7. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      drives people up the wall when the authour's not specifying what the talents are of!

      If not stated, they're talking about silver.

      (Much like the British "pound", Italian "lire", or French "livre", all of which at one time referred to a pound weight of silver. A "shekel" is also a unit of weight, and in monetary terms takes its value from a fraction of a pound ("maneh") of silver.)

    8. Re:Just fudge the numbers by Zibblsnrt · · Score: 1
      This is generally true, though I've read a few sources where they made mention of silver, gold, and non-precious talents (you'd be surprised at the number of times war indemnity/booty was paid in, say, talents of iron, especially in Mesopotamia), only to start forgetting to specify which is which..

      When they're obviously discussing multiple flavors of talent, and then neglect to mention which, that's when the historians start committing mass suicide trying to figure out a text..

      -PS

      --
      "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
  54. Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by cardshark2001 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Scientists are bound and determined to place Atlantis ANYWHERE except in the middle of the Atlantic, where it is.

    There's a chain of islands called the Mid Atlantic ridge, which, if the water level were lowered 300-500 feet (as it was before the end of the ice age) would be a very large island. You could even call it an island continent.

    Plato said atlantis was 9000 years before him, or about 11,500 years ago. We've only learned in the past couple of decades that almost exactly at that time, the mean temperature of the earth raised a significant amount in a short amount of time. If a bunch of ice (North America had a mile-thick layer of ice) melted all at once, and you lived on an island continent, it would seem that your island sank into the ocean.

    Someday I'll be proven correct. I just know it.

    --
    WWJD? JWRTFA!
    1. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by Aphrika · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Possibly true but you're forgetting one thing.

      In ancient times, all oceans were known as the Sea of the Atlanteans, which is where the name Atlantic came from.

      As far as they were concerned, standing on the shores of the Eurasian continent and Africa, the ocean surrounded them. To them the Atlantic wasn't what we now know as the Atlantic, it constituted the whole ocean. This puts paid to the argument that Atlant-is is in the modern Atlan-tic. It could be, but there are lots of other ridges and sub-oceanic plateaus in other parts of the ancient 'Atlantic' ocean that would have succumbed at the same time as the mid-Atlantic ridge...

    2. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by AndroidCat · · Score: 1
      "Here Be Dragons", "Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end-", "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..", "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules..."

      All good stories take place just past the edge of mystery.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    3. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by Troed · · Score: 1

      Can you elaborate? The only information I find regarding this "large island" only "300-500 feet" below the surface is The depth of water over the ridge is less than 2,700 m (8,900 ft) in most places, and several mountain peaks rise above the water, forming islands..

      link

    4. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by kabocox · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Shh, scientists don't really care about the Atlantis myth. They do care about the public funding for finding Atlantis. I bet once every 10-20 years some scientist gets a decent grant and alot of PR for "finding Atlantis." Does the public really want to know of all the ancient cities? Nope. Does the public really want to fund looking for ancient cities? Not really. Will the public fund looking for Atlantis each time that it generally forgets about it? Yes. That is the real reason we won't ever "find Atlantis." Actually, it would be interesting if some one would fund undersea research for sunken cities. It would have to be sold to the public as the search for Atlantis though.

    5. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So were a lot of other ancient civilisations.

      The mediteranean was a hot bed of both ancient cultures (because it was a lot easier to sail somewhere than walk) and also ancient disaster areas.

      The volcanic energy in the area (proved by Pompeii and Thera), coupled with the influx of water around 10,000 years ago manage to persuade us it could also look like a disaster zone fairly quickly.

      The problem is, people start out looking for Atlantis, find something else, and wack the name on top of it. Then they spend so much time trying to prove it actually is Atlantis, that they lose sight of the fact it was an interesting civilisation in its own right.

    6. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by tomzyk · · Score: 1
      You may be correct in your statements, but let's take a look at what Plato actually says:
      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 Heracles 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

      The name "Pillars of Heracles (Hèracleiai stèlai)" was given by the ancients to a location which is usually identified with the Rock of Gibraltar and the facing Apes' Hill near Tangier, on either side of the strait of Gibraltar leading from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. Meaning: Atlantis was on the other side of the strait of Gibraltar.
      --
      Karma: NaN
    7. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by cjellibebi · · Score: 1
      I think Plato mentioned that Atlantis was just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (straits of Gibraltar), so if several lost cities are found along the Mediterranean, all cities east of the Straits of Gibraltar are not Atlantis, but some other lost city. I wrote this post in this article where I speculate on the fate of Atlantis had it been flooded when the ice-caps melted.

      Seeing that writing had existed for many thousands of years beforehand, it seems a bit suspicious that the only written account of Atlantis was from Plato's time several thousand years after the alledged destruction of Atlantis. Perhaps the Great Library of Alexandria held more accounts before it was destroyed (which IMO was one of the most tragic episodes of history).

      Incidentally, they've recently found a lost city just on land on the coast of Greece. At one time about 2000+ years ago, it was flooded. Some ancient travel writer (could have been Plinny) noted that he saw the tops of the tallest buildings of that city sticking out the water. Since then, many unsuccessful attempts have been made to find it by looking offshore, but the city had in fact somehow returned to the shore (could have been buried under a huge pile of mud, or possibly the land could have risen as well).

    8. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by Aphrika · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I see your point, but seeing as they had to sail their ships between the pillars to get to any ocean other than the Mediterranean, it could still be construed as any ocean beyond the pillars of Hercules.

      What's interesting to note though is that this pretty much means that Atlantis isn't in the Med.

    9. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by cardshark2001 · · Score: 1
      several mountain peaks rise above the water, forming islands..

      Check out a contour map, it might be a little trouble to find it, but worth it. Trace where the land would be if the sea level were 500 feet lower. The chain of islands there now would be joined together in a couple spots, and the land area would be much much larger.

      --
      WWJD? JWRTFA!
    10. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by bigpat · · Score: 1

      "I think Plato mentioned that Atlantis was just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (straits of Gibraltar), so if several lost cities are found along the Mediterranean, all cities east of the Straits of Gibraltar are not Atlantis, but some other lost city."

      I've seen that "straights of Gilbraltar=Pillars of Hercules" cited many times, but was this designation concurrent with Plato's writing or did it only become associated afterwards?

    11. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by swv3752 · · Score: 1

      Occam's Razor- the simplest solution to where on the other side of the Pillars would be the Atlantic.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    12. Re:Yeah right. Atlan-TIS is in the Atlan-TIC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Step back from the moment and realize that Plato is being e-quoted verbatum in a /. thread, just as if he was right here and participating in it.

      /begin-ot-use-of-thread-context

      The people who were born in Western Civilization in 2004 cannot die in the same sense as those who came before them. Perhaps one day it will even be legally advisable for them to post as anything other than an Anonymous Coward. Imagine being able to run applications that analyze all of one life's postings of a person from age 4 through age 94, factor in known data concerning their religous, physical, geographic, income, civil, education, family and social metrics and output a probablistic-model for analyzing data. (In Star Trek and other SciFi series, the idea is always that one must somehow actually need to download the actual memory of a person to be able to pull this off --but I don't think that's necessary unless you want to try and replicate the conciousness.)
      • Even as the body of President Reagan is being received by his library, national news is interrupted by Steve Jobs of
      • (WHO CHANGED THE WORLD) introducing his new "Airport Express" for $129, with the consumer-hook of also being an iTunes adapter for your living room stereo (in addition to being a WiFi-G base station small enough to throw into your briefcase)...virtually assuring mass-wireless-broadband throughout Western Civilization within 5 years. Mass broadband, newsgroups like /. and CRM-like integration of the existing electronic records systems --the people who will be 4 in 2008 are going to be a lot more different than us than any generation before them.
      /end-ot-use-of-thread-context
  55. Excavating the site by cjellibebi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Dr Kuehne said he hoped to attract interest from archaeologists to excavate the site. But this may be tricky. The features in the satellite photo are located within Spain's Donana national park.
    Would excavating what could be a lost city really wreck a national park? Archaeologists try and be as non-intrusive as possible, and their methods of digging holes are so gentle that they use a toothbrush-like brush to move the dirt. So even if nothing was found after an extensive dig, there would be virtually no ecological damage. And if the city of Atlantis really was found and they decided to excavate everything that could possibly be in Plato's description, would that effect the ecology of the area (providing they did not turn the area into a museum)?
    1. Re:Excavating the site by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

      He means it will be hard to get permission to dig on the site. Excavating public parks means getting support from the national entity, which would be easy if he had something more substantial than a suspicious satelite photo. Furthermore, it will be more expensive to dig on public land than private land, as there are no doubt a ton of regulations.

      Incidentally..the "tooth brush like brush" thing doesn't really happen all that often, because it's expensive and slow and generally unnecessary.

      Would you like to know how archeologists REALLY work? Well, they start by digging a series of post holes, 18 inches by 18 inches and as deep as possible, with a random spread over the suspected area (called a Phase 1a, as I understand it). The density of hole selection is based on what era you suspect you're lookin for...historical sites are more concentrated (to find the edges of features) and prehistoric sites more sparse (to find flakes, pottery bits, firepits and other stuff which may be spread out over the whole area). They just dig through everything, dump the dirt into a grate, sift it down quickly, and fill it back in if they don't find anything. They do these very quickly...my wife commonly does 25+ holes per day. If they found something, they continue by getting a backhoe and digging a HUGE deep trench on the edge of the suspected area to see if there's really something there, and how old it is. If, and only if, backhoe trenching pulls up a site, they dig more holes and set up a grid, to start a more invasive procedure like the ones you see on the History Channel.

      Either way, you're going to be digging holes all over the place. Which is a nuisance and is also expensive. So you'll need support and money to get started.

      In a state/national park, looking for old buildings that probably aren't there, they'll first have to whip out the ground invasive radars and prove there's something to the rumors and vague photos before they can even do a Phase 1a. Then they'll need to find somebody to fund the thing. Then they'll have to hope they find enough cool stuff to fund MORE digging. Many, many interesting archeological sites are lost to looters and lack of funds -- which is a shame, because archeology is the only way for modern man to discern first hand what's happened in his history, and artifacts without context are useless for analysis.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
  56. too late, sorry by antani · · Score: 0

    atlantisdiscovered.org

    Sardinia island (mediterran sea) is atlantis, sorry.
    That's the truth and if you read Plato and Homerus, you will find that this big isle is atlantis !
    Land is moving, sardinia too and the actual position is NOT the ancient position.
    tween Sicily and Africa, as described by Plato)

    Italians do it better

  57. Backyard by Shin+Chan · · Score: 0

    You mean the thing in my backyard is not Atlantis?!

