What to tell children about the Atlanteans. Legend of Atlantis. Atlantis in scientific literature
“Atlantis is supposed to be discovered, but not in the Atlantic, but in the Aegean,” was the title of an article in the Norfolk Ledger-Star of July 19, 1967. associated with Atlantis” appeared on the same day in “ New York Times". The articles are devoted to the discovery of the city of Minoa, buried under a 9-meter thickness of volcanic ash on the island of Tyra in the Aegean Sea. The excavations were supervised by Dr. James W. Mavor of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Emily Vermeuli, professor of art and Greek at Wellesley College. Mavor and Vermeuli connected their discovery with Atlantis, since evidence of the existence of a highly developed civilization, as well as its sudden and violent death, was found on the island ... Pay attention to both headings. The value of these messages was seen not only in the discovery of a practically preserved city that flourished about 1500 BC, but in its possible connection with mythical Atlantis. This was the latest attempt to make the legend of Atlantis a reality by changing its location and time of existence.
The most ancient and known to us references to Atlantis are contained in Timaeus and Critias, two dialogues of Plato, which date back to the 5th century BC. BC Plato introduces information about Atlantis into a conversation between Solon and an Egyptian priest in Sais. It is spoken of as a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, which sank into the water as a result of a volcanic eruption about nine thousand years earlier.
Since the time of Plato, mostly in the last two hundred years, hundreds of books and articles have been written about Atlantis. Some have tried to prove that Plato's story of Atlantis is not only possible but probable. Others argued that Atlantis was just a myth, or they considered it as a historical fact, but correlated it not with the Atlantic Ocean, but with other places and with a later time.
A significant proportion of the literature on Atlantis is the numerous works of esotericists of various persuasions, as well as the chaotic production of eccentric personalities. The attention paid to the legend of Atlantis by pseudo-scientists and adherents of various cults was the reason why representatives of official science avoid even discussing this issue.
Several medieval authors mention this legendary land, probably the best known and most popular is Ignatius Donelly's Atlantis: The World Before the Flood. First published in 1882, it was corrected and edited by Egerton Sykes in 1949. None of the books published before or after it contains such a volume of geological, archaeological materials, information from legends and does not present so many simple, unsophisticated and eloquent arguments. confirming the legend of Atlantis.
Donelly's arguments rely heavily on the evidence of similarities between cultures ancient egypt and cultures of the Indians of Central and South America. On both sides of the Atlantic, a 365-day calendar was used, the embalming of the dead was practiced, pyramids were erected, flood legends were preserved, etc. Donelly argues that both the ancient cultures, the Egyptian and the American Indian, were the offspring of Atlantis, and when it was destroyed, spread west and east. Donelly suggests that the heritage of Atlantis can explain the fact that the Basques of the Spanish Pyrenees differ in appearance and language from all their neighbors. (“The Basque language is the only non-Aryan language in Western Europe.” The Lincoln Library, vol. 1, p. 516). Also, the inhabitants of the Canary Islands bear little resemblance to any African people and had a custom of mummifying the dead. Donelly says that Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands could be a likely refuge for settlers from the dying Atlantis. He compared the names of the cities of Asia Minor and those cities of Central America that already had names by the time the first European explorers appeared:
ASIA MINOR CENTRAL AMERICA
Chol Chol-ula
Colua Colua-can
Zuivana Zuivan
Cholina Colina
Zalissa Gzalisko
According to Donelly, it would be too bold to attribute such a similarity to a coincidence. He cited 626 references to sources. Despite the weaknesses that critics found in his argument - and he was accused of "building a mountain of assumptions on the molecules of facts" - this work was an amazing achievement. Donelly's arguments are interesting to read even today, so it would make sense, using modern methods, to do the work of separating fact from conjecture in his intriguing book.
