Once, the famous philosophers of antiquity Plato, wrote the wrong story or fiction about the grandiose country of Atlantis.
Aristotle's teacher and student of Socrates told the descendants an extremely intriguing story, since then many researchers have been trying to find traces of Ancient Atlantis and the creation of the Atlanteans.
In fact, now it does not matter whether Atlantis existed or not. After all, the cultural and historical influence that the legendary country had on the modern world is very great.
If something like that happens to modern civilization, then according to the excavations of the modern world, future archaeologists will be 100% sure that Atlantis once really existed.
Influence of Atlantis on culture
She had the greatest influence on world literature. Atlantis was mentioned in their novels and used as a prototype of an ancient civilization by many world-famous writers and science fiction writers, such as Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Kir Bulychev and others.
In their works, they threw it into another dimension, drowned it more than once, turned Atlanteans into ghosts and mutants, and even painted Atlantis as a secret base for aliens.
Promotional video:
In general, Atlantis served as a way to define an ancient, powerful civilization with an ideal structure of government and possessing the secret secrets inaccessible to modern mankind.
Until now, various scientists and researchers put forward all kinds of theories about its existence and purpose, massive expeditions are supplied to search for the country, every third person on Earth wants to know its secret.
Thanks to Atlantis, many artistic pictures have been written, many scientific and feature films have been shot. Atlantis was sung in their poems by many world-famous singers, there are many computer games where actions are associated with Atlantis or its inhabitants, many animated series have been filmed and many comics have been drawn.
Search for Atlantis
Unfortunately, today you cannot ask Plato whether he composed a story about Atlantis or wrote a true story, even if he heard it from a third person. Nevertheless, Atlantis had a tremendous impact not only on world culture, but also on scientific and technological progress, prompting scientists to create new tools for research.
Thanks to the search for Atlantis, new lands were discovered, and amazing discoveries were made both on land and hidden under the sea water.
The search for Atlantis does not end to this day. In 2009, the Google Earth project launched a curious service Ocean, which allows you to examine the secrets of the ocean floor.
Several search users even found an unusual pattern at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, in principle similar to the city streets from a bird's eye view!
By the way, several articles and photographs were even published about these finds, moreover, in the world's leading print media. However, Google Corporation hastened to disappoint fans of the ancient Atlanteans, claiming that what is visible in the photographs are only image artifacts.
With the development of modern technologies and digital devices, the search for Atlantis did not end, but, on the contrary, intensified. And who knows, maybe someday the world will see the real ruins of an ancient empire!
Timaeus and Critias
Almost all information about the existence of the ancient highly developed Atlanteans comes to us from the records of Plato, left for subsequent centuries in two dialogues "Timaeus" and "Critias". The essence of these dialogues boils down to the fact that communicating with Socrates about the perfect structure formation of the state, a certain Critias mentions a story about the ancient civilization of Atlantis with a perfect political structure, which his grandfather told him.
This is a story about an amazing and powerful island-state that existed for about 10 thousand years BC. era, around the time of the Flood. At that time, says Critias, Athens was the most powerful and powerful state with a skilled army, and the forces of Atlantis, which for some reason were at odds with them, were sent to bring the unconquered to their knees.
The ancient Greek army, apparently supported by its mythical monstrous gods, repulsed the attack of the invading warriors of a foreign country. But then something unearthly and eerie happened - suddenly clouds opened and thunder rumbled terribly, this destroyed the army of the Athenians who fell dead. At the same moment, Atlantis, whose rulers clearly angered the gods and awakened their power, was buried under the waters of the ocean! A terrible, terrible tragedy, the secret and truth of which is hidden in the mists of time.
Atlantis is magnificent
As Plato suggested, the ancestor of the entire Atlantean civilization was the ancient Greek God of the sea, Poseidon. God was so fond of a simple earthly girl - as often happened in the history of the gods - that they had 10 divine sons, for whom he actually created the island of Atlantis.
Atlantis of those years was an island plain about 500 kilometers long and 300 kilometers wide. Five rings were created around the island for protection, three of them represented a water barrier and two land ones, caring like a father, the god Poseidon took care of his children. On the island, Atlantean masters created tall temples whose decoration was gold and silver.
