WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF PLATO'S ATLANTIS, AND HOW DOES IT SQUARE WITH PLATO'S MYTH

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF PLATO'S ATLANTIS, AND HOW DOES IT SQUARE WITH PLATO'S MYTH.

This essay will attempt to blow away some of the cobwebs that surround the fantastic legends of 'Atlantis'. If you mention to friends the words 'Greek myths', you can virtually see their eyes glaze over as they sidle towards the door. However if you mention the word 'Atlantis' in the pub, then every man and his dog suddenly becomes an expert? Numerous 'experts', worldwide have tried to find the magic place called 'Atlantis': -

Table 1.

Author Date. Place.

Valdez	1525	Iraq.
Serranus	1570	Palestine.
Bacon.	1600	North America.
Rudbeck.	1675	Sweden.
Kirchmaier.	1685	South Africa.
Bailey.	1804	Mongolia.
Latreille.	1819	Iran.
Godron.	1868	Sahara.
Berlioux.	1874	Morocco.
Schulten	1922	Spain.
Spencer.	1924	Antilla.
Fawcett.	1925	Brazil.
De Launey.	1936	Mexico.
Cayce.	1940	Bimini.
Beaumont	1949	Britain.
Spanuth.	1953	Heligoland.
Luce.	1969	Crete.
Koudriavtsev	1983	Bay of Biscay.

Perhaps the biggest drawback in recounting the legend is that it was an oral myth, and as such was liable to alteration, as such stories where. Frederick's (1978) says "Critias begins the legend by saying he heard the story, when he was a boy, from his grandfather Critias, who heard it from his father Dropides, who got it from Solon. Solon brought it from Egypt, having got it from a priest of Neith-- that is, of Athena at Sais". It is obvious that in the re-telling, some facts would be added or omitted. Furthermore, most 'Alantists', having assured you that all myths are founded upon fact, exaggerate the realistic or historical elements in them to support their own theories.

Firstly we must be aware that the legend of 'Atlantis' ended with Plato, who in writing it 'Fixed it in Time'. Before this, the legend may have originated far, far away, and travelled. If we accept nowadays, as most authorities do, that the cradle of civilisation has now been shown as being in the 'Indian Oceanic' area. Therefore any stories about 'Atlantis' and its cataclysmic end having occurred in this area, would have easily travelled via the Arabic traders who sailed the Indian Ocean trading in rare spices and slaves etc. So the stories of 'Atlantis' could easily have travelled to the Mediterranean basin, and then to Greece. (It should be noted that the word 'Atlantic' referred to the whole circle of water that surrounded the known world in Plato's time, and not just the Atlantic we know of to day). The re-telling of the tale of 'Atlantis' may bear some parallel to the World War 1 story, Officer in front line "Send reinforcements where going to advance - pass it on". Ended up at headquarters as "Send three and fourpence where going to a dance". Therefore one must look for more concrete evidence that 'Atlantis' existed, and where possible use scientific methods rather than hearsay evidence.

If we refute the UFOlogy books, and such titles as 'The Mystic Crystals of Atlantis', and even books that allege, that all the bodies of the 'Atlanteans' lie frozen in a secret cave in Tibet ('Alantis, Frozen in Time'). Then we could perhaps look at sources other than books. The use of the 'Internet' and the 'World Wide Web' nowadays allows us to access the work of lesser-known 'Atlantis' groups, who have no interest in financial rewards for their work.

