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Laboratory The capital of Atlantis as described by Plato. (Copyright Lee Krystek 2006)
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The idea of a lost, but highly advanced civilization has captured the interest of
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Index/Site Map people for centuries. Perhaps the most compelling of these tales is the story of
Cyclorama Atlantis. The story appears again and again in books, television shows and
movies. Where did the story originate and is any of it true?

Search Plato's Atlantis

UnMuseum Search The story of the lost continent of Atlantis starts in 355 B.C. with the Greek
philosopher Plato. Plato had planned to write a trilogy of books discussing the
nature of man, the creation of the world, and the story of Atlantis, as well as
other subjects. Only the first book was ever completed. The second book was
abandoned part way through, and the final book was never even started.

Plato used dialogues to express his ideas. In this type of writing, the author's
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thoughts are explored in a series of arguments and debates between various
a friend
Enter friend's e-mail: characters in the story. Plato often used real people in his dialogues, such as his
teacher, Socrates, but the words he gave them were his own.
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In Plato's book, Timaeus, a character named Kritias tells an account of Atlantis
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that has been in his family for generations. According to the character, the story
was originally told to his ancestor, Solon, by a priest during Solon's visit to Egypt.

There had
been a
powerful
empire located
to the west of
the "Pillars of
Hercules"
(what we now
call the
Straight of
Gibraltar) on
an island in the
Atlantic Ocean. The nation there had been established by Poseidon, the God of
the Sea. Poseidon fathered five sets of twins on the island. The firstborn, Atlas,
had the continent and the surrounding ocean named for him. Poseidon divided
the land into ten sections, each to be ruled by a son, or his heirs.

The capital city of Atlantis was a marvel of architecture and engineering. The city
was composed of a series of concentric walls and canals. At the very center was
a hill, and on top of the hill a temple to Poseidon. Inside was a gold statue of the
God of the Sea showing him driving six winged horses.

About 9000 years before the time of Plato, after the people of Atlantis became
corrupt and greedy, the gods decided to destroy them. A violent earthquake
shook the land, giant waves rolled over the shores, and the island sank into the
sea, never to be seen again.

So, is the story of Atlantis just a fable used by Plato to make a point? Or is there
some reason to think he was referring to a real place? Well, at numerous points
in the dialogues, Plato's characters refer to the story of Atlantis as "genuine
history" and it being within "the realm of fact." Plato also seems to put into the
story a lot of detail about Atlantis that would be unnecessary if he had intended
to use it only as a literary device.

On the other hand

according to the
writings of the
historian Strabo,
Plato's student
Aristotle remarked
that Atlantis was
simply created by
Plato to illustrate a
point. Unfortunately,
Aristotle's writings
on this subject,
which might have cleared the mystery up, have been lost eons ago.

Location, Location, Location

If we make the assumption that Atlantis was a real place, it seems logical that it
could be found west of the Straight of Gibraltar near the Azores Islands. In 1882
a man named Ignatius Donnelly published a book titled Atlantis, the Antediluvian
World. Donnelly, an American politician, had come to the belief that Plato's story
represented actual historical fact. He located Atlantis in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the Azores Islands represented what remained of the
highest mountain peaks. Donnelly said he had studied zoology and geology and
had come to the conclusion that civilization itself had begun with the Atlantians
and had spread out throughout the world as the Atlantians established colonies
in places like ancient Egypt and Peru. Donnelly's book became a world-wide best
seller, but researchers could not take Donnelly's theories seriously as he offered
no proof for his ideas.

As time went on it became obvious that Donnelly's theories were faulty. Modern
scientific surveys of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean shows it is covered with a
blanket of sediment that must have taken millions of years to accumulate. There
is no sign of a sunken island continent. Are Pyramids a Clue?

Are there any other candidates for the location of Lewis Spence, a Scottish
Atlantis? People have made cases for places as writer, published several
diverse as Switzerland, in the middle of Europe, and books on Atlantis in the
New Zealand, in the Pacific Ocean. The explorer, early 20th century. He was
Percy Fawcett, thought that it might be located in fascinated by the pyramids
Brazil. constructed by ancient
races in different parts of
Atlantis in Spain?
the globe. Spence
Recently a research team led by Professor Richard wondered if the creation of
Freund at the University of Hartford, has claimed pyramids in diverse areas
that they have found evidence that the city may be such as South America
buried not under the ocean, but along the coast of and Egypt indicated that
Spain in marshlands of the Doņana National Park. these places had all been
Geological studies have shown that at one time this colonies of the Atlantis
marsh was a huge bay connected to the Atlantic and if the Atlantians were
Ocean. The team, using radar technology, digital the original pyramid
mapping and satellite imagery believes that they can makers. While the idea is
see signs of a ringed city that once occupied the bay interesting, most
with canals similar to those described by Plato. historians today believe
There is evidence that a number of tsunamis have the trend toward building
swept this area over the centuries and Freund thinks pyramids occurred
that it is one of these destroyed the city. After the independently in different
disaster survivors may have moved inland and locations.
created a number of what Freund thinks are
memorial sites to Atlantis.

