Atlantis Found. Again.

Tufriast writes "Paul McCartney and Mythic eat your heart out! BBC News has an interesting revelation regarding the lost city of Atlantis: "American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus."" Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

Comments

More to the point ...

[A nonymous Coward]

But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

In today's USA political climate, any such suggestion smacks of rabid anti-bible terrorism. Better watch them words, pardner!

Re:More to the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlantis clearly never existed. Everyone knows that earth appeared suddenly on a friday about 6000 years ago, and nothing has changed since. And anyway, if it did exist, everyone who died was evil. 'cept for Noah, he was cool. And a pigeon. And an olive tree, apparently. Hang on, who wrote this crap, anyway?

Re:More to the point ...

[theMerovingian]

including important chronicles about Moses, Solomon, and others, were actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah

It is important to note that the Bible does make mention of Moses recording historical and legal material in written form, as in Exodus 17:14, 24:4, and 34:27, and in Numbers 33:2. Modern scholarship would suggest that these words of Moses were passed down and later recorded in the form that we have today.

Read the first few chapters of this book for a Christian perspective on the same topic:
The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament. Ed. William LaSor, David Hubbard, and Frederic Bush. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI. 1996.

Re:More to the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's in Wikipedia. It must be true.

More than one story that fits?

[fracai]

OR perhaps all the stories originated from one actual occurance, but have become distorted through years of relay from one generation to the next.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[krymsin01]

It's just as likely that a few stories migrated into other cultures via cultural diffusion. Want to see this in action? Look at the Christian Bible.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[krymsin01]

Actualy, I should have said Christian Bibles, since there are more than one version of it (translations, additions/omissions). The reason I qualified it as the Christian Bible is so that the New Testement would be included, since the Old Testemant is also the basis of Jewish faith. And yeah, other faiths use the term Bible.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[krymsin01]

The Torah are the five books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible (in Hebrew, Tanakh) consistes of the Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim. Bible simply means a collection of books.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[caseydk]

Everybody knows that Atlantis exists in another galaxy and was recently found by a multi-national Stargate team who found that much of the city was still operational and solar powered.

I think they even started making a documentary series about this.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[aristotle-dude]

Ah yes, the classic "bible translated so many times" troll.

You do realize that modern translations are derived from the oldest hebrew and greek texts we have do you not? They also use the dead sea scrolls as a reference now when performing translations.

If you look at any modern translation (ie NIV), you will see what the translators thought was the correct word to fit in context of the passage. Where there is disagreement (usually slight variation/synonym of the same word), a foot note will be present at the bottom of the page listing the possible variations and sometimes and explanation of why they chose a particular version of the verse. There is no great conspiracy to hide things and the translators of the major modern translations are not tied to any specific denomination's view point/doctrine.

I hope you educate yourself rather than continue to live in ignorance. After all, ignorance breeds fear and intolerance.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[saider]

Until there is evidence against the existance of such a creature, you cannot say they do not (or did not) exist.

Go back several hundred years and tell them that there was ice on a moon of Jupiter. You would probably be laughed at, since everyone knew that anything in space was just a lump of rock.

Again, proving a negative is not possible without evidence. Scientists several hundred years ago would not laugh at ice on the distant moons. They would simply want to see what evidence you base your assumption on. If you had no evidence, then you very well might be laughed out of town ( or excommunicated from the church ). But if you offered some equations based on some experiments that you conducted, then others would likely take a good look at what you had and validate or disprove your hypothesis.

I get worried by people that ask me to prove something does not exist. That is not the scientific process. If you claim that something exists, then offer proof. Don't put an idea out there and say "Disprove this". This is often the basis for pseudoscience and is very dangerous because people not familiar with the scientific method (most people) will accept an unsupported hypothesis as fact because there is no "evidence" of the contrary.

As to your argument, I cannot prove it does not exist. But the burden is on you to prove, not for me to disprove. The reasons against fire breathing dragons are the lack of evidence. We have a very well preserved record of the middle ages, and surely something as spectacular as a fire breathing dragon would be preserved somewhere. Artifacts from trophy hunters, lairs, bones, remains, etc are all lacking. All we have are stories to go on. Stories often embellish the facts to make for a more interesting story. Eg. "Who cares about the guy who killed a 7 foot monitor lizard, _My Friend_ killed a 20 foot lizard who breathed fire and shot lightning from his eyes!". So while the story may be based on a real creature, one needs to be able to separate fact from fiction. The easiest, most consistent way to do this is to demand evidence for any claims.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for the love of...

