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Researchers Find Possible Atlantis Location

An AC writes"It seems that Plato's Atlantis has a new spot candidate. Some archaeologist used satellite imagery to identify a structure in an once tsunami-ed Spanish plain. From the article: '"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher Richard Freund told Reuters. "It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, a University of Hartford, Connecticut, professor who lead an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis.'"

218 comments

  1. Yawn by mseeger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yet another repeating news story.... How many times Atlantis has been located by now? 100+ times at least. What's the next news? Transparent Aluminium again?

    1. Re:Yawn by davester666 · · Score: 0

      If the summary makes it clear...this is a POSSIBLE location.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The worst part of it is that Plato made up Atlantis just to set up a hypothetical argument. His contemporaries understood this, but eventually it got out of hand and people took it literally. Atlantis really doesn't exist. There may be a lot of "lost" cities and small civilizations, but I doubt any of them are Atlantis.

    3. Re:Yawn by mseeger · · Score: 2

      If the summary makes it clear...this is a POSSIBLE location.

      Exactly: Finding Atlantis would be news, a possible locations you get a dozen for a dime.

      CU, Martin

    4. Re:Yawn by schmidt349 · · Score: 4, Informative

      This from a soon-Ph.D in Classics.

      Atlantis was a story Plato made up in the course of a philosophical discussion. It goes no further back in the literary record unless you want to twist a couple mentions of "Atlas' island" in the earlier corpus like balloon animals.

    5. Re:Yawn by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

      Even this particular proposal isn't new. A half-dozen archaeologists have been studying this national park in southern Spain as a possible site for the past 15 years or so, and this is just the latest round of press releases.

    6. Re:Yawn by Dan541 · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's only a matter of time until people start searching for middle earth.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    7. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Transparent Aluminum - http://bit.ly/Uf4kO CHECK!

    8. Re:Yawn by sortius_nod · · Score: 2

      The thing that gets me is that Atlantis is about metaphor rather than reality. I see no difference between a "researcher" and a fundamentalist religious type. Both are interpreting devices used to stir inner dialog as gospel truth.

      If anything atlantis was one of the first science fiction tales. Think of how ridiculous it would be if people turned Star Wars into a cult...

    9. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are completely ass-fuck wrong. He didn't make it up. He got the story from the Egyptians.

    10. Re:Yawn by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's only a matter of time until people start searching for middle earth.

      Middle-earth can be found in the area we now call New Zealand.

      --
      Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
    11. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. The *Egyptians* made it up.

      Credit where credit is due.

    12. Re:Yawn by Gofyerself · · Score: 1

      Think of how ridiculous it would be if people turned Star Wars into a cult

      Just wait 2011 years.

    13. Re:Yawn by schmidt349 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, and _they_ had records going back to 8,000 BCE that the aliens gave them. Unfortunately the data was all on NASA 1" tape, so the Egyptians couldn't read it until Plato cheerfully loaned them an Ampex machine...

    14. Re:Yawn by Gutboy · · Score: 2

      Did you mean wait until 2011?

    15. Re:Yawn by Nikkos · · Score: 1

      So did ya find that secret out in his new tell-all book?

      Plato used real people in his writings and there's no way to tell at which times is he using their own words and meanings and at which times he's inventing them. The discussion has long gone on and the simple answer is we don't and won't ever know. This is why the words of Socrates are more often credited to Plato - Socrates didn't write anything, so we're taking Plato at his word. Likewise there is no way to tell for certain if references to "lore" such as Atlantis were based on local gossip or were made out of whole cloth.

      Your attempt at ethos fails too. Give back your Ph.D.

    16. Re:Yawn by mseeger · · Score: 1

      They will have much better chances than fining Atlantis. Tolkien left a lot more clues behind than Platon did :-).

      Funny thing is: Platon probably "invented" Atlantis to give some background to a story too...

    17. Re:Yawn by schmidt349 · · Score: 1

      [quote]there's no way to tell at which times[/quote]

      [quote]we don't and won't ever know[/quote]

      [quote]Likewise there is no way to tell[/quote]

      Thanks so much for agreeing with me!

    18. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The titular society of Samuel Butler's Erewhon is believed to be somewhere in NZ too.

    19. Re:Yawn by Scrameustache · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The worst part of it is that Plato made up Atlantis just to set up a hypothetical argument.

      People used to say that about Troy. Then someone dug it up.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    20. Re:Yawn by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      Yet another repeating news story.... How many times Atlantis has been located by now?

      Zero, which is why we should wait until someone finds Atlantis to say "Researchers FIND atlantis."

      That doesn't mean the methodology or the finding here isn't interesting.

    21. Re:Yawn by schmidt349 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      See, a lack of evidence leads _reasonable_ people to extreme skepticism. It is not an open invitation to invent a crackpot theory and then plug your ears while shouting "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

      Moreover, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If you want to take Plato at his word you don't just get to point to a previously-undiscovered set of ruins somewhere in the Med and say "Atlantis!" You need to prove

      a) that it was inhabited 8,000 years ago
      b) that Athens was inhabited 8,000 years ago
      c) That an apocalyptic war was fought between the two

      because these are all parts of Plato's story.

      You also don't get to say "the Egyptians told Solon/Plato/whoever" because archaeology proves that at the alleged time of this apocalyptic war the Egyptians (if you can call the Faiyum A culture "Egyptian" for any reason other than that the happened to leave near the Nile river delta) were still a Neolithic people with no system of writing.

      Moreover, since all available evidence tells us that b) is not only not true but impossible, you're putting the cart before the horse trying to prove a) or c). If someone tells me, in earnest, that the CIA has been instructing him to kill the Pope by way of a radio embedded in his brain, nothing short of a CT scan showing me the radio and a bug detector showing signal origin at Langley is going to convince me that he's not insane. I don't start speculating on why the CIA would want the pope dead.

      I realize that this type of reasoning from evidence rather than speculation is not the usual fare at the UFOlogy seminars and astrology club meetings you drag your knuckles to every night, but do pay attention, you might learn something.

    22. Re:Yawn by schmidt349 · · Score: 2

      The difference is that the Trojan War happened only a few hundred years before Homer's time -- a short enough span for some memory of the city to be preserved. According to Plato, Atlantis was destroyed by Athens some 6,500 years before his own day.

    23. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, there's an interesting comparison to Europe, albeit with a rather different sea level :-)

    24. Re:Yawn by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      The worst part of it is that Plato made up Atlantis just to set up a hypothetical argument.

          The sad part is that there are so many people who take old fictional works "set up as a hypothetical argument" and treat them like some mystical work where the words are taken verbatim, even if they are contradictory even in the same work.

          I have no doubt that the Atlantis story was made up from somewhere. Circular built cities, or from Plato's own imagination, it came from somewhere. I prefer to believe the resurrected story used by the Stargate show. It's obvious, Atlantis was a starship, and Plato was an alien. :)

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    25. Re:Yawn by MindlessAutomata · · Score: 1

      Nikkos needs to shut up.

    26. Re:Yawn by blincoln · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The worst part of it is that Plato made up Atlantis just to set up a hypothetical argument. His contemporaries understood this, but eventually it got out of hand and people took it literally."

      I've seen this statement before, and I've always wondered - is there a Cliff's Notes version of the alleged supporting evidence for it? I mean, actual statements from people of Plato's era along the lines of "that Plato sure does like inventing ancient cities that never existed as back-story for his work! I bet in a few thousand years, people will think Atlantis actually existed, even though all of us here in Ancient Greece know that that is completely false!".

      I ask because art critics and members of the "soft sciences" have a terrible habit of making statements like this, and then those statements become accepted as fact, when really it was just someone's opinion. One of the great things about art is that different people take away different things from each work, but the downside is that many of those people also assume that whatever *they* took away was what the creator of that work actually intended.

      --
      "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
    27. Re:Yawn by tsm_sf · · Score: 1

      Can we just add this post to the article summary and close the thread?

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    28. Re:Yawn by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      The main difference is that there are other ancient references to Troy in addition to Homer. As far as I have been able to discover, the only ancient reference we have to Atlantis is one place in Plato's writings.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    29. Re:Yawn by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Up next, using cell phones to track traffic patterns. I can't wait!

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    30. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Europe, depending if your using the Middle Earth comparison as an actual site or an analogy...similar to what Plato did.

    31. Re:Yawn by Pyrus.mg · · Score: 1

      News Flash! Rubies and sapphires are transparent crystals of aluminum oxide.

    32. Re:Yawn by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      What I read in a related article is that the researchers found "echo cities" laid out according to the design of Atlantis described by Plato, this is their evidence that the people of the area were (possible) survivors of the Atlantis.

      A timeline of the cities' construction and Plato's account would be interesting.

    33. Re:Yawn by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Plato described a form of the city, while his chronology may have been distorted, the description of the city form was clear. These people, for the first time, are finding cities of similar form.

      The rest of the story may be exaggerated, distorted, inaccurate or impossible - but if there was a city which inspired Plato's story, most people would be interested to see what it looks like after it's dug up.

    34. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That and there wasn't just one city of Troy. It was rebuilt and destroyed many times. There was a Troy even in roman times.

    35. Re:Yawn by ebuck · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, either the ancient historian Strabo is lying when he said that Aristotle said that Atlantis was just "made up" to further examine a hypothetical argument, or Aristotle was a pupil of Plato, but without some "key" knowledge of one of his most important thought experiments, or Plato was telling the truth but he couldn't get his key pupil to agree?

