Atlantis

Depiction of Atlantis from Plato's Critias

I'm surprised I haven't written about this topic yet. In fact, I don't think there is another topic that fascinates me as much as the lost city of Atlantis. Not just Atlantis, but anachronistic artifacts such the Piri Reis map, the Baghdad battery, and antikythera mechanism make me wonder if there is any validity to Atlantis.

Popular culture depicts Atlantis as being an ancient city that is typically more technologically advance than ours which eventually sank due to some various calamity. The other common depiction is a city under the water that is inhabited by sea people or mermaids. I can't pin point exactly when I first heard about Atlantis, but there are countless references to the lost city in almost all of my favorite television shows when I was a kid. I think it was in elementary school when we were covering the Trojan War and how Troy was actually a real city. This naturally segued to Atlantis, so the possibility that something so fantastic could be real inspired me when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I lived in the country when I was a kid, so access to a library (unless the book mobile stopped by) was not practical and the internet still wasn't a thing yet.

Origins of Atlantis

Atlantis originated from Plato's dialogues, The Timaeus and The Critias. More details come from the latter. The character in the story, Solon, said that he learned about Atlantis from an Egyptian priest. Now obviously, it is up for debate if Plato was referring to an actual lost city or if he was using it as an allegory, but these two dialogues contain the only known direct references to Atlantis from antiquity.

From Plato is where we get the location of Atlantis and the reference to the mysterious metal, orichalcum. Plato tells us that Atlantis sank about 9000 years ago after fighting a war with the Athenians. We also get some details about what Atlantis looks like. Beyond that, Plato doesn't tell us too much. In fact, just when The Critias is getting good, it stops mid-sentence much to my frustration and much to the frustration of everyone else who researches the topic.

Virtually all of the more fantastical and science fiction elements associated with Atlantis come from the psychic, Edgar Cayce. Through his psychic visions, we got glimpses of Atlantis powering high tech machines with crystals among other things. Whether he actually saw these things or not is unknown, but it is certainly imaginative for the time. I would speculate the association with mermaids is just artistic use of wanting a mermaid city, and since Atlantis was underwater, it just made sense. Everything else appears to be extrapolating through those details.

Where is Atlantis?

 Is Atlantis real and where is it if so? The main question. Based on Plato's dialogues, the legendary city was located outside of the Pillars of Hercules and was a considerable landmass. The Pillars of Hercules are commonly attributed to the straight of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco. Some say that the Canary Islands located outside may be former mountain tops of the sunken continent which may have been caused by rapidly rising sea levels possibly from a global deluge (Noah?). Others think that maybe the Americas could be Atlantis and that the "sinking" was actually just ships sailing away and was actually just the city going below their horizon.
 
Using a little imagination and being a little loose with plate tectonic theory, some speculated that Antarctica may be the lost continent. The continent simply moved south during a polar shift to it's current position. Using the polar shift theory but not proposing something as fantastic as a gigantic continental shift, some say that the Pillars of Hercules could be referring to the tips of Africa and South America and that the polar shift simply changed the climate of Antarctica. Both Antarctica theories fail to explain the sinking aspect of the story, but again it is taking some very liberal interpretations of what Plato meant. I find my current understanding of these theories to be the hardest to buy, but I thought they were worth mentioning.

Possibly the most credible theory is that Atlantis was inspired by the island of Santorini. This was actually referenced in my high school history text books. Again this uses a loose interpretation of Pillars of Hercules, but basically there was a Minoan civilization on this island until it was blown to smithereens by a volcano which would've produced earth quakes and tidal waves which could create a sinking effect. The other thing is that some say that the 9000 years could have been based off of a lunar calendar which does seem to align with the occurrence of this event. There are some problems with this theory, but it currently seems to be the best fit as far as an inspiration is concerned.

One of the more interesting and compelling evidence of an actual sunken city is the Bimini Road in the Bahamas. It's contested whether the road is actually man made or a coincidence, but it makes one wonder.

Not debated is if Plato was referencing the hotel in the Bahamas

Atlantis and the Illuminati

When the internet became a tool of research for me and my interest in conspiracy theories escalated, my research found it's way back to Atlantis. Apparently, a lot of famous thinkers such as Francis Bacon, the father of science, was a huge proponent of Atlantis, but he used it as a description of his perfect society. Interestingly, conspiracy theorists will claim that Francis Bacon was a member of the elusive order and ultimately influenced the founding of the United States. While that's interesting and even compelling, that's nothing compared to the idea that Atlantis may be the beast from Revelations.

But the beast is most assuredly a metaphor.

Comparing the beast of Revelations to Atlantis is admittedly very compelling. In Revelations 13, the beast does rise out of the sea. And in Revelations 17, the beast once was, now is not, and shall rise again. One problem, it's stated in Revelations that the sea is an allegory for people. Could be a double allegory, but I thought this was an interesting idea. The main question is (aside from some scholars thinking the beast is Rome): was Atlantis really that popular back then that it would be a common reference?

There are some other theories, but a lot of it seemed like unsubstantiated theories such as the Illuminati leaders being immortal Atlantean priests and other such things. I would say that a lot of these imaginative theories were people confusing the historical record with popular culture.

Conspiracy theories aside, if archaeologists actually discover an ancient sunken city and date it to 9000 years ago, it would change history in quite a substantial way. Things like the pyramids and other anachronistic artifacts would make more sense. Being responsible for changing our understanding of history in such a way would earn instant fame and a mark in history. While I have no desire to start diving into the Atlantic, just the thought that an entire civilization could be reduced to a myth fascinates and frightens me simultaneously.