    --
    Proud owner of BOT2K3 [ bot2k3.net ]
  58. Boy can the BBC get it wrong!!! by jackb_guppy · · Score: 1

    It is in the East Indies Though I like the South America ideas better. The East Indies have ALL the right stuff.

  59. FFS! Atlantis again by Kegster · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why can't these people get it through their heads thaty Atlantis, as recounted by Plato in Timaeas and Critias, is allegorical.

    It has as much objective reality as More's Utopia and Butler's Erehwon. It even had the same purpose, to illustrate a philosophical point and "demonstrate" Plato's idea of an ideal society.

    It just happened that Atlantis was a handy cultural peg to hang it off, somewhat like Avalon and Lyonesse is today for some people.

    There have been numerous candidates for Atlantis, but the outstanding one, IMO, is Santorini.

    That island, part of the of the Minoan civilisation, blew its top somewhat spectacularly, and was probably a contributory factor to the collapse of the Minoan, Mycenaean and Hittite empires, who just happened to be trading partners with the Egyptians at the time.

    The Egyptians, being anal-retentive record keepers kept some records of this, and these, in garbled form, are probably what inspired Plato to use the island as the home for his ideal civilisation.

    Given the effects of this massive explosion on the weather (shitty crops practically guaranteed throughout the region), which would have negatively effected the economies of the Mycenaeans and Hitties.

    The loss of contact with the Minoans (who were in a decline at the time anyway, so this probably played a large part in finishing them off) would likely have pushed them over the edge as well. Both of those regions (the Anatolian Plateau and southern Greece) being somewhat marginal environments to start with, having low annual rainfall, poor and shallow soil, and high summer temperatures).

    This probably would have made it into the Egyptian annals as something along the lines of "those Greek and Turkish bastards haven't turned up so far this year to hawk their tat, no great loss, but a bit of a pain in the arse. Also we have been having some really shitty weather this last year, on the plus side, the surf was wicked last summer. Wonder if they are related? - Amememhat"

    This also would quite likely have been mythologised to a certain extent from the tales of survivors.

    No need for the tortured logic and papering over the cracks here, it all depends on fairly well understood factors, a big fuck off explosion, the fragility of civilisations based on gift-giving economies and ties of obligation, especially in somewhat marginal environments, and a bit of garbling and mythologisation over the years.

    Mix an ambitious philosopher looking for a name to hang an idea off, and Viola! a ready made myth for people to chase incessantly, and for con-men in the mould of Von Daniken and Hancock to make a good living off.

    1. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by cardshark2001 · · Score: 1
      Why can't these people get it through their heads thaty Atlantis, as recounted by Plato in Timaeas and Critias, is allegorical.

      That's just speculation on your part. It is a pretty interesting coincidence that almost exactly the time that Plato said Atlantis sank, we know the temperature of the Earth raised drastically. I can provide hard science to back this up if you don't believe me.

      We also know that the ocean level was 300-500 feet lower before then. There is ongoing debate about how fast the ice melted and how fast the ocean level rose, but if it rose even 50 feet rapidly, a very large island (as Atlantis is purported to have been) would appear to sink almost overnight.

      If it's an allegory, those facts make for a hell of a coincidence.

      --
      WWJD? JWRTFA!
    2. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, I believe you. What's next? There's no Middle Earth either?

    3. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

      They will get it when they realize the Bible is allegorical

    4. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Grrrr ... why can't people stop that "Santorini nonsense"?

      Plato clearly told us: Atlantis was destroyed by a flood. Plato never said Atlantis was destroyed by an earthquake, vulcano erruption, asteroid bombardment or what ever ...

      Note: The destruction of Santorini CAUSED a flood. But Santorini was not destroyed BY A FLOOD.

      angel'o'sphere

      P.S. no wonder our civilization is decaying if people can not understand that very littly but slightly signifcant difference.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by Kegster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good point, I just have two issues with the that.

      Plato wasn't there, why should he be anymore of an authority than anyone else?

      IMO, and that of quite a few other people, Plato wasn't particularly interested in the truth of it anyway, but more interested in expouding certain of his ideas.

      Given the effects of the Santorini eruption on an island like Minos, is it not likely that the flood caused by the eruption on Santorini, that probably had some fairly devastating consequences to the Minoan Civilisation, got conflated with the eruption? It was a long time before Plato, in the Greek Dark Ages, and came to him from a decidedly secondhand source.

      I could be wrong, "Atantis" could be somewhere else, inside or outside the Mediterranean Basin, but I'd like to see some pretty good evidence, as the Santorini Hypothesis (that is all it is until we find a "Welcome to Atlantis" sign there or somewhere else).

      I just get pretty tired sometimes of all these sensational "We've found Atlantis, no really, we have, we just haven't actually looked for any evidence yet, and what there is is circumstantial at best, but it is there, really it is" type stuff.

      Why do pretty smart people seem to turn off their critical faculties whenever some new loon comes along with a new Atlantis, or a Chariots of the Gods type book? I did, admittedly, study this at uni, but its not that hard to the flaws in the ideas of Hancock and Von Daniken, you just have to look at it crtically, if it was some new bollocks about cold fusion or superconductance that wasn't backed up by amything more than a notion and some circumstantial evidence most of you would be circling around it like Frat boys around a drunk cheerleader, waiting to see who could get the first bite in ;)

    6. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by kirkjobsluder · · Score: 1

      Next news flash: Archeologists discover Plato's Cave.

      Not that great of a coincidence. Since most cultures (including the culture that Plato claims to have gotten the Atlantis story from) developed around rivers, huge disasterous floods are quite common. Secondly, Plato's own language in writing the dialogues is a hints to the allegory of the story, with it set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away."

    7. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by cardshark2001 · · Score: 1
      Not that great of a coincidence that Plato, who lived ~2500 years ago said Atlantis was ~9000 years before him?

      That's 11,500 years ago. We have only recently discovered that the earth's temperature rose anywhere from 3-12 degrees in less than a decade almost exactly 11,500 years ago. Even if you say that it's not meaningful, it is a strong coincidence. Look up the word in the dictionary.

      There's an old theory in paleoclimatology called "steady state theory" which holds that changes in the earth's climate happen very gradually, over hundreds of years. We know now beyond any reasonable doubt that that theory is false when it comes to temperature changes. Glacier core samples do not lie. Scientists have come up with all kinds of explanations for why nearly every culture has a global flood myth, including your river speculation, except for the obvious: there was a flood.

      Paleoclimatologists and geologists are starting to come around to my way of thinking.

      We've found several submerged cities in the past, right around the various coastlines. People like to live right on the coast. If the ocean level rose rapidly, it would kill off most of the earth's human population, and it would appear the whole earth had flooded (and it would appear a large island like Atlantis had sunk).

      --
      WWJD? JWRTFA!
    8. Re:FFS! Atlantis again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Well, no.


      "the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as I 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.


      Here's the text.

  60. South America by Shalda · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I for one am a believer that Atlantis was really South America. There was a massive thriving culture in South America 3000 years ago and plenty of evidence to suggest that trade was occuring between South America and Egypt around that time. Google has several sites which endorse this theory.

    1. Re:South America by geoffspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google can find several sites which endorse any loony theory. What's your point?

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    2. Re:South America by swv3752 · · Score: 1

      I remember a PBS special many years back where this guy proved that a papyrus boat could sail from the Nile to South America by doing it. There is evidence that there could have been contact between Egypt and the Americas. It was technologically possible even if we have direct evidence. After all it is not like we are going to find "I saw the Pyramids" T-shirts amongst Incan ruins.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    3. Re:South America by geoffspear · · Score: 1

      Yes, and it's also technologically possible that 20th Century humans visited Mars. But they didn't.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    4. Re:South America by Shalda · · Score: 1

      My point is simply (and obviously) that I find the theory fairly plausible. Really, though, it was some PBS (Nova?) show I watched that sold me on the idea. One of the things I find most interesting is the similarity between Egypt's Stepped Pyramid and early Myan pyramids.

    5. Re:South America by Quinn · · Score: 1

      What really swung me to the South American hypothesis is the connection with cocaine found in some Egyptian mummies. Hard evidence is difficult to find due to the dearth of funding for Peruvian and Chilean archaeology, but circumstantial topographical evidence is abundant.

      I'm not sure if it was PBS, or Discovery, or maybe the Science channel, but I also saw the special of which you speak, and it was very well done.

      --
      #19845
  61. Lost Treasure of Atlantis by Whitecloud · · Score: 1
    Some useful links to go with this:
    History Of Atlantis Atlan is a pretty good summary,
    Searching for Atlantis
    Interesting account of the hunt throughout history, Lbr> possibly the most important info:

    Atlantis was said to be a land of fruitful plains, extensive timber, rich flora and fauna, and great herds of elephants. According to the story, the ground was seamed with gold, silver and other metals including a mysterious one called orichalcum. This was a copper that sparkled like fire, according to Plato

    Sounds like Orichalcum would make a cool pc case :)

    --

    Do you need a website upgrade?

  62. South Pole by Onceat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I thought the land mass under the South pole was Atlantis, the piece fits into the Pangea puzzle , and it is said to have landed up there when the poles revesed there polarity around the same time the great lakes , and the scotish lochs where formed since those two places used to be the poles, I saw it on National Geographic or Discovery a while back

    1. Re:South Pole by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      I missed that show, but I am familiar with the Polar Shift theory.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    2. Re:South Pole by Onceat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah I caught it on a weird time , unexpectacly , so I never paid much attention to what channel it was on anyway, it was interesting , since the Ice sheets ( or at least the ones they can get too ) date back to the same time as Plato talks about , aparently the Vickings made refrence to Atlantis aswell, then when the pole shift happend, it was " sunk " quickly, due to the sudden influx of water to re balance the globe , if that was the case the pressure of the water most probebly litleraly wiped out any evidence of it ever being there, I read some where once that , that is the reason why Illonios is so flat , cause the glaciers that formed the great lakes , melted quickly , the resulting tidal waves just flatened out everything in it's path to the sea. I cant back any of this up, but it is facinating, I wonder if that why the vikings just stopped circumnavigating the world , they could have seen this as a huge omen not to travel the seas anymore, reminds me aparently the chinesse knew about Atlantis as well , my sister is reading some book now about them discovering the owrld at the same time as the vikings

  63. Re:Lost Treasure of Atlantis - by Whitecloud · · Score: 1

    oops, that second link should be Searching for Atlantis, it contains the quote in italics above.