      Aristotle's works are many things, but they don't seem to indicate that he had an axe to grind against Plato, at least not one so sharp as to make the argument that Plato was a liar. I'm inclined to believe that Aristotle was right, that his teacher made up Atlantis to flesh out an argument, much like Ann Ryan made up a series of books (and heroes) to flesh out her argument.

      The weakness in the above belief is that it's more-than-second-hand information. The works of Aristotle which purport to refute the real existence of Atlantis were destroyed. We only have Strabo's account of what Aristotle said about what Plato meant to go by.

      That there is some evidence that Strabo truly believed in Atlantis and that he still bothered to write Aristotle's refutation of it's existence lends me to believe in Strabo's accounting of Aristotle's refutation more.

      After reading a description of Atlantis, I doubt you'll ever find it (or that it ever existed). I have a hard time believing that any civilization could be so orderly to get all citizens to build their cities in circles. And building a circular canal means a spoke and ring system of waterways, when any semi-sane engineer would just settle for a spoke and hub system, no need to lay out perfect rings. Even enormously planned communities like Washington, D. C. and Brasilia have less structural control than what's implied.

    36. Re:Yawn by datsa · · Score: 1

      Who cares? They found friggin' ATLANTIS! Didn't you see the Disney movie**?

      **Me neither

    37. Re:Yawn by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 1

      When I studied Relig

      --

      --
      $tar -xvf .sig.tar
    38. Re:Yawn by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mind you, I'm not saying Atlantis is real, but... ...Heinrich Schliemann was laughed at until he unearthed the city of Troy. They found what is believed to be the cities referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as the Philistine city of Gath (e.g. Goliath's crib). The tomb of Tutankhamen was considered to be a myth.

      Not all tales have pure fabrication as their foundation. Sometimes they drag in real places into the picture.

      I'm thinking that Plato caught wind of (or maybe even grew up with) the oral stories surrounding the Santorini eruption ~1,000 years before he was born. He likely took that and ran with it.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    39. Re:Yawn by WCguru42 · · Score: 1

      I agree on the CT scan, but it's quite a leap to suppose that the CIA only operates out of Langley, Virginia.

      --
      "Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
    40. Re:Yawn by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Aluminum Oxide? You mean I could make sapphires by melting down old lawn chairs? Which way to the dump?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    41. Re:Yawn by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      The worst part of it is that Plato made up Atlantis just to set up a hypothetical argument.

      People used to say that about Troy. Then someone dug it up.

      I'm pretty sure no one ever said that someone made up Troy just to set up a hypothetical argument.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    42. Re:Yawn by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      The main difference is that there are other ancient references to Troy in addition to Homer. As far as I have been able to discover, the only ancient reference we have to Atlantis is one place in Plato's writings.

      Actually he mentions it in two different dialogues, though that hardly dulls your point.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    43. Re:Yawn by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      I have no doubt that the Atlantis story was made up from somewhere. Circular built cities, or

      There is a hypothesis that the topology was inspired by the famous circular harbor at Carthage.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    44. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [quote]there's no way to tell at which times[/quote]

      [quote]we don't and won't ever know[/quote]

      [quote]Likewise there is no way to tell[/quote]

      Thanks so much for agreeing with me!

      None of that agrees with you. You are putting forward (someone else's) speculation as if it were fact, simply because they might receive a degree from a University. The point is that it's all speculation, and you haven't even provided anything to support it.

    45. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the revolutionary war was 200 years before my birth, might as well have been 2 million. In my mind, there's not much difference between the revolutionary war and, say, the Trojan one except the actors and settings, thanks to educators like Plato, Homer, etc. Plus, 6500 years would put a majorly powerful civilization into the last ice age, which isn't really that likely. More like 650 years, or at best 6500 moons before his birth, perhaps?

    46. Re:Yawn by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      I'm inclined to believe that Aristotle was right, that his teacher made up Atlantis to flesh out an argument, much like Ann Ryan made up a series of books (and heroes) to flesh out her argument.

      I'm pretty sure she wrote a series of books. The distinction is the same is the difference between imagining a house and building one. And while it's true that she made up characters and stories, most of the places in her books are real. Just as in comic books most places are real (or are at least based on real places). It's hard to make something up from nothing, and it's counterproductive if you are trying to make arguments you want other people to understand.

    47. Re:Yawn by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      It is not "alleged supporting evidence". Plato's dialogues are very well known works, which are available in many translations. They are very interesting works, definitely worth a read if you are the "reading" type, so you can see for yourself.
      I remember once I realized that "Atlantis" was first referenced in the TImaeus dialogue, I went back to the original (I can read ancient Greek, and had read Plato before), and was surprised to see how obviously it is a fictional place.
      So, if you want see for yourself, read some Plato to get the feel for his writing (I don't know how much is lost in Translation), and try out the Timaeus and Critias dialogues to see if it is obvious to you that Atlantis is made up. Or, if you don't want to read it yourself ask any Classical Philologist who has read Plato. For example if I ask my wife (ancient Greek philology) whether she things Atlantis is real, I will get some laughs.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    48. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How to use This...

    49. Re:Yawn by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      Nope, that is misinformed, not insightful.
      Troy was never a hypothetical argument. Homer gave a fictitious account of a war 300 years before his time, but no-one in antiquity at least doubted Troy or the Trojan war itself.
      Atlantis, on the other hand, to anyone who reads Plato, is obviously a fictional place. There was no doubt about it in antiquity, as there is no doubt about it now for people who read Plato. It might not be that obvious if you just read the translated excerpt that mentions the story of Atlantis, but if you have read some of Plato's dialogues and go on to Timaeus, you will get it.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    50. Re:Yawn by Sique · · Score: 2

      And here lies the problem. Most of the places and names in the Iliad are real, and the people at the end of the 19th century knew some them. Ithaka is real, and Mykene is real, the Hellespont is real, and so is Boeotia. One can take a map of the Mediterran and draw Ulysses' voyage. The only place one couldn't put a finger on was Troy, and that's probably because Troy was not a part of the hellenic world. Actually it was a lydian settlement, called Wilusa, which the Greek pronounced Ilyos or Ilyon and the Romans Ilium. So it always looked strange in context to the later generations. But then the archeologist at the end of the 19th century started to find one town after another mentioned in the antique texts. They discovered Ur, Ninive and Babylon. Suddenly the mood changed. One started to believe that any place ever mentioned in the antique texts would be real, even those never meant to be real to begin with.
      Plato's report about Atlantis doesn't mention any wellknown places. Even the description of the location as "beyond the pillars of Hercules" just puts it outside of the contemporary ship lines, but doesn't fix any place. There is no reason why it should be real.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    51. Re:Yawn by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      They'd become outrageously rich puppet masters of talking heads around the world?

      Oh wait, that's the science fiction writings of L. Ron Hubbard, not George Lucas.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    52. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      deduction

    53. Re:Yawn by xtracto · · Score: 0

      Agreed on that, but still after the Japan earthquake and Tsunami I am left to wonder if we as a civilization are prepared for catastrophes of that or bigger magnitude.

      My main concern is the preservation of knowledge. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where the Japan earthquake epicenter was in the middle of Japan, removing the island and all the periphery from the earth (i.e., imagine if the earthquake was 10 times as strong as it was).

      Besides the lives (which of course are of utmost importance, but it is not related to this discussion), imagine all the knowledge and information we will lose. I am talking about things like robotics (e.g., ASIMO technology) or other technology that is *only* being developed in Japan.

      Even if "archive.org" gets a copy of all the publicly available Honda web-pages, the much of the valuable technology and knowledge might be lost.

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    54. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or the works of L Ron Hubbard.

    55. Re:Yawn by gtall · · Score: 0

      Yep, there is a story about Balaam in Bible, Numbers chapter 22. Apparently, Balaam was upset with the Israelites so he cursed them but that didn't work. So he plied them with Moab woman (mmmmm...Moab women!), but G-d put and end to that. He had a talking donkey who in one passage says (paraphrasing) "but I've always done what you asked of me" to Balaam. So to your basic fundamentalist literal Christian, he had a talking donkey. However, rabbinical scholars will tell you that the talking was mere a rhetorical device or euphemistic device to get across the delicate notion that Balaam was asking his donkey to do several things one wouldn't normally ask of donkey and they used it so as not to offend the readership.

    56. Re:Yawn by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, yeah: "Man land on Mars" is a dupe, because we already talked about man one day going to Mars.

      --
      Fandroids hate facts.
    57. Re:Yawn by tibit · · Score: 1

      There's nothing earth-shattering about Asimo's playback-style technology. Heck, I'd consider it quite outdated by now. Ever heard of big dog, for example?

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    58. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, when rains get strong, you can find a lot of things on the "ramblas". This is a very wealthy part of the country and had civilization from a really long time(a big river with sediments, the Atlantic sea with good fishing and the Mediterranean very near, abundant sun and mild weather). Tartessos, Atlantis... who cares.

      The gitanos are used to sell what they find interesting on the ramblas. I have seen ancient gold rings and collars and abundant pots and stuff from them. As the government wants it all for himself(if you find a treasure it is 100% owned by the gov since the socialist changed the law, that is the reason the American ship that found the gold and silver treasure some years ago did not tell the gov), it is illegal , but people do it anyway. I have seen entire basements better than museums( it is common practice to give the authorities the least valuable part of a discovery so they date it and prove the authenticity so they can sell it higher in the black market).

      Whatever they find, it should be noted that those civilizations were poor for today standards. Today we extract more gold and silver on one morning that in the entire history of Tartessos. There is only historic value from that.