Okay; here's the deal. The Bible is translated and preserved extremely well from the original editions. The problem is this- where did the original edition come from?
What? You want me to educate you? My pleasure. *Ahem* When Constantine wanted to have a state religion, he decided Christianity was the optimal choice, since at the time it had little set dogma, and hence little political baggage. A system of control for him to leverage without having to give up much control to a well-established church/religion.
The problem? Everyone had their own stories about Jesus and the rest of the boys (this was 200-300 years after Jesus' death, mind you), and it's arguable how much of the stories were written and how many were passed by oral tradition (read: mostly bulls**t). So, Constantine convenes the Nicene council; mostly of religious leaders (Rabbis, proto-priests, etc.) and tells them to put together the "true" stories into a canonized book.
What this should make you ask is: how much editorializing went into the bible to make it politically acceptable, and how many flat-out lies and half-truths went into to make it palatable for the masses and rulers?
This is one major reason why I'm not a Christian.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[hunterx11]

I hear that in the director's cut, David and Goliath shoot at the same time

Re:More than one story that fits?

[the_2nd_coming]

little political baggage? I guess you did not know that Christians were persecuted since the days of Nero because Nero blamed them for burning down part of Rome.

hardly what you claim little political baggage.

secondly, the Nicene council was not put together by Constantine and Rabbis weren't invited because by this time, the delineation between Christians and Jews had been set. there were bishops already, and it was the bishops that were at the meeting, no one else.

thirdly. the 4 gospels were in fact written down by their authors as the original manuscripts have been dated to the first century AD. their truth value is of course limited because they contradict each other, but they were written to set Jesus up as a descendant of David so as to legitimize him.

you do not have to make up a bunch of crap about why the bible is a bunch of crap, because for the most part, the new testament is made of original scripts dated from the time the acts were made. most of the stories are embellished to either make a political statement, or to set up the hero as someone special. the only thing we can take from the bible is that these people probably did exist, and that the apostles did a good job of selling the philosophy and legacy of Jesus.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[CAIMLAS]

What you say is only true about the New Testament books. And it's only partially true.

The Old Testament is pretty much just the Torah, the Hebrew holy book. So you claims on the "Bible" are patently false in the regard to them fudging the Old Testament.

The New Testament is a compilation of multiple books that were written by the Apostles and various other people that were close to Jesus. Not all of them were included - books such as The Book of Mary and The Book of Steven were excluded. These excluded books are called the aprocraphal books of the Bible. The books they included were the ones they were the most legit - that is, the ones that could be verified to be the most original, written by people that could be traced by association to Christ, and in posession of reputable Church leaders. The earliest manuscripts of various books of the NT have been found, and it's been shown that what was put into the canonized Bible indeed meshes with the original manuscripts.

Now, the legitimacy of the books they did pick is likely suspect, in my opinion. It is claimed by the modern Church that the Bible was dictated by God, to man, and that the selection of books was also dictated by God.

I don't personally buy this, due to the various political motivations, as well as the unlikelyhood. I think it far more likely that the choice of books was strongly influenced by the aspiring political motivations and religious beliefs of those picked to select the included books. I don't recall whether the people selected were Jewish rabis, priests of the old order of religions, or even the leaders of the Christian church of the day. I don't doubt that depending on which group, or combination of group members, selected the Bible, it had an outcome on the final books chosen. For instance, there are books that talk about Christ potentially being married, and kissing Mary Magdeline "passionately" on the lips, and him saying that man should treat his fellow man in such a fashion. I don't recall if this was a legit book (chronologically), but it obviously wasn't included.

I'd say that there's certainly a lot of truth in the Bible, and that it presents a good moral guideline, or handbook, if you will, for living. I don't think that serious alteration attempts were made, in the least. I do think that it was made from a composition of stories, written by mortals, and that, when taken in it's componet parts, it is imperfect. As a whole, it provides a template to live by, which if taken as the whole that it is, will provide someone with the knowledge and wisdom to live a spiritually fruitful life.

That said, I am a Christian, believing Jesus was the Son of God, and that he died for my sins. I don't know whether the definition of 'sin' is definate, or if it's an abstract principle. I do know that my observations of the world lead me to believe that Christianity, in it's purest form (Love God with your whole being; love man as yourself) is the best thing out there and that it is Truth. You can have truth without being completely factual - look at any ficticious story with a moral.

Atlantis -- antarctica?

[madaxe42]

I remember reading a while back about the possibility that Atlantis had been on the Northern edge (yep, that'll be all of them) of the Antarctic continent, before we entered the current ice-age (we're in an interglacial at the moment, technically still an ice age). See levels would have been higher, but Antarctica/Atlantis would have had a climate similar to modern britain.