    --

    Do you need a website upgrade?

  64. Just great! by Lobo_Louie · · Score: 0
    Now I'm going to start getting spam from mysterious .at addresses.

    ] I know, I know, .at is Austria's country code.

  65. SO My question by AviLazar · · Score: 2, Funny

    Was Plato there? How does he know about Atlantis? If there was an Atlantean civilization during his era, why is his writings the first? You would think some king would have had a writing about it. And the final question: Do we really want to attempt to resurrect a civilization that Posiden (sp?) decided to sink? I mean come on - the dudes a God for crying out loud. We've seen the previews for "the day after tomorrow" now I know most of us don't want to see the movie - do we really want to see it enacted LIVE? Anyone? Anyone? (ok that was a few more questions) :)

    --

    I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
  66. Great but... by Gadzinka · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's /. so I'm too lazy to look at the article, but from the story I should point one thing:

    As little as we know about alleged Atlantis, one thing is sure from Plato's tales -- Atlantis was beyond the Pilars of Hercules (Gibraltar Strait). So anything on the Atlantic, Pacific or Indian Ocean is a good candidate, whether it is in Amercia, Asia or Antarctic.

    Anything on Mediterranean Sea, or Black Sea is NOT beyond the Pilars of Hercules.

    Robert

    --
    Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
  67. Re:Slashdot's version of: Medical weightloss mirac by WoodenRobot · · Score: 1, Funny

    Coming soon to a Slashdot near you: "Batboy confirms he created Linux"

    --
    ---
    "I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it could be."
  68. will it scan in PhotoShop? by castlec · · Score: 1

    so if i scan these new "Atlantis" photos in photoshop, will it show up as forged(Blacked out) money??

    --
    When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
  69. Rings are too perfect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about you, but those rings look too perfect. I think there were computer generated.

  70. nothing found by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They took some pictures from mediteranean coast line and searched for structures. And finally they found one. Not very surprising for this region.

    Also it matches more or less some specs from an old tale. Also not very surprising the author of that tale refered to a city he has heared of. It might alos be possible that he merged different curious myth in to a new one.

    1. Those structures might be remains of a 2500 year old city. But this has to be proven.

    2. If there was one, this is still no prove for the thesis that the city is Atlantis. As Atlantis could be a combination of different myth about lost cities. I will accept as prove a sign, a stone etc. which declares that the city is Atlantis.

    As long as there is only a vague theory and no hard facts. I don't believe it.

    Not to mention they should start digging.

  71. Santa Claus = Coca Cola by GuyFawkes · · Score: 1


    Santa Claus cannot have a home country, though it could be argued that his home town is the global HQ of Coca Cola.

    It constantly amazes me how few people are aware of the FACT that Santa Claus (just look at the dude's colour scheme) is invented by and copyright the Coca Cola company and is no more than a marketing tool, just like the Michelin Man.

    Don't believe me? do a google.

    --
    http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
    1. Re:Santa Claus = Coca Cola by PingvinRich · · Score: 0

      The Coca Cola Corp invented the look-n-feel of the modern Santa, but the idea's been around for a while.
      Something to do with drinking reindeer pee laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms. This was before television, obviously.

    2. Re:Santa Claus = Coca Cola by GuyFawkes · · Score: 1

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus
      and
      htt p://www.icubed.com/~colagrrl/xmas.htm

      --
      http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
  72. Plato. Sigh. It's about Athens and Sparta, Folks. by ianscot · · Score: 3, Informative
    Granted, Atlantis has become a larger myth, okay. But it started with Plato. No literature before plato refers to Atlantis -- kind of striking given Homeric poetry that's hinted at Mycenean geography and so on.

    Plato's references to Atlantis, specifically, are basically a sequel to his Republic, which is in turn an idealized version of the Spartan state. The Republic is mostly about an anti-democratic reaction to the direction Athens chose to go. The Atlantis myth is essentially a way of describing early Athens as virtuously fighting against an outside invader. Plato was using his created myth, to quote a skeptic's article on this, as a "noble lie."

    The specific physical characteristics being cited in this article are so ludicrously overgeneral that I'm amazed they don't have more than one match to go on. All you have to know is what the article says: "The features were originally spotted by Werner Wickboldt, a lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast who studied photographs from across the Mediterranean for signs of the city described by Plato." This is another Heinrich Schliemann. They'll be planting golden masks next.

    (Hey, I've found another ancient city of Troy! It's an Anasazi settlement. Go ahead... prove it ain't. Or maybe Atlantis was on Santorini. Or was that Troy? Or Tyre. Yeah... Tyre.)

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  73. Two words: Tectonic plates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Umm...the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is kinda deep for this sort of thing. I mean, sure, the Bering Strait/Land Bridge was exposed at that time, but the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a bit deeper. Plus, don't forget the reason the Ridge exists: It's the fault line between two major techtonic plates, and new crust is constantly erupting in the middle. Not exactly the most hospitible place for a civilization, I would think.

    1. Re:Two words: Tectonic plates by Doctor+Faustus · · Score: 1

      don't forget the reason the Ridge exists: It's the fault line between two major techtonic plates, and new crust is constantly erupting in the middle. Not exactly the most hospitible place for a civilization, I would think.

      Right, look how no one lives in California.

    2. Re:Two words: Tectonic plates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a different type of fault: a transverse fault as opposed to a divergence fault. Besides, I still want to see evidence that the sea level dropped low enough to make the Mid-Atlantic Ridge anywhere near the surface.

  74. Orichalcum beads by daveewart · · Score: 1

    If anyone gets to the site, can you pick me up some orichalcum beads ... I'm running low. Thanks.

    --
    "If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
  75. C-14 dating ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Okay, but whats the real dope on C-14 dating?

    I heard that it wasn't as accurate as we've all been lead to believe over the last 100 years or so ... is this true, or what? What are the different 'C-14 dating' proofs?

    What does Archaeology do when its fundamental principles are shaken by new discoveries - go back and re-write things?

    1. Re:C-14 dating ... by perly-king-69 · · Score: 4, Informative
      C-14 dates: They were thought to be very precise and accurate, but as it turns out some calibration of measured dates is required.

      It was originally thought that the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere was constant over time. It's been later found out that this is incorrect. In addition there is the 'hard water error' which affects results quite badly. However by correlating dendrochronology dates (very, very precise and accurate) with C-14 dates we have quite a refined system. C-14 dates are represented as a date with an error margin and percentage probability eg 10,000BP +/- 200years at 2 standard deviations.

      C-14 isn't a fundemental principle of Archaeology. It's one of many tools that are used.

      --

      --
      This sig is inoffensive.

    2. Re:C-14 dating ... by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also the resevoir effect can throw dates off. Of course, many of the error situations are obvious, and thus won't throw you off. For example, you simply don't carbon date deep sea creatures (recycled carbon from oceanic conveyors), or plants that lived on the rim of an active volcano (carbon from deep in the earth), without expecting your results to be way off. There are lots of ways you can "catch" unexpected causes of carbon being off when they were expected to be correct, but in general, the results of carbon are dating quite accurate because the cases that can really throw carbon dating off are clearly exceptions, not the rule.

      Calibration amounts are generally relatively small, so it's not a big deal. Creationists like to pretend that they're huge (they're not), or that all dating mechanisms are calibrated (most aren't; carbon dating is unusual). The most reliable dating methods, BTW, are methods like isochron and concordia/discordia methods, which have built-in error checking.

      Probably the best indicator of the reliability of carbon dating in the general case is its correspondance to other dating methods, particularly (as was mentioned) dendrochronology. Different fossilized tree records, while showing somewhat varying levels of the different carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, show, to a good degree of accuracy, the *same* varying levels.

      --
      "Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
  76. And even what you're *not* looking for by ianscot · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Leaving alone wannabe Heinrich Schliemanns like the "lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast" we run across in this article, you don't necessarily even have to be looking for a pattern to think you see it.

    Michael Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things" does a decent job of summing up the problem and how it works with ideas like this: People's minds are wired to look for patterns. They look for patterns that relate to other patterns they're familiar with, mostly, or those are the ones they think they see anyway. Show me a Rorschach blob, or a random scattering of data, and I'm going to try to figure out what it means. Faces on Mars! My fate, written in the tea leaves! Your character, in the lines on your palm! And so on.

    In the case of Atlantis, though, it takes a special kind of thinking to ignore all the obvious political context for Plato -- his and his family's opposition to the way Athens had gone, the whole Republic-as-an-ideal-Sparta thing -- but to seize on the few physical details he describes for Atlantis. They're not missing the forest for the trees: they're imagining the forest where they imagine there's a tree. Based on two rectangles near some concentric circles, no less. Yow.

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
    1. Re:And even what you're *not* looking for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are also books about "Blind Reading" which talks about the flip side of getting people to believe wierd things such palm reading but they are very hard to find and libraries don't seem to keep them. Maybe the guys with the Al-foil hats have checked them all out.

    2. Re:And even what you're *not* looking for by brukman · · Score: 2
      Sure it could be random noise. That's why you dig. The tendency to notice patterns works pretty well, after all how long would it take to make a discovery if one were to randomly wander about with a spade?

      Unlike the Martian face, it is entirely reasonable to suspect an ancient city may lie beneath the surface of southern Spain. It is also at least reasonable to hypothesize that it may be the ancient city of Atlantis. No one is calling the photo proof of anything, only noting that it's not a bad place to check.

      So, you may be right that there is nothing to it (frankly, I can't see anything) but, thanks to our crazy pattern finding brains, it seems far more likely to produce a fine discovery than the hole in my back yard.

  77. It better not be... by paRcat · · Score: 1, Funny

    If it's actually Atlantis, then my faith in Stargate will be shaken.

    nope... can't happen. :)

  78. 4 for Interesting? by ukalum · · Score: 1
    Its like, great, we've got the source, but what the heck kind of CPU does it run on, and what version of the compiler do we use to build the project with? Give someone a "snippet of C" and have them re-build the PC with it

    First of all, that's a terrible analogy. Our understanding of ancient history is far better than that.

    ... hmm ... odd analogy I suppose, but I'm just too lazy to smooth out the wrinkles. Like so many archaeologists before me, perhaps?

