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There is tiny problem with this theory. Namely Santorini is (and by all accounts always was) a tiny island. Contrast with: > "for in front of the mouth which y

There is tiny problem with this theory. Namely Santorini is (and by all accounts always was) a tiny island. Contrast with: > "for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together" [1] Whatever the definition of "Libya and Asia" implied here, its kinda hard to reconcile. Like by a factor between 100x - 1000x :-) Who knows what kind of convolution of themes, imaginary and real, spanning time and space may have been folded together in these enigmatic passages. Which leads to the broader question, what fraction of puzzles we inherited from these very early patchy historical artifacts we'll we ever be able to resolve? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis

moffkalast 3y ago
TIL Atlantis was larger than a quarter the planet and then mysteriously vanished without a trace. Seems legit.
- johngladtj 3y ago
  Asia was at the time understood more as Asia minor (read current day Anatolia/western part of turkey). Lygia too was only a small section of what we currently name Libya.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    That's a lot more reasonable, but that still doesn't exactly fit into the Mediterranean without making a continental bridge to Africa. Maybe as the Azores or Canary islands if they used to be higher.
    - tremon 3y ago
      "The pillars of Heracles" as referred to by Plato means the strait of Gibraltar. So yes, you're spot on with the location. Not that there's any islands the size of Turkey there ;)
      - tastyfreeze 3y ago
        One fanciful chain of hypothetical events is the Younger Dryas Impact leading to both higher sea levels and the subsidence of the Azores. That series of events is, a comet impacted the North American glacial ice sheet and melted immense amounts of ice. Simultaneously this removed immense amounts of weight from the continent. The removal of weight causes the land to rise where the weight was removed. This rise must be compensated by some other part of the globe. This would be areas that were being pushed out by the weight on North America. There is a rift below the Azores, a weak spot in the crust, that would be squeezed out. As the weight is near instantly removed from North America the rift areas sink rapidly to compensate. A maritime civilization on the level of the Phoenicians, on an island the size of Turkey, in the middle of the Atlantic would be in an ideal position for trans-Atlantic trade that is even easier than trans-Atlantic trade in our age of sail. If such a civilization existed it would be fantastically wealthy facilitating trade between the Amazon and the Nile. This civilization built in an ideal position during the 2.5 million year Pleistocene would have a very long time to develop a high level of technology. Like I said, it is fanciful. But, the physics of it are known. Cosmic impacts have reshaped the planet multiple times. Something changed the planet drastically in a very short amount of time that ended the Pleistocene. I like to entertain the idea that a previous global civilization existed that had conquered the long running ice age environment. A cosmic impact rapidly changed the environment and the civilization couldn't survive the upheaval. It doesn't matter one bit to me if it is true other than to remind me, like every other ancient civilization, that nothing, no matter how great, is forever.
      - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        Not unless you go really far beyond the "pillars of Heracles" and end up in America, but I'm sure that's been posited as an explanation plenty of times. If it is though, that's really impressive given that ships weren't made for the big oceans / months long trips like that. (I don't know if they had the navigation tools either)
      - Tagbert 3y ago
        nor any seamounts. the physical descriptions of Atlantis seem fanciful.
  - rmah 3y ago
    Did the rest of Asia not realize they existed?
mcv 3y ago
I think it's pretty obvious that Plato's literal description is complete nonsense. What makes these historical fables interesting is when you ask whether they could be based on real events. Because sometimes there are real historical events that match them in some central details, despite being completely off in others. This is a field of speculation of course; there's never any hard proof that the author was influenced by those events, but the similarities are intriguing nonetheless. Other, similar examples: * King Arthur and Riothamus * Noah's flood and the flooding of the Black Sea (or more likely a massive flood of the Tigris and Eufrates) You can never prove that these events did influence the author, but it's intriguing to speculate that they might be.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  I like the idea that the flood myths across the world come from the ice age melting 10k years ago.
  - Attrecomet 3y ago
    I find it so wholly unconvincing that it annoys me whenever it is presented as anything more than quite idle speculation, even if by academics (not here in this particular comment chain, mind you). It fails to convince me because it rests on two basic claims that I just cannot make myself believe: that humans are incapable of inventing grand, exaggerated stories, and that word of mouth, so inferior to writing for conveying information through the ages, somehow suddenly becomes a gold standard that can hold the kernel of a story true for a multiple of the time span of history. Occam's Razor just screams that actually, every civilization across the world having their version of flood myths means that humans live in places where floods are important, life-defining catastrophes. this is true of every single habitat I'm aware of, up to and including deserts. It's "7000 (or whatever exactly) years of oral tradition before some Sumerian writes it down that captures anything useful" vs "Listen 'ere, grandchildren, did I tell you tykes the story of when I was your age, and my grandpappy put us all in boat with the sheep because of the flood? I couldn't see no land no more, so much water it was. Sigh, even the floods where better in my time, you don't know how good yer got it (repeat and aggrandize for three more generations)", and knowing humans, only one is instantly believable. It also solves the annoying conundrum of Native Americans also having flood myths, despite the Black Sea flood happening definitely well after they lost contact with the Old World.
colanderman 3y ago
He could have been conflating Santorini and Crete, which is a much larger island which was also home to the Minoans. Not larger than modern-day Libya, but perhaps larger than the populated area of Libya at the time.
- neaden 3y ago
  When the Greeks of Plato's time talked about Libya they aren't talking about the modern country, they mean Africa west of the Nile which is considerably larger, though they didn't realize the full extent of Africa's size.
matrix12 3y ago
This a reference to Africa west of Egypt. It was all "Libu" in Herodotus. Asia, from the Greek name for the city of Assuwa. This was to reference all of Anatolia/Asia Minor.
- inawarminister 3y ago
  Hmm. Didn't 6000-4000BC Northwest Africa was part of Green Sahara? The Sahara drying up was part of the Civilization building in the Nile. Maybe Egypt had some myths about the earliest eras and remember a large, very large area of fertile savanna and forest of pre-Egyptians and pre-Berbers, and Plato got Atlantis from that?
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> There is tiny problem with this theory It’s indeed very tiny if we assume that Plato’s story is almost entirely fictional (I don’t think there are any reasons not to) and partially based on some ancient myth or his interpretation of it (just like many modern works of fiction).

