Atlantis
Atlantis Discovered
The tale of Atlantis was documented by Plato (429-327 BC) in his dialogs of Critias, and Timaeus. The story was told to Critias by his father Critias, or grandfather Dropidas who was told by his friend and relative, the great traveler Solon, who said it was told to him by Egyptian Priests of whom he had asked about old things. The priests told Solon that their records go back much farther than those of the Greeks, and that these records record how ancient Athens was the only country able to fend off an attack by the Great Empire of Atlantis, an ancient civilization that had existed, and then ceased to exist, 9000 years previous. It is generally believed that the story is based on an actual historical society, or at least that Plato believed parts of it to be true. Plato said (Salon said):
“Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island and several others, as well as over parts of the continent; and, besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia (Italy)”…
Their island beautiful and their city magnificent
“… they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees, also they made cisterns, some open to the heavens, others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty…
While at first despising everything but virtue and friendship; the Atlanteans digressed, eventually craving avarice and power, leading them to condemnation by the Gods, and the infamous:
“But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea.”
Thera
Atlantis popularly been identified as the Minoan Isle of Thera, (a Minoan occupied island from about 1650-1450 BC), the remainder of which is now called Santorini. The Santorini volcano erupted in the year 1645 BC, destroying much of the island and burying the settlements. Tidal waves allegedly reached nearby Cypress, destroying other major Minoan cities. Ruins of the Theran city of Akrotiri reveal pottery, furniture, advanced drainage systems, three-story buildings, and beautiful Frescoes.
Though wrong is some aspects, Thera meets the qualifications of being an advanced, amazing, and ancient island civilization lost in a single day.
Trade routes of the Minoans. 1500BC
“… There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private person…”
Plato said (Salon said): Crossing the outer harbors, which were three in number, you would come to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all sorts night and day.”
The Flotilla Fresco from the south wall of room 5 of the West house of Akrotiri on Santorini is the subject of many papers:
Thomas F. Strasser (5) suggests that the mural is based on an artist view of what was once was the harbor:
According to Sheppard Baird, “Thera was basically two separate islands composed of a roughly circular inner one that was almost completely enclosed by an outer island that ringed around it. The mostly flat plain of the inner island ranged from six to eight kilometers wide. The outer ringing island was fourteen kilometers from east to west and eighteen kilometers from north to south. The closest they came to touching each other was about four or five hundred meters. There was a single three kilometer opening in the southwest of the outer island that allowed access to its interior from the open sea. The two islands were the remnants of an ancient marine volcanic caldera. Any ships anchored inside the outer island were protected from all the winds and rough seas beyond it. It was the finest natural harbor in the whole of the Aegean.”
Note however that Plato also said:
“And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones were raised considerably above the water.
Now the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two, as well the zone of water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia …
The water which ran off they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some set apart for horses, in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in.”
Thus looking more like this artist conception (6),
Left: Artist conception of Atantis from Plato's description.
Lower Right: Pre-Kameni map of Santorini.
Perhaps the Egyptians had a map of Thera, and being canal diggers themselves, this was their interpretation of a caldera harbor.
Animals Frescos
Plato said (Solon said): “There was an abundance of wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of them…”
On the left of this snippet from the same fresco, Sarpaki points out what he says is a shepherd talking to a farmer across a stream, one in the city, one in a mansion. I like the lion and deer at the top. Right, some Gazelles are depicted on a Theran fresco.
Other frescos include herd animals (! 3500 BC), and monkeys (recently identified as not African, but Hanuman languars from the Indian Subcontinent 2500 miles away). No elephants are depicted in any excavations thus far, if there was said abundance of animals on Thera, perhaps they were in a large zoo.
As for the abundance of wood, murals depict only an occasianal palms, reeds, papyrus, and safron pickers. Also questionable was if there were rivers and lakes, though streams are depicted in the mural, and the area may have been more tropical six thousand years ago. The water level was said to be lower with some marshlands.
Bull Sacrifice
Plato’s description mentions weaponless bullfighting: “There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods that they might take the sacrifices which were acceptable to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the column; the victim was then struck on the head by them, and slain over the sacred inscription.” The Minoans also lived on the larger island of Crete, and a Fresco in the Cretan Palace of Knossos shows what is possibly a sport of weaponless bull fighting.
In the book the Secrets of Crete by Hans Georg Wunderlich (3), Wunderlich consulted Matadors who said such feats depicted were impossible without getting gored to death by the charging bull. He finds that the oddities of the Palace of Knossos are only explainable if the entire Palace is in fact a Necropolis, the bull games are where young men and women are gored and trampled to death by the sacred bull. A famous myth has King Minos demanding Athens send youths be sent to Crete to be sacrificed to the minotaur. If you reread Plato’s description with a few words juxtaposed, it could just as well be that the youths are sacrificed and not the bulls. Wunderlich also sees most of the ancient world as being obsessed with the dead, the Cretans obsessed with bulls and horns, producing embalming fluid for the Egyptians. I think though that unlike a Cretan Necropolis, Thera seemed like a happy place, perhaps a retreat.
Off site:
Introduction By Plato: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/critias.html
Plato’s Descriptions of Atlantis: https://ascendingpassage.com/plato-atlantis-timaeus.htm