Nearly all groups now recognise that Plato in describing living conditions on 'Atlantis' emphasised the tropical nature, with exotic fruits, animals; two crops a year etc. This must eliminate all the sites in the northern hemisphere, Koudriavtsev (1983) looked at the Paleoclimatology of the northern hemisphere in the Pleistocene Age (11,600 yrs ago.) and said that "The 'Glacio-Isostatic' moving ice fields would have wiped out any civilisation by its movement southwards", and also "That the climatic zone would not have been conductive to a settled way of life". Looking at the geographic size of Plato's 'Atlantis' ("Larger than Asia Minor and Libya (North Africa) put together). must surely rule out its location within the Mediterranean basin. The favoured site was thought by many to be Crete. However there is no way that the island of 'Atlantis' could have fitted in between the 'Ionian Sea' and the 'Aegean Sea' if we accept Plato's measurements. (It would have been the size of Australia). Plus it would be on the wrong side of the 'Pillars of Hercules'. Another much vaunted site is the 'West Indies', whereby John Steele (1979) found a 'Roadway' near the isle of 'Bimini'. However many marine geologists such as John Gifford, and John Hall of Miami Univ. etc. have now cast doubt on these findings. One could write of dozens of other so-called 'Atlantis' sites, as shown in table 1. Some of them are just plain silly.

However there is one site in the 'East Indies' that seems to fit most of the criteria set by Plato. The 'Arysio Nunes dos Santos Group' have proposed as recently as 1997 two sites off the western coast of Indonesia. They have produced many articles, mainly on the Internet to support their theories. Satellite pictures of the Indian Oceanic areas have shown a triangular area of land about 100 metres under the water, about 20 miles west of Indonesia, and another closer to the Indian continent at about the same depth. (? Lemurian and Indian Atlantis). The 'National Geographic Magazine' (1988) produced a map of the southern hemisphere based on the best available scientific knowledge, which showed the world as it was some 18,000 years ago. Within the two huge ice fields and expected land margins they showed two large landmasses within the Indian Ocean. These two landmasses would correspond well with both the 'Atlantis's'. Furthermore, both of these landmasses would have met the dimensions mentioned by Plato.

The tropical paradise items mentioned in Plato's 'Atlantis' are of course very prevalent in this region, whether these items are animals or foodstuffs. The 'Arysio' Group (1997) having looked at all the features mentioned by Plato, come out strongly with the Indonesia/Atlantis partnership. This table shows how nearly all of Plato's requirements for 'Atlantis' could have been met if 'Atlantis' was placed off the coast of Indonesia.

Table 2.

ARYSIO GROUPS SIMILARITIES LISTING. (List reduced to ease reading)

FEATURE.	Crete	Troy	Indo- -esia	Atlan.Oce.	Peru
Atlantic Location.	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Navigation canals etc.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Elephants (mammoths)	No	No	Yes	?	No
Continental Size.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Tropical Climate.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Tropical Fruit etc.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Perfumes & Incenses.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Large Populations (2 million plus)..	No	No	Yes	No	No
Horses & War Chariots.	?	Yes	Yes	No	No
Human Presence at the Epoch.	No	No	Yes	No	No
Megalithic Construction.	No	Yes	Yes	?	Yes
Volcanism & Earthquakes.	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Sunken Continent.	No	No	Yes	No	No
Innavigatable Seas.	No	No	Yes	No	No
Beyond Pillars of Hercules.	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Outer Continents Beyond.	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Many Islands Beyond.	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Site of Paradise (Eden).	No	?	Yes	No	Yes
Evidence of Cataclysm.	Yes	No	Yes	?	Yes
Pyramid Cult.	No	No	Yes	?	Yes
Sargasso Sea Beyond.	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transoceanic Commerce.	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Riches in Metals.	No	No	Yes	?	Yes
Superior Technology.	No	No	Yes	?	Yes
Terraced Mountain Culture.	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Sacred Geometry.	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Holy Mountain and Volcanoes.	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Date Compatible	No	No	Yes	?	?
Two Crops a Year.	No	No	Yes	No	No
Metals.	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes
Writing Tablet.	?	?	Yes	?	Yes
Totals: - YES.	7	4	31	6	23
NO.	22	25	0	16	7
QUERY.	2	2	0	9	1

May.A.(1998, pers.comm., 13 May) said that “Troy did indeed have evidence of canal building”.

