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Was the ancient city of Atlantis located in the Mediterranean sea ?

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Was the ancient city of Atlantis located in the Mediterranean sea ?
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The topic we are going to deal with is that we think that there was more than one Atlantis, closely connected with those who "came from the sky", the Anunnaki whose only trace comes to us from the Sumerians through clay tablets engraved with cuneiform characters.

Of both the Anunnaki and Atlantis, official science and the Holy Scriptures prefer to ignore the arguments only for a reason of presumption and egocentrism. Men of science who tend to ignore the existence of the will that willed the whole and holds all truth.

If you try to find some scientific comfort to what we are about to propose with this topic, well we anticipate the reader in stating that, to date, there is no tangible evidence, much less scientific evidence.

Of Atlantis or vanished islands with all the people who dwelt on these lands there are no historical traces except for a few distant matches that could lead us back to something very similar.

Many talked about Atlantis in the ancient Greek world and among them, the philosopher Plato.

Precisely Plato, the author of many philosophical documents, with two texts that have nothing or little to do with philosophy, tells us about Atlantis in two documents titled "Timaeus" and "Cirtatia", the latter of which is incomprehensible.

In the Timaeus he describes his journey to Egypt and to the city of Sais, the most important in the Saitic territory, and the meeting with a Priest.

The journey Plato mentions would have taken place around the year 569 B.C.

We quote below a few excerpts from the Timaeus.

1st excerpt:

"Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no such thing as an old Greek." And Solon, after listening, asked, "What? What is this thing you say?" "You are all young," replied the priest, "in souls: for in them you have no ancient opinion that comes from a primitive tradition, nor any teaching that is reedy for age.

Then one of the very old priests said:

And this is the reason.

In many ways have occurred and will occur the losses of men, the greatest by fire and water, for many other reasons other minor ones.

That story which is told among you, namely, that one day Phaeton, son of the Sun, having harnessed his father's chariot, because he was unable to drive it along his father's road, set fire to everything on earth, and he himself was killed by being struck by lightning, is told in the form of a myth, but in reality it is about the deviation of the celestial bodies revolving around the earth and resulting in the destruction, by a great amount of fire, of everything on earth in long intervals of time.

Then those who dwell on mountains and in high and dry places die more easily than those who dwell by rivers and the sea: and the Nile, which is our savior in other things, even then saves us from that calamity by means of the flood.

So these genealogies of yours which you have now set forth, Solon, are little different from children's fables: for firstly you remember only one flood of the earth, whereas previously there have been many (in particular at least two), and secondly you do not know that in your region, originated the most honorable and noblest lineage of men, from whom you and the whole city which is now yours came, there being then a small seed left; but you ignore this because the survivors for many generations died dumb for not knowing the letters.

At that time, Solon, before the immense ruin caused by the waters, the city of the Athenians was the best in war, and, above all, in every respect, it was governed by excellent laws: to it are attributed the finest constitutions among those whose traditions we have received under heaven."

2nd Excerpt:

After hearing these words, Solon said that he marveled and fervently begged the priests to expound to him exactly the continuation of the stories concerning his ancient countrymen.

The priest replied, "There is no problem, Solon, but I will speak for you and your city, and especially in honor of the goddess who had yours and this city in her lot, and raised and educated them, first yours a thousand years ago, receiving your seed from Gaea and Hephaestus, and later this city here.

As for the ordering of this city of ours, in the sacred scriptures, there is written the number of eight thousand years.

So with regard to the citizens who lived nine thousand years ago I will briefly show you the laws, and the most beautiful feat they accomplished: another time with greater precision I will explain them all to you more calmly, one after the other, drawing them from the writings themselves.

3rd Excerpt:

At that time that sea was navigable, and in front of that mouth which, as you say, you call the Pillars of Hercules, there was an island, and this island was larger than Libya and Asia combined: starting from that it was possible to reach the other islands for those who then made the crossings, and from the islands to the whole opposite continent that lay around that true sea.

In fact everything within the limits of the mouth of which I have spoken appears as a harbor characterized by a narrow entrance: that other sea, on the other hand, you can actually call a sea, and that land that entirely surrounds it you can really and quite rightly call a continent.

In this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful royal dynasty that ruled over the whole island and many other islands and parts of the continent: they also ruled the regions of Libya that are on this side of the strait as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.

All this power, gathered together, then attempted to colonize with one assault your region, ours, and every place that lay on this side of the mouth.

It was on that occasion, Solon, that the power of your city clearly distinguished itself by virtue and strength: surpassing all men by courage and by the arts they employed in war, now leading the troops of the Greeks, now remaining of necessity alone through abandonment by others, subjected to extreme risks, vanquished the invaders, raised the trophy of victory, and prevented those who were not yet slaves from becoming so, while generously liberating all others, as many of us as dwell within the boundaries of the Pillars of Hercules.

