Why I Believe Scientist Are Looking In The Wrong Places For Atlantis

reply to post by Harte

It is known that both Solon and Plato travelled to Egypt (among several other countries) during their "golden years." It is also known that Plato died before Manetho was born so it's unlikely that they ever met.

My mistake, I munged several names/timelines together. Solon was claimed by Plato as the initial source of the Atlantis tale, who allegedly heard it from the priests of Sais. These were the same priests Plato would visit. The priests of Sais did exist, but what tales they related to the Greeks is impossible to know. I would hazard a guess that they told tales of the incursions of the Sea Peoples, and their defeat by Ramses III, which was recorded in a number of friezes and columns. Unfortunately none of the architecture of Sais is preserved so that we may see what these columns/inscriptions were. The timeline matches with the Sea People as well, If - and I mean IF - we accept that "9,000 years before Solon" was meant to be "900 years". The Sea Peoples ravaged the Med around 1500 BC, or about 900 years before Solon.

Supposedly a student of Plato, named Crantor, had also gone to Sais and tried to verify this story, and was shown these columns. My guess would be real events were spun together into this tale of Atlantis - such as the war between Egypt and the Sea Peoples (who ravaged everyone in the Mediterranean, except the Phoenicians). It's harder to believe that tales involving Minoans, Persians, etc. would not have been recognized by Solon or Plato or even the Egyptians as such. They seemed to have assigned this tale to mysterious "Atlanteans", the people best associated with that would have been the Sea Peoples (as to who and what they were is a matter of intenst debate - possibly a combination of Tartessoans, Phoenicians, and their cohorts in Libya - Tartessos had the wealth and means, and Phoenicians established Gades/Cadiz just to it's south. Phoenicians also were becoming established throughout Libya, eventually to create Carthage and rival Rome). They came from the direction of the 'Atlantis' sea, hence they're 'Atlanteans'.

Herodotus also went to the priests of Sais, after the time of Solon but before Plato, and he never heard the tale of Atlantis. My guess is Solon came away from Sais with a concocted tale based on unrelated snippets of history, and those writings passed on to Plato who took them as factual and tried to trace the tales origin, but ended up further munging the tale with additional facets of unrelated history (and imagination).

... but it is just as likely that Plato made the whole thing up.

Most likely - in fact almost certainly. But it raises the question why would Plato have been ridiculed by his fellow Greeks over the tale? If 'Atlantis' was just a back story for a metaphor in Timeaus or Critias, I doubt his fellow Greeks would have failed to recognize it as such. Plato may have made other writings of it that have failed to survive or spoke of it as real.

Why would his student Crantor undertake the journey to substantiate the story (according to ? If the tale was always intended to be a metaphor or fiction, Plato would not have cared if anyone believed the city actually existed or not. Do we attack JK Rowling about the existance of Hogwarts? Of course not, we know the tale is fiction and the city is fictional. Plato's reaction to his critics seems to imply he believed his tale or took umbrige at the criticism, that it wasn't just an allegory or metaphor.

I would agree that there is no Atlantis, never was, but I disagree that the tale is a complete fabrication by Plato. I think he was attempting to write of an actual history pieced together from his sources, but wasn't aware how badly he was misintrepreting those sources.

It may be unfair to claim that Plato was alone in his invention of Atlantis - the real culprits may be the priests of Sais, he claims he and Solon heard the tale from them, and supposedly his student Crantor also heard it from them.

The simple fact is, nothing like Atlantis exists as described by Plato. He may have been inspired by real events involving a mis-identified peoples, or he may have imagined the whole thing. For me that is where the real debate is.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Reconstructing Plato's sources would be the most interesting aspects of the Atlantis story; did he think it was real or did he know he was making it up. Blackmarketeer you mention criticism of Plato's story by his peers, could you link to one of those please?

Until recently no sign of any early culture on the Azores. There were reports a year or so ago but I have seen the publication and if they were Phoencian or otherwise.

the Azores (Corvo island) have turned up with a hoard of Carthaginian coins, a statue of the 'horse' of Carthage that was sent to Lisbon but got broken and a number of pottery fragments that could be Punic, but cannot be definitely ascribed to them.