Egerton Sykes, an Atlantean explorer who has probably the world's richest collection of Atlantis literature, claims that thousands of books and articles have been written on the subject since Plato's time. However, only a few authors have added anything significant to Donelly's arguments. For example, an article supporting the possibility of the existence of Atlantis appeared in the November 1948 Science Digest. Originally published in MIT's "Technical Engineering News" in June 1948, it again addresses Donelly's strongest arguments regarding the possibility of the existence and sinking of an island nation. The article discusses the presence at the bottom of the ocean of a relief close to continental, namely, mountains, valleys, plains with troughs and depressions, similar to the channels of rivers and lakes. Interestingly, a relatively small deformation of the earth's crust (amounting to 1/8000 of the earth's diameter) can lead to a large area of the ocean floor rising above the water level and submerging other parts of the land. Confirmations of such phenomena that occurred in the past are discussed in detail in the article. In 1898, the ship's crew, which was engaged in laying an underwater cable in the area Azores, tried with the help of "cats" to find this cable, lost at a depth of about 3.7 km. The rugged rocky bottom of the ocean complicated the task, and the tool often had to be cleaned of adhering pieces of soil. I further quote from the article: “It was determined by microscopic examination that these pieces of soil are lava, which had a vitreous structure and, therefore, should have hardened under atmospheric conditions. (Lava that hardens under water has a crystalline structure.) Since over the past 15 thousand years the lava has significantly weathered, we can assume that at that time the surface covered by it was located above sea level. This is another recent confirmation of the existence of land in the Atlantic. An article by R. W. Kolbe in 1957 (“Science”, vol. 126.) reports on studies of a deep-sea core recovered from a depth of 3.7 km in one of the sections of the underwater Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Findings of exclusively freshwater diatoms in sediment samples confirm that the studied section of the ridge was above sea level.
O. Mellis in 1958, studying the origin of deep-sea sands in the Atlantic Ocean, showed that the sands of the Romanch Basin probably resulted from the weathering of a section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which once rose above the surface of the ocean.
In 1959, the Military Engineer reported that “in the process of hydrographic surveys by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, flooded depressions more than 90 m wide and up to 150 m deep were discovered in the Strait of Florida. They are located 25 km from the Florida Keys, where the ocean depth is 270 m. It is believed that they were freshwater lakes in the territory, which then sank.
The most important arguments of a specialist in favor of the existence of Atlantis can be found in the article by René Malais “Studies of the ocean floor in connection with geological structure appeared in "Geologiska Foreningens" in "Stockholm Forhandlingar" (March-April, 1957). Malais argues that many of the continental-type landforms of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, in particular the canyons on the ocean floor, could not have been cut by underwater turbulent currents, but must have formed when the modern sea floor was above water level. He considers ocean currents and their impact on the glacier that covered Europe and America 10-12 thousand years ago. His article also includes drawings comparing flint points found in Sandia Cave, New Mexico, with Solutrean tools from Morocco and France. The similarity of these finds testifies to the unity of their origin. Since the time of their origin is estimated at 25,000 years ago, Malais believes that their owners could have spread west and east from Atlantis.
However, all these facts cannot serve as confirmation of the existence of Atlantis. At best, they indicate that the bottom areas Atlantic Ocean in the recent past were located above the water level.
From time to time, newspapers and magazines publish articles or statements citing opinions of authorities both in support and against the legend of Atlantis. For example, "San Jose Mercury" July 17, 1958 quoted the Soviet physicist and mathematician Professor N. Ledner, who stated that he had studied the legends of Atlantis for 20 years and was convinced that the ancient historical documents and cultural structures, together with the latest scientific discoveries, show that such an island continent really existed. However, despite the efforts of authors such as Donelly, Malays and others to collect and link together archaeological, geological and mythological evidence in support of the legend of Atlantis, there is no scientific evidence for the existence of Atlantis. There are no undoubted remnants of its culture and inhabitants. Myths and legends of the past, together with Plato's story, live to remind mankind of ancient era. Some credible evidence is able to offer judgments like "it could have been." But no evidence has been found that allows us to say with certainty: "it was." However, this does not mean that such facts will never be found. But for now, Atlantis seems to remain a myth in scientific circles.