After terrible earthquakes and floods occurred afterwards, however, one tremendous day and one tremendous night having passed, your whole army sank together into the earth, and in the same way the island of Atlantis disappeared by sinking into the sea: therefore even now that part of the sea is impassable and unexplored, for the huge deposit of mud on the bottom formed by the island when it lay on the seabed prevents it."

These words that you have heard, Socrates, summarized in a nutshell, are those uttered by old Cirtia, according to Solon's version: as you were speaking yesterday about the state and the men you outlined, I was amazed by recalling to memory the very things I have now recounted and observing that by an incredible coincidence you had largely perfectly adhered to those things Solon said.

However, I did not want to speak at that time because of the time that had passed I did not remember them enough. I thought then that, before I spoke, it would be better to take back exactly everything inside me.

For this reason I immediately accepted the things I was ordered to say, thinking that we would conveniently overcome what is the greatest difficulty in all discussions of this kind, namely the exposition of a narrative that fits the proposed purposes.

So yesterday, as soon as I left, I brought back to them the things I remembered, then, taking leave and reflecting carefully during the night, I recalled almost everything to memory. It is indeed true what they say, namely, that what one learns as a child one remembers admirably.

In fact, what I heard yesterday, I don't know if I would be able to recall all of it again: as for these things that I have heard already for a long time, I would be very surprised if someone of them had escaped. At that time I listened to them with much pleasure and as a pastime, and the old man gladly taught me while I questioned him frequently, so that they have remained impressed on me like indelible paintings in fire: to them I immediately said from this morning these very things, that they might have plenty of discourse with me.

Now therefore, and this is the reason why all this has been said, I am ready to report, Socrates, not only in summary, but each thing just the way I 've heard it: as for the citizens and the city that you outlined to us yesterday as if in a fable, now transferring them to reality, we will put them here, as if that city were this very one, and we will say that the citizens you mentally represented are those real ancestors of ours of whom the priest spoke.

The first thing that emerges is that the speaker is an Egyptian priest precisely one of the intermediary between the Pharaohs and "those from heaven," that is, those who represent in other literature, the false and lying gods.

Plato
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Plato

The Priest refers to the fact that the Greeks did not remember the past times perhaps due to lack of written records or because the survivors of the last two catastrophes of which the last one goes by the name of the Flood, created a sharp divide between the Greek generations unlike what happened to the Egyptians thus the elimination of any "teaching that is reedy for age."

Reference is also made to the origins of cataclysms that are attributed to fire and water to which must be added other reasons that normally account for the destruction of entire populations.

A clear allusion is illustrated by referring to the figuration that takes its cue from the legend of "Phaeton son of Zeus". The allusion is more than clear and unmistakable: reference is made to meteorites and / or even comets that crashed on our planet that were the origin of catastrophes (disappearance of the dinosaurs) that caused immense changes in the Earth system and its inhabitants.

The reading reveals yet another piece of information concerning the time when the cataclysm would have occurred.

The Priest or shaman reports that from the Egyptian sacred scriptures emerges and explicit reference is made to 8,000 years earlier and to the Greek people 9,000 years earlier and the feat they accomplished by defeating the Atlanteans in the last battle they fought so as not to be overwhelmed by that invading people.

In succession the "Timaeus" reports of the location of Atlantis, which was to be beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" and in front of it the sea was navigable and lapped not only the large island, compared to a continent, from which it was possible by navigation to reach the other islands and from these islands then it would be possible to reach all the opposite continent that was around that sea.

With these indications, Plato according to the reported indications of the Egyptian Priest, places the island of Atlantis beyond the Strait of Gibraltar or, as it was called at that time by the name of the Pillars of Hercules which took into account the conformation of the Mediterranean Sea which was roughly as it is today.

But if we refer to the time of Atlantis, which should be placed around 13,000/12,000 B.C., the level of the Mediterranean Sea should have been about 100/150 meters lower than it is today as is evident from the multiple submerged ruins that can be seen today near the island of Malta and Gozo, in the Aegean Sea and Black Sea.

For these reasons, it is easy to assume that the Pillars of Hercules referred by the Egyptian priest did not concern the Strait of Gibraltar, which at that time was supposed to be a stretch of land joining the European continent to the African continent, but and in all likelihood, to a sea passage between the advanced tip of present-day Sicily represented today by the island of Pantelleria and on the other side, the African end.

Was the ancient city of Atlantis located in the Mediterranean sea ?
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If this were to correspond to a distant reality, then the island of Atlantis must have been in the sea area between Sardinia and the European Continent facing present-day France and Spain.