    Second, I can't even imagine that you are an archaeologist, but if by hook or by crook you got a degree from somewhere, I assure you, most archaeologists are not like you.

    how on Earth can we be so sure that we've interpreted a few clay tablets here and there correctly?
    snip
    leads me to a very nasty suscpicion that we've completely misunderstood the Ancients, too many times to be sure

    Have you ever read Homer's The Illiad? Or Plato's The Republic? Those texts sure make a lot of sense if your hypothesis is true.

    1. Re:4 for Interesting? by torpor · · Score: 1

      Second, I can't even imagine that you are an archaeologist, but if by hook or by crook you got a degree from somewhere, I assure you, most archaeologists are not like you.

      hey now, no need to get personal. i'm not an archaeologist, i'm a programmer. and i acknowledge that was a terrible analogy.

      i have a great deal of respect for archaeology, except that i rarely see much about the behind-the-scenes verifcations of things ... beyond "national geographic" and "discovery" magazine articles that is, and even in those references i've seen time and again 'old stable archaeological standards' challenged and queried, so that the entire body of knowledge requires a new look.

      Such as the "Xinguano" tribes, for example ...

      --
      ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  79. Why hasn't the US hired him... by AnswerIs42 · · Score: 3, Funny
    to located the Iraq WMDs??

    I mean if he can pick out Atlantis from that one picture.. he should be able to find every hiding spot in Iraq..

  80. Pareidolia is very common by ites · · Score: 2, Funny

    The signs of it are EVERYWHERE, if you know what to look for!

    --
    Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
  81. Great Idea! by kabrakan · · Score: 1

    Now the little guys can spend endless amounts of money on a meaningless race much as the U.S. and Russia did for space. "Who is the first to discover Atlantis in their country" is the 21st century way of drawing attention away from more important current events and to secure a re-election!

    --
    Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
    Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
  82. Science? by catdevnull · · Score: 1

    Maybe we can get that Noah's Ark guy to look into this one, too.

    --

    I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
  83. supposed sites for Atlantis by CAIMLAS · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are "a lot of supposed sites for Atlantis. I would have to say this is one of the least faith inspiring "finding" I've seen.

    Mythology being quite entertaining to me, I've read of most of the supposed sites. There is an island called Thera, located off the coast of Crete. It seems to me that if anything found so far is the fabled Atlantis, this is it. Archological digs show that they had both hot and cold running water, as well as a very advanced trade. Prior to the erruption, there was a circular cove around the island. There are significant enough similarities between Plato's Atlantis and Thera for there to be a very convincing arguement for this site. The disaster of the volcanic erruption would fit the timeframe of the other legends surrounding the survivors of Atlantis - for instance, the Spanish conquistadors that slayed the white-skinned men on the northwestern coast of Africa that claimed to be from such a society (I think? my memory is sketchy.)

    I suspect people aren't making conclusive claims about Thera being Atlantis yet because there simply aren't enough interesting historical mysteries to get funding for. Atlantis is a pearl in almost everyone's eyes, thus people keep searching - finding various other interesting things - in the name of searching for Atlantis.

    After all, once you've found all the easter eggs that they said there were, you're not going to want to keep looking, as it's not likely you'll find anything - or so you think.

    --
    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
  84. Atlantean Masters by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

    I for one welcome our new Atlantean overlords!

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  85. so basically... by BigGerman · · Score: 4, Funny

    .. it is not in the Atlantic, it is not under water, but other than that it is Atlantis just like Plato described it?

  86. Ay-yup? by waldoj · · Score: 1

    * Waldo
    * The wizard
    * A scroll
    * Two mermaids pleasuring each other
    * Poseidon's driving license
    * Plato's lost map
    * Sebastian the crab
    * Cowboy Neal's bathing suit


    Well, you can cross one off that list.

    -Waldo Jaquith

  87. I saw something on TV Once... by Paulrothrock · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    It was about these canals they found in Brazil that run dead straight for hundreds of miles, along with manmade mounds that are above the floodplain, supposedly for growing crops.

    Anybody know anything more about this?

    --
    I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
  88. DYMTAU? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you make those acronyms up?

  89. Wild assumptions in archaeology by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (I'm not criticizing you here...)

    So how long would you last in your field if you made a huge claim with only the weakest, unsubstantiated data? This Atlantis claim is based solely on one poorly defined image and absolutely NO physical evidence from the ground. The whole story of Atlantis is based on the assumed infallibility of Plato, as if Plato were incapable of being mistaken or believing a bogus folktale.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    1. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by perly-king-69 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Quite. Plato's story of Atlantis was a politically based moralising tale. These guys might well have found something, but which sells more (mainstream) books?:
      We found a 2,500 year old settlement in Europe!
      or
      WE FOUND ATLANTIS!!

      No, they won't get much (any) funding from academic bodies, but they'll get a good publishing deal.

      --

      --
      This sig is inoffensive.

    2. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by swv3752 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A lot of archealogy is seperating fact from Myth. Read up on how Troy was found. Ever play the game telephone? A group of people sit in a circle. One person whispers a phrase to the person next to him. By the time the phrase gets around the circle, it usually bears little resemblance to the orignal phrase. The myth of the Unicorn seems to have been derived from Aristotle's third hand description of a Rhinoceros.

      A lot of archealogical sites have been found in the same manner as these photos. The preliminary evidence suggests that it matches Plato's description. We may never know for sure, unless we find a sign on the city limits: Welcome to Atlantis, Population 3,123.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    3. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by cshark · · Score: 1

      Maybe we just need to accept that maybe, atlantis was never actually a real place. Otherwise, we're going to keep finding it... every year. This is what... atlantis #6 in the last decade? Come on.

      --

      This signature has Super Cow Powers

    4. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

      "We may never know for sure, unless we find a sign on the city limits: Welcome to Atlantis, Population 3,123"

      I'd be happy if they found some items with writing on them along the lines of "Here in Atlantis we received 20 heads of sheep..." or "Oh god ----- protect Atlantis from our enemies!" Plus, if the society was as complex as Plato said then it would leave metalwork, pottery, etc. That sort of thing doesn't dissapear completely, especially from land sites.

      I wouldn't use the exploration of Troy as an example of how to run an archelogical project.

      To say they found Atlantis based on just a photo is a convincing as if Ballard had taken a boat over to the approximate spot the Titantic had sunk and said he had found the wreck without ever going down for photos and a few small items.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    5. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by lucabrasi999 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      "Here in Atlantis we received 20 heads of sheep..."

      I doubt anyone will ever find a sign that uses that phrase. And, it has nothing to do with the existence of "Atlantis". It does, however, have everything to do with what Atlanteans referred to themselves as.

      Plato called the land "Atlantis". The citizens that lived in Atlantis (if it existed) could have referred to their country as anything. So, instead of finding a sign referencing "Atlantis", it could refer to "Outer Transealandania". And then, the sign would say "Here in Outer Transealandania, we received 20 heads of sheep..."

      So the archeologist has to figure out that Outer Transealandania is the same land mass at Atlantis.

    6. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by mnemoth_54 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      /begin rant The problem I have is how they choose to selectively belive whatever parts of Plato's story that suit their particular purposes. They can't accept his timescale because it flys in the face of "known" history, so the just butcher it until Atlans tis can be anywhere. It's just too hard for people to accept that the Greeks and Romans got every bit of their 'advanced' knowledege from the egyptian libraries. But if you look at every great Greek thinker, they always came back from Alexandria with thier astounding new discoveries, without fail. It's plain for me to see that these men got there grand new ideas by reading them in very old books. IMO, If you want to find Atlantis, you have to accept Plato's story as a whole, and not discount parts as it suits you. It may or may not ever be found, it may not even exist, but changing the criteria to match the find is not the way to go about it. / end rant

    7. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by RedWizzard · · Score: 1
      This Atlantis claim is based solely on one poorly defined image and absolutely NO physical evidence from the ground.
      No this article contains one poorly defined image and no further evidence. We don't know what the scientists have or are claiming.
    8. Re:Wild assumptions in archaeology by PsibrII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Its not exactly the ONLY story dating back to that time. India has several legends going back to that time. Most of it has been simplified over time, and a little bit too much cheesy drama added, but you still have some basis in collective BS of an event, if not fact. Sometimes the BS can tell you more than any truth anyone of the time is willing to tell.

      Was there some advanced civilization back then ? Maybe. If you look to someting in more recent history you have this massive tome by Galen that it took 1800+ years to catch up with.

      Just because you get lucky now and then with some freak talent super genius doesn't mean its will keep going.

      I hate to say it but in the end, its the lowest common denominator of a society that gets passed on as a sure thing though the ages. When the library of alexandria went it was only the most popular, and probably cheesy tales that carried on over the ages because EVERYONE retold the tales.

      Farenheit 451 was based in the purest fact. Maybe noone is trying to kill every idea, but entropy will eat up anything that isn't massively distributed and repeated. Think to your most interesting paperback in your collection. Maybe a one off book by some unknown author. It will no doubt fall apart in less than 15 years.

      Now think of some book everyone has, even though it wasn't that great. Piers Anthony and Terry Prattchet are gonna be around in some archive in 1200 years like it or not. The works of Vernor Vinge, Patrick McManus, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling will be nothing but dust most likely.

      Maybe there will be some saving grace in the future and they will have some Niven, Heinlein, Clarke, and Hunter S Thompson will survive. No doubt it probably won't be their best work. Entropy sucks doesn't it ?

  90. It can't be... by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows you have to go through a StarGate to get to Atlantis.

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  91. Concentric ring forts by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd say that the use of concentric rings would be relatively common in very early settlements as a basic form of self defense. Hill forts with circular earthen walls are found in England and Ireland. It is simply the shortest and simplest wall you can make around a site. I wouldn't be surprised if prehistoric settlers in Spain and England were in contact and used similar construction styles. To say that this is an automatic sign that it is Atlantis is like saying everyone who wears a baseball cap must be on a major league baseball team.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    1. Re:Concentric ring forts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most bronze age settlements are square if they have defences or just spread out in the absense of fortifications. Circulare defence walls are rare.

    2. Re:Concentric ring forts by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1
      This obviously is English-centric but I doubt it is unique to only that part of Europe:

      "Hill Forts - Dating from the Iron Age (approximately 700 B.C. to 50 A.D.) these hilltop enclosures are the youngest of the prehistoric remains to be seen. They are defensive structures enclosing high places with rings of ditches and banks. Often there were wooden or stone walls atop the banks as a further barrier. In some cases a series of concentric ditches and banks were built."

      Other info:

      Ironage Britain

      The Berth fort

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  92. pff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shopped!