    59. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They will have much better chances than fining Atlantis. Tolkien left a lot more clues behind than Platon did :-).

      Indeed. The Tolkien estate is probably worth quite a lot more and have more liquid assets that can be seized to pay fines with than the long since expired citizens of Atlantis.

    60. Re:Yawn by Owy · · Score: 1

      His GPS was briefly down when he wrote about Atlantis... of vourse he DIDN'T point the EXACT location!

    61. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think of how ridiculous it would be if people turned Star Wars into a cult...

      Oh, wait?

    62. Re:Yawn by Grizzley9 · · Score: 1

      You do know that 200 years is nothing really and easily passed to the next generation. The last of the Civil War widows just passed away a few years ago. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071061/posts

    63. Re:Yawn by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      Actually Thera before the eruption had a circular like harbor structure, when thera was blasted off the ground by the eruption the area was unpassable by ships thanks to the volcanic output for quite some time.
      Also Thera was one of the highest developed civilizations of its time (they even had a water toilet and multi floored buildings)
      so at least the memory regarding Thera could be related to Plato. I also dont believe Atlantis as such ever existed, but there are several occasions in history which could ultimately have lead to such a legend in Platos time.
      The probably by then in legend unforgotton explosion of Thera probably was one such event, the sea peoples invasion of the southeastern mediterrenean also was another such occasion.

    64. Re:Yawn by DrXym · · Score: 1

      I've seen this statement before, and I've always wondered - is there a Cliff's Notes version of the alleged supporting evidence for it? I mean, actual statements from people of Plato's era along the lines of "that Plato sure does like inventing ancient cities that never existed as back-story for his work! I bet in a few thousand years, people will think Atlantis actually existed, even though all of us here in Ancient Greece know that that is completely false!".

      I don't see the problem with starting with the default assumption that the place was hypothetical. There is no supporting evidence and Plato used the place as a springboard to go off into a philosophical discourse.

      I can well believe than in a few thousand years there will be pseudo archeological cranks who will spend their lives looking for Hogwarts, and claiming they've found it every time they unearth some evidence of a railway track.

    65. Re:Yawn by somersault · · Score: 1

      And what do they say about the whole angel bit? In a story with deities and invisible angels, I don't see why a donkey talking is suddenly any more unbelievable..

      --
      which is totally what she said
    66. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Illiad tries to report places and battles that may have taken places. much of the story of the people in them is a romance but there was no point in making up completely Troy
      Plato did create Atlantis for the sake of making a point just like Peyo created the Smurf village. Want to say that the Smurf village is real also? After all it is not in one book but in many books. You can according to your argument. Good luck finding it.

    67. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many people believe that Troy, or Knossos, or Mycenae were a myth.The Hellenic myths are the prehistory of the human kind.
      Even the religions made a copy-paste of Orpheus hymns.Try to find what the people of Basque (Spain) say about their nationality and where they came from (they were guards to stop another war from Atlantic (?) ocean.If you want to find people from Atlantis go to Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Many of the hundrets of pyramids have the word ATLAN in the description. Try also to find their gods.They are similar to the ancient greek gods like the gods of the roman empire of course. If you learn the very difficult hellenic (specialy the ancient hellenic) language you will understand many thinks that now you can't.
      There is an intresting site (http://merkel.zoneo.net/Topo/Applet/ ) that you can put values (-2800m), and see that something apears in atlantic ocean. Remember that in the end of ice age before 18.000 years the sea lavel was minus -130m.

    68. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I've always assumed Atlantis to by a myth, so I'm not arguing that it's real. However, your suggestion that Atlantis' existence requires points A, B, and C to back it up fails to consider the possibility that Plato's story was just a story, but his setting was real. Then, only point A is required, although even that is somewhat flexible.

      Atlantis is probably myth, but not definitively so, and all it takes to prove it's real is to find it.

    69. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and only about 1000 more years until people start looking for Hogwarts

    70. Re:Yawn by Scrameustache · · Score: 0

      but no-one in antiquity

      I said "until someone dug it up", I clearly wasn't taking about Antiquity, you pompous idiot.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    71. Re:Yawn by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      Wow. Just wow. Insulting people to compensate for your ignorance.
      "until someone dug it up" refers to the period up to the digging, which includes the antiquity. Unless you speak a different language.
      But this is just semantics, the simple fact that I stated is that scholars never doubted the existence of Troy.
      This is the exact opposite to the Atlantis which scholars know is fictional.
      Now, there are always people who believe in LGM, Hollow Earth etc, and there is no point convincing those...

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    72. Re:Yawn by jfengel · · Score: 1

      It's still pretty amazing to me that the memory of Troy was preserved with such astonishing accuracy over the space of centuries. It's chock-full of details, and while many are unverifiable, so many have been verified that it's easy to believe that there really were exactly 1186 ships, for example.

      400 years ago was Shakespeare's day, and even with writing we've lost a lot of important information. They managed to preserve an astonishing amount of information in the oral history. I don't think we've managed to lose any major cities (though things were pretty damn vague in the early days of the Age of Exploration), but we've lost so much else.

    73. Re:Yawn by stonewallred · · Score: 1
      And if you go to -5900 meters, you'll see the world with no oceans.

      so what does your asshat comment have to do with anything, other than quietening the voices in your head?

    74. Re:Yawn by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      The main difference is that there are other ancient references to Troy in addition to Homer. As far as I have been able to discover, the only ancient reference we have to Atlantis is one place in Plato's writings.

      Maybe Plato was an early slashdotter, and crap at spelling, so he was really talking about Atlanta, Georgia.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    75. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? They used to say that Troy was used as a thought experiment in a philosophical work?

    76. Re:Yawn by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Plato's Atlantis may be fiction, but it's possible that it's myth built on historical fact. There were numerous token records of a 'lost civilization' as well as confirmation within other tomes of antiquity. The problem is that the documents/sources referenced by these tomes are long since destroyed (eg. in Alexandria), so there's no independent corroboration.

      When you combine the myth-for-teaching having been based on a similar historic record with other, surrounding historic information, the possibility starts to look a bit stronger. There is some strong contention with the "Egyptology" approach to dating things, as well as the cloistered method in which "Egyptology" is practiced. It tends to ignore other scientific disciplines and their findings (eg. such as the actual age of the pyramids or sphinx). The congruous nature in which the pyramids were made, as well as the mimicking pyramids of the Americas and elsewhere, all aligned in similiar fashions, the question of "was there a long-lost civilization that had the power to span the globe?" This posses an opening for "Atlantis".

      It's kind of like if I were to go to Africa and find a mummy with a Gameboy-like device at his feet, inside the coffin. The only thing left would be the PCB and plastic casing, as the rest had completely rotted/decayed. The plastic is brittle with age and the PCB has cracked, so it's obviously of antiquity. Yet, it's out of place: I have to assume either it was placed there in contention or it's a legitimate artifact, and the current understanding of the timeline is wrong. The pyramids across the world, aligned "perfectly" in a geographically congruent fashion, suggest just such a scenario.

      I'm of the opinion that if there were an Atlantis, it was at such a time period that any records of it (statues, buildings, the results of industrial processes, etc.) would have either long been utterly destroyed, or be unrecognizable to us as such due to their erosion and antiquity or to their inclusion into our own status quo existence (eg. the 'old' churches in England, built upon old burial/rite sites, which demark an even more aged site - the significance of which has long since been lost). If we find Atlantis, we're not goign to find pillars sticking from the soil or ocean floor with mosaics still intact unless by some miraculous scenario the entire island was hermetically sealed. What we may find is a pile of rubble, pebbles, and dirt with chemical traces suggesting the presence of metals. (After all, even cities destroyed by disaster in the past 2000 years have very little evidence of their existence remaining, and then only after years of excavation; what of a city 5,000 - 10,000 years old?)

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    77. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Atlantis really doesn't exist.

      Of course it doesn't exist. It sank into the ocean !!!

    78. Re:Yawn by mikael · · Score: 1

      It's well known from archived archeological papers and ancient manuscripts dating from the Roman era, that around 3 miles (5 km) of farmland around some areas has disappeared into the sea since Roman times. You only need to erode 2.5 metres/year on average to achieve this rate of loss. Even just having one bad storm that erode 10 metres in a single night, once every 10 years is enough to achieve this.

      Even if Atlantis never existed, there is a good chance that any point of ocean bed is going to having artifacts from sunken ships, islands or even tsunamis.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    79. Re:Yawn by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      I am convinced that sometime in the future Star Wars will be mistaken for a documentary.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    80. Re:Yawn by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      I have a hard time believing that any civilization could be so orderly to get all citizens to build their cities in circles.

      There have been numerous smaller/extinct civilizations which have been found which are of circular design throughout the world. I seem to recall hearing/reading about them in Europe, Asia, and South America, but there may have been more.

      Of non-trivial import are Persian Sassanian urban design - Babylon as well as Baghdad were/are circular cities. Even the modern urban sprawl mimicks this design, in poor abstract: everything radiates from the center. A circular city design is the height of good engineering: it may cost more to construct, initially, and involve more headache involving the construction of buildings on a perfect square, but there are many arguments for it. (For one, transportation is more efficient due to the average of distance from point A to point B always being shorter than were it to be from point

      And building a circular canal means a spoke and ring system of waterways, when any semi-sane engineer would just settle for a spoke and hub system, no need to lay out perfect rings.