Tangible signs exist in Sardinia, in the area of Tarros where the large Nuraghe can be seen, which shows signs of destruction caused by a force whose directrix is in line with the sea, suggesting the origin of a tidal wave and the formation of a huge Tsunami that would have struck in that area of the island.

The "Timaeus" also refers to the existence of a Greek or Athenian people and the existing conflict where, indeed, the contenders would be the Atlanteans and the Greeks themselves who would achieve a clear victory on the day before the catastrophe that would later occur in the night and that would destroy Atlantis and radically alter Greece reducing it to a limited strip of continental land and the remaining territory to a myriad of islands while its inhabitants reduced to a handful of survivors, uneducated in writing, extinguished the memory of what had happened upon their deaths without passing on any information to posterity.

The figuration of that immense catastrophe is appreciable considering the fact that, both the Egyptian Priest and Plato himself, speak according to the geographical cognitions in which they are living while ignoring changes in spatial and maritime arrangements.

They could not imagine that the Mediterranean Sea must have been at a much lower level and that even the Black Sea was still an esplanade, or rather, a dry land where there could be human settlements.

To the west there had to be a strip of dry land joining the two continents (Northwest Africa and Europe) just as a transitable corridor between Africa and Europe (let's not ignore the migration of Hominids between Africa and Spain) and at the same time, constitute a barrier between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Mediterranean must have been like a large lake on whose shores the landmasses would have looked anything but as they do today, and the strait indicated by the Egyptian Priest may have been precisely, between the island of Pantelleria (at that time an integral part of Sicilian territory) and Africa with a much smaller sea corridor because of the different sea level from today.

If the geographical aspect is seen under this new arrangement then the location of the large island (Atlantis) that Plato presented to us is easily conceivable.

Legend speaks of the disappearance of Atlantis occurring in a single night, and this event could be related, for example, to the fall of a meteorite whose impact energy would have triggered an earthquake with epicenter in an area of the Mediterranean Sea just near the island of Atlantis, which would have been destroyed and then collapsed into the Tyrrhenian Sea and a coincident effect would have been the fracture of the septum separating the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans, which, because of the existing water disparity, it is very probable if not certain, would have been the origin of a huge pouring wave as high as 150 meters and more with the sure additional thrust of the tidal wave that would have swept all the Mediterranean coasts completing the destructive work of the initial earthquake.

Subsequent sea level rise would have consistently altered all coastal lands and the formation of even the Black Sea giving Europe and the Middle East its current geographic appearance also resetting entire human populations generating in addition, a new distribution of the survivors.

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DrWatson's profile picture
@DrWatson

Here is how the legendary island is presented by Plato (Timeo, 24, 25):

"But though the works accomplished by your city are many and great, which we admire here written, there is one that surpasses all in greatness and virtue. For the writings say that your city destroyed a great army, which insolently invaded all of Europe and Asia at once, moving from outside the Atlantic Ocean. This sea was then navigable, and there was an island in front of that mouth, which you call, as you say, the Pillars of Hercules.

The island was larger than Libya and Asia combined, and at that time, sailors could pass from it to other islands, and from the islands to the entire opposite continent, which bordered that true sea.

For this whole sea, which lies beyond the mouth I have mentioned, seems like a harbor with a narrow entrance, but the other you could rightly call a true sea, and the land that entirely embraces it, a true continent. Furthermore, beyond the strait, they ruled over the regions of Libya up to Egypt and of Europe up to Tyrrhenia*.

And all this power, gathered together, once tried with a single strike to subdue your region and ours and all those lying within the mouth. Then, O Solon, the power of your city appeared conspicuous for its virtue and vigor to all peoples: because, surpassing all in magnanimity and in all war arts, sometimes leading the arms of the Greeks, sometimes forced to fight alone due to the defection of others, it faced the utmost dangers and defeated the assailants, setting up trophies, saving from servitude those not yet enslaved, and generously liberating all the others, all of us who live this side of the Pillars of Hercules.

But in subsequent times, after great earthquakes and floods occurred, in the span of a dreadful day and night, the island of Atlantis similarly disappeared, swallowed by the sea; therefore, that sea is still impassable and unexplored, hindered by the great muddy shallows formed by the island sinking into the depths**."

* Libya referred to all of North Africa west of Egypt; Tyrrhenia (later Etruria) referred to western Italy. The struggle between Athens and Atlantis—here mentioned in expressions intended to suggest parallels with the Persian wars—would be the subject of Critias.

** Critics who have attempted to confirm Plato’s account with geological and scientific evidence have interpreted this as an allusion to the Sargasso Sea.

