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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.
OR perhaps all the stories originated from one actual occurance, but have become distorted through years of relay from one generation to the next.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
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!
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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?
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.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
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.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Oh, it's in Wikipedia. It must be true.
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
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..
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
-kgj
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.