  93. that city is teh ubar!!1

    --

    What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

  94. That would be Andalusia, infidel swine! by mosel-saar-ruwer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Let me guess: you're in the US Army and you are just trying to start this rumor in the hopes that you get relocated out of Iraq to the beautiful beaches of Spain, right?

    Those would be the beautiful beaches of Andalusia, infidel swine!

    1. Re:That would be Andalusia, infidel swine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those would be the beautiful beaches of Andalusia, infidel swine!

      Andalusia (Andalucía) is in Spain.

    2. Re:That would be Andalusia, infidel swine! by werfele · · Score: 4, Informative

      I believe the grandparent intended to say, "Those would be the beautiful beaches of Al-Andalus, infidel swine!" as the Islamic state in Spain was known. This term in the origin of the English Andalusia and the Spanish Andalucía, so it's not far off.

  95. Atlantis and the Mountains of Madness by Perianwyr+Stormcrow · · Score: 1

    Atlantis is probably no more beyond the Pillars of Hercules than the ancient shoggoth infested city of the Great Race is at the south pole.

    --

    What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

  96. You almost got me there .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Archaeology is not a science, certainly not an 'arcane science'. It's a discipline which employs (amongst other things) scientific techniques, such as C-14 dating.

    I almost belived you were an Archeolog up until you wrote that..

    For something to be a science, you have to be able to do studies, using methods based on theories, and to get results that can be independently verified by repeating the study by peer scientists.

    Archeology is exactly that ..

    If you want an example of something that is not science, take psychoanalysis as an example. It's not even a theory, and as such, can't be disproofed. Everything is based on two subjects of Freud that he found interesting, and used to get him out of his financial troubles.

    I'm sure he is laughing hysterically in his grave.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  97. Mobile Biological Weapons Labs by quixoticsycophant · · Score: 1

    Are these photos with black outlines really any different than the evidence Colin Powell presented to the U.N.?

  98. Re:Plato. Sigh. It's about Athens and Sparta, Folk by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I dunno, not to side with the woo woo crowd, but it doesn't really read as a parable or political lesson unless something gets lost in the translation. It's more like a straightforward history. Are you sure you're not thinking of Bacon's "New Atlantis"?

    Plato's work describes a rather agressive and widespread empire. Hindu legends of the Deva Nahusha also tell of a similar, widespread empire around the same time. Atlantis is not mentioned by that name anywhere outside of Plato's work, but strikingly similar entities are told of in other place under different names.

    There's lots of other myths and legends in other cultures around the world that seem to point to some sort of largish civilization at the time Atlantis was supposed to have peaks. No UFOs, no advanced technology, no silliness... just *something* that is, for the most part, still undiscovered. It's not a big deal, really. So the dawn of civilization gets pushed back a bit. So what? It'd be interesting. Look at Caral in Peru. That discovery pushed back the birth of city life and organized farming in the "New World" a full 1000 years in one shot.

    As for the features being spotted by an Atlantis enthusiast, well, use scientific method here: who else is looking for it? ;-)

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  99. Baseball Hat = Baseball Player... by Atragon · · Score: 1

    *puts on a baseball cap* Ok, where's my cheque for $2 million?

    1. Re:Baseball Hat = Baseball Player... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      *puts on a baseball cap* Ok, where's my cheque for $2 million?

      Cheque? Say, shouldn't you be out playing cricket somewhere?

    2. Re:Baseball Hat = Baseball Player... by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 1

      Baseball hat + 400 lbs. means that you are more likely to be mistaken for Michael Moore. Here's your check for $50M. Go fool some more "little people."

      --
      taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
  100. Mediterranean What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I live in Cartagena (Spain). You know, Cartagena, that Mediterranean city formerly known as:
    - Carthagena (10th century)
    - Qartayannat al Halfa (739 A.D.)
    - Cartaginem (1st century)
    - Cartago Nova (209 b.C.)
    - Qart-ad-Hast (232 b.C.)
    - Teucria or Tebaria or Tucria (1261 A.C)
    - Contestania or Contesta (1410 b.C.)

    From my window I can see a 120ft-long piece of a defense wall made by the Carthaginians, the Marine Archaeology Museum with a Phoenician ship and a WHOLE lot of amphoras which were sunk just 200ft deep in the bay...
    What I don't see is a whole fucking mass of water over my head, so I suppose my 3000 years old city hasn't (still) felt in the claws of the One Sea To Flood Them All.

    1. Re:Mediterranean What? by Gleef · · Score: 1

      Ah, Historic Cartagena, staging area for Hannibals invasion of Rome. Haven't been there, but it sounds lovely. The rise in waters is slow, and the city was built up a little bit (unlike less well planned ones like Venice), so there's at least a thousand years before the water level will really hit the city, possibly more like two or three thousand. The people there who are worrying most appear to be the ones maintaining the beaches.

      Water doesn't have to be over your head to get a submerged city. If the streets are flooded with a few centimeters of sea water on a regular basis, it gets pretty uncomfortable to live. People move, buildings get abandoned, and fall down. Erosion takes care of as much as the rising water.

      PS: If you are Spanish, why are you talking in feet? I thought Spain went Metric way back in 1849.

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
    2. Re:Mediterranean What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK, Venice (Italia) is suffering from that kind of floods, but not because of Mediterranean rising but the city itself sinking :_(

      About the Metric thing... yeah, we do use Metric System, but many people here in /. don't (tired of reading posts with mph here and feet and inches there and so on), so - if you go to Rome, do like the Romans :)
      Now comes the "In Soviet Russia we don't use feet, we use Vodka bottles you insensitive clod!" reply or something like that :D

      PS: Glad to find someone who knows Cartagena (Spain) does not mean Cartagena (Mexico) :)
      You're not from USA, are you?

      PS2: Sorry for the bad English, i'm feeling kinda "dense" today.

    3. Re:Mediterranean What? by Gleef · · Score: 1

      Anonymous wrote:
      AFAIK, Venice (Italia) is suffering from that kind of floods, but not because of Mediterranean rising but the city itself sinking :_(
      To my knowledge Venice has both problems, and the sinking ground problem is slower than the rising water problem. Here is an article about Venice's issues, including their solution to beef up their existing lagoon to give protection from sea level.

      About the Metric thing... yeah, we do use Metric System, but many people here in /. don't (tired of reading posts with mph here and feet and inches there and so on), so - if you go to Rome, do like the Romans :)
      But the Romans use metric now ;-) I highly recommend using Metric here, even if others aren't. Americans won't be helped by coddling them. :-)

      In the US, we do use some metric: many bottled beverages are sold using metric units, so are most illegal drugs. I expect, any day now, gas stations to realise that selling gasoline by the liter will mean customers will have less sticker shock about the rising gas prices.

      You're not from USA, are you?
      Nope, from New York City.

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
  101. Ob. Reply by duffel · · Score: 1
    Ob. Mallrats quote:
    OOS(Only on slashdot) is the phrase "obligatory somethingOrTheOther quote:" used sufficiently for you to be able to abbreviate "Obligatory" as "Ob.", and still have people know what you mean.
    1. Re:Ob. Reply by maw · · Score: 1

      If only that were so...

      --
      You're a suburbanite.
    2. Re:Ob. Reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only that were so...
      --
      I will mod down anyone who uses the word "artical".


      Nicely articalated. Haw Haw!

      *gets shot by nearest charity worker*

  102. Most compelling recent theory (IMHO) is... by Etcetera · · Score: 3, Interesting


    That "Atlantis" referred to most of Indonesia, under the South China Sea, since it was a full continent rather than a bunch of islands during the last ice age. It's pretty novel, and I can't recall any other work putting forth this theory (ie, anything on TLC - heh).

    A Brazillian Professor has a pretty informative site about this where he talks about his research. Since they added a forum, it seems that more other people than I realized have been following this as well.

    How does this work, you say? Well, if you consider the mediterranian philosophy of flat earths and rings going out, they considered the "Atlantic Ocean" to be a sort of "world ocean", not the specific ocean we call it today. Plus, there are a whole other number of Atlantis "checklist items" that the area has in its favor that really don't exist in the Mediterranian or South America (ie, lots of elephants, dual rice harvests, etc...)

    Anyway, now that it's posted... I'd be interesting in seeing some other Slashdotters' opinions about it.

    =)

  103. Just 2 buildings??? by d474 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are we supposed to believe that the some great ancient civilization that possessed mythological technologies and a naval fleet some sort lived in a city with just 2 buildings? The map says there is a temple and a castle. That doesn't sound like a city let alone a civilization to me. Please, someone tell me what I'm missing.

    --
    Authority questions you. Return the favor.
  104. NO!!!! by DAQ42 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Don't wake the sleeper!!! Narglotep!!! Narglotep!!!!

    --
    Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
  105. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For something to be a science, you have to be able to do studies, using methods based on theories, and to get results that can be independently verified by repeating the study by peer scientists. Archeology is exactly that ..

    No it isn't. Many aspects of archaeology are non-repeatable. Excavation is the obvious example. If you cannot have a control and it is non-repeatable then I'd argue that it is not a science.

    Secondly, although archaeology uses many scientific techniques, it is fundamentally subjective. Once you've excavated a site, got dates from objects and contexts one is still left with the subjective opinions of the primary excavator. What was Stonehenge for? Different archaeologists have different views, though they all may agree on the layout, size and age of the site. And don't even get started on Biblical archaeology!

    Even before that though subjectivity comes into play - where do we dig? where are the bounds of the excavation? what methods of excavation are we going to use?

    Check out some of the writings of Ian Hodder or Phil Barker to explore some of these ideas further.

    BTW, IAAA.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  106. Why Santorini may be Atlantis. by MtViewGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The more I think about it, the more I think Plato based his story of Atlantis on the destruction of Thera (neé Santorini).

    Let's consider the following:

    1. Thera in its heyday had a very advanced civilization by ancient standards with things like surprisingly modern plumbing systems!

    2. The island of Crete--90 miles south of Thera--had more or less the same type of civilization on Thera.

    3. When Thera's volcano did that catastrophic eruption, not only did most of the island sink into the sea from the eruption but it also created a massive tsunami wave that wiped out most of the smaller and larger human settlements on the north coast of Crete 90 miles south. That explains why there was considerable water and mud damage to Knossos.

    4. If Solon had properly translated what he heard from the Egyptians in the 7th Century BC, he would have placed the destruction of Atlantis at 900 years, not 9,000 years before his time. 900 years would almost match perfectly the time Thera did its final eruption from Solon's contemporary perspective.