It is of interest to note that Peru comes a very close second and should perhaps be looked at closer. However Crete and Troy come off badly, and of course the 'Atlantic' section has too many queries to be of any significance.

Having established the possible location of 'Atlantis', one must look at its destruction bearing in mind Plato's script "At a later time there were earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence, and in a single dreadful day and night, all your fighting men were swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis was similarly swallowed up by the sea and vanished…"(Tim.25c-d) One must however bear in mind that a country the size of Australia just cannot vanish in 24 hrs, and thus this part of the legend may well be an exaggeration to heighten its context.

The alleged sinking of 'Atlantis' was a no 'no no' from the start as such a landmass would be based upon its own tetonic plate section and therefore could not sink. However a sudden rise in the oceanic water table could cause partial flooding of all low lying lands. We know that floods happened worldwide from many sources and at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age the ice fields began melting. The probable cause was the 'Greenhouse' effect caused by the emission of volcanic ash (black) which caused greater absorption of sunlight onto the ice fields. Koudriavtsev (1997) quoted work from the University of Copenhagen, which proposed a 20-degree warming within a century occurred. The research goes on to say that these sudden changes allowed masses of free water to drain off the land and enter the sea in huge surges (Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles). These huge tidal changes then swept over the low lands and the land was lost forever beneath the seas.

The second part of the catastrophe was of course the effect of the huge active volcanoes. The biggest known volcano is 'Krakatoa' in the heart of the 'East Indies'. The rising floodwater entering such a volcanic mouth would create a huge explosion of super-heated steam. This we now know to have been so powerful, as to have opened the 'Strait of Sundra, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia. Explosions such as this would be the final death knell to what remains of any civilisation. The falling ash would choke plant growth, pollute rivers, remove most of the oxygen from the air etc. The newly found 'Fire-Ball' effect (Recently found to account for many of the deaths at Vesuvius - B.B.C.) would have been the final straw, and as in Plato's version could have taken as little as one day. Thus we have the destruction of Atlantis, which although romanticised in Plato's works was simply the destruction of a country sitting within an active volcanic area, added to which there occurred a rapid ice-field meltdown.

In conclusion, many people have told me recently that they consider 'Atlantis' was simply Plato's invention from beginning to end, which he needed to expound his ideas of an ideal state. I do not believe this, as he had already written 'Republic' in which his views on the ideal state had already been expounded; therefore he had no need to simply repeat this theme again. In fact many of his themes already existed in pre-historical Athens. I believe that Plato linked his narration to a true historical fact.

I am equally sure that Plato took a legend that was from another place and used it as a virtual 'coat hanger' in which he hung life, as he knew it. The placing of 'Atlantis' outside the Mediterranean was a very clever ploy. I think he did this, because of his uncertainty as to where the original legend really arose, and placing it outside the known world of the time cleverly took care of this problem.

The legend of 'Atlantis' however would appear, thanks to modern technology, to be situated in the 'East Indies', more so off the coast of Indonesia, and I believe that future research will confirm this fact. Whatever the result, it’s a super legend, and one I have found great pleasure in reading it up.

REFERENCES.

Because there are only three books (out of a possible 2,000) in Lampeter Univ. Library, dealing with 'Atlantis', and, we have 11 students looking for them, I have taken the liberty of only using the 'Internet' and the 'World Wide Web' as my study base. There are over 32,000 web pages (via Alta Vista) available for study. I have included the full access address to enable the Tutor or Moderator to check that they exist.

Alford,A (1978) Atlantis,The Final Solution

Arysio, S. (1997) Atlantis, Southern Aspect.

Bielat, N. (1996) Atlantic Herald

Byron,L. (1984). Atlantic Society.

Cayce, E. (1965) My Life and Work

Luce,J (1993) Atlantis Collection

Koudriavtsev,V.(1997) Atlantis, Ice Age