3 weeks ago
DrWatson's profile picture
@DrWatson

War between Atlantis and the Peoples within the Pillars of Hercules (Crizia, III 108-109)

"First of all, let us remember that in total, nine thousand years have passed since the war occurred between those who lived beyond the Pillars of Hercules and those within.* And now it is necessary to recount it.

One side, it is said, was led by this city, which undertook the entire war: the other by the kings of the island of Atlantis, which, as we mentioned, was then larger than Libya and Asia, while now, submerged by earthquakes, is impassable mud, preventing our ships from advancing in that sea. Most of the barbarian nations and the Greek peoples of that time will appear in turn, as opportunity arises, throughout the course of my narrative. But regarding the Athenians of that time and their opponents, against whom they waged war, it is necessary to first outline their respective power and forms of government."

*That is, between the inhabitants of Atlantis and the Athenians.

3 weeks ago
DrWatson's profile picture
@DrWatson

The City of Atlantis; the Line of Kings of Atlantis; Natural Resources and Extraordinary Fertility of the Land (Crizia, VII 113 - 115)

"As previously mentioned, the gods divided the entire earth by lot, obtaining either large or small portions, and set up temples and sacrifices for themselves. So too did Poseidon, having drawn the island of Atlantis, settle his mortal-born sons in a place on the island. This was the location: by the sea, yet in the middle of the island, there was a plain said to be the most beautiful of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain, in the center, about fifty stades away, was a low hill on all sides. One of the men who originally sprang from the earth there, named Evenor, lived with his wife Leucippe. They had a single daughter, Cleito. When the girl was of marriageable age, her mother and father died, and Poseidon, taken by love, lay with her. To fortify the hill where she lived, he encircled it with alternating smaller and larger rings of sea and land—two of land and three of sea—which he formed in nearly perfect circles around the center of the island, placing them equidistant on every side so that men would have no access: for, at that time, there were neither ships nor navigation.

As a god, he easily adorned the new island he had formed in the middle: he diverted two springs from the ground, one flowing warm and the other cold, and made the earth produce a variety of abundant sustenance.

After fathering five pairs of male children, he raised them and, dividing the entire island of Atlantis into ten parts, gave the eldest of the firstborn sons the maternal residence and surrounding lands, which were the largest and most beautiful, and made him king over the others. He also appointed the other brothers as rulers, and to each he gave dominion over many people and vast land.

He named them all, beginning with the eldest and the king, from whom the entire island and the sea, called the Atlantic, took its name because the one who reigned first was named Atlas. His twin, born after him, who had inherited the farthest part of the island towards the Pillars of Hercules, near the region now called Gadiric, was given the Greek name Eumelus, which in their language was called Gadir: and from his name, that region could be named.

Those of the second birth he named, one Ampheres and the other Euaemon; of the third, the first-born Mneseus, and the next Autochthon; of the fourth, the first Elasippus, and the other Mestor; of the fifth, the first Azaes, and the second Diaprepes.

All these and their descendants lived there for many generations, ruling over many other islands in that sea and also, as previously mentioned, holding dominion over the lands as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. The lineage of Atlas was numerous and honored, always passing the kingdom from the eldest king to the eldest son, preserving it for many generations, and they possessed such an abundance of wealth as no kingly power had before, nor will likely have again, amassing all that was needed in the city and the surrounding region. Many things came to them from outside because of their power, and the island itself provided much for the necessities of life. Above all, it yielded solid and fusible materials mined from the earth: and that metal, which now is only named, was once more than a name—the orichalcum*, which was mined from the ground in many places on the island and was, at that time, considered the most precious metal after gold. Whatever the forest provides for woodworkers, the island produced abundantly, and it also sufficiently fed both tame and wild animals. There was even a great quantity of elephants, for there was plenty of pasture for all animals that graze in marshes, lakes, rivers, and on mountains and plains, including this largest and most voracious animal. Additionally, all the perfumes now supplied by the earth from roots, herbs, woods, or juices distilled from flowers or fruits were abundantly produced and provided.

Thus, the soft and hard fruits used for nourishment, those we also use as food and call legumes, the woody fruits that provide beverages, foods, and ointments, and the fruits with peels used for play and pleasure, hard to store, as well as those that, as stimulants against satiety, we set in second courses to please the tired stomach—all these fruits, that sacred island, then under the sun, produced beautiful, marvelous, and innumerable in quantity. Taking all these things from the earth, they built temples, palaces, ports, shipyards, and adorned the remaining region in this order."

* This metal, which Plato recalls here as something of which only the name remains, has been identified, based on a passage by Philoponus, with brass. However, brass is an alloy, not a metal, and there is no doubt that Plato presents it as something now unknown and mysterious.

3 weeks ago
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