The Atlantis Enigma
by
Steve Johnson
In around 360
BC, the Greek philosopher, Plato, introduced the world to a word that
would reverberate throughout the millennia. That word was Atlantis.
Opinion is
divided as to whether Plato’s works that describe Atlantis, Timaeus
and Critias, are works of fact or pure speculation. It is obvious,
though, that a great deal of dramatic license has been used in both works,
with the gods of ancient Greece making frequent appearances.
Plato
described Atlantis as a large, island empire that existed beyond ‘the
Pillars of Hercules’, ruled by the god Poseidon and the royal family he
sired with the mortal woman, Cleito. She bore him five sets of boy twins
and Poseidon installed the eldest son, Atlas, as king, with the remaining
nine becoming princes of the Atlantean territories.
Nine thousand
years before Plato’s time, he said, the armies of Atlantis warred with
those that lived within the Pillars of Hercules, mostly notably, Athens.
The Atlanteans were defeated and driven back by the Athenians, only for
their island to be consumed by the sea shortly after their return.
That’s the
basic story, so let’s get down to the details.
Plato gave a
very specific description of Atlantis in his works, insisting that it was
a real place and not some idealistic, perfect state. Indeed, the rulers of
Atlantis were so imperfect that the gods felt compelled to destroy
it.
According to
Plato, Atlantis lay beyond ‘The Pillars of Hercules’, which is generally
taken to be the Straits of Gibraltar, thus placing it somewhere in the
Atlantic Ocean, a name also taken from that mythological empire. Some have
argued, though that the Pillars of
Hercules
referred to by Plato may actually have been at the Cape
Maleas in the Peloponnese, where Hercules was said to have performed all
of his labours. So immediately, we have a grey area concerning Atlantis’
location. However, Plato said that Atlantis faced the region called Gades.
We now know Gades as Cadiz in south-western Spain. This is a port on the
Atlantic, so for Atlantis to face Gades, it stands to reason that this
legendary place must also be located within the Atlantic Ocean.
It has been
postulated that Atlantis may have been a small island that once existed
just beyond Gibraltar, but Plato was very specific when he stated that
Atlantis was an island larger than Libya (the whole of known Africa at the
time) and Asia (which generally covered the rest of the Mediterranean and
the lands of what was to become the Middle East). Obviously, a small
island just beyond the Pillars of
Hercules
cannot be said to be larger than what was essentially the known world!
Plato then
goes on to describe the city of Atlantis itself:
First of
all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient
metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the
very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the god
and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in
successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went
before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building
a marvel to behold for size and for beauty. And beginning from
the sea they bored a canal of three hundred feet in width and one
hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia in length, which they
carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea
up to this, which became a harbour, and leaving an opening
sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover,
they divided at the bridges the zones of land which parted the zones
of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass out of one zone
into another, and they covered over the channels so as to leave a
way underneath for the ships; for the banks were raised considerably
above the water. Now the largest of the zones into which a
passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the
zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two
zones, the one of water, the other of land, were two stadia, and the
one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width.
The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five
stadia. All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the
sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on
every side, placing towers and gates on the bridges where the sea
passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from
underneath the centre island, and from underneath the zones, on the
outer as well as the inner side. One kind was white, another black,
and a third red, and as they quarried, they at the same time
hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed out of the native
rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put
together different stones, varying the colour to please the eye, and
to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall,
which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of
brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and
the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light
of orichalcum.
The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on this
wise:-in the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and
Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an
enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten
princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought
the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions,
to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple
which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a
proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the
outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they
covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of
the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with
gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls
and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the temple
they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a
chariot-the charioteer of six winged horses-and of such a size that
he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there
were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to
be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in
the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by
private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed
statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their
wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of
private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the
foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too,
which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and
the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the
kingdom and the glory of the temple.
In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of
hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully
adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of
their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted
suitable trees, also they made cisterns, some open to the heavens,
others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were
the kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept
apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and
cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was
suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to the grove
of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful
height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the
remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along the bridges to the outer
circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many
gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and others
for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in
the centre of the larger of the two there was set apart a
race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend
all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were
guardhouses at intervals for the guards, the more trusted of whom
were appointed-to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer
the Acropolis while the most trusted of all had houses given them
within the citadel, near the persons of the kings. The docks were
full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready
for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace.
Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you came to a
wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere
distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed
the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to
the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations;
and the canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels
and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept
up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all
sorts night and day.
I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace
nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to represent
the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole
country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side
of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the
city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which
descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong
shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across
the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the
island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north.
The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size
and beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also
many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and
meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and
much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of
work.
I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by
the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was
for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of
the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and
width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the
impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many
others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say
what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet,
and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the
whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It
received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding
round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the
sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet
in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into
the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a
hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the
mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in
ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and
to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the
earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in
summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from
the canals. (my emphasis) |
As we can see,
Atlantis was a big place! One Greek stade is equal to 528 feet, so the
plain upon which the city of Atlantis (remember this is not the whole
island) is 300 miles long and 200 miles wide!
It is now
known that no vast, island-continent has ever existed within the Atlantic
Ocean, so what was it that submerged beneath the sea?
Researcher Jim
Allen, in his book, Atlantis: The Andes Solution, believes that
Atlantis was what we now call South America, with the rectangular plain
lying on what is now the Bolivian alteplano, a huge, windswept region high
up in the Andes Mountains. Unfortunately for Allen, though, the Bolivian
alteplano is not large enough and he had to fiddle with his measurements,
cutting down the stade by half to get it to fit his theory. Despite this
jiggery-pokery, however, he makes a compelling case for South America as
being the home of Atlantis, citing the many similarities between Plato’s
account and the local features around the alteplano and Lake Titicaca.
To the north
of the South American continent lie the islands of the Caribbean. This had
long been proposed as a possible site for Atlantis, but the case became
stronger when a feature known as The Bimini Road was discovered in 1968
and has been the subject of heated debate ever since. The scientific
community maintains that the regularly-spaced blocks that comprise the
‘road’ are nothing more than the natural cracking of the sedimentary
bedrock, while Atlantis theorists suggest that it is a part of some
larger, artificial construction. More recently, in 2003, another
contentious discovery was made – that of the Andros Platform, a large,
foundation-like structure on the sea floor. Again, opinion is divided in
much the same way as it is with the Bimini Road.
Beneath nearby
islands, a cave was discovered and photographs were taken of what appeared
to be a form of hieroglyphics. It is unknown whether or not these strange
markings are genuinely ancient or a more recent addition, however it is yet another
tantalising clue in the search for Atlantis.
In 2002 came
the next twist of the ‘Atlantis in the Caribbean’ saga. Ocean engineer,
Paulina Zelitsky and her team from Canadian-based Advanced Digital
Communications, discovered what appeared to be the ruins of a city, 2000
feet down in the waters off western Cuba.
“On the matter
of whether the sonar imagery really does show `pyramids, roads and
buildings”, Paul Weinzweig, director of ADC, stated: “We had been looking
at the images for some months, and keep a picture on the wall showing
pyramids in the Yucatan, and let’s just say they kept reminding us of
these structures. They really do look like an urban development.”
Little new
information concerning this possibly epoch-shattering find has emerged,
and, yet again, opinion is divided, but further investigation is promised,
culminating in a series of dives on the site.
Back over in
the Mediterranean Sea, the island of Santorini holds the most famous claim
to being the location of Atlantis. Although it lies within Plato’s Pillars
of Hercules, it was a place where a great disaster destroyed an
entire civilisation. In about 1650 BC, the island was devastated by a
volcanic eruption that destroyed the Minoan towns there and the resulting
environmental impacts may even have brought about the end of the great
Minoan civilisation that was primarily centred on the island of Crete.
It is widely
regarded that the eruption of Thera (as the island was known in antiquity,
although the Minoan name is lost) was the basis of Plato’s Atlantis myth.
The Minoans were a bountiful civilisation and their passing, their
destruction by the gods, as it were, would have become a great legend of
the following centuries.
But Thera does
not conform with Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis, especially in size.
Was Plato
exaggerating to tell a gripping story of what may happen when men think
they have become gods? It was common for legends of the age to greatly
inflate a hero, an army or a disaster, so was Plato doing likewise? Was
the mighty, ocean-spanning empire that invaded the Mediterranean nothing
more than a tiny island consumed by volcanic fire? Or is there a nugget of
truth in Plato’s descriptions and Atlantis really did exist on the
continent we now call America?
With new
discoveries keeping the scientific community on their toes, perhaps we
will soon find out.
© 2005 Steven
Johnson
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