    1. Re:Why Santorini may be Atlantis. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1


      If Solon had properly translated what he heard from the Egyptians in the 7th Century BC, he would have placed the destruction of Atlantis at 900 years, not 9,000 years before his time.


      Probably one could shed some light on this:
      How do you write 900 and 9000 in tose languages:
      german - english: 900 / 9000 - easy
      latin - IXC / IXM - easy but probably wrong
      egyptian: ?? / ???
      greek: ?? / ???

      My point is: the idea that one mixed up 900 with 9000 is .... erm ... slightly irritating. Most number systems 9000 years ago where based on 16 or 60. Most "writing" systems where everything but not "arabic".

      Its not very likely that Platon mistranslated that issue. Especially if you consider that he was a "historian" and a "scientist" .... he likely had a great interest himself in getting the "facts" right.

      So the only questions remaining are:
      a) was it a historical fact at all, or just a story?
      b) in case it was a fact, how far misplaced is Atlantis geographicaly?

      Atlantis could have been on the Azores or in Thule. The original stories might not even have been from mediterran origin, but probably from the black sea or from the east sea.

      angel'o'sphere

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:Why Santorini may be Atlantis. by crawling_chaos · · Score: 1
      Well, I can't find anything about the pronunciation of Egyptian numbers, but 900 and 9000 would be written very differently in Middle Egyptian: http://www.jimloy.com/egypt/numbers.htm

      Of course Solon probably couldn't read Egyptian, so if the sign for "hundred" and the sign for "thousand" sound similar, or if the priest's Greek was weak so that he mis-translated, this still could have happened. Greek number systems appear to be at least as confusing as the latter Roman system: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopic s/Greek_numbers.html

      Interestingly enough, Greek and Egyptian number systems both appear to have been base 10.

      --
      You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
      -- Colonel Adolphus Busch
  107. I Totally See The Rings by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But unless I am mistaken, they are too perfect, and were definitely added with a computer. I mean, some idiot posted the original photo right above it! Shyah! Right! Like we wouldn't notice!

    --
    I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
  108. No stargate? by cyclist1200 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Any word on whether they found a stargate there?

  109. Howdy, Y'all! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they find Turner Field, the Krispy Kreme, mermaids, and... the.. airport...?

    Oh, wait, that's the fabled Lost City of Atlanta . My mistake.

  110. tread lightly.. by TheHawke · · Score: 1

    For I think they found Cthulhu's vacation cottage!
    Waking up the old rugsucker himself MIGHT win a few folks the Darwin awards... or worse!

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
  111. My Two Cents by tilleyrw · · Score: 2, Informative

    Atlantis is located on Antartica.

    Atlantis is reputed (in ancient writings) to have a view of all three oceans and to be an island.

    The Earth was not always at it's present axial tilt. Tilt the planet and Antartica will be located at the equator and have a view of all oceans. Look at a tilted globe sometime.

    This has been the input of your local Free-Energy-Conspiracy nut.

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    This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
    1. Re:My Two Cents by hopemafia · · Score: 1

      Not likely...despite what Sci-Fi may say....

      Antarctica has been more or less covered by ice for about 40 million years, much longer than humans have existed. There are a few fossil plants from the Antarctic Penninsula between 2-5 million years ago, indicating some retreats of the ice, but that is still well before humans.

      As for the tilt of the axis, it only tilts between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. So axial tilt has no effect such as you imply. Continental drift has caused continents to be located at vastly different latitudes throughout geologic time, but the south pole has been in Antartica since the Cretaceous.

      --
      If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
    2. Re:My Two Cents by tilleyrw · · Score: 1

      You can say that I am wearing a "conspiracy" mask. If you compare my more interesting view of science to your academic one, I have more fun.

      Nanny, nanny, boo-boo!

      This is only one side of my engineering personality.

      --
      This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
    3. Re:My Two Cents by hopemafia · · Score: 1

      No, I just think science is fun enough as it is.

      There's no need to invent wild theories without any backing when reality is plenty interesting. And if you try to claim reality is boring you obvously don't know much about it.

      --
      If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
  112. What did they find there by red+floyd · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Did they find the Stargate there?

    --
    The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
  113. South America is Atlantis by KlomDark · · Score: 1

    My theory is someone accidentally sailed to South America way back when, and the Atlantis myth arose from that.

    1. Re:South America is Atlantis by Creepy · · Score: 1

      That doesn't explain how it was lost, although speculation of a great city that sunk deep into a lake after an earthquake (or something like that) does exist in Mexico.

      There is, however, some speculative evidence that supports your theory. German scientists claim to have found nicotine, cocaine, and THC in mummies, although mainstream archeologists say the claims are false. If cocaine was truely found in mummies, that would mean trade routes of some kind to South America (or a native crop before Egypt became desert?). How or when such a trade route started or ended is a matter of speculation. The main problem here is timeline - Atlantis supposedly sunk about 10000 years ago, meaning the 4000 year old mummies aren't old enough.

  114. Favorite part of the article, by far by unicorn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Secondly, the ancient unit of measurement used by Plato - the stade - may have been 20% larger than traditionally assumed.

    If the latter is true, one of the rectangular features on the "island" matches almost exactly the dimensions given by Plato for the temple of Poseidon.


    I would love to know, if they have any particular reason for deciding that they need to redefine the size of a stade. Or if they just decided they needed to change the facts, to match the current situation.

    Sure seems like one of those cases, where you could choose to make almost anything fit the description that Plato gave, with the proper adjustment to the measure of a stade.

    Isn't Washington DC built in concentric circles too? Perhaps the Lincoln monument, or some such, can be said to match the temple, with teh proper adjustment to stade size, and we've actually recreated Atlantis w/o even trying.

    --
    "Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
  115. Trolls by t_allardyce · · Score: 1

    ne ne ne first to discover atlantis! first to discover atlantis! someone mod this fp whore down.

    --
    This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
  116. that's a colony of Atlantis... by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 2, Interesting


    My $0.02 US is that the ancient city they just found is a colony of Atlantis. Atlantis was supposedly a powerhouse of a civilization. All great imperial powers set up colonies. The Greeks, the Romans, and the British. Just because this place has the rings and the temple does not mean its the *Real Slim Shady*. Think about how many places in the US are named after older cities and counties of Ireland and England (or for that matter, other cities in Europe). This could be a colony of Atlantis and the colonists chose to set up their colony just like from their homeland.

    What I do find interesting that nobody has brought up here on Slashdot that's read the article is how this explains the Basques. The "homeland" of the Basques is in portions of Spain and France. Their language is not related to any other language in Europe. They claim they are the descendents of the Atlanteans. So finding this city, whether it be Atlantis or a colony thereof, easily now explains where the Basques came from.

    --
    "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
  117. Re:You almost got me there .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 4, Insightful


    No it isn't. Many aspects of archaeology are non-repeatable. Excavation is the obvious example.

    Excavation is not about digging dirt, the main part, and the one that matters is to not destroy anything that matters and rigorusly documenting every aspect of it.

    That way you can "repeat the study" later by other archeologs, and based on new theories and/or information, possibly reach a totally different conclusion.

    Secondly, although archaeology uses many scientific techniques, it is fundamentally subjective. Once you've excavated a site, got dates from objects and contexts one is still left with the subjective opinions of the primary excavator.

    Exacty, and archeology is *exactly* like other sciences in that matter. Physics, for example is not *truth*, but merely a collection of our best efforts to describe the universe we live in.

    A new *truth* can be found tomorrow and change the way we think about reality. Take the size and shape of the universe as an example, there are more than one theory about that one.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  118. I can see the titles... by presarioD · · Score: 0, Troll

    ATLANTIS FINALLY FOUND

    Sadam's WMD's discovered as well.

    Elvis was seen naked sunbathing on southern beach.

    Jimmy Hoffa found hiding in a condo...

    Batman and Superman were seen having branch at an uptown cafe. They said they were turned down by Survivor Show...

    Isn't that exciting news? You can now purchase the value pack for a cruise to Atlandis for only $859+tax with free volcanic erruption simulation included! For more details call:

    1-800-I-AM-SO-BORED or
    1-800-WITH-MY-LIFE
    We appreciate your business!

    --
    Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
  119. Wishful thinking award by serutan · · Score: 1

    I don't very many people besides Kuehne see these rings either. But to be fair, to non-experts most satellite photos that have yielded actual results look like ordinary terrain to most people. To the untrained eye, ancient human bone fragments are just bits of rock.

    Notice that, like all other Atlantis claims, this one satisfies some parts of Plato's information and not others. My favorite tantalizing Atlantis clues are the specific alloy of gold and copper called "orichalcum" mentioned by Plato, found only in the Andes mountains, and that the words "atl" and "antis" mean "water" and "copper" in one of the ancient languages of South America.

  120. Re:You almost got me there .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want an example of something that is not science, take psychoanalysis as an example.

    Do The Voices tell you that Archeology is a science?

  121. Another view on Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Warning:

    Requires suspension of disbelief in terms of alien visitation and 'channeling'.

    http://www.geocities.com/the931/opc11.html

  122. Re:You almost got me there .. by cheese_wallet · · Score: 1

    You geeks need a dictionary:

    archaeology

    \Ar`ch[ae]*ol"o*gy\, n. [Gr. ?; 'archai^os ancient (fr. 'archh` beginning) + ? discourse, ? to speak.] The science or study of antiquities, esp. prehistoric antiquities, such as the remains of buildings or monuments of an early epoch, inscriptions, implements, and other relics, written manuscripts, etc.

    science

    \Sci"ence\, n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis, p. pr. of scire to know. Cf. Conscience, Conscious, Nice.] 1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts.

  123. 'Piracy'? by coolsva · · Score: 1

    Perhaps the invisibility of these concentric circles have something to do with the new anti-piracy/counterfeiting measures? (Mod funny please)

  124. Discover Atlantis? Ask a travel agent by seniorcoder · · Score: 1

    I discovered Atlantis with my family while on a recent vacation on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
    Atlantis didn't match Plato's description. Come to think of it, it didn't match the travel agent's description either. Indifferent service. Very expensive.
    I'm headed for Shangri La next year. I'm sure my travel agent will provide the necessary arrangements.

  125. This can only be bad news if true by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 1

    Life will be changed forever.
    For the SciFi channel will likely cancel Stargate Atlantis for reshooting in Mexico.
    Damnit.

