There is hardly a person who has never heard the story of the mysterious island-state of Atlantis. Did it exist or not ?! And if so, where was it located, who inhabited it and what happened to it ?! All these are questions, unambiguous answers to which have not yet been found …
Once described by Plato, Atlantis has occupied the minds of historians, archaeologists, philosophers and esotericists for many centuries. Moreover, the absence of scientifically confirmed evidence of the existence of this civilization does not stop its seekers and researchers at all.
Plato's narrative
For the first time, the ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato of Athens (427-347 BC), told humanity about the island-state of Atlantis.
In his writings "Timaeus" and "Critias", presented in the form of dialogues between Socrates and the Pythagorean Timaeus, Plato talked about the best state structure. In the course of the dispute, a third participant joined the conversation - the Athenian politician Critias. He spoke about the war of Athens with the state of Atlantis. Critias learned this story from his grandfather Cretius the Elder, and he, in turn, heard it in the retelling of the poet and politician Solon, who had heard about it from the priests in Egypt.
According to Plato, 9,000 years ago, Athens went to war with the island state of Atlantis. "This island was larger than Libya (Africa. - Ed.) And Asia, taken together." And Atlantis fell with its might on Athens. Frightened, the allies left the Athenians, but the brave men repelled the onslaught of the Atlanteans and defeated them. After that, the enslaved peoples were liberated, and Atlantis itself was overtaken by a grandiose natural disaster, which not only killed all the Atlanteans, but also the army of the Athenians. And also forever plunged this state to the seabed.
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The philosopher describes Atlantis as a plain 3000 stades long (540 kilometers) and 2000 stades wide (360 kilometers). The capital of Atlantis was located on a hill island located 50 stadia (8-9 kilometers) from the sea. To protect against the elements, Poseidon, the ancestor of the Atlanteans, fenced the hill with the city with three water and two land rings. And the Atlanteans themselves threw bridges over these rings and dug canals, so that ships could sail directly to the capital.
"The island on which the palace stood … as well as earthen rings and a bridge with a width of plethr (30 meters. - Author's note) the kings surrounded with circular stone walls and on the bridges near the passages to the sea they put towers and gates everywhere …"
Plato described in such detail the wealth, beauty and fertility of an island he had never seen before that the reader had the feeling that the author had seen it all with his own eyes. At the same time, the philosopher reproached the Atlanteans for the fact that in them the divine nature gave way to human greed, love of money and pride. Angered by this, Zeus decided to exterminate the Atlanteans and called a meeting of the gods. At this, Plato's dialogue ends.
Islands in the ocean
Since the Renaissance, when Plato's works again found their readers, the search for the mysterious Atlantis has occupied the minds of mankind. Since then, there have been dozens of versions of her finding, as well as of her death, and in the 50s of the 20th century, even the doctrine of atlantology appeared.
One of the dominant hypotheses for the location of Atlantis boils down to finding it in the Atlantic Ocean, west of the Pillars of Hercules. This is how the Greeks, including Plato, called the rocks of Gibraltar and Ceutu, between which the Strait of Gibraltar was located. Plato wrote that Atlantis was located west of the Pillars of Hercules, opposite the Atlanta Mountains. Consequently, Atlantis should be located near Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco.
By the way, among the Greeks, Morocco was the abode of the titan Atlanta, from whose name the names of the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas ridge originated. From him the very name of Atlantis was formed - "the country of Atlanta".
A number of researchers argue that the Canary Islands are the remains of the once mighty island. So, according to the theory of Atlantologists, the Canary Islands are the remains of a bridge "thrown" from Africa to Atlantis. However, communication with Atlantis via the "Canary Bridge" was cut off even earlier than with Africa, which can be traced on the relief of the ocean floor.
In 2009, English seabed aerial photography specialist Bernie Bamford made a statement that he saw Atlantis in one of the images of the Atlantic Ocean, five hundred kilometers from the Canary Islands.
At a depth of 5 kilometers, Bamford made out a rectangle consisting of a grid of intersecting lines. They seemed to him the streets of a flooded city.
Moreover, the city, according to Bamford, surpassed modern megacities and was equal in area to about half of the Moscow region! However, the picture with lines and rectangles did not show the circular channels described by Plato. In addition, skeptics believed that these were not genuine lines, but virtual directions of sonars (devices used to detect and study underwater objects). Although there should not be any breaks in the sonar lines, but they were in the picture.
In the Atlantic Ocean, Soviet oceanologists were also looking for Atlantis. In the 70s and 80s of the last century, five hundred kilometers west of the Strait of Gibraltar, in the Azores region, near the Ampere seamount, scientific expeditions on the ships Akademik Petrovsky and Akademik Kurchatov discovered strange vertical structures similar to the walls of an ancient city …
They protruded from a layer of light sand and were also located at right angles, moreover, scientists noticed blocks separated by seams. But most importantly, the study of a piece of basalt from the top of the mountain showed that such a rock could have formed only on land about 12 thousand years ago. Which fits well with Plato's story.
Slain Minoans
It is no secret that scientists consider written monuments with a fair amount of skepticism and admit that ancient authors have various hyperboles and allegories.
Therefore, it seems quite reasonable to assume that Atlantis had a prototype of the island of Crete with the highly developed Minoan civilization that existed on it and the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea, partially destroyed by a volcanic explosion.
