Atlantis: Fact or Fiction?

[privatehudson]

I'd be more inclined to look into the Tartessos claims if the link worked.

 

[Xen]

*sigh* they must have gotten rid of it- it was soem ago, and nothing has coem of it (word hasnt really been spread about the importance of the site to Bronze/ early iron age history in western europe, and neither has the Atlantis connection been widelly publicized because the Minoans make a good "political" fit for the Atlanteans- the biggest factor is that I said earlier, the site is in the middle of a national park, making any digs, more then likelly, a real fight to get done.

 

[Xen]

however, BBC to the rescue

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3766863.stm

 

[Reno]

Atlantis, IMO, did exist. Not in the way that Plato wrote about it, but it did exist. The one thing that i think that Plato might have gotten right is that Atlantis was located beyond the Pilars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). My own thought is that it most likely was Tartessos.

 

[IronMan2055]

I have been seeing some history channel programs about atlantis. I think they were on to some thing, its all ready been mentioned here just not much. They thought atlantis was buried underground at a coastal medaterrian area surrounded by either hills or mountians I forgot, and they think an earthquake happened there causing under ground sources of water to spring up and a rock slide to happen. Then the earthquake caused a tidal wave that bounced across the water causing not a lot of damage because the other area wasn't inhabited. Next the wave came back and rushed across the small amount of land above sea level into the city below raising the water even more and then the rock slide covered it. They have proved a rock slide happened there in that time period do too geological activite and they've excavated the site which today is inhabited once again but settled far after the time that atlantis is supposed to have exsisted and they found houses and pottery dating to that period. (see there is a period )

 

[El_Tigre]

Now that's what I call a long sentence! And it ends with a period.

Do you remember in which country that place was?

 

[Steph]

Tartessos is an interesting contender.

I'd like to cast a different light on the Bull connection though.
We can often find link to astronomical phenomenas.
The vernal equinox is the day when the sun crosses the celestial equator. It also marks the beginning of the year, and thus as a great symbolical importance. When it does so, it crosses a "fixed" zodical sign.
Due to the precession of the Equinoxes, the visible stars turns very slowly in the sky. In 25 800 years, it makes a complete turns. With 12 zodiacal signs, it means that the sign in which the sun crosses the celestial equator at the vernal equinox changes every 2200 years (aproximate, are the different zodical signs are not the same size).
So now, if you look at the actual length of the Zodiac signs (real number of days instead of the conventional 30 of the Tropical zodiac used in astronomy), you find that Pisces last 36 days, Aries 24, Taurus 37.
So compared to the duration of the precession of Equinoxes, it means a real length of 2550 years for Pisces, 1696 years for Aries, 2615 years for Taurus.
The vernal equinox is now in Pisces, and should move to Aquarius around 2600 AD. In about 50 AD, it moves from Aries to Pisces, in circa 1600 BC from Taurus to Aries.

So in 4000 BC, the vernal equinox was in Taurus. The Bull. So the Bull was regarded as a "sacred" animal, in Babylon, Egypt (Apis), Crete, or Tartassos, by the priests / astronomers, as the sign that started the year, and thus symbolize birth..
Then, 2600 years later (approximately), the vernal equinox moved to Aries (the ram).
And the jews replaced the bull with the sheep (look at the lamb eaten for easter, etc), as a kind of symbol of change from one era to another.
Then, 1600 years later (at the beginning of the spread of christianity), it moves to Pisces. And the first christians used the fish as a recognition symbol...

This picture shows in the inner wheel the zodiac as seen in modern astrology, and in the outer circle the real astronomical zodiac

Just to say that the common point between Create and Tartessos about bull is probably not really linked to an common Atlantean culture, but more to a general astronomical pattern

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

it would have significant archeological and cultural importance in what ever form it existed in.

Precisely, and it would cause an explosion in the number of people seeking other supposedly mythical cities that were lost to time. Just like when tombs and mummies (Egypt) were brought to the public eye in the 1800's, there was a massively increased interest in the subject, with museums scrambling to get artifacts from this ancient civilization, and everyone wanting to find out more and more on how this people lived. This increased the funding, resources, and even the number of archeological expeditions and people going into the archeological field. I myself, and I believe Xen, are on a MUST know basis when it comes to the history, creation, and advancement of mankind.

The discovery of Atlantis would open a whole new chapter in human history if found to be true.

 

[IronMan2055]

Now that's what I call a long sentence! And it ends with a period.

Do you remember in which country that place was?

bah i have no time for periods i like run ons. no i don't remember which country i saw it like 6 months ago

 

[Odin2006]

I'm with the Minoan crowd. The story sure sounds like the super-eruption on Thera/Santorini to me.