I think either the Phonenicians or the Carthaginians have been in the Azores long before the Portuguese, dont believe the Atlanteans have.

reply to post by WarminIndy


I'm of the opinion that, if Atlantis did exist, their advancement was that they were chalcolithic at a time when everyone else was still in the stone age. Which would also explain one other thing mentioned about Atlantis: orichalcum(what I believe was red or rose gold). Strangely enough, from what I've been able to research, the fault lines in the area where Atlantis should have existed are large, and as yet untapped, resources for gold, copper, and other lesser minerals and ores.

Originally posted by Picollo30

Until recently no sign of any early culture on the Azores. There were reports a year or so ago but I have seen the publication and if they were Phoencian or otherwise.

I think either the Phonenicians or the Carthaginians have been in the Azores long before the Portuguese, dont believe the Atlanteans have.

That I believe is the unofficial concensus - there are ancient sources that mention islands beyond Iberia and those were probably the ones. I cannot read Portuguese and sources on technical Azorian archaeology tend to be in that language!

People are messy - and they leave traces

if orichalcum existed why isn't there any proof to it?

Plato described it as being the metal of the mountain, a metal that glittered like fire but not gold.

reply to post by Picollo30


If it was red or rose gold, then there is plenty of references to it just not by that name. For one, if Atlantis was chalcolithic, they would have had knowledge of smelting and basic metallurgy but not the concept of alloys as that wouldn't have been discovered until the Bronze Age. As such, if they lived in an area with high concentrations of both copper and gold, any ore that contained both and the resulting metal that would have been smelted from it would have been thought of as an "elemental" metal in its own right. Said metal would then be labeled with its own unique name(orichalcum).

reply to post by Hanslune


It's from Proclus:
Commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Vol 1, book I: Proclus on the Socratic State and Atlantis

The criticism came from other philosophers of the era (edit to add - not within his lifetime, most of the criticism was posthumous); Porphyry, Lamblichus, and especially Posidonius, who claimed Plato invented the story of Atlantis.

Crantor was the first to write commentaries on Timaeus, but AFAIK none of his writings survive, it's his student Proclus that then wrote of Plato's supposed struggles after writing of Atlantis. Crantor, as claimed by Proclus, went to Sais to find the source of Plato's tale upon hearing of the criticism of his teacher, and allegedly also saw the hieroglyphs referred to by Plato. Crantor as claimed by Proclus treated the tale of Atlantis as a simple history, whereas the other philosophers were harshly critical of that concept.

So in that respect, it would be more fair to say it was Plato's students, at least those who viewed Timaeus as history, who endured the criticism more than Plato did regarding the existence of Atlantis.

This link has some good information on Crantor and Proclus,
Crantor and Posidonius on Atlantis

Here is Proclus' commentary on Google Books, you'll have to search within that, I can't make a direct link.

I don't have a copy of Timaeus or Critias, other than what's found online, but I do have a copy of Proclus' commentaries, if you read Timaes, you HAVE to read Proclus, it's like having the teacher's edition of a text book.

Neoplatonists like Proclus really began abstracting Plato's Timeaus, if you ever read his commentaries first before reading Plato, I doubt you would ever believe Atlantis actually existed. That should raise some additional doubts in the minds of Atlantis believers, if those who followed Plato (excepting perhaps Crantor) saw the story not as factual history but as a lesson in philosophy.

Originally posted by Mad Simian
reply to post by Blue Shift

 

And, if they needed a port for their expansion in Europe, they'd need a sister city on the african side of the Strait. For that, I'd like to suggest Lixus or, more exactly, the location that Lixus was eventually built upon.

Spot on. Those ruins were there long before the Phonecians or the Romans made use of them. It's an Atlantic port, not a Mediterranean one. And to add fuel to the fire, the current that starts there ends in Mexico. I read that somewhere a long time ago and I'm trying to find a source for it.

Originally posted by HappyBunny


Spot on. Those ruins were there long before the Phonecians or the Romans made use of them.

Spot off, there is no evidence that the ruins 'were there long before', what is the basis of your claim?



Blackmarketeer

Thanks for the links

Originally posted by Hanslune

Originally posted by HappyBunny


Spot on. Those ruins were there long before the Phonecians or the Romans made use of them.

Spot off, there is no evidence that the ruins 'were there long before', what is the basis of your claim?



Blackmarketeer

Thanks for the links

Like I said, I read that a really REALLY long time ago and I'm trying to remember where so I can find some links. Has something changed in the last 15 or so years that I should know about?

ETA: I just looked it up on Wiki (not the best source, I know) and all it says is that...

Lixus was settled by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and was later annexed by Carthage.

It doesn't say they built it. It just says they "settled" it. In fact, it doesn't say anything at all about when it was built or who built it. It also says:

However, there are no grounds for the claim that Lixus was founded at the end of the second millennium BC.

But there is no cite or any other statement about it.

See here:

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by HappyBunny
It doesn't say they built it. It just says they "settled" it. In fact, it doesn't say anything at all about when it was built or who built it. It also says:

However, there are no grounds for the claim that Lixus was founded at the end of the second millennium BC.

Excursions to Lixus : Founded in 1100 B.C by the Phoenicians 5 km from the city of Larache . (1/2 day).

Source

Lixus was founded and inhabited by Phoenician traders in the 12th Century BC.

Source

Lixus was founded along Moroccan Atlantic coast as early as 1100 BC.

Source

Harte

reply to post by HappyBunny


I've not read the site reports (the documents written by the archaeologists and other specialist who excavated and studied the site) for Lixus however if they had found something not Phoenician they would have certainly noted that.

These are the only studies I can find on Lixus - oh and my first guess that it was a French expedition was wrong it was Spanish

Study one

Study two

Study three

Study four

Study five

Its a well studied site and you can find many more studies at Google Scholar

Thank you both for the links. Reading now.

ETA: From the link here:

www.roman-empire.net...

Phoenician trade is believed to have drawn metals from all across Spain, including the kingdom of Tartessus, which many historians believe to be the distant kingdom of Tarshish mentioned in the Old Testament. But apart from having such near mythical trade partners, the Phoenicians appear to have extended their trade as far as Cornwall in England.

You know, I've always wondered if they didn't get that backwards. The megalithic sites in Britain and Ireland predate anything in the Middle East and Mesopotamia by up to a thousand years.

Okay, back to reading.

reply to post by Hanslune


Well, if the Atlanteans where chalcolithic, whose to say later societies who settled the area didn't find any copper artifacts and recycled them. After all, why bother trying to go to all the trouble to mine the ore and smelt it when you could just collect and melt down a bunch of copper axes, hammers, knives/swords, jewelry etc. that just happen to be lying around? The same could be said for any building materials. Besides, according to Wikipedia, only about 20% of the site has actually been excavated.

Also, if it were originally an Atlantean city and hit by a major tsunami, I'm sure a lot of evidence would have been washed away when the water drained back into the Atlantic or, at the least, it would have settled near wherever the shore was at the time.

Speaking of the above building materials, what do these archaeologists say about the differences in the layers of the ruins? I mean, I know that they can see the Carthaginian(top layer) and Phoenician(middle layer) influences but the foundations of the ruins seem to show a completely different style more akin to the megalithic buildings of Malta and the like. Any sources you could link to to address this seeming discrepancy?

Originally posted by Mad Simian


Well, if the Atlanteans where chalcolithic, whose to say later societies who settled the area didn't find any copper artifacts and recycled them. After all, why bother trying to go to all the trouble to mine the ore and smelt it when you could just collect and melt down a bunch of copper axes, hammers, knives/swords, jewelry etc. that just happen to be lying around? The same could be said for any building materials. Besides, according to Wikipedia, only about 20% of the site has actually been excavated.

Also, if it were originally an Atlantean city and hit by a major tsunami, I'm sure a lot of evidence would have been washed away when the water drained back into the Atlantic or, at the least, it would have settled near wherever the shore was at the time.

Speaking of the above building materials, what do these archaeologists say about the differences in the layers of the ruins? I mean, I know that they can see the Carthaginian(top layer) and Phoenician(middle layer) influences but the foundations of the ruins seem to show a completely different style more akin to the megalithic buildings of Malta and the like. Any sources you could link to to address this seeming discrepancy?

Howdy Mad Simian

The problem with that theory is that they would also have to pick up everything, everywhere - considering the amount of gold, silver and gems we've found from other civilizations it seems odd to think someone would recover every single piece from another civilization to include their sherds, disbursed their middens and trash dumps - that would be impressive - if it could be done. The most impressive task would have been to remove every disturbance of the soil - and there is no known way to do that.

Tsunamis when they hit and push inland peak at some point and leave a line of debris - no such line has been found laden with 'Atlantean' items - nor do things wash up on shore.

Speaking in generalities the 20% relates to full excavation but there would have been dozens of test pits to outline the best place to dig - from the test pits which usually are taken to bedrock or the water level would have found something. When I was at Lixus (I walked around about two hours) I found numerous pottery sherds from the the Phonicians and Carthy period, Islamic, Greek, Roman, etc no Atlantean.

Atlantis believers tend to feel unless the entire planet is excavated to the depth of 10 meters there is still a chance someone has missed the evidence. Civilizations leave tremendous amounts of material behind. The Atlanteans left nothing not even ship anchors - which litter the Med from every other culture.

On the layers which images are you looking at?

Originally posted by Mad Simian
Speaking of the above building materials, what do these archaeologists say about the differences in the layers of the ruins? I mean, I know that they can see the Carthaginian(top layer) and Phoenician(middle layer) influences but the foundations of the ruins seem to show a completely different style more akin to the megalithic buildings of Malta and the like. Any sources you could link to to address this seeming discrepancy?

This is what I was trying to get at earlier.

Originally posted by HappyBunny

Originally posted by Mad Simian
Speaking of the above building materials, what do these archaeologists say about the differences in the layers of the ruins? I mean, I know that they can see the Carthaginian(top layer) and Phoenician(middle layer) influences but the foundations of the ruins seem to show a completely different style more akin to the megalithic buildings of Malta and the like. Any sources you could link to to address this seeming discrepancy?

This is what I was trying to get at earlier.

Ah yes the Phoenician style of building utilized large stones as the foundation

A similar method of construction is found to have prevailed at Tyre, at Sidon, at Aradus, at Byblus, at Leptis Major, at Eryx, at Motya, at Gaulos, and at Lixus on the West African coast. The blocks employed do not reach the size of the largest discovered at Jerusalem, but still are of dimensions greatly exceeding those of most builders, varying, as they do, from six feet to twenty feet in length, and being often as much as seven or eight feet in breadth and height. As the building rises, the stones diminish in size, and the upper courses are often in no way remarkable. Stones of various sizes are used, and often the courses are not regular, but one runs into another. A tower in the wall of Eryx is a good specimen of this kind of construction

Link to Phoenician architecture

One more quote

In cannot be denied that the habit of preferring large to small blocks, even in monuments of a very moderate size, involved the Phoenician architects in awkwardnesses and anomalies, which offend a cultivated taste; but it should be remembered, on the other hand, that massiveness in the material conduces greatly to stability, and that, in lands where earthquakes are frequent, as they are along all the Mediterranean shores, not many monuments would have survived the lapse of three thousand years had the material employed been of a less substantial and solid character.

Originally posted by Hanslune

Originally posted by HappyBunny

Originally posted by Mad Simian
Speaking of the above building materials, what do these archaeologists say about the differences in the layers of the ruins? I mean, I know that they can see the Carthaginian(top layer) and Phoenician(middle layer) influences but the foundations of the ruins seem to show a completely different style more akin to the megalithic buildings of Malta and the like. Any sources you could link to to address this seeming discrepancy?

This is what I was trying to get at earlier.

Ah yes the Phoenician style of building utilized large stones as the foundation

A similar method of construction is found to have prevailed at Tyre, at Sidon, at Aradus, at Byblus, at Leptis Major, at Eryx, at Motya, at Gaulos, and at Lixus on the West African coast. The blocks employed do not reach the size of the largest discovered at Jerusalem, but still are of dimensions greatly exceeding those of most builders, varying, as they do, from six feet to twenty feet in length, and being often as much as seven or eight feet in breadth and height. As the building rises, the stones diminish in size, and the upper courses are often in no way remarkable. Stones of various sizes are used, and often the courses are not regular, but one runs into another. A tower in the wall of Eryx is a good specimen of this kind of construction

Link to Phoenician architecture

One more quote

In cannot be denied that the habit of preferring large to small blocks, even in monuments of a very moderate size, involved the Phoenician architects in awkwardnesses and anomalies, which offend a cultivated taste; but it should be remembered, on the other hand, that massiveness in the material conduces greatly to stability, and that, in lands where earthquakes are frequent, as they are along all the Mediterranean shores, not many monuments would have survived the lapse of three thousand years had the material employed been of a less substantial and solid character.

Thanks. I know I need to brush up on this, because it really has been a long time.

My pleasure, let me know if you have any other questions