moffkalast 3y ago

TIL Atlantis was larger than a quarter the planet and then mysteriously vanished without a trace. Seems legit.

johngladtj 3y ago
Asia was at the time understood more as Asia minor (read current day Anatolia/western part of turkey). Lygia too was only a small section of what we currently name Libya.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  That's a lot more reasonable, but that still doesn't exactly fit into the Mediterranean without making a continental bridge to Africa. Maybe as the Azores or Canary islands if they used to be higher.
  - tremon 3y ago
    "The pillars of Heracles" as referred to by Plato means the strait of Gibraltar. So yes, you're spot on with the location. Not that there's any islands the size of Turkey there ;)
    - tastyfreeze 3y ago
      One fanciful chain of hypothetical events is the Younger Dryas Impact leading to both higher sea levels and the subsidence of the Azores. That series of events is, a comet impacted the North American glacial ice sheet and melted immense amounts of ice. Simultaneously this removed immense amounts of weight from the continent. The removal of weight causes the land to rise where the weight was removed. This rise must be compensated by some other part of the globe. This would be areas that were being pushed out by the weight on North America. There is a rift below the Azores, a weak spot in the crust, that would be squeezed out. As the weight is near instantly removed from North America the rift areas sink rapidly to compensate. A maritime civilization on the level of the Phoenicians, on an island the size of Turkey, in the middle of the Atlantic would be in an ideal position for trans-Atlantic trade that is even easier than trans-Atlantic trade in our age of sail. If such a civilization existed it would be fantastically wealthy facilitating trade between the Amazon and the Nile. This civilization built in an ideal position during the 2.5 million year Pleistocene would have a very long time to develop a high level of technology. Like I said, it is fanciful. But, the physics of it are known. Cosmic impacts have reshaped the planet multiple times. Something changed the planet drastically in a very short amount of time that ended the Pleistocene. I like to entertain the idea that a previous global civilization existed that had conquered the long running ice age environment. A cosmic impact rapidly changed the environment and the civilization couldn't survive the upheaval. It doesn't matter one bit to me if it is true other than to remind me, like every other ancient civilization, that nothing, no matter how great, is forever.
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      Not unless you go really far beyond the "pillars of Heracles" and end up in America, but I'm sure that's been posited as an explanation plenty of times. If it is though, that's really impressive given that ships weren't made for the big oceans / months long trips like that. (I don't know if they had the navigation tools either)
    - Tagbert 3y ago
      nor any seamounts. the physical descriptions of Atlantis seem fanciful.
- rmah 3y ago
  Did the rest of Asia not realize they existed?