Contrasting this, early greek explorers who went to 'Atlantis' noted that the natives were 'red skinned with horse-like hair', almost identical to Christopher Columbus' description of Native Americans!

Re:Atlantis -- antarctica?

[Ubergrendle]

Unfortunately history of civilisations is not seriously considered anywhere prior to 10,000 BC, and probably more realistically 6,000 BC. There is no significant historical evidence pre-ice age that homo sapiens were anything more than small nomadic bands. Primitive language was probably available, as well as iconogaphy and basic tools. Large groupings of people would have been nigh-impossible in the absences of farming, husbandry, and written language.

Its an interesting hypothesis, but historical record does not support the notion. It would be an interesting theory though... HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard certainly filled in the pre-Ice Age gap nicely in the realm of fiction. :)

Re:Atlantis -- antarctica?

[Ubergrendle]

Stonehenge and the Spinx don't even get close to the 10,000 year mark. The nile was settled as far back as 6,000 BC, but what we're recognise as the First Dynasty of Egypt occurs as recently as 3,300 BC.

Just because something ~looks~ complex, even in comparison to modern day technology, does not make it such. 10 years ago when I was at the University of Toronto, the Egyptology masters program sent a number of students over to Egypt to prove how easy it was to build a pyramid. A team of 10 men, using nothing more complex than wood planks (greased with animal lard), a pulley, and large sticks to act as levers, were able to move 2 ton stone blocks with ease.

Stonehenge doesn't even approach the 10,000 year mark either. Roughly carbon dated to 3,000 BC as well. Those stones are NOT as hard to move as the conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

Does this mean...

[Craig Maloney]

Does this mean Disney will now claim rights to all of the artifacts, and will release toys packaged with Happy Meals.

Kent Brockwell reporting

[Aquatopia17]

Well I for one welcome our new alien over--I'm sorry, I'm reading from the wrong story. Well I for one welcome our new lost civilization overlords...

It was found months ago!!

[cyberlotnet]

Where have you been hidding in a hole or something? I have been watching a elite team explore this place every friday night on the sci-fi channel, get with the program why don't you!

its about the benjamins

[theMerovingian]

Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

If you're an archaeologist, it's alot easier to get funding for your excavation if you make it sound like your project has major ramifications to the history of humanity.

It's just good business to call it Atlantis.

Atlantis?

[Chardish]

I want to know why everyone assumes the name of this discovery is Atlantis. How can we know the name of an ancient civilization we discover before we discover it?

Anyway, wouldn't Mediterranis be far more appropriate, given its location?

Sonar isn't enough...

[Gadgetfreak]

I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but making claims about finding Atlantis based on preliminary sonar imagery might be jumping the gun a little bit. In a sea that's been heavily travelled since human kind first built boats, it could be a lot of different things. Even if it's a civilization, it could be one of many Mediterrannean settlements that nobody knew was missing.

My point is that until they come up with some underwater photos, artifacts, or both, it's a bit early to claim that they found something that might not have even existed in the first place.

Would be nice

[Gr8Apes]

if they finally did find the actual atlantis. They believe they've found the real Troy, finding the real Atlantis will hopefully put much speculation to rest.

Personally, I'm just eager to see what they find, if it is found. Ancient archeological surprises are pretty cool, as it always astounds me how relatively advanced some of these civilizations were, to only fall back into ignorance before we finally moved into the modern age.

Plato made it up this parable.

[Charles Dodgeson]

In "western" civiliation there is no history of this story prior to Plato. Plato has a fictional character, Timeos (sp?), tell the story of Atlantis. The story is an obvious parable illustrating Plato's ideas about how things decline.

Re:Plato made it up this parable.

[Ralph Wiggam]

Plato goes out of his way to say that the story NOT a parable and that Atlantis really existed.

The information he's relaying is third or fourth hand and has been translated at least once (possibly multiplying all the numbers by 10).

I keep an open mind about Atlantis because Troy was ficticious right up until someone found it.

-B

Re:Plato made it up this parable.

[nine-times]

I keep an open mind about Atlantis because Troy was ficticious right up until someone found it.

That's an interesting comparison, but at least there are indications that the Illiad, along with being a good story, may have been intended to be a sort-of "historical account". Certainly, as with many oral traditions, historical accounts become mythologised, re-interpreted with each generation, and generally skewed. However, since we don't anything like written documentation of the creation of "The Illiad", and it was supposed to be the story of how the Greek peoples united into being, together, "Greek", I find the idea that there was some historical intention hard to argue with.

