This is the story of Atlantis found on: The Story of Atlantis

Do you all think the island to be real, or just an allegory for Plato to use? I want to hear your honest opinions.

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Actually, I've heard they actually found the island. It was real, and the city was destroyed by the volcano the island was formed by. I forget which it was. It's somewhere in the Mediterranean.

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Never argue with an idiot. He'll just drag you down to his level of intelligence and beat you with experience.

Maybe it was a prophecy

BBC - h2g2 - Tenochtitlan - Island City of the Aztecs


Seriously though, there are other cultures with legends of a lost people. It could be true. Maybe Plato used a legend he already knew, but didn't believe in himself.

Eh there could have been a place like Atlantis but the way it is described in Myth probably not.

They'd have to find the place before I believed it, and given the time period Plato places it in (around 9000 B.C.) something tells me that no accurate record could possibly exist. In fact, there really couldn't have even been a society there at that time; the earliest known city was founded around 8000 B.C.

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the legend/myth said it was a rase, it didnt say it was humans ^_^

You bring up an interesting point, miriya. Lemuria also is an alleged lost civilization that predates Atlantis and, as miriya implied about Atlantis, those people weren't the same as the human race we have today according to what I have read.

Phaedrus, Atlantis was allegedly in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Mediterranean. It may have existed but so many civilizations may have been lost in the mists of time that it's hard to tell which really did exist without conclusive proof.

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Plato got it wrong. It was not unusual for ancient Greeks (as Plato admits) to get their information from sources such as Egypt. There are hugely exaggerated dynastic spans in the 'official' records of kings of Egypt and of Babylonia, with some kings having said to have reigned for 'thousands of years'. If I'm not mistaken Plato claims his version of Atlantis can be seen from Egyptian sources.

In my view the most likely source of the story is to be found in the huge earth movements known to have occurred worldwide around 1250BC - these known to have affected coastal areas worldwide (such as the subsidence of many ports including ancient Alexandria and the port city of Amnisos in Crete). Another thing is that the 'Ice Age' did NOT end some 10,000 years ago as we suppose. It was actually ending during historical times. Atlantis may well have existed. But the formation of the Meditteranean is itself a very recent event. It certainly was created only within the span of human recorded history. The massive volcanic eruption of Santorini (also around the same time) is said to have brought huge devastation to Minoan culture on Crete, for example.

So, yes, perhaps Atlantis DID exist. But not vastly earlier than dynastic civilizations in Babylonia and Egypt. It may have been flooded less than 4,000 years ago as the result of events which formed the modern Meditteranean Sea. Its location was probably to the west of the Meditteranean, in the Atlantic.

Definately allegorical. Looks to me like Plato was discussing an idealized version of Minoan culture (perhaps via Egypt).

The fact the 'features' of Altantis culture matches Plato's view of an idealized world are entirely coincidence I'm sure.

Philadelphia say it pretty much the way I feel. The translation of time through the ages has always been tricky. And Thera/Santorini certainly fullfills much of the story.
There have been many cities swallowed up by rising waters as the Ice Age ended and waters rose. Marine archeology has documented many such cities.One very interesting find was located off the mouth of the Indus River in Northwest India. The city is about 1/2 mile down and very developed in its layout with modern like streets. The geology team that discovered it by sidescan radar also brought up artifacts.
This has been repeateed all over the world. So, have sunken cities existed? Yes, which was 'Atlantis' ?- perhaps it is a conglomeration of stories of cities lost to rising sea levels.
Just as the Biblical flood may well have been water breeching into the Black Sea suddenly and drowning many seaside villages.
Things get lost in the re-telling of any story - add hundreds or even thousands of years and the story grows.

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