How did Plato know what Atlantis looked like?

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Atlantis was real and that Plato got the story from Solon who in turn git it from Egypt.

How did Plato manage to give such a detailed description of the city - which sounds like a first hand account of seeing the place?

Who first recorded the description?

Did an Atlantean visit Egypt and leave them a travel guide (unlikely since Atlatis and Egypt were, according to Plato's account, at war). Did someone from Egypt visit Atlantis (similarly unlikely for the same reasons). And either way, if someone was able to re3cord in such detail what Atlantis looked like, why were they unable to better describe where it was?

(thoughts inspired by seeing a repeat of Jim Allen's 'Atlantis in the Andes' documentary in which he interprets Plato's account as describing a location in the Altiplano - which begs the question of how the detailed description of the city got from Bolivia to Egypt and Greece)

Well, there is the question of the coc aine mummies and south american pyramids..

Maybe there was some trade and rivalry going on, we've just lost the records and assumed they weren't capable of traveling so far.

Either he saw it in a dream, some disembodied voice whispered it in his ear, he channeled it or his ascended master, Poot Snooti, told it to him.

Obvious, when you think about it.

Harte

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Well, there is the question of the coc aine mummies and south american pyramids..

Maybe there was some trade and rivalry going on, we've just lost the records and assumed they weren't capable of traveling so far.

That depends on what time period we're talking about - the coc aine mummies date to thousands of years after Atlantis was supposedly destroyed whilst most S American pyramids likewise date to long after the period of pyramid building in Egypt (besides they are of different design and were used for different purposes)


Back to my question - I did read somewhere (but can't remember where) that the description of Atlantis was possibly based on Carthage - which, given Carthage's most famous son's achievements, ties in well with the mention of elephants.



[edit on 14-4-2008 by Essan]

Originally posted by Essan
That depends on what time period we're talking about - the coc aine mummies date to thousands of years after Atlantis was supposedly destroyed whilst most S American pyramids likewise date to long after the period of pyramid building in Egypt (besides they are of different design and were used for different purposes)

No doubt that's what the war was about. The Atlanteans were pissed that it took thousands of years for the Egyptians to build them some pyramids and the damn things didn't work right. They weren't even pointy like the ones they promised.

I can see it now..

Hoards of Egyptians crossing the ocean in their Moses MKII reed buckets, lobbing up on the shore and they're like "could you spare a little coke?". The Atlanteans are like "Wot..!!? Listen you Egyptian tossers, take your crappy fn pyramids and bugger off". War for sure. Plato was right.

Descriptions...handed down from generation to generation among those initiated into the mysteries and secrets of the world.

Not for commoners though, sorry

reply to post by Essan

reply to post by Essan

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


That has to get a star!

(and I guess this is a one liner .... but I don't care - you made me laugh )

[[[ afraid that =blank= post was either my error or something else ]]]


what i was going to say is that the Atlantis (an embellished [& mythical] Atlantis) was created by the Sea-People to protect their sea-trade and to make themselves seem 'bigger-than-life'

the fable of a long lost Atlantis gave the Sea-People a longevity status also,
making yarns & tales about an interaction very a very advanced 'Atlantis' also served as a form of self-defense...
as the listeners would be awed by these peoples exploits spanning many centuries (presumably) and figure these sea-people were resourceful and could be dangerous/crafty


Plato, made no judgements or evaluations of the Atlantis tale...
he only recorded the oral tradition which he had heard from the elect circles he was privy to.

[edit on 14-4-2008 by St Udio]

reply to post by Essan


Well you have to have a little humor when you're talking about guys that have been dead for thousands of years, and I hope you're not so "bored now".

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Descriptions...handed down from generation to generation among those initiated into the mysteries and secrets of the world.

Not for commoners though, sorry

But, who recorded the description originally?

Was there a period of commerce before the war?

Did the Atlanteans take prisoners who escaped before the city was destroyed?

And depending on who recorded it, how reliable is it? If a captured Atlantean soldier gave the description to the Egyptians, could he not have been greatly exaggerating?

Basically - even if we assume for the sake of argument that Plato described what he genuinely thought Atlantis looked like based on ancient accounts, can we consider it in any way reliable?

This, I think, has implications for a good many differing theories about Atlantis.

reply to post by St Udio


Now that's a good theory

I've not come across that idea before (my apologies if you've mentioned it 101 times and I've missed all the posts ... )

It's almost a 'my Dad's bigger than yours' scenario and something which makes sense in Bronze Age times when you can claim a 'mythical' origin for your people knowing no-one can refute it.

(I am aware of theories that the Atlantean story is based on the Sea Peoples invasions btw )

From an Egyptian priest to Solon to Dropides to Critias to Critias to Plato, how much would be the original story and how much would be embellishment? And all of this from an alleged original Egyptian account that conveniently no longer exists.

cormac

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


Because everyone knows that native Americans can't stack rocks and that displaying mummies in parlors where everyone's snuffing spoonfulls of coc aine in no way contaminates them, right?

The East River has more coc aine in it than any mummy, apparently this must mean that there's a snort mine beneath its headwaters, right?

Aaaaaanyway...

Plato knew the description because he made it up right there. Atlantis is a parable between state systems described in "The Republic." Atlantis was cast as the bad guy, Athens as the good guy with the superior government, and won.

I'd be more worried about Edgar Cayce and his magic crystals, spaceships, and psychic waffle lasers or whatever the hell else he came up with.

I'd vote for "made it up" based on existing stories of lost cities. Interestingly for an Atlantean tale told by and translated by an Egyptian (remember this information would have gone thru the following language translations:

Atlantean to Proto-Egyptian
From proto-Egyptian to intermediate Egyptian
Intermediate Egyptian to Hellenic age Egyptian
Hellenic age Egyptian to Greek

If there actually was a true tale that it was based on a great deal would have been lost in this translation process.

What I find interesting is the use of "Greek" imagery in much of T & c

Originally posted by Essan
Basically - even if we assume for the sake of argument that Plato described what he genuinely thought Atlantis looked like based on ancient accounts, can we consider it in any way reliable?

Well, he's not describing anything way too fanciful to be believed, so that helps. He's not talking about cities built in clouds or anything. Just a basic civilization that had a few things going for it, mostly to do with the climate and easy access to good sailing routes because of their position kind of in the middle of what later became known as the Gulf Stream. There are a few things he describes, like the elephants (mammoths) that might seem unusual, but we are talking about a civilization here right on the cusp of the last Ice Age. Until WHAM! they get hit by a tsunami caused by a glancing asteroid impact (or not so glancing, see Iceland), and they're gone.

So I'd chalk his detailed description up to a relatively detailed but lost historical account known to the Egyptians, and a few oral legends, combined with some good old imagination. He was a pretty good writer, after all, and in those days, there wasn't such a strict line drawn between historical factual reporting and fiction.

A study of the sea mounts off the Iberian peninsula


These sea mounts could be a "possible" location for a lost city. submerged by the sea.

Ormonde sea mount

The sea mounts have been studied and rejected as sites for Atlantis but it is interesting none the less.



[edit on 15/4/08 by Hanslune]

Maybe we need to search for the lost portion of the Critias to solve this mystery.

Here are the last words of Plato in the Critias.

"Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the center of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows..."

If I remember right the gods resided on Mt. Olympus per Greek mythology. Where is the center of the world to the author of the Critias? Is it somewhere in the middle of a great ocean or is it in the center of the planet?

Maybe the ancestors of the Carthaginians were from the center of the Atlantic ocean.

I answered this question long ago.

The Last Atlantian

Hope this helps