      Spoke and ring would allow for more consistent subdivision of land as well as enable more intensive agriculture (due to consistent delivery of water). You will also need fewer canals dug (in terms of land volume used) with spoke and ring than with spoke and hub, saving labor. (With the spoke and ring system, several large hubs could more effectively distribute heavy rain water evenly, vs. a spoke and hub, which would tend to have the water pool near the hub instead of making it to the outlying area, on account of soil permeability.)

      Also consider, spoke and ring makes it easier to construct adjoining roadways and bridges from the city center to the outlying areas without causing pathway congestion towards the city center.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    81. Re:Yawn by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      It's hard to make something up from nothing, and it's counterproductive if you are trying to make arguments you want other people to understand.

      Not so. Idealized Marxism is something from nothing, and people quite understand (or at least, cling on to) the ideal. Like all radicalized systems of government, it tends to ignore the facts of human nature in its implementation and fail utterly.

      I actually think that may have been the same basic vein of argument Plato was making - along the lines of political/social/cultural organizations, and possibly existentialism.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    82. Re:Yawn by Scrameustache · · Score: 0

      "until someone dug it up" refers to the period up to the digging, which includes the antiquity.

      No, you're putting words in my mouth: That's how you're pompous.

      the simple fact that I stated is that scholars never doubted the existence of Troy.
      This is the exact opposite to the Atlantis which scholars know is fictional.

      You want scholars? You're ignorant of the writings of Blaise fucking Pascal, you authority-seeking bitch:

      Homer composes a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such; for nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden apple. Accordingly he did not think of making a history, but solely a book to amuse;

      Saying things easily proven false: That's how you're idiotic.

      See, I back my shit up.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    83. Re:Yawn by Ecuador · · Score: 0

      Are you completely retarded, or you are deliberately not understanding just to annoy me?
      My last attempt at getting some things into your thick head. I will try a chronology:
      circa 1200 BC: Troy / Illium is destroyed, probably as a result of war
      circa 900 BC: Homer writes a very fictionalized account of a war involving Trojans & Greeks
      Classical & Hellenistic antiquity: The historicity of Troy is not questioned as it is taken as fact by all contemporaries, including historians. For example, Herodotus in Book I of his Histories, tells us that the Persians believed their hatred for Greeks originated by the sacking of Troy. If you want the "Pascal" analogy, look at the great mathematician, astronomer, geographer, poet etc Eratosthenes who based his chronology (introducing the leap year BTW) on the time of the Trojan War.
      So, for all the subsequent scholars who read the ancient sources, it was obvious that Troy was not a fictional place, regardless whether there was a war as described, what exactly happened etc.
      Blaise Pascal was a genius of a Mathematician and Physicist and it is true I have not read his later writings from when he abandoned the sciences and devoted himself to religion and Catholic philosophy. That is when he wrote the passage you mention, which obviously does not prove anything by itself. Other great men have written things that are false, and, actually, this great man was way past his prime when he shared his "thoughts" on this issue.
      So, no, the historians and archaeologists who were searching for the Trojan ruins where not the aberration, they were the norm in their field.

      And back to my original objection, the above is the exact opposite of Atlantis, where it was common knowledge that Atlantis was fictional, and still is to scholars at least. And you would know too, if you were not ignorant of the writings of the Athenian fucking Plato! (hehe, I tried that nice little decoration you used, but it doesn't go well with ancient Greek names...)

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    84. Re:Yawn by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      That is when he wrote the passage you mention

      You said "never", you stupid bitch: Never say never.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    85. Re:Yawn by jwhitener · · Score: 1

      I was only able to find one researcher putting forth the notion that Atlantis was completely fabricated by Plato:

      Quote from the google hit in 2001

      "But now Alan F. Alford, one of the world's authorities on ancient mythology, claims to have uncovered the truth: the Greek philosopher invented Atlantis as a metaphor for the ancient version of our 'Big Bang' theory."

      It is hard to google about Atlantis. There are a million crackpot sites you need to weed through, so if you have more sources, by all means, share them. I was under the impression that there was no real proof about Atlantis being real or merely a story.

    86. Re:Yawn by jwhitener · · Score: 1

      >

      After reading a description of Atlantis, I doubt you'll ever find it (or that it ever existed). I have a hard time believing that any civilization could be so orderly to get all citizens to build their cities in circles. And building a circular canal means a spoke and ring system of waterways, when any semi-sane engineer would just settle for a spoke and hub system, no need to lay out perfect rings. Even enormously planned communities like Washington, D. C. and Brasilia have less structural control than what's implied.

      I think that you'll find many examples of ancient civilizations with rigid building styles if you spend some time googling. The Anasazi in the US Southwest built all their cultural centers as semi-circles. Google "chaco canyon ruins" for a list of images (and I'd highly recommend visiting if you can, the ruins are only partially excavated and you can find pottery all over the place to look at, but of course it is illegal to take any). In general, almost all of the earliest city states had centrally controlled building operations. That is one of the main ways that archaeologists have of identifying different cultures: building style and building placement.

      And even in places without much central control of building, there are also sites in Turkey and other areas of the near east, where necessities of the times shaped cities and towns. For instance, many towns built their houses side by side, in a circle, so that the outer wall of the houses formed one big circular wall for defense.

      There is also some evidence that even as far back as the megalithic period, that some sorts of universal measurement were being used. The 'megalithic yard', for example, is believed by some to have been derived by a simple astronomical observation combine with some strings and plumb bobs, giving ancient folks all over a standard unit of measure!. I am not sure how widely that belief is held in academia, I just read a book on it years ago.

      In modern times, it is pretty hard to imagine rigid city plans, but during pre-history (and essentially pre-history in the case of the Anasazi) it was pretty common.

    87. Re:Yawn by EricTheO · · Score: 0

      Is this close enough? aluminium oxynitride

      --
      -Eric
  2. Horatio Caine says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps the idea of Atlantis... *sunglasses* ...isn't dead in the water after all.

    YEAAAAAAAAAH!

    1. Re:Horatio Caine says... by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1
    2. Re:Horatio Caine says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the idea of Atlantis... *sunglasses* ...isn't dead in the water after all.

      YEAAAAAAAAAH!

      who are you?

  3. On the planet "Lantea"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everybody knows that Atlantis is on the planet "Lantea" built millions of years ago by the Ancients.

    1. Re:On the planet "Lantea"? by bertoelcon · · Score: 1

      Everybody knows that Atlantis is on the planet "Lantea" built millions of years ago by the Ancients.

      That's not true, it's on earth now. Probably just sitting cloaked in an ocean.

      --
      Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
    2. Re:On the planet "Lantea"? by peragrin · · Score: 1, Funny

      what do you think that caused the tsunami that hit the Pacific. It was Atlantis landing. They just came down near japan instead of Frisco.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  4. Atlantis...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seems like they don't know anything about Tartessos. That would be a real explanation for the ruins found.

    1. Re:Atlantis...? by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "Seems like they don't know anything about Tartessos"

      Of course. How in hell would a Spanish Classics Ph.D student know the slightest bit about Tartessos.

      Did you consider that what this student fellow meant might be that Atlantis is an old memory of a Tartessian debacle?

    2. Re:Atlantis...? by mangu · · Score: 1

      Seems like they don't know anything about Tartessos. That would be a real explanation for the ruins found.

      They certainly know about it, and that's probably the explanation for the city they found. Problem is, few people ever heard of Tartessos. It's a question of marketing, claim it's Atlantis to get press coverage, then announce it's Tartessos to get scientific recognition.

    3. Re:Atlantis...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which in itself is old news...

      (Read the Wikipedia article referenced)

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

      "Which in itself is old news..."

      Which I already knew.

      But hypothetical old news have the special characteristic that when new evidences are found they are not old news.

      If it was a settled matter that Tartessos is Atlantis, yes, you would be right. Since that's not the case, you just look like a moronic jerk.

    5. Re:Atlantis...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the "documentary" on Sunday, they posit that Tartessos and Atlantis were the same city.

  5. Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Egad! The invention of "Atlantis" was part of a political satire play written by Plato to show how Athens (Represented by a mythical kingdom of Atlantis in the play) had squandered its destiny and reputation by dominating Greek shipping by warfare and demanding tithes from other Greek nations. The mythical Atlantis represented Athens in the play and was sunk to show that the result of such political arrogance resulted in destruction. There never was such a place, nor was Plato doing anything else but critiquing Athens without mentioning it by name. (He remembered the fate of Socrates.) You just as well might search for the land of the Golden Fleece. (Wait! They did just that 200 years ago. Today we laugh at the idea knowing it was just a story.)

    1. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by pjt33 · · Score: 2

      Today we laugh at the idea knowing it was just a story.

      So was Troy.

    2. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by ebuck · · Score: 1

      Today we laugh at the idea knowing it was just a story.

      So was Troy.

      You're argument has a parallel: since some of the UFOs have indeed been found to be weather balloons, it's irrefutable proof that extra terrestrials exist.

    3. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2

      Actually yes , it is most likely, but there might be some truth behind it nevertheless. There was a big invasion of the eastern mediterranean sea by of what the egyptians called the sea peoples. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples, it was a mass migration combined with an invasion which brought several highly developed bronze age cultures to a downfall and Egypt on the brink of collapse.
      No one really knows who those people were, but they are a fact conserved in letters and writings of that period.
      They are definitely not survivors of the Thera desaster that happened way earlier, but could be forced out of their native homes by other catastrophies.
      No one really knows who they were, there are theories, that they came from the black sea, others that they came from greece or spain (the excavation site we are talking here)
      It is definitely not 10.000 years but, given the timespan the memories of the Thera cathastrophy (which resembled Atlantis in many ways, due to being highly developed seafaring etc...) and the sea peoples invasion have been there in tales lingering around, while not being written down explicitely outside of egypt.

