Where was the legendary Atlantis? “Of course, in the Atlantic Ocean,” many of our readers will probably answer this question. - That is why it is called the Atlantic. Well, the fact that no traces of Atlantis have been found in the Atlantic Ocean is not surprising - the ocean is large. And very deep."
Or maybe traces of Atlantis in the ocean were not found because it was never there?
What do we know about Atlantis?
The only reliable historical mention of Atlantis is Plato's Dialogues. In the dialogues "Timaeus" and "Critias" Plato conveys the story of the Athenian sage Solon, to whom the Egyptian priests told about the mighty civilization "on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules" that arose in time immemorial, much earlier than the Egyptian and Greek.
The Greeks called Gibraltar “the Pillars of Hercules”, and the mysterious state was named Atlantis in honor of the son of the god of the seas Poseidon and the earthly woman Clayto, Atlanta. Plato describes in detail the nature and geography of the island, the names of its mountains, rivers, cities, marinas and temples, vegetation, fauna and, of course, the state structure under the rule of the kings who traced their lineage to Poseidon.
As for the specific location of the island, here Plato is limited to a single vague indication, on the basis of which Atlantis was sought “on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules,” that is, not in the Mediterranean Sea, but in the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, the name of the ocean also played a role.
Promotional video:
In the "Dialogues" there are no specific indications about the time of the destruction of Atlantis. It is only said that "when the time came for unprecedented earthquakes and floods, in one terrible day … Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the abyss." It is still unknown what kind of powerful earthquake or flood, of the not so rare occurrence in those days and giving rise to many legends, the Egyptian priests could associate with the death of Atlantis.
Looking in the Mediterranean?
In the Atlantic Ocean, many explorers have searched for Atlantis over the years, to no avail. Some of them, including our compatriots, came to the conclusion that it simply does not exist in the Atlantic Ocean. Back in 1854, the Russian Minister of Public Education A. S. Norov, in his book "Studies on Atlantis", gave a rather curious argument in favor of the fact that Atlantis should be sought in the Mediterranean.
Norov refers to Pliny the Elder and some Arab chronicles, who asserted that Cyprus was once a single whole with Syria, and that it became an island after a strong earthquake and submersion of a significant part of the land. The scientist questions his contemporary "interpretations" of Plato's texts, in which, after all, the story of Atlantis is transmitted "through third hands", that is, through Solon from the Egyptian priests.
According to Norov, Egyptian priests called the Mediterranean Sea the Atlantic - after all, the Atlas Mountains are located west of Egypt, in Berberia. In addition, Solon uses the word "pelagos" in his story, not "oceanos", which means that it is about the sea.
Santorini Island
Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer…
But what about Plato's specific indication - “on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules”? Norov answers this question as well. It was the Greeks, Solon and Plato, who understood Gibraltar as the Pillars of Hercules, and the Egyptians could call that almost any significant strait. According to the Russian scientist, it could well have been the Bosphorus.
Subsequently, Atlantologists found more and more arguments in favor of the "Mediterranean" theory - including carefully rereading the same Plato.
The fact that, together with the Atlanteans, the army of the Athenians, the ancestors of the Greeks modern to Plato, died, indicated that Atlantis was not so far from Greece. In addition, many of the islands of the Mediterranean correspond almost exactly to the descriptions of nature, mineralogy, and religious cults given by Plato.
In 1897 A. N. Karnorzhitsky (again our compatriot!) In his article "Atlantis" determined its location "between Asia Minor, Syria, Libya and Hellas." And three years later, the Englishman Arthur Evans discovered on the island of Crete traces of an ancient pre-Hellenic civilization (the legendary labyrinth of King Minos). This marked a turning point in the history of the search for the Mediterranean Atlantis.
Is it really Crete?
As it turned out, Crete perfectly "fit" in all respects. Sheer cliffs rising from the sea; color of stones, hot springs and other traces of post-volcanic activity; finally, the tavromachia (cult of the sacred bull) of the ancient Cretans - everything exactly corresponded to the descriptions of Plato.
And what is most important - the story of the tragic death of the entire Cretan-Minoan civilization, washed away 3600 years ago by a huge wave from a volcanic earthquake that occurred on one of the Cyclades islands.
“Yes, Atlantis was in the Eastern Mediterranean; this is Crete and the surrounding islands at the time of the heyday of the dynasty of King Minos”, - categorically declared in 1909 the American K. T. Frost.
Jacques Yves Cousteau: "Atlantis is Santorini"
More than 100 years have passed since then. In search of the Mediterranean Atlantis, work is underway on the island of Crete itself, as well as carefully combing the nearby seabed. Books and films have been written about these searches, in particular the Air Force documentary Atlantis: The End of the World, the Birth of a Legend and the film The Odyssey of Jacques Cousteau. In Search of Atlantis”.
Alas, no serious and definitive archaeological evidence of the existence of Atlantis (or at least its identity with the Cretan-Minoan civilization) has ever been found.
In the early 80s of the last century, Jacques Yves Cousteau, desperate to find this very evidence off the northern coast of Crete, went to the main "culprit" of the events of 3600 years ago, the volcanic island of Santorini.
It was here, off the coast of the southernmost island of the Cyclades ridge, that Cousteau hoped to find traces of the sunken Atlantis. In addition to the fact that Santorini, in fact, is a fragment of an exploded volcano towering over the water, it is so beautiful and unusual that one just really wants to believe in it.
Dark pearl of the Aegean
The dark gray, almost black cone of the mountain is crowned with a small, but luxurious white and blue wreath of houses and churches, adhering to the slopes tightly like honeycombs. A dark gray shade, the color of old volcanic ash, is the main one here. There are beaches at the foot of the mountains, but the sand on them is also dark gray, covering the skin with a thin coating that is not immediately washed off.
There are very few horizontal surfaces on Santorini. So little that the runway of the local airport runs very close to the beach, and planes take off and land literally over the head of the vacationers.
A shell of solidified lava covers a thin layer of highly mineralized soil, thanks to which an unusual type of plant grows on the island - very large snow-white eggplants, for example, or daisies the size of a tea saucer.
On Santorini, in spring and autumn, there are sunsets of unprecedented beauty, in all shades of crimson, orange and scarlet, and sometimes, for some obscure meteorological whim, and bright green.
Looking from the mountain into the crystal-blue, purest mirror of the inner lake, breathing in the dry and slightly bitter air from volcanic impurities, it is easy to imagine how quite recently, only four thousand years ago, instead of volcanic peaks there was a flat surface lined with ideal octahedra, along which proudly walked two-meter golden-haired and tanned descendants of Poseidon.
It seems, look under a layer of ash, dive deeper from the cliff of Poseidon - and here they are, the pavement slabs of the legendary City of the Hundred Golden Gates, with mysterious letters and images of unknown sea monsters …
Jacques Yves Cousteau did not find Atlantis off the coast of Santorini. At that time he was already over seventy, and, perhaps, he simply did not have enough strength and time. But, in any case, he did not abandon this idea of his and bequeathed the search to his students and followers.
So the mysterious and beautiful Santorini awaits - not only sighing and gasping tourists, but also a new generation of atlantologists.
Olga STROGOVA