 

[vlad299]

I think its true. Plato probably got some of the locatoions and/or dates wrong, because some of the south american indiens, called their land Alanis, or Alane (not sure, i returned the libvrary book), so my guess is thst it was somewhere closer to south america, rather than spain. And besides, there are a lot of volcano's in the atlantic, and we dont know how much of the world was explored back then. Also since humans came from africa, then they split, on went east, and populated india, asia, australis, americas, and some islands in the pacific, while other group went west, to europe, and stoped there. Now wouldn't they at all be curious what lies beyond the ocean (before Columbus), and at least try to find out? Maybe they did, and they found some island, of a relatively large size(like 50 km across?), and they settled there, and made an isolated civilization, which was destryed be a volcano eruption. After all, people got to hawai(?) from asia, why not atlantis?

 

[History_Buff]

Up till now I had always believed that Atlantis was in fact Thera or some island close by, but Tartessos does sound like an ever better hypothesis.

What I most certainly do not believe is the theories that have Atlantis sited in America, or near the Azores. As much as I've seen suggests that there is no way a Phonecio-Greco-Roman sailor would have had a good enough boat to sail all the way to the Americas or even the Azores. These were people who were not big fans of sailing out of sight of the coast unless it could be avoided. If I had to pick a set of Atlantic islands to be Atlanis, I would most likely choose the Canaries.

 

[Warman17]

I agree withXen's theory. Plus that was a really interesting find Steph. Learn something new everyday I suppose

 

[onejayhawk]

I once read a story concerning the origins of the flood stories. It involved the flooding of the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. Other theories involve the flooding of the Black. In both cases, there was dry land in human history, but not in recorded history.

One wonders if the Atlantis story arises from a the same source.

J

 

[HawkeyeGS]

I believe it was there at one stage or another. While I have no proof of this if you look at other texts of the time such as The Illiad and The Odyssey which were for thousands of years thought to be utter crap have been shown to be at least partially factual.

 

[MattII]

Like Robin Hood, it existed. Just how much Plato exagerated is a matter for further debate.

 

[Phlegmak]

Atlantis never existed. No one ever believes me though.

http://skepdic.com/atlantis.html
http://www.csicop.org/sb/2001-09/atlantis.html

Nothing will convince the die hard believer.

 

[Averdris]

If it doesnt exist now then it will exist soon. I read in a Dive magazine that Florida is building an underwater Atlantis dive site. <-- i'll check it out when they build it.

 

[Plotinus]

So in 4000 BC, the vernal equinox was in Taurus. The Bull. So the Bull was regarded as a "sacred" animal, in Babylon, Egypt (Apis), Crete, or Tartassos, by the priests / astronomers, as the sign that started the year, and thus symbolize birth..
Then, 2600 years later (approximately), the vernal equinox moved to Aries (the ram).
And the jews replaced the bull with the sheep (look at the lamb eaten for easter, etc), as a kind of symbol of change from one era to another.
Then, 1600 years later (at the beginning of the spread of christianity), it moves to Pisces. And the first christians used the fish as a recognition symbol...

I must say I'm not remotely convinced by this, I'm afraid.

First, the pastoral sacrifices described in the Old Testament don't go back to 1400 BC! The Pentateuch is something like a thousand years later than that.

Second, the early Christians took the fish symbol from earlier pagan religions. It was a generally accepted "holy" symbol. It's not certain whether the fact that it was an acrostic for an affirmation about Christ was the reason they used it or a later justification after the fact. Besides which, the vernal equinox was hardly regarded as the start of the year in Roman times - that was closer to the winter solstice. I don't know about ancient Babylonians and Hebrews on that score.

Quite apart from this, the theory only works if you only look at some religions. Mithraism, which appeared shortly after Christianity, used the bull as a sacred symbol, which would seem to go completely against the theory.

Plus, of course, as the diagram makes plain, there are thirteen signs of the Zodiac, not twelve.

 

[Steph]

I must say I'm not remotely convinced by this, I'm afraid.
Quite apart from this, the theory only works if you only look at some religions. Mithraism, which appeared shortly after Christianity, used the bull as a sacred symbol, which would seem to go completely against the theory.

Plus, of course, as the diagram makes plain, there are thirteen signs of the Zodiac, not twelve.

I don't say it's an universal explanation. I say that the change of era could coincide with some changes of religious symbols and the two could be linked.
I don't see the point of the 13 signs. As my explanation uses real astronomical signs and not astrological signs