      But a highly developed civilization which spanned lots of europe reigned out of the atlantic and that about 10.000 years ago, this is highly unlikely there must be proof one way or the other plastered all over the mediterrenean, and so far there is none. There are only a handful of sites somehow resembling what plato described but they are all dated sometime 1500BC when the bronze age culture was at its height and trade all over the mediterrenean was going on.

    4. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      .[...] and Egypt on the brink of collapse.

      Great. Thousands of years later and nothing has changed.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    5. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by Dabido · · Score: 2
      How the frig did this get modded 'informative' ???
      • 1. Plato never wrote plays, let alone 'political satire plays'.
      • 2. It was from Platos 'Timaeus and Critias' which is a 'dialogue' written by Plato. Dialogues are used to explore several opposing views in a discussion, a way for the author to show the flaws in others arguments and the virtues in their own beliefs. It is in no way a 'play' of any sort, and was far from being a 'political satire'. It was suggested the point of Atlantis was for Plato to pretend that his 'utopia' as written about in his book 'The Republic' was to invent a history for his ideas. This was because most of 'The Republic' ideas were stolen from the Egyptians and Plato wanted to make his ideas seem to be 'Athenian'.
      • 3. Atlantis never represented Athens in the work, as Athens was actually in the story as fighting against Atlantis. If Atlantis was supposed to represent Athens, then what the frig was Athens doing in the story????
      • My suggestion to whomever the anonymous coward was who posted this, is GO LEARN WHO PLATO WAS!!!!

      --
      Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
    6. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Plato never wrote plays, let alone 'political satire plays'

      I remember hearing that Plato did write plays, and then burned them because he believed that theatre was an inferior art form (in comparison to philosophical dialogues).

    7. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by gad_zuki! · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid at a certain point we need to accept that humans in general are an extremely irrational people. Sure we understand the origin of Atlantis, but people also love to believe myth and religion. You're a member of the reality-based community and to them you're the crackpot. In a democracy truth is sometimes a consensus, so to them you're not only crazy but "obviously wrong." I've been an atheist since I've been a teenager and I see this mentality all the time. Its pathetic and there's little fighting it.

      >You just as well might search for the land of the Golden Fleece.

      Go for a walk in America and start talking to people about religion. Ask them what their thoughts are about finding Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the original Cross, etc. Their attitudes will be the same as the people who were looking for the fleece in antiquity. If we took away religion they'd just start up UFO cults. If we took that away, they'd worship rocks, etc, etc.

    8. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. His argument is that you can't prove it was just a story until you find it or travel back in time and ask Plato about it. You will never be able to convince a believer that something doesn't exist only convince them that they need to keep looking.

      Personally, every day that passes without this mythical city being found is another day that supports it being a story. More importantly, what does it really matter if we find one particular city that was destroyed instead of some other ancient city that was destroyed?

    9. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      That's not at all a parallel. My argument is that (exists x in S such that P(s)) => not(forall x in S : not P(s)). Your argument is that (exists x in S such that P(s)) => forall x in S: P(s).

    10. Re:Atlantis - Plato's example of Athens in a Play by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      (Well, actually that's a generous interpretation of your argument).

  6. I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That it's in San Fransisco after using the Wormhole Drive to get back here from the Pegasus Galaxy.

  7. Make it stop by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The truly boggling thing about people who believe in Atlantis is that they believe in Atlantis. Even Wikipedia doesn't. (Or, at least, whatever corrupt bureaucrat obsessively controls that article.) Seriously, Slashdot, this is the kind of crap we're told we should expect from the "History" Channel, not our favourite hyperbolic tech news site!

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    1. Re:Make it stop by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2

      Time was, you wouldn't even expect this from the history channel. It's even weird to say that now.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    2. Re:Make it stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most "mythical" cities have turned out to be real. Often they are less awe inspiring that the fables but they are generally real. Odds are there was a city that corresponded to the stories of Atlantis that was less impressive but the odds of it being identified are nearly zero. In truth it may have not been called Atlantis by the residents. One of the problems is over the last 10,000 years there have been hundreds of small civilizations that have not been found or identified. In a single location there could have been dozens of different cultures or civilizations. In the British Isles there have been quite a number and it's one of the proposed locations for Atlantis, believe it or not it fits a number of the conditions for Atlantis if you go back to when sea levels were lower. It will probably never be identified but it probably existed.

    3. Re:Make it stop by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      Most "mythical" cities have turned out to be real.

      Most? Can you support that claim?

      It will probably never be identified but it probably existed.

      If you had the most rudimentary understanding of Plato's "Dramatic Dialogues", you'd realize that there's not the slightest reason to believe it ever existed.

      Plato wrote fictions, usually starring the late Socrates, to convey his philosophy. The Socrates we all know and love is probably more nearly Plato's sock puppet than the real man. And any "ancient history" worked into the stories is made up to support the philosophy.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    4. Re:Make it stop by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      And the 7 Cities of Troy didn't exist either right? I thought so. There's been enough things lost through disasters that we could be searching for a very long time.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Make it stop by DiegoBravo · · Score: 1

      Before Schliemann nobody knew for sure about the reality of Troy and the whole Homer opus with its mix of men and gods. Atlantis is a different case, where a very modern tale is fabricated from twisted interpretations of old passages, and that fabrication is very well documented as a hoax. Atlantis is in the same category as Chariots_of_gods for example.

    6. Re:Make it stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Troy and Ur were found exactly where they were supposed to be located. Shangri la is believed to actually be a series of villages along the Silk Road high in the mountains. People commonly live past a 100 years of age there but it doesn't look that impressive. As I said many of the cities or mythical locations aren't as awe inspiring as the tales. Ur was a fairly nondescript desert town but it was along a trade route where the stories said it would be. There have been dozens found. A few obvious omissions are things like El Dorado but it was probably more a tale tale than even a myth. The city might have been found but was so unimpressive the connection was never made. Lemuria/Mu is thought to have been more a translation error than a place. Even the underwater part of Alexandria was once a myth but it has been found. There's a difference between pure fantasy as in locations talked about in myths than places that have been talked about as an actual location that was lost. Even Pompeii was a mythic site at one time. Many of the ancient cities were. Hey good ole "Vinland" was a mythic place in Norse sagas. I just happen to be living there now. I think if you did the numbers on the major mythic locations, I'm not talking the thousands of obscure ones, you'd find the majority have been found. In truth only a handful that have yet to be found come to mind. Do a little research and you might be surprised. FYI I'm not talking about things like Solomon's mines or the Lost Dutchman's mine. I'm talking cities.

    7. Re:Make it stop by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Most "mythical" cities have turned out to be real.

      A baseless assumption, but let's go with it.

      Odds are there was a city ...

      No. Just like with a coin, the odds on the next flip remain the same. Atlantis being an actual site is true or not. Just because other cities (I really don't recall all that many verified finds) have been found says not one thing about the odds of this one being found, or real. The fact that Plato named his work "Dramatic Dialogues", says a bit more.

    8. Re:Make it stop by ebuck · · Score: 1

      And the 7 Cities of Troy didn't exist either right? I thought so. There's been enough things lost through disasters that we could be searching for a very long time.

      In this case, it's more like searching for the 7 cities of Gold than the 7 cities of Troy. Just saying.

    9. Re:Make it stop by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      You've given some examples of places referenced in literature and legend that turned out to be true. For the claim "most mythical cities turned out to be real" you would have to actually do a proper survey of all the mythical cities, places, etc.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:Make it stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > this is the kind of crap we're told we should expect from the "History" Channel

      Try the National Geographic Channel (owned by Fox, they license the name). They are running a special on it tonight. Curious timing, no?

    11. Re:Make it stop by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

      Troy

      I'm not sure Troy counts as mythical. As recently as the early Byzantine era a traveller from western Europe visited the site and reported with astonishment that he found the eternal flame at Achilles' tomb was burning. Turned out that the local Christian Bishop was keeping it up.

      Western Europe went through a Dark Age, and later it became stylish for Western scholars to dismiss everything as myth, but the information has been around continuously since the Hellenic Dark Ages.

      and Ur

      Not sure why you call this one mythical either.

      Shangri la is believed to actually be a series of villages along the Silk Road

      IOW, somebody thinks it was a myth derived from a series of villages? Hardly fits the definition of a mythical city that turned out to be real.

      Even the underwater part of Alexandria was once a myth but it has been found.

      Part of Alexandria sank in an earthquake. There was no mythical city.

      Even Pompeii was a mythic site at one time.

      Don't know why you would say that. No lesser a person than Pliny the Younger watched it from across the bay and left us an eyewitness report.

      IIRC, Pliny the Elder died in the event.

      Do a little research and you might be surprised.

      The only thing research has taught me is how ignorant the masses are. (And how ignorant I certainly am as well, on topics that I haven't researched.)

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    12. Re:Make it stop by gtall · · Score: 1

      It is easy to support. In general, most myths have a basis in fact....take for instance, the Easter Bunny.

      Let's thank T'ealc from Stargate for that one, absolutely priceless.

  8. Thera/Santorini? by JonBuck · · Score: 2

    I know this is armchair archeology, but I thought that the evidence pointed at that island and the Minoan civilization in general to be the source of the Atlantis legend. The tsunami from that caldera eruption did wipe out Minoan coastal towns and opened the way for the Mycenaeans to expand.

    1. Re:Thera/Santorini? by rhathar · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is no "general source" for the Atlantis "legend". There's a very specific one. It's Plato. He made it up for a story.