    --
    I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
  126. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I guess we've just got different views about what science is. I stand by my assertion that if it's not repeatable or has no control then it's not 'scientific.' Your definition is too wide-ranging for my liking - by your parameters Art History can be defined as a science, something which I'm uncomfortable with.

    Your point about not destroying anything that matters is interesting. How do we know what matters to future generations of archaeologists? I'm sure those who 'excavated' the archaic/classical greek sites were doing their best, but they did destroy stuff that mattered to us now. It's naive to think that we're not doing the same today.

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    This sig is inoffensive.

  127. Re:The neatest thing about this - MOD PARENT UP! by dvk · · Score: 1

    Someone MOD PARENT UP please!!!

    Evolution is Not a strategy aimed at achieving any goal. It's a process of change whereby forms of life adapt to changing environment via selection and a bunch of other biological mechanisms too interesting and complicated to fit in a /. post.

    -DVK

    --
    "The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
  128. Heraldo and the Vaults of Capone... by CptNerd · · Score: 1

    Geeze, that sounds like a really cheezy fantasy story...

    Oh, wait...

    (BTW it's Geraldo...)

    --
    By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
  129. Re:You almost got me there .. by toddhisattva · · Score: 1
    If you cannot have a control and it is non-repeatable then I'd argue that it is not a science.

    Is astronomy a science? Especially in its cosmological aspects? Astronomers have no "control universe" and I'd rather they not repeat the big bang any time soon.

    In archeology, you have hypotheses (like various answers to "What was Stonehenge for?") and you have data against which to test the hypotheses. Hypothesis and data are the only two necessary pillars of science.

    (As an arch-reductionist, I might argue that data alone is necessary for science, as data will give rise to hypotheses thus bootstrapping the entire endeavor, but I'm suffering a caffeine shortage at the moment and don't feel I can do justice to this view.)

    Repeatability, controls, falsifiability and so on are good guidelines and good practice. But for some fields of knowledge, they are impractical. In some fields of knowledge, they must be interpreted expansively to have any usefulness.

    By an expansive interpretation, "repeatability" in archeology could be as simple as digging another hole a meter away and seeing if you get the same pottery shards. For a control, dig a hole several kilometers away.

    I am not suggesting expanding the concepts past the point of usefulness -- repeatability w.r.t. archeology should not include the repetition of irrelevant actions like cleaning your navel (I hope). I am suggesting that in many fields of knowledge, an expansive interpretation of the scientific method is applicable and therefore those fields can indeed be called "science."

    A few decades ago, few thought of history as a science. Those proposing such view were shouted down with jeers of "Hari Seldon!" But today, people like Jared Diamond (trained as a biologist) and Luca Cavalli-Sforza are building on the work of historians and archeologists and forging a truly scientific method for history.

    Hari Seldon Hari Seldon Hari Hari Seldon Seldon...

    IAACP2, and have worked with ancient (in industry time) codebases, so I have usefully applied archeological insights to the computer science. Layers of kludges and counter-kludges provide the stratigraphy, and the changing idioms are like pottery styles. Since the code was criminally awful, I thought of it as "forensic CS." But since it was also phenomenally crappy code, I ended up regarding it as pure scatology.

  130. Re:You almost got me there .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I almost belived you were an Archeolog up until you wrote that.

    Is it really that hard to type the four more letters to get "Achaeologist"? (I don't believe that you don't know how to spell it, you replied to a post that contained the word.)

    For something to be a science, you have to be able to do studies, using methods based on theories, and to get results that can be independently verified by repeating the study by peer scientists.

    You can't test the past. The scientific method doesn't work without testing, and there is no way to go back and prod at history to see how it responds. There is a certain amount of raw data that you can get, and that's it. Once you've made a hypothesis based on this data, science is over. Nothing has been determined. All an independent study could say is, "yeah, we think that too."

  131. Ubar / Ad by pyth · · Score: 1

    Yet more proof that the Bible is WRONG.

  132. It is an island by booch · · Score: 1

    Well, with the moats around the city/site/whatever, it technically is an island. Just not surrounded by as much water as we might have guessed.

    --
    Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
  133. Sure by Moderator · · Score: 0

    Simply not true. http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

    --
    The World is Yours.
  134. Re:You almost got me there .. by mustangsal66 · · Score: 1

    If you cannot have a control and it is non-repeatable then I'd argue that it is not a science.

    Right... Like Open Heart Surgery. You can only remove the clot once, then it's gone.

    My point being, that your arguing two different issues. The methods of working vs the object you work on.

    --
    Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
    Sig changed for readability by G.W.
  135. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1
    I might argue that data alone is necessary for science

    And then we end up in the situation where almost everything is a science, and the word becomes meaningless!

    --

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    This sig is inoffensive.

  136. Re:You almost got me there .. by ninejaguar · · Score: 1
    Anthropology is a science. Archaeology is a branch of it. In a sense, you're both right; but, one is more correct than the other. In the overview, Archaeology is a discipline within the larger science of Anthropology. An Archaeologist, is a specialized Anthropologist. An Anthropologist, is not always an Archaeologist.

    = 9J =

  137. Ubar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    was Ubar fubar'd?

  138. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1
    In America, yes but this is not the case in here in Europe.

    Anthropology tends to be tied to Sociology over here, whilst Archaeology tends to be associated with History or even Classics, hence the disparaging 'Archaeology is the handmaiden of History' quote often trotted out.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  139. Yes, but by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

    It is worth noting that that Ubar was found this way. But they never found the sister city, Fubar.

  140. Re:You almost got me there .. by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

    176 is unimplemented

  141. Re:You almost got me there .. by toddhisattva · · Score: 1

    Correction: my Hari Seldon chant should not have been in italics, the local convention for quoting. It is not a quote (that I know of). I should have chosen some other way to denote the chant. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

  142. The egyptians taught them all by sparkywonderchicken · · Score: 0

    Osiran: Attention. You are now possessions of the great Pharaoh Hermethotip, heir to the 10th dynasty, bringer of the good aspects of the annual floods. Fry: Incredible. This place is just like the Ancient Egypt of my day. Osiran: That is no coincidence. For our people visited your Egypt thousands of years ago. Fry: I knew it! Insane theories: one! Regular theories: a billion! Osiran: We learned many things from the mighty Egyptians, such as pyramid building, space travel and how to prepare our dead so as to scare Abbott and Costello.

  143. Re:You almost got me there .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendi xE/AppendixE.html the definition of the Scientific Method is:

    1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
    2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
    3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
    4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

    Archaeology can do #1, and #2. Arguably it can do #3. However, #4 is right out as you don't have the ability to create alternate realities.

  144. Story refers to Critias by HappyDrgn · · Score: 1

    Plato's Critias can be read free at: http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/1571

  145. Could it be Keftiu (Atlantis' story parent) by Creepy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Part of the problem is that the BBC article seems to be missing some history behind the story that makes a non-island city a possibility. Plato pretty much lifted the Atlantis (city) story from the Egyptian tale of Keftiu (as well as embellished on it), a city that supposedly existed past the Pillars of Hercules (Straight of Gibraltar today, which separates Spain and Morocco). Keftiu is rooted in the Egyptian word for Pillar and was believed to be the end of the earth where the sky was held up. Atlantis means isle of Atlas - recognize the similarity? Atlas held up the world in Greek mythology. Keftiu also wasn't necessarily an island - it can either mean the Isle of Keft or the People of Keft. So, possibly due to a simple translation error, an island was born.

    This could very easily be Atlantis. Minoan Crete never made sense (it never sunk) - Santorini island made more sense as most of it blew up (flooding Minoan Crete). It seems to me, though, that it was described as "west of Egypt" and that island's really NW.

  146. You have won the unwieldy English award! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow. There are 49 words in the subject of that phrase. How do you do it?

  147. What about the Grail?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't forget the Holy Grail, both the "real" grail, consisting of the early Catholic church and their attempt to hide the truth about Jesus, and the "fake" grail, the cup he used at the last supper.

  148. Re:Slashdot's version of: Medical weightloss mirac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a geek (your name says it, not me) you should know better. Dark matter and cold fusion, both science, both in their infancy, both subject matter of some science fiction, and both a topic that most /. readers would be interested in. About SCO, why not? We could completely ignore them and lose the support of a mass of people. The longer we keep this public, the better we are off. They will not die an instant death if we ignore them, trees in the amazon still grow when we don't watch them. Your entire post smells of apathy. If scientific theories/discoveries and the legal battle between an ideology many /.'ers live by and a company that wants to destroy it sound like tabloid to you, I recommend your local news.

  149. Clear images by FiloEleven · · Score: 1

    The rings aren't very visible in the first image, and I wondered at its validity. But the second image, taken at a later time of day so that the rings show up better, I assume, really clears everything up. All doubt is gone from my mind.

  150. Re:Plato. Sigh. It's about Athens and Sparta, Folk by mibus · · Score: 1

    Dude, don't talk about Tyr Anasazi, I haven't seen all of S4 of Andromeda yet ;)

  151. That earth science class finally finds a use... by cyberwench · · Score: 1
    The reason Illinois (and most of Indiana, where I used to live) is flat is because of the glaciers themselves scraping the land flat. Glaciers stretched down in that area about 2/3 of the way down Indiana. Glacial melt accounts for a lot of features in that area, but glaciers were the primary landscaper.

    Ah - found some more specific info:
    Why is Indiana and much of the surrounding states so flat?

    The Earth has undergone many ice ages, the first being around 700,000 years ago. The last was about 20,000 years ago. Much of Indiana was covered by a glacial ice sheet many hundreds of metres thick. This last great glacier is called the Wisconsin Glacier. The glaciers had a scouring effect on the land and this great expanse of ice carried much sediment with it. When the ice retreated northwards, ending about 10,000 BC, the sediment, sometimes hundreds of feet thick, filled in many of the valleys that were once in the region and leaving behind it many areas that became bogs. The crushing weight of the ice only got around two thirds of the way into Indiana before it retreated, this explains the flatness of the north of the state while the south has rolling hills. The huge amount of sediment deposited by the glacier, which in places is hundreds of feet deep, also explains the rich farming land that makes up much of Indiana.

    (From http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/th/thist1.htm)
    --
    ~ Leilah
    1. Re:That earth science class finally finds a use... by Onceat · · Score: 1

      Thats interesting , thanks. Yeah it is confusing to navigate in Chicago/Illonios, well for me at least, since there are no visible landmark that stands out ( sears tower excluded) , I live near big hills and mountains , I always know where to go by visually refrencing certain mountains, i got so lost In Illinois back in 93 when I went to visit my cousins, granted to some extend it was also cause I never knew the place , but many places just looked like other places, the best part about where I live is standing outside and visually recognising features and working out where your house is. My cousins told me that people who live in Illionois , cant live near mountains cause it makes them feel claustrophobic , is that true ?