Here are just a volcanic eruption on the island of Strongila (Santorini is part of this giant island), which killed the Minoans, occurred in the 17th century BC. That is, not 9000, but a maximum of 1000 years before Plato. The eruption and earthquake first destroyed the base of the island, and the resulting giant tsunami covered the northern coast of Crete (the largest part of the island metropolis) with a giant wave.
The fields that provided the Minoans with food resources were covered with volcanic ash, which made it impossible to cultivate them. And hunger completed the tragedy. At the same time, the wind rose with volcanic ash bypassed Greece and Egypt, the rivals of the Minoans.
Taking into account the unexpectedly appeared advantage, the Achaeans (the population of mainland Greece) landed on Crete and enslaved opponents who had no previous power.
Describing the capital of Atlantis, Plato mentioned a concentric channel through which ships sailed and went out to sea. This description is quite consistent with an island volcanic caldera with an annular swell and a central island.
Another version boils down to the fact that Atlantis was located in the Black Sea region, and the Black Sea itself was then still an internal lake. Presumably, in the VI millennium BC, the level of the Black Sea rose catastrophically - within a year by 60 meters.
This happened as a result of a volcanic eruption, the subsequent tsunami and the breakthrough of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Scientists explain the biblical legend about the Flood with the same version. Moreover, the flooding of vast territories drove the local population to Europe and Asia, where information about the deceased state came along with them.
It is interesting that the Romanian researcher Nikolai Densushianu, while not denying Atlantis the Black Sea location, believes that it was on the territory of modern Romania. He believes that the Lower Danube Plain fits the description of the central plain of Atlantis. It has a rectangular shape measuring 534 by 356 kilometers (3000 by 2000 stades). The Atlas Mountains in this case are the South Carpathians, and the problem with the Romanian island solves the fact that Plato could easily confuse the terms "river" - "sea" - "ocean" and "island" - "country".
Antarctica, Andes and Tibet
Quite a large number of atlantologists are inclined to believe that Atlantis was located on the territory of Antarctica.
As arguments, the supporters of this version cite the Piri Reis map, created in Turkey in 1513 on the basis of ancient maps. According to her, Antarctica was located near the equator, but as a result of the lithospheric shift it was moved to the South Pole. True, this version does not stand up to criticism from the point of view of geology.
Other supporters of finding Atlantis in the ice refer to the fact that the island, although not located near the equator, had a very comfortable climate. And the collision of the Earth with a huge meteorite 10-15 thousand years ago caused a displacement of the Earth's axis. As a result, Atlantis moved to the South Pole.
But modern science has proven that it is impossible to move the earth's axis very quickly, and scientific data on the icing of Antarctica say that this happened in other periods of time.
As already mentioned, humanity began to search for Atlantis during the Renaissance. In this regard, the book "History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Province of Peru", created in 1555 by the secretary of the Royal Council of Castile, Agustin da Zarate, is of interest. The author writes that Plato's 9000 years from the flood are 750 ordinary years, since according to the Egyptians' chronology for the year they took into account the modern month.
The search for Atlantis in the Andes is supported by the fact that the civilization of the South American Indians had high achievements, which it inherited from another, more ancient civilization. However, hypotheses about the transfer of knowledge to the Indians regularly surface in other pseudoscientific theories.
William Scott-Elliot, in The History of Atlantis (1896), writes that Atlantis ultimately split into two large islands. One of them was called Daitya, the other - Ruta, which was later reduced to the last remnant known as Poseidonis.
The famous Russian ophthalmologist and researcher of the anomalous Ernst Muldashev, who has been to Tibet many times, claims that Atlantis existed in the Himalayas and Tibet at a time when the entire earth was covered with water. The climate of the island was mild, and the Atlanteans had access to high technologies, with the help of which they generated the necessary energy. They died, according to Muldashev, as a result of the impact of the comet Typhon on the Earth.
Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer
Despite the abundance of versions and even some artifacts, most serious scientists are inclined to believe that, having written a story about Atlantis, Plato created only a philosophical myth and nothing more. Unlike Aristotle, Plato never burdened his reader with real facts, but he threw up many reasons that could awaken the imagination.
However, to date, all the facts indicated in Plato's narrative are refuted by archaeological data. Archaeologists have not been able to find traces of a highly developed civilization neither in Greece, nor in the west of Europe and Africa, nor at the end of the ice and post-glacial periods, nor in the following millennia.
Necklace of Tartess: some researchers believe that the disappeared people of Tartessians who lived in Spain were descendants of the Atlanteans.
At the same time, Atlantologists often do not want to accept valid arguments and are focused on the “unverifiable” part of Plato's narrative. In particular, the emphasis is on the secret knowledge of the Egyptian priests. At the same time, nothing was found in the texts of the ancient Egyptian papyri themselves that even remotely coincided with the story of Plato. Also, the philosopher uses Greek names of characters and names in his story, while the Greeks, describing real events, always wrote identical names.
The most plausible version of the origin of the myth of Atlantis is the assumption that Plato used two real cases from history. The first is the defeat and death of the Athenian army and navy in an attempt to conquer Sicily in 413 BC. The second is the destruction of the tsunami of the city of Geliki in the Peloponnese in 373 BC.
For several centuries, the ruins of Geliki were visible from under the water column. Plato needed the Atlantis myth to illustrate his political ideas and philosophical views.
And to avoid unnecessary questions about where this island was, Plato himself “destroyed” it many thousands of years ago. But the descendants do not want to come to terms with the fact that Atlantis existed only in the imagination.
Alexey MARTOV