      --
      http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
    2. Re:Thera/Santorini? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they just ran out of Orichalcum.

    3. Re:Thera/Santorini? by Mr_Huber · · Score: 1

      And then some people, unwilling to give Plato credit for an imagination, insist he must be retelling some local legend or relating some half remembered folk history.

    4. Re:Thera/Santorini? by Evil+Pete · · Score: 2

      You haven't read The Critias or The Timaeus have you?

      Plato goes to great lengths to try to persuade the reader that this is in fact a true story based on the what was told to a relative of his which Plato committed to memory when he was a boy.

      Quite some time back I grew curious about the legend and invested some time in trying to find out if it is just an invention or whatever. And if there is any truth then where is the "real" Atlantis. My conclusion was that Plato probably heard some stories about past disasters (it is a tectonically active area), and maybe even got the gist of the destruction of Minoa from the Egyptians (via his relative Solon). Then he just wove a story to suit his own ends. The proof of the invention part is in the design of the city and the statistics on the army and navy. Wont go into details but it reveals when the story is written. It is a product of its time. But looking for where the story might have come from reveals something surprising: the world is filled with lost civilisations and cities. They are not unusual. We know very little about the past.

      --
      Bitter and proud of it.
    5. Re:Thera/Santorini? by schmidt349 · · Score: 1

      Plato goes to great lengths to try to persuade the reader that this is in fact a true story based on the what was told to a relative of his which Plato committed to memory when he was a boy.

      See, if you read the _rest_ of Plato, you find that this is a very common trope for him. He distances himself from the truth of a statement by putting it at multiple layers of indirect speech. Also, the character doing the talking is quasi-fictional to begin with (Plato's Socrates is _not_ the historical Socrates).

    6. Re:Thera/Santorini? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Although it is certainly possible he used the general vague recollection (various minor references in legend and story) of the Minoan civilization as a template to provide slightly more credibility to his story.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    7. Re:Thera/Santorini? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      Plato goes to great lengths to try to persuade the reader that this is in fact a true story based on the what was told to a relative of his which Plato committed to memory when he was a boy.

      See, if you read the _rest_ of Plato, you find that this is a very common trope for him. He distances himself from the truth of a statement by putting it at multiple layers of indirect speech.

      And in this case it was "a heard it from b, who heard it from c, who heard it from..." Up to about g or so.

      And this in a dramatic dialogue, which was a fictional vehicle for Plato's views. In this case, a report on the after-dinner conversation at a party Plato didn't attend (if it happened at all).

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    8. Re:Thera/Santorini? by sznupi · · Score: 0

      Not really particularly surprising. Maybe, at most, in the context of the other myths; how we like to convince ourselves about reliability of our memory (heck, not even only collective one, also individual - how not very conscious of ourselves, of our minds we are: a list of cognitive biases here, pointing out how split-brain people are almost unchanged, how when older we start to believe myths about greatness of our youth, how we are generally closer to our peers than to ourselves at distant life stages, mention of one localized brain trauma resulting in people becoming completely blind without them realizing it - fits Plato...)

      While we... not so much "forget", but just "don't particularly care" even about our direct & very, very recent ancestors (quick, without checking tell me the date and place of birth of your grandparents! Which is rather important to us, deals with "from where you are?" and apparent age, a very powerful determinants of our view of others, of social interactions); vs. popular myths of "hey, we are so important, gods exist and love us, more of us are alive now than have ever lived!" (ignoring 100+ billion already dead homo sapiens sapiens... at least we will be similarly ignored very quickly, so there's some "balance") and other harmful bullshit lies, many of them basically about ancient history and still living in present societies. And as always, "the victors wrote history" / etc.

      Nah, it's not surprising.
      And time of our lives would fit few pages in average history book from distant future...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    9. Re:Thera/Santorini? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      There is no general source, and in fact various places are identified of the origin of the atlantis myth. The highest possibility is Thera/Santorini which comes closest, the site the article talks about is also a bronze age civilisation in spain which also fell around the mid bronze age.
      Also there is a handful of other mediterenneaen civilisations which would be candidates.
      What I would exclude is the flooding of the mediterranean basin and the black sea, that had been too long before Platos time to give anything meaningful anymore.
      But given the lack of resources on the Egyptian side and they have documented a lot of their works in stone, it is very likely that Plato made everything up and no Atlantis legend was existent anymore in his time, but some other legends around Thera and the sea people might have been still floating around in Egyptian records.

    10. Re:Thera/Santorini? by siriuskase · · Score: 1

      A city gets wiped out by water. A city big enough for people to care about. It happens in fiction and it happens in real life. Was the real Port Royal anywhere nears as sinful or as much fun as the legendary Port Royal? That city hasn't had anywhere near as much time as Atlantis.

      --
      If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
  9. Plato has a lot to answer for ... by Kittenman · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess these things get funded by crackpots with more money than sense; the same breed who want to track down Noah's ark, Moses's sandal and the gourd left behind by Brian.

    --
    "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Plato has a lot to answer for ... by C0R1D4N · · Score: 1

      People tend to make great discoveries when looking for something else. The Americas are a good example. Viagra as well.

  10. Atlantis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Which Atlantis is this?

    The one from Stargate Atlantis, or the one from Interpose with the overlynxes?

    1. Re:Atlantis by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I think they're looking for a copy of the Atari game. I've got a cart right here, no need to start looking on Google Earth.

  11. Was it not in Plato’s head? by Flavianoep · · Score: 2

    I’ve read thoroughly Plato‘s Republic and although I couldn’t spot where Atlantis ended, it’s clear where it began: a dialogue.

    --
    Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
  12. Atlantis real location by lordshipmayhem · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have it on very good authority that Atlantis is not in Spain. It's in Florida, assigned to Launch on Need Mission STS-335. Hopefully it never is needed, but instead goes directly to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

    1. Re:Atlantis real location by Zumbs · · Score: 2

      I thought it was already settled that the Atlantis of Plato was on the Moon. I mean, we have been searching everywhere on Earth, so the next logical step is the Moon ... or Mars, maybe.

      --
      The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
    2. Re:Atlantis real location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A spaceship in Florida? I thought Atlanta was in Georgia?

    3. Re:Atlantis real location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, already assigned for STS-135, scheduled for June 28th.

    4. Re:Atlantis real location by Keramos · · Score: 2

      Or the Pegasus Galaxy, perhaps?

    5. Re:Atlantis real location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, nowadays it's parked (cloaked) in the San Francisco bay.
      oups, *spoiler*

    6. Re:Atlantis real location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They plan to launch sts-335 anyway, with just 3 guys that could catch a ride on the soyuz. It's the first time since the first flight that so few people would ride in the shuttle.

  13. The City _in_ the Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone knows that Atlantis was left floating in S.F. Bay on January 9th, 2009.

  14. have they found Tartarus yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That was the deepest pit in the underground where dead sinners were sent for punishment, according to Plato and many other ancient Greek writers.

    That should be worth another research grant.

  15. Immediately skeptical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Immediately.

  16. they found Tartarus by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2

    It is discovered that Tartarus is ancient name for Washington DC.

  17. Billy Batts by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 2

    The continent of Atlantis was an island
    Which lay before the great flood
    In the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
    So great an area of land,
    That from her western shores
    Those beautiful sailors journeyed
    To the South and the North Americas with ease,
    In their ships with painted sails.
    To the East Africa was a neighbour,
    Across a short strait of sea miles.

    1. Re:Billy Batts by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      I heard Donovan's old song on the radio recently. To my surprise, it has aged quite well - especially the spoken part.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:Billy Batts by coredog64 · · Score: 3, Funny

      The gods of our legends were there:

      Ted Turner, Hank Aaron, Jeff Foxworthy, the magician, the guy who invented Coca Cola. Also, Jane Fonda was there.

      Oops -- I thought we were talking about the lost city of Atlanta.

  18. Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ancient city of Atlantis is in the Pegasus galaxy. Stargate command knows all about it.
     

  19. I'm appalled by zill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is anyone else sickened by these people that capitalize on natural disasters?

    1. Re:I'm appalled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. And I'm loving the Godzilla jokes, too.

    2. Re:I'm appalled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm appalled too - and sickened by your cynicism.

      Or perhaps you're prepared to divulge your certainty of the existence of time travel?

      Do you actually think that the years of research Richard Freund put into his discovery was dictated by his desire to wait for a disaster like that in Japan, to add some slight popular (not even scientific) credibility to it? Really? That's pathetic.

    3. Re:I'm appalled by zill · · Score: 1

      Their research claims that a tsunami destroyed a city that was 60 miles inland, while the recent tsunami only reached as far as 6 miles inland. It's obvious that their archaeological site didn't have anything to do with tsunamis.

      I don't doubt the validity of their research. I just question whether it has anything to do with tsunamis at all.

    4. Re:I'm appalled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, We Are All Sickened By Over Capitalization.

  20. Old as time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No mention to the lost city of Tartessos, no mention that the first hypothesis of Atlantis in Doñana marshes dates from XVII century...

    If they have finally found it, congratulations. But there are centuries of people looking for that city in the same place.

  21. Cuba? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought Atlantis was off the coast of Cuba? :P

  22. These are some cynical 'researchers' by fredmosby · · Score: 1

    They are trying to capitalize on a disaster that probably killed tens of thousands of people in order to get media attention for their questionable theories.

    1. Re:These are some cynical 'researchers' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dude, if Atlantis even existed, then it sank thousands of years ago. There's such a thing as taking "too soon" too far.