mcv 3y ago

I think it's pretty obvious that Plato's literal description is complete nonsense. What makes these historical fables interesting is when you ask whether they could be based on real events. Because sometimes there are real historical events that match them in some central details, despite being completely off in others. This is a field of speculation of course; there's never any hard proof that the author was influenced by those events, but the similarities are intriguing nonetheless. Other, similar examples: * King Arthur and Riothamus * Noah's flood and the flooding of the Black Sea (or more likely a massive flood of the Tigris and Eufrates) You can never prove that these events did influence the author, but it's intriguing to speculate that they might be.

BurningFrog 3y ago
I like the idea that the flood myths across the world come from the ice age melting 10k years ago.
- Attrecomet 3y ago
  I find it so wholly unconvincing that it annoys me whenever it is presented as anything more than quite idle speculation, even if by academics (not here in this particular comment chain, mind you). It fails to convince me because it rests on two basic claims that I just cannot make myself believe: that humans are incapable of inventing grand, exaggerated stories, and that word of mouth, so inferior to writing for conveying information through the ages, somehow suddenly becomes a gold standard that can hold the kernel of a story true for a multiple of the time span of history. Occam's Razor just screams that actually, every civilization across the world having their version of flood myths means that humans live in places where floods are important, life-defining catastrophes. this is true of every single habitat I'm aware of, up to and including deserts. It's "7000 (or whatever exactly) years of oral tradition before some Sumerian writes it down that captures anything useful" vs "Listen 'ere, grandchildren, did I tell you tykes the story of when I was your age, and my grandpappy put us all in boat with the sheep because of the flood? I couldn't see no land no more, so much water it was. Sigh, even the floods where better in my time, you don't know how good yer got it (repeat and aggrandize for three more generations)", and knowing humans, only one is instantly believable. It also solves the annoying conundrum of Native Americans also having flood myths, despite the Black Sea flood happening definitely well after they lost contact with the Old World.

colanderman 3y ago

He could have been conflating Santorini and Crete, which is a much larger island which was also home to the Minoans. Not larger than modern-day Libya, but perhaps larger than the populated area of Libya at the time.

neaden 3y ago
When the Greeks of Plato's time talked about Libya they aren't talking about the modern country, they mean Africa west of the Nile which is considerably larger, though they didn't realize the full extent of Africa's size.

matrix12 3y ago

This a reference to Africa west of Egypt. It was all "Libu" in Herodotus. Asia, from the Greek name for the city of Assuwa. This was to reference all of Anatolia/Asia Minor.

inawarminister 3y ago
Hmm. Didn't 6000-4000BC Northwest Africa was part of Green Sahara? The Sahara drying up was part of the Civilization building in the Nile. Maybe Egypt had some myths about the earliest eras and remember a large, very large area of fertile savanna and forest of pre-Egyptians and pre-Berbers, and Plato got Atlantis from that?

ffgjgf1 3y ago

> There is tiny problem with this theory It’s indeed very tiny if we assume that Plato’s story is almost entirely fictional (I don’t think there are any reasons not to) and partially based on some ancient myth or his interpretation of it (just like many modern works of fiction).