We are much more certain, however, about Plato. Plato was essentially a writer of fiction, and it's commonly agreed that he had little intention of being historically accurate. That being said, it's hard to know for sure if the Atlantis myth from the dialog was even a common Greek myth at the time, or if Plato invented it out of thin air.

Additionally, with the discovery of Troy, an ancient city which archeological evidence seems to indicate was distroyed by Greeks at about the right time frame was discovered in about the right area, and many people agree that it is likely to be the city being referenced in the stories of Troy. However, this evidence verifies very little of the Greek's historical accounts of the war with Troy.

Atlantis = Plato's fairytale.

[DeafDumbBlind]

The only mention of the place comes from Plato. He was telling a story about an evil, technologically superior force( The Atlantians) getting defeated by the 'just and moral' Athenians. Plato was telling a tale with similar themes to Star Wars, etc : The just and moral will overcome the wicked and powerful.

There was nothing more to it. No other historians wrote about it, none of Plato's contemporaries made any mention of it.

Now, were there civilizations that got zapped by a flood/volcano/earthquake, etc? Sure.

But was there an advanced civilization on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that got its ass kicked by the Greeks sometime between 1200-10000 BC (Depending on if you take Plato's words of 10k years literarly or not)?
Doubt it.

I read this, but am a little suspect...

[Fallen Kell]

I also read an article about the same event on CNN I believe (I am too lazy to post the link). In anycase, the side-scanning sonar did pick up what appear to be walls which do fit exactly the description of Atlantis (60-70 exact points corallate directly to the description of Atlantis).

But I say I am skeptical about this discovery. Mainly because of who funded the expedition. It cost about $250k, which was raised by proceedes from book sales and donations, with the largest donation of $60k comming from a "Tourisim" society/acency in Cypris. Well, where does "Atlatis" show up? Off the coast of Cypris...

Altantis sure gets about

[Hieronymus Howard]

Altantis seems to be very mobile. It's been spotted in Cyprus now. Last time it was Ireland, before that it was in Spain and then Gibraltar
Prior to that it was in the mid atlantic where it moved to from Greece. Of course, it's original location was off the coast of Cornwall.

Re:Stiry of Atlantis was an allegory; it was not r

[empaler]

Getting your history lessons from someone who can't even spell their own domain name properly is not a good idea...

Is there a better URL? The Minoans are fascinating

[ultraworld]

I'm fascinated by the culture of the ancient Minoans, that lived in this area during the late Bronze Age. The Atlantis myth is almost certainly about them. They thrived for at least 2000 years, until a series of volcanic events around 1700 BC that appear to have destroyed their major cities (and others) and ended in the assimilation of their culture into others, most notably the Mycaenians - the ancestors of the ancient Greeks, and the beginnings of a long dark age in the Mediterranean that halved the population or more, lasted several hundred years and reduced many area cultures to pre-literacy. Our historical era begins in the dawn of literacy out of the ashes of this time.

The Minoan millennia's history is still almost completely unguessable. Archaeological sites that exist are difficult to find, sometimes obscured by this volcanic action, water (changing sea levels) or by the massive desertification that occurred in North Africa. There may be still much to learn from seawrecks on the bottom of the Mediterranean, though.

These events probably also formed the factual basis for the Biblical plagues of Egypt. (huge volcano-caused climate changes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. resulting in a 'nuclear winter' lasting several years in which a significant portion of the Northern Hemisphere's population died of starvation.) The volcanic caldera of the present-day Aegean island of Santorini was probably the location of this explosion. The surviving Minoans clearly were scattered across the world...the Phoenecians, the Carthaginians, and many other ancient Semitic cultures (the Sephardic Jews and the Arabs) may all be descended from them. So were the Pelasgians. And perhaps the Philistines of the Biblical era.

The Minoans were probably the real proto-Greeks.

They are truly an enigma. It appears that they lived most of this time in peace, indeed, the remains of their cities that we have found never have walls. They had indoor plumbing, flush toilets, buildings up to five stories high. There are traces of their influence all the way from Spain to India. They were probably the model for Tolkien's "Numenorians", as well as many cultural myths.. Read Platos "Critas' and "Timmaeus' for his version of the story.. Its fascinating. They were Europe's first advanced civilization... Their written language (what little that we have) Linear A has still not been deciphered and it is one of the great mysteries in linguistics...and cryptology..