    2. Re:These are some cynical 'researchers' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He began research early Friday morning I presume? Troll more, failure.

    3. Re:These are some cynical 'researchers' by fredmosby · · Score: 1

      No, but when they saw that tsunamis were in the news they decided to piggyback on that publicity and make a press release. Also, a troll is someone who says something that they know is wrong in order to make people upset, not someone you disagree with.

  23. pfft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moronic scientists. Everyone knows Atlantis is buried under a mile of ice in Antarctica...

  24. Total bullshit by joeszilagyi · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows Atlantis is in the Pegasus galaxy.

    --
    Dude, where's my packet?
  25. Oh sure by DrXym · · Score: 1

    Anyone claiming anything a site is Atlantis is either a crank or a sell out. Serious archaeologists do not make such bold proclamations unless they want to be skinned alive by their peers. And throwing in a hook about a tsunami seems like ghoulish self promotion in the current circumstances

    1. Re:Oh sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone claiming anything a site is Atlantis is either a crank or a sell out. Serious archaeologists do not make such bold proclamations unless they want to be skinned alive by their peers. And throwing in a hook about a tsunami seems like ghoulish self promotion in the current circumstances

      They used to say the exact same thing about Troy, and then someone dug it up. Same with King Tut's tomb.

      Serious archaeologists do not claim that a site doesn't exist just because it hasn't been found. Those are the crackpots who have an agenda to push; real scientists are Skeptics, not Disbelievers.

    2. Re:Oh sure by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Anyone claiming anything a site is Atlantis is either a crank or a sell out. Serious archaeologists do not make such bold proclamations unless they want to be skinned alive by their peers. And throwing in a hook about a tsunami seems like ghoulish self promotion in the current circumstances

      They used to say the exact same thing about Troy, and then someone dug it up. Same with King Tut's tomb.

      Serious archaeologists do not claim that a site doesn't exist just because it hasn't been found. Those are the crackpots who have an agenda to push; real scientists are Skeptics, not Disbelievers.

      Rubbish. Proper archeology is driven by laboriously mapping & excavating sites, recovering fragments of pottery, writing, jewelry, carvings, writing, analysing firepit, bone & plant remains, taking soil samples, dendrochronological dating and everything else. It's tedious, backbreaking, uncomfortable and methodical work as likely to end in failure as success. And when all that is done, the conclusions made must be supported by the evidence you have gathered and published in a peer reviewed journal. If you're lucky you might find something spectacular and compelling, a lost city maybe or a dead king, but you had damned better have the evidence to support it. Which you will find in your cited examples they did.

      In the absence of such evidence you cannot just proclaim Atlantis. That is the hallmark of pseudo archeology, of cranks and attention whores. People with a TV show or book to plug. The Erich von Danikens and Graham Hancocks of this world who engage in the worst kind of making shit up to sell books. And yes Atlantis is a staple of these cranks because it's a magnet to the New Age kooks who like these books.

      It appears that TV shows do it too, shamefully even National Geographic. There's nothing like a bit of bait and switch to drum up ratings. Toss in the word Atlantis and tsunami to promote the show, front load with hyperbolic reimaginings of Atlantis with phony CGI and then string the viewer out for an hour before concluding it's just a sunken boat loaded with rocks, or a dumping ground for stone anchors, or some natural feature or some other mundane structure and there is zero evidence to support any other conclusion.

    3. Re:Oh sure by Monchanger · · Score: 1

      Well put. TFA has all the hallmarks of made-for-television "science."

      Doing just a tiny bit of digging I wonder if Prof. Freund is actually a crackpot, or if he just looks like it by his association with mass-media.

      There's a little more information about this show to be found in a Harvard article advertising the screening they had last week. Probably not enough to convince any skeptics, but it is more substantial than just saying he's got an intriguing satellite photo the way TFA does. I don't think those two stone figurines in the photo of him are very impressive, and certainly not indicative of the advanced civilization Atlantis was supposed to be.

      He has also been featured on NOVA several years ago in another very unlikely and controversial finding. That one was actually in his field of expertise, Judaic history, but the transcript suggests that very little humility is observed in reaching his conclusions. Now this could all just be due to editing, an unfortunate choices of words captured on film, and the need for ratings. And perhaps he's put himself in a position where he can't say something like "no, that's misleading- don't use that title for the show." At the moment I doubt that all of these are the case.

      Until I can watch the show to see more information, I find it concerning how he keeps running into these very improbable "finds" and how this new one isn't even in his primary field. I'll be counting the number of weasel words appearing in the show. How many per minute constitutes pseudoscience? My second question is this- obviously a NatGeo show does nothing to improve the credibility of one's work in professional circles, but is cooperating with mass-media to secure funding (esp. in a day where it's hard to come) for actual archaeology work wrong, and should it hinder one's credibility to use such funding?

  26. imported tear gas designed to protect human rights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    even at point blank range. quote from sudemonese general (mutant). damned
    aljizzearah senserationalists, sheesh

    are they adrians, or what? mynutswon; still censored, after all these years

  27. The article casts doubt on itself! by nuckfuts · · Score: 1

    While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis...

    Yep, that's what the world has been waiting for. More unproven speculation about Atlantis.

  28. Ginger Avengers by specific · · Score: 0

    It's those lousy spud-spanking Irish trailer-trolls. They've been making up stories about their ancient past for millennium.

    --
    If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
  29. Just discover it already. by tregeagle · · Score: 1

    Yup it's true, King Arthur is waiting in Atlantis.
      He's pretty bored, the last bit of excitement was when Elvis arrived and gave Captain Nemo a wedgie.

  30. I was starting to worry! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

    Usually Atlantis gets discovered every six months, but I haven't heard anything for nearly two years!

    (Insert usual diatribe about the purpose of Plato's fiction, and the idiocy of anyone who believes it. Sorry, but I'm tired of typing it up everytime a new discovery is announced on Slashdot.)

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:I was starting to worry! by Konsalik · · Score: 1

      The recession caused budget cuts and layoffs in the "does-aquaman-know?" dept.

    2. Re:I was starting to worry! by ebuck · · Score: 1

      Usually Atlantis gets discovered every six months, but I haven't heard anything for nearly two years!

      (Insert usual diatribe about the purpose of Plato's fiction, and the idiocy of anyone who believes it. Sorry, but I'm tired of typing it up everytime a new discovery is announced on Slashdot.)

      So I was telling this really bad joke on the Internet, and I heard a lan tis!

  31. Troy was once just a legend as well. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A huge city, lost in time, just talked about as legend. Until Frank Calvert dug it up in 1865.

  32. It's not fucking Atlantis! by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Atlantis never existed. It is a fictional place. Plato made the whole thing up! He admitted that!

  33. Atlantis vs. Athens by Troll-Under-D'Bridge · · Score: 2

    The mythical Atlantis represented Athens in the play and was sunk to show that the result of such political arrogance resulted in destruction.

    That's not exactly correct. Atlantis is set up as the anti-thesis, or opposite, of Athens, an anti-Athens, if you will. The second paragraph of the Wikipedia article[*] on Atlantis states:

    In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".

    Of course, one could still mean that Atlantis, by being the opposite of Athens, actually represents Athens! But that's a semantic subtlety best reserved for a philosophical forum, not a social tech news site.

    [*]I know. Not the most trustworthy resource. But the basic details appear to be borne out by a simple GSearch (keywords: "Atlantis" "Athens") showing the clear distinction being made between two advanced ancient states.

  34. discount christian louboutin shoes by afra99 · · Score: 0

    The butterfly was discount christian louboutin shoes freed, emerged from the cocoon, and fluttered about discount louboutin but could not fly. What the compassionate person did not know was that christian louboutin only through the birth struggle can the wings grow strong enough for discount shoes flight. Its shortened life was spent on the ground, it never knew freedom, never really lived http://www.louboutins-shoesexy.com/.

  35. Re:Yawn - no problem. It's right here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tolkien used lots of references from this Earth. "Middle Earth" is an old medieval concept, Earth
    being middle between Heaven and Hell. You occasionally find it in old literature.

    So... you're on middle earth, as am I and the rest of us. Since it suggests a flat-earth cosmogony,
    the term isn't much used any more.

  36. And Colombo discovered America... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeahh, Hollywood rules

  37. A possible Location for Atlantis by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Great, will Joe Flanaghan and David Hewlett be back as Col Sheppard and Dr Mckay ? I could care less about Ronin and Teyla

  38. I know where it is by dlgeek · · Score: 2

    I know exactly where Atlantis is! It's at 28 degrees, 35 minutes, 8.89 seconds north by 80 degrees, 39 minutes, 17.97 seconds west.

    (When will slashcode ever support non-ascii symbols?)

    1. Re:I know where it is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kennedy space centre? Why?

    2. Re:I know where it is by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      really you make the effort to work out the location and you still don't get it?

    3. Re:I know where it is by rossdee · · Score: 1

      Whooooshhh

      (thats either the sound of that joke flying over your head , or STS 135 going up to rescue Congreswoman Giffords husband and the rest of the Endeavour crew.( if some chunk of ice fell of it on takeoff and damaged it so it may not be safe for reentry.

  39. Just a fluff piece for National Geographic. Shame. by __aavqan3009 · · Score: 1

    Reuters should be ashamed.

  40. Typical! by savi · · Score: 3, Funny

    In any historical discussion on slashdot, it's only a matter of time until the gourd-deniers show up. Bunch of crazies. They're the only group more persistent than creationists and more dense than global warming deniers.