Other scientists that have explored the area do not

agree with Freund's conclusion, though they admit
that a city by the name of Tartessos occupied the
area around the 4th century B.C.. Freund believes
that Tartessos and Atlantis may just be different
names for the same city. As far back as the 1920's historian Adolf Schulten had
suggested that Plato had used the real city of Tartessos as the source for his
Atlantis legend.

The strongest evidence for a real Atlantis, however, is not in Spain, but closer to
Plato's home in Greece. This idea started with K.T. Frost, a professor of history at
the Queen's University in Belfast. Later, Spyridon Marinatos, an archaeologist,
and A.G. Galanopoulos, a seismologist, added evidence to Frost's ideas.

The Minoan Connection

Frost suggested that instead of being west of the Pillars of Hercules, Atlantis
was east. He also thought that the catastrophic end of the island had come not
9000 years before Plato's time, but only 900. If this was true, the land of Atlantis
might already be a well-known place even in Plato's time: the island of Crete.

Crete is now a part of modern Greece and lies just south of Athens across part of
the Mediterranean Sea. Before 1500 B.C. it was the seat of the Minoan Empire.
The Minoans dominated the eastern Mediterranean with a powerful navy and
probably extracted tribute from other surrounding nations. Archaeological
excavations have shown that Minoan Crete was probably one of the most
sophisticated cultures of its time. It had splendid architecture and art. A code of
laws gave women equal legal status to men. Agriculture was highly developed
and an extensive irrigation system existed.

Then, seemingly in a blink of

an eye, the Minoan Civilization
disappeared. Geological
studies have shown that on an
island we now know as
Santorinas, located just eighty
miles to the north of Crete, a
disaster occurred that was
very capable of toppling the
Minoan state.

Santorinas today is a lush

Mediterranean paradise
consisting of several islands
in a ring shape. Twenty-five
hundred years ago, though, it
was a single large island with
The island of Santorini in a satellite photo that a volcano in the center. The
clearly shows the ring left by the volcanos volcano blew itself apart in a
explosion. massive explosion around
1500 B.C.

To understand the effect of such an explosion, scientists have compared it with

the most powerful volcanic explosion in historic times. This occurred on the
Island of Krakatoa in 1883. There a giant wave, or tsunami, 120 feet high raced
across the sea and hit neighboring islands, killing 36,000 people. Ash thrown up
into the air blackened the skies for three days. The sound of the explosion was
heard as far away as 3,000 miles.

The explosion at Santorinas was four times as powerful as Krakatoa.

The tsunami that hit Crete must have traveled inland for over half a mile,
destroying any coastal towns or cities. The great Minoan fleet of ships were all
sunk in a few seconds. Overnight the powerful Minoan Empire was crushed and
Crete changed to a political backwater. One can hardly imagine a catastrophe
more like Plato's description of Atlantis' fate than the destruction of Crete.

Many of the details

of the Atlantis story
fit with what is now
known about Crete.
Women had a
relatively high
political status, both
cultures were
peaceful, and both
enjoyed the unusual
sport of ritualistic A fresco from the Minoan palace at Knossos showing the
"bull leaping" (where sport of "bull leaping." The Minoan civilization is also the
an unarmed man source of the legend of the haf man/half bull Minotaur.
wrestled and jumped over a bull).

If the fall of the Minoans is the story of Atlantis, how did Plato get the location
and time wrong? Galanopoulos suggested there was a mistake during translation
of some of the figures from Egyptian to Greek and an extra zero added. This
would mean 900 years ago became 9000, and the distance from Egypt to
"Atlantis" went from 250 miles to 2,500. If this is true, Plato (knowing the layout
of the Mediterranean Sea) would have been forced to assume the location of the
island continent to be squarely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Not everyone accepts the Minoan Crete theory of the story of Atlantis, but until a
convincing case can be made for some other place, it, perhaps, remains
science's best guess.

According to Plato the temple in the center of Atlantis was dominated by a statue
of Poseidon driving six winged horses (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2006).

Copyright Lee Krystek 1997-2006. All Rights Reserved.