As the knowledgeable people tell the story, the houses in Atlantis were gorgeous, and giant golden statues met around the island, from which we can conclude that the locals, who were distinguished by rare beauty, did not live in poverty. Of course, there was also a richly decorated royal palace, market squares were packed with all kinds of products, shipyards were full of ships and so on and so forth, as far as the ancient Greek philosopher Plato imagined a magnificent rich city.
In addition to decorating their own city, the Atlanteans, according to Plato, were engaged in the extraction of white, black and red stone, mining it both on their island and in the bowels of the earth rings. According to history, they mined stone primarily to decorate their buildings and homes.
But what is interesting, if some buildings were simple and did not have any special decorations, then other buildings, supposedly for fun, were honed to brilliant beauty, however, we must not forget that the history of ancient Atlantis came to us through the time of several centuries.
The greed of the Atlanteans caused the death of Atlantis
Plato in his writings hinted at the fact that banal human greed and pride, feelings accompanying a person along the entire path of evolution and development, destroyed Atlantis. While the direct heirs of Poseidon were alive, a proud divine nature was cultivated in the Atlanteans, and they put virtue as the highest good.
But when only memories remained of the divine nature, the whole civilization was mired in luxury and debauchery. An angry Zeus / the main God / called a meeting of the Gods to decide the fate of the Atlanteans, and at this important moment, Plato's story intriguingly ends.
But if you believe all this seriously, it is not hard to guess where the global catastrophe came from, and what the Gods decided for the meeting….
Atlantis - myth or reality, storyteller?
Most historians and scientists believe that, after all, the story of the ancient Greek philosopher and poet Plato about Atlantis is most likely a myth, invented by him to express his own opinion about an ideal society. However, it is possible that a real state, which fell into decay after the catastrophe, could serve as a prototype of Atlantis.
It is generally known that Plato (a student of Socrates) differed from other philosophers, as well as historians, in that he never set himself the goal of telling readers about specific and real facts.
Plato usually engaged in various discussions about the structure of the world, made assumptions about the best structure of society, indulged in various ideas for improving it using the help of philosophical myths. All the names in Plato's source about Atlantis are Greek, which also suggests, most likely, about the composition of this story, rather than about the real truth.
This is also confirmed by archaeological excavations and reliably known facts preserved from other chronicles about the ancient world. Despite all modern technical advances in archeology, there are no real traces of excavations of a highly developed culture in Greece, Europe, Africa, at least researchers have not been able to find traces of the ancient civilization of Atlantis, either in the sea or on land.
Santorini Island
At the same time, Plato, could write a history based on quite real historical events, during which a highly developed / by those standards / state perished due to a natural disaster. Such a culture could be the Minoan civilization, located at that time on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea.
As you know, the Minoans fell victim to an unexpectedly awakened volcano, whose strongest eruption literally in 24 hours wiped out this ancient civilization from the face of the earth. The island was hit by a huge tsunami, accompanied by earthquakes, it was completely covered with volcanic ash. Historians believe that there were no survivors on the island at that time, the entire civilization perished.
This event would most accurately fit the descriptions of Atlantis, both according to the description of the island, and the unfolding historical events - after all, the Minoans did attack the Athenians. True, the events that occurred on the island of Santorini took place 8000 years later than Plato describes it.
There are many options for the location and existence of Atlantis. Some researchers believe that modern Antarctica is the sunken Atlantis, others advise looking for it in the Atlantic or Indian Ocean.
The great world powers at different times sent expeditions to find Atlantis, and adventurers still hunt for the treasures of the Atlanteans.
However, no one has yet provided reliable information about the existence of the ancient state. There are many attempts to declare where ancient Atlanta lies, but history has its own rules, and time is the most honest and incorruptible witness.
If something is very firmly entrenched in world history and culture, then you can already be 99% sure that the reasons for this were more than plausible. Also, we cannot completely reject the myth that once flourished in the past history of such a great and powerful civilization as Atlantis, with highly developed science and technology.