  41. Just wait... by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

    I figure that by the year 4011, Slashdot (or its analogue) will be posting stories about some dude claiming to have found the remains of the 3-kilometer-long "RMS Gigantic", as described in the popular tale by the ancient author called Spielberg.

    (...and there will *still* be jokes about hot grits, jokes about Soviets, and the occasional goatse link. And people will still bitch about the new layout).

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  42. Where next? by kooky45 · · Score: 1

    In 2,000 years time will researchers claim to have found the locations of Lilliput and Blefuscu?!

  43. waste of time because... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    someone already spotted it using Google Maps recently. It's off the north coast of Africa.

  44. Spoiler on SGA finale. by Barryke · · Score: 1

    Atlantis was parked on Earth years ago.

    --
    Hivemind harvest in progress..
  45. Plato and Aristotle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you read Aristotle's Politics, you'll see the most ham-fisted, unsubtle interpretation of Platos's Republic in existence. Aristotle takes literally what is explicitly said by Plato to be an allegory.

  46. Re:Just a fluff piece for National Geographic. Sha by Curmudgeonlyoldbloke · · Score: 2

    Damn right - and in exceptionally poor taste as well.

    How can someone who's first thought on hearing of the disaster in Japan is to release a tsunami-related press release for a TV show live with themselves?

  47. again? by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    I thought we already covered this one,..... they left a while back to fight the wraith, and wont be back till the finale....in that ship of theirs,
    then we will all see what atlantis looks like....sheesh!

  48. doesn't really look all that anciet-y by foxpaws · · Score: 1

    says Col. Sheppard of this newly found so-called "Atlantis"

    Really, though, we could use a few ZPM's (pronounced in that cute Canadian way, of course) and a shield or two. A stargate would be nice, but I like the Pegusus ones. Better lights, more disco-y.

    Oh, and a puddle jumper.

    --
    Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle. -Firefly
  49. Earliest sci-fi by Slur · · Score: 1

    It's arguable that the earliest sci-fi exists in Hindu literature dating to ~2500 years ago. Flying machines, missiles, energy beams, and space ships are all featured in the Ramayana. Sure, the main characters are godlike beings, but they definitely haz the high tex!

    --
    -- thinkyhead software and media
    1. Re:Earliest sci-fi by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure the Bible (OT) has stuff about flying saucers and lasers that are even older. But, of course, people say it's about "angels" ...

    2. Re:Earliest sci-fi by mikael · · Score: 1

      I read about that - there was a book about Vimanas which claimed to be translated from ancient Sanskrit documents.
      It was fascinating read at a sci-fi/steampunk level as the technology described was more basic physics than anything way out there:

      o Tinted windows to screen against infra-red / UV light to avoid annoying glare - at the time I read this book, the windows on our office block were actually laminated with blue/purple plastic to do this exact task.

      o A pair of parabolic dishes to amplify sound to detect other systems.
      o Colored oils and a light projector to project images of lions, tigers, skulls on surfaces to scare the natives.
      o Shaped pipes (wider at the bottom than the top) and hot wires to create a propulsion system (like those hot wire standing wave pipe experiments)
      o Recessed cylinders along the side of the craft with propellers to create a stabilisation system
      o Releasabe fireworks/dyes to create camouflage smoke trails
      o Phosphorus screens, lenses and crystals to detect buried explosives (rays would be emitted, then reflected back to illuminate the phosphorus screen). I wondered if that would be some kind of X-ray emission/UV absorption system

      Really wonder how many of these actually would work...

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  50. Atlantis never existed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Atlantis never existed. Seriously, that's all that needs to be said.

  51. Stories about totally fake archaeology? by GregLaden · · Score: 1

    This should be filed in the Slashdot-Cares-Not-About-Credibility department.

  52. More to the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Evidence suggests that this technologically advanced utopia used Ogg/Vorbis and Theora.

  53. All right you Atlantis-sceptics by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    How come it's still called the fucking Alantic ocean, huh?

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  54. Then you've never done grant writing by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    I won't go into how real scientists are not necessarily "Skeptics" which is a over simplified characterization of the philosophy of science. Disbelief as well as belief run counter to good science- ideally that is the case; however, intellectually honest believers/disbelievers can accomplish a lot of good science - the science ideals themselves are not the greatest motivators of humans... Irrational behavior is the NORM for humans not the other way around and this goes for practitioners of science as well.

    The masses and their mass media warp things extremely and the influence of scientists and the mass media is bidirectional. Time travel and parallel universes for example are really taken way off to the point where scientists are playing with the tripe - its a far bigger leap but more acceptable to people right now.

    1) writing grants involves targeting people on the outside; motivation/inspiration and marketing while trying not to discredit oneself too much with the potential rewards claimed. I think of it as being similar to media whoring.

    2) Describing to the public in a similar but more sensationalized entertainment form is bound to have a "Hollywood" warp but it can motivate people to get started on something that they wouldn't have otherwise. I find this is usually quite harmless and far far cheaper than a stupid manned mission to mars to "inspire the next generation of scientists."

    Some believer who's gone a bit too far may practice bad science but still could be an extremely valuable contributor - He may find signs of primitive cultures and lose interest in ape-men while looking for his mass-media inspired utopia - but others can build upon it; at least by disproving his theories.

    Global Dimming scientists were not treated well - and they were not being sensationalists; however, if they had been bashed down long enough with tattered reputations I'd not be surprised if some didn't start getting grants from the coal/oil industries - what more would they have to lose? Anyhow, in the end they came out fine as continual work on their side as well as the majority opposition (disbelievers and skeptics) eventually found out Global Dimming fits and actually strengthens Global warming science. The process wasn't the Utopian view of science purported by pop culture.

    I like to ponder what we'd think of Egypt if they weren't into making stone records... How did humans get on Hawaii? The 'technology' to do that had to be extremely advanced for the time period; it could have become legendary - but did not... or well, if it was we've not found records - they weren't into stone monuments. Atlantis may or may not have a kernel of truth behind it won't likely ever know without a time machine... ;-p (I wouldn't be surprised if the name turned out to be a variation for other reasons...like the story sounded better if it was a distant island instead of beneath the local volcano.)

  55. C'mon guys! by GCPSoft · · Score: 1

    Everybody knows Atlantis is floating near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, after being moved from the Pegasus galaxy...

  56. Atlantis is near Chicago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every one knows it. First the city was in Pegasus galaxy , but the brave folks from SG flew with the city to Earth....

  57. Discovery of Atlantis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The underground site, does appear to have many of Plato's physical descriptions of what Atlantis was like. What is most revealing is an inscription found on a large stone surface that does bear the symbol of the Lost Continent. This symbol is on my book's cover; which can be accessed at http://bookofatlantis.com Needless to say, I was both shocked and excited to see this symbol actualized by contemporary archeology.

    The problem is that this site is far too late to be Atlantis. It's carbon dated to have been built between 6,000 and 5,000 BCE. Which is well over 3,000 years after Atlantis sank into the Sea. This according to Plato's reference dates given to him by Solon; who in turn received this information from Egyptian priests. These Priests revealed that Atlantis existed over 10,000 years before Solon's time.

    There are reference points that suggest this site is more likely connected to the “Sea People” made reference to in Egyptian, Greek and Biblical historical texts, as well as by Plato himself. The people who are reputed, by Plato, to have defeated Atlantean forces in a great Sea Battle and established many colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Plato even alluded to these people originally having settled Athens. Some writers even suggest the very first Troy was founded by them as well.

      This current site, therefore, can hardly be the original Atlantis. It is more probably a clone, facsimile or imitation of what was thought among many ancient people to be the design of the legendary Atlantean Capital City of Atalan. This would be something that was quite common in the ancient world. Every ancient civilization of note attempted to copy the culture and architecture of Atlantis just as we still copy much from the Romans of 2000 years ago.

      The Spanish site does appear to resemble the three concentric rings described by Plato, but so do several other potential “Atlantis” sites located around other volcanic origins. i.e. Santorini. What is most impressive about this particular discovery at Donana is the very tangible evidence of what was known to be the actual symbol of Atlantis. The three concentric rings with a line in the center. This symbol was found carved upon a large stone surface... a marking stone. The style of the human figure on it looks much like the human figures in the cave paintings found in Southern France, which are not far from this location. This may indicate a possible stylistic and/or cultural relationship. I suggest, this stone marker actually establishes archeological credence for the very existence of Atlantis. That it definitely was created as a reference to the Lost Continent.

    I also suggest everyone has been looking in all the wrong places. Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean near what is now referred to as the Sargasso Sea. 500 miles east of Bermuda and 100 miles south.

    I believe that Donana is the first great discovery link that will finally lead to Atlantis' true location. Established archeology will be forced to rethink its long time, negative, stance on Atlantis. This will be especially true after a number of currently underway excavations, such a Donana, begin to reveal more examples of a unique symbolic connection, some of which are soon to be found everywhere from Spain to India, as well as from around Bimini, Cuba and Bermuda. I predict that even more startling discoveries are to come from Turkey, Egypt, Southern Iran and even Peru.

    Eventually all the pieces will start to come together and a picture of the true Atlantis will finally emerge. If you wish to save much time and energy, you might choose to check out my own Atlantean revelations in Atlantis: A Karmic Memory of the Rise & Fall available at http://bookofatlantis.com. Then you may decide for yourself, where the true location of Atlantis is.

    by Zarin, author of the book, "Atlantis: A Karmic History of the Rise & Fall"
    For more information on this by Zarin, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqsiT_3Oztw