    2. Re:That earth science class finally finds a use... by cyberwench · · Score: 1

      Well, I can't speak to Illinois, but I moved from northern Indiana to British Columbia and I've got no problem with mountains. =) My grandmother, however, is from North Dakota, and she thinks that Indiana has too many trees, she can't see the sky. So there may be something in that.

      --
      ~ Leilah
    3. Re:That earth science class finally finds a use... by Onceat · · Score: 1

      Grans , go figure , mine is still convinced that in the 60's she saw aliens land in the karoo, in South Africa, she had not lost her mind then. Im actually going to Scotland tommorow , to go fishing in the lochs ther , I understand they are also left overs from the same geographical circumstances that made the American great lakes , I will let you know if I see any thing interesting ( I have been to Chicago, so im going to compare )

  152. Re:You almost got me there .. by ninejaguar · · Score: 1
    In America, yes but this is not the case in here in Europe.

    Europe too.

    Anthropology tends to be tied to Sociology over here...

    As Archaeology is a discipline within Anthropology, Sociology is a specialization of Anthropology. Anthropology is incomplete without the study of cultural context. An accurate simplification would be that as siblings, Archaeology and Sociology study the same things, but at different times. One in the present, the other in the past. One relies on remnants of civilization to learn about its subject via recontruction, the other studies it live. Of course, this is a simplification, and in actuality most of the disciplines within the larger science of Anthropology (the study of man) borrow from one another or overlap.

    ...whilst Archaeology tends to be associated with History or even Classics, hence the disparaging 'Archaeology is the handmaiden of History' quote often trotted out.

    You may be confusing various subsets of Archaeology, with the discipline itself. Sub-fields of Archaeology include Classical and Historical Archeaology. The science remains the same, despite the specialization.

    = 9J =

  153. Where's Waldo? by craXORjack · · Score: 1

    First off, I don't see any concentric rings. Are they being obscured by the figure of Jesus or the praying virgin Mary?

    Second, Atlantis was only 925m in diameter? It was always made out to be a whole continent in all the crackpot stories. It sounds like it was only ever just a city with 5 defensible moats. If that is what Plato wrote then how did it get blown so far out of proportion?

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
  154. Ha! Me too, sort of. by chadjg · · Score: 1

    The story is that one of my ancestors was a minor English noble that got in trouble with one of the serving girls. He paid off one of his men to take her to America and we've been bastards ever since.

    True or not, I just don't know. We have been screwed out of our inheritance for so long that I don't think the House of **cough** Lords or whoever is in charge of these things would listen.

    Anyway, History, as we teach it, is a relatively new way of discovering and presenting truth. Many ancient greekish peoples would say we are being vulgar and trivial about the whole thing, ignoring the more important and eternal truths. They also would have been shocked at how crappy our memories are.

    Memories can be trained. Druids (real, not the freaks that like to get stoned at Stonehenge) had to spend 20+ years memorizing their material. They could recite for days. Every year some guy had to recite all the laws from memory in Iceland. I think he was called the Law giver, and if he left something out, it was out for that year. I'm a bit fuzzy on that one though.

    If memorization was as important now as it was then, I'd know exactly who my "noble" ancestor was, who his lackey was, and everything since then. At least we would have a juicy story, whether it would be true or not is a different thing.

    --
    Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
    1. Re:Ha! Me too, sort of. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1
      Every year some guy had to recite all the laws from memory in Iceland.

      One third the law every year.

      The Norse were a fascinating people - widely considered uncouth savages, with a bent toward destroying churches, but their epics contain more lawsuits than duels....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  155. What a surprise. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The features were originally spotted by Werner Wickboldt, a lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast who studied photographs from across the Mediterranean for signs of the city described by Plato.

    So someone who wants believe the place existed goes looking for anything and anywhere that just might remotely match the description from a two-thousand-year-old story. Is anyone amazed that he found somewhere? Even if half the membership of /. can't see the rings he claims?

    The sizes of the "island" and its rings in the satellite image are slightly larger than those described by Plato. There are two possible explanations for this, says Dr Kuehne.

    Of course, the detail doesn't fit (the above being only one of several inconvenient problems highlighted by the article). Never mind - the proponents of the story are up to the challenge. After all, why let a few facts get in the way of a good theory?

    If this story demonstrates anything at all, it's (a) the ability of the human mind to see patterns where none exist, and (b) the boundless willingness of the pseudo-scientist to play up things that seem to fit and to play down things that don't.

  156. *knock-knock* by N3wsByt3 · · Score: 1

    hey there,

    I've noticed that you offered to revamp the FFII site. Does that offer still counts? Is there a way in which to contact you? (Is the email on www.nuatech.ciom yours, or do you prefer we use another emailaddy?)

    --
    --- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
    1. Re:*knock-knock* by Darkman,+Walkin+Dude · · Score: 1

      Yeah still alive and well, the email addy on the Nuatech site is valid, or contact me at "ronan" "ta" "nuatech.com"

      I tried to call up the number there on Friday but couldn't get through, and we then had a long weekend... let me know as soon as possible so and we'll hammer out the details. I'll also de-obfuscate your own email address and try reach you there.

  157. Re:You almost got me there .. by einar2 · · Score: 1

    Sorry, the point about being repeatable is nonsense. First, excavations are repeatable. Yes, another team of archeologists can visit the same site and do their own excavations. They might reconfirm what the first team found. Second, it is not necessary to repeat "exactly" the same thing again to make it scientific. If this were true any experiment concerning partical physics has to be voodoo :-)

  158. Re:You almost got me there .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 1


    by your parameters Art History can be defined as a science, something which I'm uncomfortable with.

    Absolutely.. And so can chockolate-chips-cookie making and quality-control. What matters is the methods used, not that it has some fanzy name or comes from some big scientific institude. "Scientific thinking" is the key element, unfortunately to few people are applying it in their lives.

    How do we know what matters to future generations of archaeologists? I'm sure those who 'excavated' the archaic/classical greek sites were doing their best, but they did destroy stuff that mattered to us now. It's naive to think that we're not doing the same today.

    There seems to be a fundamental difference on how we think about "science". Science is a way of thinking, and you can teach someone this way of thinking. However, that does not mean that person will always be right about everything. Scientists make wrong assumptions based on best information available at the time.

    And that does not mean, as you seem to think, that they are any less scientists than the next generation that will have more information and better tools.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  159. Re:You almost got me there .. by uberdave · · Score: 1

    They most certainly can do number 4. Archaeologists don't just throw a dart at a map when they choose where to dig. They examine the existing evidence, form a hypothesis, and test that hypothesis by doing an excavation. The dig is the experiment. They will either find evidence to support their hypothesis, or they won't. And some things are repeatable. For example, several archaeologist have tried to determine the extent of some of the shafts in the pyramids. In the past they have used metal rods as probes. In current times they use a robot to explore the shaft.

  160. What? by cfuse · · Score: 1

    Picture looks like a cell biopsy to me.

  161. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1
    Excavations are not repeatable. Try excavating the context that this Roman coin came out of. You won't find the coin. You won't find the context - the stratigraphy has been destroyed by the simple act of excavating it.

    What is being argued about are semantics. What is or is not science? If you're quite happy with the notion that all you need for science is data and a hypothesis then archaeology is a science - but so is everything else, and the use of the word 'science' becomes meaningless.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  162. Re:You almost got me there .. by perly-king-69 · · Score: 1

    chockolate-chips-cookie making and quality-control.

    Interesting that you picked an example of something which is both repeatable and can use a control. This cookie not choclatey enough? Repeat the experiment with more chocolate chips.

    Art history on the other hand? Well I could say that Edward Hoppers' paintings inspire feelings of lonliness because the artist worked alone and felt distanced from those around him, and that if he was a more gregarious character he would have painted happier pictures. That's got data and a hypothesis. You may think that's science - I don't.

    --

    --
    This sig is inoffensive.

  163. Re:You almost got me there .. by amix · · Score: 1

    So it's more of an "exploration", well documenting the "landscape" (i.e. findings.).

    When I was twelve I wanted to become an archaeologist :) But further than collecting a couple of splitters of ancient pottery, lying in the dust everywhere at Acropolis, Troja, Olympia and Delphi I never came.

    Sometimes I believe, these pottery artifacts are being thrown into the dust by the tourist-department. It's too obvious, these being there at such public places for more than x-thousand years.

    --
    Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
  164. Software archeologists at MS 2042 .. by RedLaggedTeut · · Score: 1

    (Identifying code by its programming practices)

    A: Look at this ! This must be code from 2004 !

    B: But what is this ? Isn't this a string buffer overflow ?

    A: Duh. I guess it must be new code after all.

    --
    I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
  165. Read closer next time by Libertarian_Geek · · Score: 1

    10 Print" But as an Anonymous Coward, (your name says it, so I'll believe it), I'm surprise you posted so unprepared. I never said nor implied that the stories would better be placed in a tabloid. Just that the headlines seem to be hyped beyond the weight of the contents and therefore sound tabloid-ish. "
    20 If understood = False then Goto 10
    30 Print "I'm glad you're clear on this issue."

    --

    www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights

    www.fairtax.org
  166. Re:You almost got me there .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 1


    Archaeology can do #1, and #2. Arguably it can do #3. However, #4 is right out as you don't have the ability to create alternate realities.

    4 only claims that you have to be able to make a theory, and then test it independently, by describing a theorem (I.e. "In this study we will try to show that current methods in carbon dating involve errors up to 30% larger than previously known") and then performing a study with results that can be confirmed and/or disproofed by a second study.

    And, yes. Archeology can do that.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  167. Re:You almost got me there .. by AftanGustur · · Score: 1


    Well I could say that Edward Hoppers' paintings inspire feelings of lonliness because the artist worked alone and felt distanced from those around him, and that if he was a more gregarious character he would have painted happier pictures. That's got data and a hypothesis. You may think that's science - I don't.

    You are using the straw man argument here ...

    You can make all the personal remarks as you want, but they won't become a part of any history.

    Claiming that someone painted such and such because of this and that without a inch of research, is a personal opinion.

    Think of mathematics... When you have established a mathematical proof, you can't disproof it.

    Does that mean mathematics is not science ? No because even if you do have *truths* you are still free to make therories and do studies.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc