Location hypotheses of Atlantis

Atlantis is the subject of a modern legend about an advanced island civilization that was destroyed or lost. Stories about Atlantis are first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, in which characters say it was destroyed by an earthquake or a tsunami about 9,000 years before the time in which Plato wrote. The story claims Atlantis was somewhere outside the Pillars of Hercules (also known as the Strait of Gibraltar). According to Plato, the story originated with Egyptian priests.

Most people acknowledge that the stories are fictions made up to serve the purposes of Plato's dialogs. But others take them as if they were serious historical accounts. There have been dozens — perhaps hundreds — of locations proposed for the classical Atlantis. Some are more-or-less serious attempts at legitimate scholarly or archaeological works; others have been made by psychic or other pseudoscientific means. As continental drift became better understood and accepted during the 1950's, most "Lost Continent" theories of Atlantis have been proven conclusively false.

Some cultures have "lost civilization" myths. In some cases, it has been argued that there is a common historical event or real "lost civilization" at the root of some or all of these legends, but there is considerable disagreement between the competing hypotheses. It may be that these legends have arisen from many different historical events, and are only just now being associated by modern theorizers because of their similarity. It may also be that these legends are entirely fictional, but for some reason have arisen and remained popular in many different cultures at different times.

Of course there is always the possibility that there is no real location for Atlantis simply because Plato intended the story as an allegory, similar to his story of the cave.

In or near the Mediterranean Sea

Many theories of Atlantis center around the Mediterranean. In part because of the Greek myth which is the first written record of Atlantis, but it was also a superhighway of transport in ancient times, allowing for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region. The roots of Western civilization began in the Mesopotamia in nearby modern day Iraq. Some of the more popular theories include the Minoan civilization on Crete, the island of Sardinia as well as some other river valley civilizations.

Andalucia

Andalucia is a region in modern day southern Spain and host to the lost city of Tartessos, which disappeared in the 6th century BC. The Tartessians were traders and known to the Greeks who knew of their legendary king Arganthonios. Some of the proponents (Rainer W. Kühne and Werner Wickboldt) of this theory suggest that Atlanteans were the Sea Peoples who attacked the Eastern Mediterranean countries around 1200 BC. The hypothesis was originally developed by Adolf Schulten in 1922, and further studied by Otto Jessen and Richard Hennig in the 1920's. Satellite images of the area show two rectangular structures and concentric circles which have been hypothesized to be the "temple of Poseidon" and "the temple of Cleito and Poseidon" [1]. The original article of Rainer W. Kühne appeared in the journal Antiquity : [2].

Teogony of hesiod ten labor of heracles the castle of geryon, herecles kill the grandson of poseidon geryon at erytheia, in this place founded the city of Gaderia ( Cadiz ,Spain) .Erytheia is one of the seven daughter of atlas mith of hesperides.

The National Library and the The Norwegian Institute of Palaeography and Historical Philology (PHI), assigned to the Academy of Sciences and Lettering and to the University of Oslo, Norway, have decided to consider the hypothesis of a Cuban investigator of Spanish origin(georgeos diaz-montexano) on an epigraphical interpretation of one of the most ancient inscriptions of the world [3] [4] atal-tarte (atlas/atlantis-tartessos?)[5]

Crete and Santorini

Among those who believe in an historical Atlantis, a common hypothesis holds that Plato's story of the destruction of Atlantis was inspired by massive volcanic eruptions on the Mediterranean island of Santorini during Minoan times. Skeptics of an Atlantic Ocean location usually promote this theory. Some consider this to be the likeliest hypothesis, though investigators (such as Frank Joseph) discount this theory as misleading. A main criticism of this hypothesis is that the ancient Greeks were well aware of volcanoes, and if there was a volcanic eruption, it would seem likely that it would be mentioned. Additionally, Pharaoh Amenhotep III commanded an emissary to visit the cities surrounding Crete and found the towns occupied shortly after the time Santorini was speculated to have completely destroyed the area.

Part of this hypothesis proposes, because Solon received his information from Egypt, that we assume that the Ancient Egyptian symbol for "hundred" was mistakenly read as "thousand". If this was possible, the translation would reduce the age and size of Atlantis by a factor of ten. This alteration would make Atlantis fit Minoan Crete well in size and age. Though, a translation error is unlikely because there would be little confusion in the visual appearance of hieroglyphic symbols of Egyptian numeric values.

Near Cape Spartel

Another recent hypothesis is based on a recreation of the geography of the Mediterranean at the time of Atlantis' supposed existence. Plato states that Atlantis was located beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the name given to the Strait of Gibraltar linking the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. 11,000 years ago the sea level in the area was some 130 metres lower, exposing a number of islands in the strait. One of these, Spartel, could have been Atlantis, though there are a number of inconsistencies with Plato's account.

Near Cyprus

Robert Sarmast, an American architect, claims to have definitely found the lost city of Atlantis on November 14, 2004, saying that by using sonar scans he was able to find manmade walls that matched the description of the structures described by Plato, CNN reports. The site lies 1,500 m deep in the Mediterranean Sea between Cyprus and Syria. Several geologists were quick to dispute the claim, as the place was deep under water during the period in question.

Recent research (4th of August 2005) has been done by Robert Sarmast in the Eastern Mediterranean sea between Cyprus and Syria. The sonar scans showed evidence of man-made structures one mile below sea level which is possibly a canal wall. Sarmast claims it is a 3 km-long straight wall intersected at right angles by another wall ([6]).

Israel

Jaime Manuschevich argues in "The Atlantis, the deciphered myth" (2002) that the real place of the mythical civilization is the territory that today corresponds to Israel and Sinai, that was an island in Great Rift Valley until 5600 BCE (Ryan and Pitman), surrounded by Jezreel Valley for the North, Dead Sea and Red Sea for the East and Gulf of Suez and Mediterranean Sea for the West until that date. In addition, Manuschevich raises that that culture or civilization corresponds to the natufian peoples, the first producing food people, whose main political and harbor center was Jericho. This people lived in the region in the dates established by Plato (11,600 BP).

Malta

Dr Anton Mifsud who, with co-authors Simon Mifsud, Chris Agius Sultana and Charles Savona Ventura, published Malta: Echoes of Plato's Island added another recent hypothesis. Their book is the product of thoughtful and profound research about the archeological sites and ancient remains related to Atlantis. Frances Galea in his book Malta Fdal Atlantis also wrote about the results of his lifelong research on several ancient studies and known hypotheses on Atlantis, particularly that of Giorgio Grongnet, the renowned Maltese architect, who in 1854 claimed that the Maltese Islands are the remnants of Atlantis. One has to remember that Malta boasts the oldest free-standing human structures on earth, predating the pyramids by a millennium.

Ponza

Ponza has many similarities to the Atlantis legend. Legend say that Ponza was the lost island of Tyrrhenia which was large and had a city at its edge. It was connected by land to the Italian mainland near Naples (Napoli). A volcano exploded and the island sunk leaving only the mountain top which is now called Ponza. Near Naples is Pozzuoli where Roman Temples in the harbor rose above water in the late 1960's due to volcanic processes.

Sardinia

In 2002 the Italian journalist Sergio Frau published a book, Le colonne d'Ercole (Pillars of Hercules), in which he states that before Eratosthenes, all the ancient Greek writers located the Pillars of Hercules on the Strait of Sicily, while only Alexander the Great's conquest of the east obliged Eratosthenes to move the pillars at Gibraltar in his description of the world.

According to his thesis, the Atlantis described by Plato could be identified with Sardinia. In fact, a catastrophe with tsunami eradicated from Sardinia the ancient and still enigmatic Nuragic civilization. The few survivors migrated to the nearby Italian peninsula, founding the Etruscan civilization, the basis for the later Roman civilization, while other survivors were part of those Sea Peoples that attacked Egypt.

In April 2005, the theories of the Italian journalist were debated in a high-level conference organised by UNESCO in Paris. At the same time, an exposition with the major findings of the theory (ATLANTIKA') and its evidence was on display in the UNESCO building to confirm that the organization's experts took the hypothesis quite seriously, and that this seems not to be "just another Atlantis theory". http://portal.unesco.org/es/ev.php-URL_ID=26682&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Troy

The geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger has proposed the hypothesis that Atlantis was in fact the city state of Troy. He both agrees and disagrees with Rainer W. Kühne: He too believes that the Trojans-Atlanteans were the sea peoples, but only a minor part of them. He proposes that all Greek speaking city states of the Aegean civilization or Mycenae constituted the sea peoples and that they destroyed each other's economies in a series of semi-fratricidal wars lasting several decades.

Tantali

British archaeologist Peter James took a clue from Plato's mention of king Tantalus, and investigated the city of Tantalis (also Tantalos) in the province of Manisa, Turkey. In addition to having very similar sounding names, numerous inscriptions and ancient writings from the region matched the Atlantis story. Tantalis, formerly a wealthy city state, was destroyed when a powerful earthquake struck and caused a lake to flood the city.

Outside the Mediterranean

When Plato spoke of the Ocean of Atlantis, he may have been speaking of the area that we now call the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean's name, derived from Greek mythology, means the "Sea of Atlas". Plato remarked that, in describing the origins of Atlantis, this area was allotted to Poseidon.

There is a prevalent opinion in scientific circles that "continents cannot possibly sink", delineated by the Isostasy theory. Geological studies of the mid-Atlantic fail to demonstrate that a large continent of Atlantis existed there. However, Atlantic Ocean geology does not exclude the possibility of a sunken island. If an island existed, it would have been much smaller than the island continent of Australia. Plato never claimed that a whole continent disappeared. He referenced a sunken island in front of another continent.

Antarctica

The theory that Antarctica was Atlantis was particularly fashionable during the 1960s and 1970s, spurred on partly both by the isolation of the continent, H. P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness and also the Piri Reis map, which purportedly shows Antarctica as it would be ice free, suggesting human knowledge of that period. Charles Berlitz, Erich Von Daniken and Peter Kolosimo have been amongst those popular authors who made this proposal.

More recently Rand & Rose Flem-Ath have proposed this in their book, "When the Sky Fell". A geological theory known as "Earth crust displacement" forms the basis of their work.

Charles Hapgood came up with the earth crust displacement theory. Hapgood's theory says that earth outer crust is able to move upon the upper mantle layer rapidly upon a distance up to 2,000 miles. This would place Atlantis right in Antarctica, not to say that Antarctica and Atlantis were one and same island. It is to be noted that Albert Einstein was one of the few voice to answer Hapgood's theory. Einstein wrote a preface for Hapgood's book Earth's shifting crust, published in 1958.

This theory is particularly popular with Hollow Earthers, and can be seen as a mirror of the Hyperborean identification.

The Earth/Crust displacement theory was only one of the theories presented in a more recent novel by author Thomas Greanias, in his 2005 novel Raising Atlantis. He proposed that not only was the Earth/Crust displacement responsible for Atlantis's disappearance from warmer climates, but also that the Atlanteans were the forefathers of all human existence, responsible for, among others, the Egyptian mythos surrounding Pyramids and for an early "universal" language, Aymara.

Note that the novel itself is mainly dealing with contemporary myths (from Desert Storm rumours, Papal Coverups, and American Nuclear Testing) but deals no facts in which to back itself up with, except for some vague remarks on "Anomalies" in Atlantis.

Azores Islands

One of the suggested places for Atlantis is around the Azores Islands, a group of islands belonging to Portugal located about 900 miles (1500 km) west of the Portuguese coast. Some people believe the islands could be the mountain tops of Atlantis.

Mid-Atlantic Ridge

This is related to the Azores theory, as the Azores could be mountaintops of Atlantis. During the last ice age, the sea levels could have been much lower, up to 500 feet less, and a large section of the Atlantic is in fact less than 500 feet deep.

Bahama Bank and Caribbean

There is some evidence of sunken island off Central America, which have been pushed by Z.A. Simon as an Atlantis site. In the area, peat and caves with stalactites and stalagmites were found, both of which only form in the open air and were dated between 5600 BC and 10,000 BC. The surrounding topology has also been suggested to be submerged valleys of ancient rivers and mountain ranges with a tectonic history. A problem with this theory is that Atlantis was supposed to have submerged rapidly, following an earthquake, while the area shows a slow submerging.

Bolivia

A hypothesis by Jim Allen [7][8], Plato's description exactly fits South America because he describes a level rectangular-shaped plain which he said lay in the centre of the continent, next to the sea and midway along the longest side of the continent.. He also described the capital city of Atlantis which was built on a small volcanic island and also called Atlantis. The city lay on the level rectangular plain, five miles from the sea and according to Plato the whole region was high above the level of the Ocean sea, rising sheer out of the ocean sea to a great height on that side of the continent. Thus we have both a lost city of Atlantis as well as a lost continent of Atlantis. See also Gene Matlock who argues that he found Atlantis or something similar in South America

Black Sea

German researchers Siegfried and Christian Schoppe locate Atlantis in the Black Sea. Before 5500 BC, a great plain lay in the northwest at a former freshwater-lake. In 5510 BC, rising sea level topped the barrier at today's Bosporus. They identify the Pillars of Hercules with the Strait of Bosporus. Oreichalcos means the obsidian stone that used to be a cash-equivalent at that time and was replaced by the spondylus shell around 5500 BC, which would suit the red, white, black motif. The geocatastrophic event led to the neolithic diaspora in Europe, also beginning 5500 BC.

In 2000, the Guardian reported that Robert Ballard, in a small submarine, found remains of human habitation around 300 feet underwater in the Black Sea off the north coast of Turkey. The area flooded around 5000 BC. This flood may have inspired the Biblical story of Noah's Ark; but the area need not be Atlantis.

Another candidate bordering the Black Sea, suggested by Hasan Umur in the 1940s, would be Ancomah , a legendary place near Trabzon.

British Isles

In his book Atlantis of the West: The Case For Britain's Drowned Megalithic Civilization ISBN 0786711450 , Paul Dunbavin argues that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were once one island and that this island was Atlantis. He argues that this Neolithic civilization was drowned by rising sea levels caused by a comet impact that changed the earth's axis around 3100 BC.

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands are also considered a candidate, as they are beyond the Pillars of Hercules and the Atlas mountains. One of the mysteries of the islands are the presence of "pyramids", and also the Guanche, who were a primitive people, who did not use boats, but whose ancestors appear to have built great structures.

England

On December 29, 1997, Russian scientists believed to have found Atlantis in the ocean 100 miles off Land's End, England. Little Sole Bank, a relatively shallow area, is believed to be the capital of Atlantis. This was based on the myth of Lyoness.

India and Sri Lanka

In South India and Sri Lanka there is a reputed "Kumari Kandam" (kandam means "continent" in Tamil), believed to be submerged under the sea. This continent is surrounded by legendary stories similar to those of Atlantis. It has been called the "cradle of Dravidians". Also, there have been some people linking the "Kumari continent" to Lemuria.

In the Gulf of Cambay, there is an archaeological submarine site of a former island named Dwaraka, which is mainly associated with locations in Indian mythology (especially in the Mahabharata), which has also appeared in discussions about Atlantis. But its date (about 1,500 BC) is too recent to correspond to the real site of Atlantis, according to Plato's date of 9,600 BC.

Indonesia/Sundaland

Several groups independently advocate Indonesia as a site for Atlantis, which was a large plain known as Sundaland during a previous ice age. Key to this argument is that the Ocean of Atlantis refers to the ocean which encircles Eurasia and Africa, which was the historical understanding until Christopher Columbus. Natives of Sundaland who fled the rising waters or volcanic explosions eventually had contact with ancient Egyptians, who later passed the story onto Plato who gets some but not all of the details correct, including location and time period. Some proponents argue that Atlantis myth is seen as a growth of, or in combination with Lemuria and other eden myths [9]. A "lost city" Kota Gelanggi has been found in Johor, Malaysia, but it has not been directly tied with Atlantis[10].

Ireland

This idea was presented in the book Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land (2004) by Swedish geographer Dr. Ulf Erlingsson from Uppsala University. It hypothesized that the empire of Atlantis refers to the Neolithic Megalithic tomb culture, based on their similar geographic extent, and deduced that the island of Atlantis then must correspond to Ireland. The similarities of size and landscape were found to be statistically significant, while the null hypothesis (that Plato invented Atlantis as fiction) was rejected.

Based on this result, the speculation was made that the capital of Atlantis could be connected with Newgrange, Knowth, and Tara, Ireland. As regards the sinking of Atlantis, it was suggested that it is a memory from another time and place, notably the Dogger Bank area. It was an island that sank in the North Sea about 6100 BCE. While the world sea level rose gradually as the Ice Age ice sheets melted, there was a sudden sea level rise at this time due to the final drainage of Lake Agassiz. At about the same time a tsunami from the Storegga Slide is believed to have devastated the island in the manner described by Plato. (See also entry on North Sea below.)

Other hypotheses place the location of Atlantis between Britain and France on the Celtic Shelf. _[11] This hypothesis was first developed seriously by Lewis Spence and has been recently revived by some oceanographers.

Isla de la Juventud near Cuba

Recent underwater discoveries off the west coast of Cuba have led some to speculate on an Atlantean connection. However, even before these discoveries were announced, author Andrew Collins had explored the Cuba connection in a book titled Gateway to Atlantis. Collins supports his hypothesis with a great deal of indirect but compelling historical and geographical evidence. He finally suggests present-day Isle of Youth and the shallow sea bottom that surrounds it as a possible location for Atlantis.

Finland

Finnish pseudohistorian Ior Bock locates Atlantis in the southern part of Finland where he claims a small community of people lived during the Ice Age. This is a small part of a large saga that he claims to have been told in his family through the ages, dating back to the development of language itself. Ior also believes that he is a descendant of an ancient Finnish god Lemminkäinen.

North Sea

The North Sea is known to contain lands that were once above water - the medieval town of Dunwich in East Anglia, for example, has since crumbled into the sea, and prehistoric remains have been dredged up from the Dogger Bank. Atlantis itself has been identified with the island of Heligoland off the north-west German coast by the author Jurgen Spanuth, who postulates that it was destroyed during the Bronze Age around 1200 BCE, only to partially re-emerge during the Iron Age. There is also the Oera Linda Book, which states that a land called Atland once existed in the North Sea, but was destroyed in 2194 BCE.

Sea of Azov

Atlantis Motherland, by authors Flying Eagle and Whispering Wind, published in 2003, locates the Island of Atlantis beneath the Sea of Azov and on the adjacent fertile plains to the west in Ukraine and to the east in Krasnodar Kray, Russia. Their research is based on tectonic evidence of a massive earthquake centered at Kerch, at the end of the Pleistocene and evidence of a great flood at the end of the Younger Dryas ice age, in 11,600 BP (9600 BC). This date corresponds with the date set by an aged Egyptian priest for the destruction of Atlantis, as recorded in the dialogues of Plato. A massive earthquake caused the island to sink, creating a new sea, which according to Eagle/Wind is the Sea of Azov. The violent earthquakes and floods left the new sea “impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way.” The aged priest refers to the shoals of mud as still existing at that time. The Sea of Azov was blocked by shoals of mud at that time, and would still be today without regular dredging.

The Eagle/Wind team has published a theory regarding the destruction of Atlantis, which they call "The Great Atlantis Flood"; One terrible day and night of misfortune; the extraordinary inundation of Atlantis and Attica. Their theory proposes that, with over one third of Europe draining into the land-locked Black Sea, and over-flow from the Caspian Sea at the end of the Younger Dryas, the level of the Black Sea rose to within 20 meters of its current level. A devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami increased the hydraulic pressure on a proposed subterranean outflow channel, flowing beneath the Bosporus land bridge and the present day Sea of Marmara and northern Aegean Sea, causing this subterranean channel to catastrophically rupture, generating the “extraordinary inundation” of ancient Attica. The Island of Atlantis, Attica and lands of the ancient Hellenes were all destroyed by the catastrophe. The survivors fled the treacherous sea shores and widespread disease and began founding new settlements.

Estremadura, Portugal

This theory states that Atlantis was no other than the Chalcolithic civilization of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro and that Greeks would have fought against them for the control of tin routes in alliance with neighbour civilization of El Argar, which shows some clear Hellenization in its B phase. The catastrophe described would be an earthquake with tsunami like the one suffered by Lisbon in 1755. [12]

The recent location of a sea branch reaching Zambujal (the main city of this culture) and the evidence that it was silted somehow when VNSP ended [13], seem to add some weight to this theory.

External links

General information

Support a specific location

Support invention hypothesis

News

BBC News, "Tsunami clue to 'Atlantis' found". August 15, 2005.
BBC News, "Satellite images 'show Atlantis' in Spain". June 6, 2004.
BBC News, "Have scientists really found the lost city of Atlantis?". November 15, 2004.
BBC News, "Atlantis 'obviously near Gibraltar'", September 20, 2001.
Radford, Tim, The Guardian, "Evidence found of Noah's ark flood victims", September 14, 2000.