It'd be Funny

[Greyfox]

If one of these bozos eventually did find Atlantis and it turned out there really was an ancient evil sleeping there just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

Ah well, one can dream...

Plato's Atlantis, not just any Atlantis

[handy_vandal]

Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.
-Hemos, from the original post

Hemos tries to make a good point, but reduces himself to ineffectual sarcasm -- evidently because he didn't RTFA.

Yes, many cities were flooded and sunk in ancient times. Yes, these events have become mythologized as a generic Atlantis.

But the article makes very clear: the discovers believe that *this* Atlantis is the Atlantis of Plato, because the dimesions and layout of the sunken city closely correspond to Plato's descriptions.

-kgj

Erm, localisation problem.

[Gadzinka]

Every time someone finds submerged (or even simply abandoned) ruins, he claims that he has found Atlantis. Completely disregarding the only sure thing from Homer's tales, that if it even existed, Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

You can argue all you want, that "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" means "far, far away", but that still doesn't change the fact, that Cyprus, Crete, Santorini are right in the middle of Hellenistic domain!!! Hence neither "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" nor "far, far away".

Abandoned or submerged ruins of ancient civilization? Sure. Atlantis? No fucking way!

Move along, nothing to see here.

Robert

X-posted from a friend's blog

[bleaked]

The Nature of the Universe (a gooey mass of old theories and new ideas)
Pondering the subjective experience of time flowing way to fucking fast, i've come to yet another latest view on what i think the universe is and how it behaves.

I recently checked out a lecture on cosmology at the University given by a leading cosmologist in his field who informed me that omega is not equal to 1.

Quick background: Once upon a time scientists discovered the red shift, which is essentially the Doppler effect applied to light and shows that every galaxy in the universe is moving away from us. From this they decided that the universe must be expanding, and of course, an expanding universe leads to the question of whether or not this universe will continue expanding forever or eventually shrink back to a "big crunch". I was currently under the impression that they'd figured out that the universe would eventually shrink down and that it had simply existed forever and would exist forever going through cycles of blowing up, forming stars and planets etc etc etc and then shrinking down again only to blow up again.

But now i've got some guy with a Ph.D. telling me that the latest theory is that the universe will actually continue expanding forever, and even crazier than that, it appears to be expanding at an ever increasing rate.

OK, that trips me the fuck out. If there is any gravity at all, how could it possibly continue expanding faster and faster without any external energy being added to the system??? And they explain this away by not only creating "cold dark matter" but also creating "dark energy" which apparently makes up 75% of the universe's mass and has a repulsive quality stronger than gravity's attractive property. Or something. Idk, i need to read more about this. One day. When i have more time (in the past).

But i want to take this experimental evidence that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate and play around with it.

Because there are other theories out there.

First of all there is the theory that maybe this whole time speeding up thing isn't a subjective effect but rather that time really is speeding up. And since i can't think of anyone with a Ph.D. from whom i've ripped this theory off and i came to it by my own thinking, i'm calling it my theory, until someone proves me wrong.

So like i can't even remember why i started thinking that time was speeding up, but look at the implications. If time is speeding up, that means it was once going a lot slower. Let's say that around 5,000 revolutions around the sun ago time was going really really slow. In fact, let's say the graph forms an asymptote and that at a certain point in time it was approaching infinity and essentially not moving at all. Now, let's assume that in the first "day" after this asymptote time was going so slow that it what we consider a second actually took a million of our years, or even....4.6 million if you want to entertain science and religion...

If this were true, "God" could have easily created the heavens and the earth in one day. Hell the guy had millions or billions of years to do it. We could even stretch this so far as to perfectly match it up with how long science thinks it took from the big bang until we had a solar system and a relatively cooled earth. And the next day would be going a little faster, not quite as much could have been done in that second "day", and so on and so forth throughout the creation story, eventually by the 6th day there were human beings already and eventually that exponential curve hit that special point where the timelessness felt in Eden started moving fast enough to record and these primeval beings felt the effects of aging and pain. I think this can explain quite nicely why life expectancy was so much higher back then too: Methuselah didn't live any longer than any of us, but it sure as hell felt like 900 some odd years to him!

From this I also thought about extrapolating the graph to try to predict the future. One extra

Re:Er, doesn't this claim require external evidenc

[knghtrider]

I love Exodus 17:14:

Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Write this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

The Hebrew word for "remembrance" is zikaron ; it connotates a participation in an event of the past rather than simply a mental recollection of that event.

When material is written by a culture, understanding of the language of the culture, rather than simply reading translations, leads to greater understanding of the intention of the writer.