What is on the back of the coin? Is there scientific evidence that Atlantis never existed? Of course, the strongest argument against Atlantis is the lack of clear evidence of its existence. Most geologists agree with the concept of uniformitarianism, which assumes relatively slow change. They do not believe that any catastrophic events that could lead to the subsidence of the continent took place in the recent past, in the last 10-20 thousand years. There is evidence of certain, probably abrupt, climatic shifts between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago, but reputable scientists do not agree to associate them with earth movements. The uniformitarian stance is well expressed by Elizabeth Chesley Baty in her very interesting book America Before Man. Referring to the legend of Atlantis, she says: “It is not surprising that so little satisfactory evidence has been found, since Atlantis, if it existed at all, disappeared long before human memory could attest to it. At the normal speed of the earth's crust, it takes millions of years for such a large island to sink into the depths of the sea."
You only have to read the chapter on Atlantis and Lemuria in Martin Gardner's In the Name of Science (in the cheap edition called Quirks and Errors) to understand why most scientists brush this topic aside. The said chapter is full of vicious, sarcastic comments about the theory of Atlantis and to those who wrote about it. Gardner's main arguments against the existence of Atlantis boil down to the fact that there is no real geological and archaeological evidence to the contrary. E. Bjorkman in his book "In Search of Atlantis" draws material from the Bible, the Odyssey and the works of the Greek historian Herodotus, trying to connect the idea of Atlantis with an ancient Spanish or Portuguese city. L. Spragyu de Camp and Willy Ley in the book "The Lands Beyond" question the very authority of Plato, using the opinions of his contemporaries, and being unable to draw a positive conclusion, they end the section with the following statement: "What did Plato mean when he said about the Atlantic Ocean and the continent beyond, remains not entirely clear to this day. Even scientists with a broad outlook feel the need to demote Atlantis into the category of myths.
The spring 1936 edition of The American Scholar featured an article by E. D. Merrill, Curator of the Botanical Collection at Harvard University entitled "The Drowned Atlantis and Mu" in which the author attempts to deny the possibility of the existence of Atlantis using scientific arguments and seeks to show that there is no philological connection between the languages of the Americas and the Mediterranean region, and that there are no common cultivated plants and domestic animals in Mexico and the Mediterranean. The theme of his discussion is the similar development of agriculture in America and the Old World, but based on different types of plants: most of the cereals, as well as vegetables and fruits of the temperate zone, are of Eurasian origin, while most of the American species come from the tropics and subtropics. He gives an impressive list of Old World and New World fruits and vegetables, respectively; claims that man came to America from Asia and that the highly developed civilizations of Central and South America developed without the influence of Atlantis and without communication with Europe and Asia. Merril believes that no common cultivated plant or domestic animal other than a dog did not exist until 1492. This point of view about the absence of ties between Europe and America before Columbus is shared, however, not by all scientists.
T. S. Ferguson, archaeologist and writer, in his book One Paddock and One Shepherd, builds an impressive series of facts that demonstrate the similarities between the cultures of the Middle East and Central America. The illustrations comparing seals, pottery ornamentation and architecture are convincing. In addition, he gives a list of 298 objects of general culture. It can be assumed that ideas and constructions of a similar and even identical nature arose independently of each other in different parts of the world, but when you read this extensive list of objects and practices common to the Old and New Worlds, the possibility of all this independently arising on both hemispheres seems very unlikely. . Us. Books 22 and 23 contain an image of a seal unearthed at Chiapa de Corzo in Mexico. Ferguson further cites a letter from Dr. Albright of Johns Hopkins (University of Marilino, Baltimore, founded 1876 - Ed.), which states that "the seal contains several distinctly recognizable Egyptian hieroglyphs." Us. 49-52 cited Dr. George F. Carter, also from John Hopkins: “Some plants undoubtedly existed in the Old and New Worlds in pre-Columbian times. There is a huge list of plants, most of them from the territories of Central America and Southeast Asia, which make up a complete range from possibly to very likely transferred with human culture. The long-existing doctrine of the absolute separation of agriculture in the Old and New Worlds has no strong positions today. The botanical evidence should be reviewed without prejudice.”
Such statements, although they do not confirm the existence of Atlantis, nevertheless, indicate that there are certain ambiguities in the ideas of scientists about the origin of developed civilizations in South and Central America, divergences on the issue of the early stages of plant cultivation. The modern point of view is set forth in W.C. Bennett's beautifully illustrated Ancient Andean Arts, a publication sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the California Legion of Honor. Bennett comments on the situation: “The problem of the migration of the earliest inhabitants of South America is fascinating and intricate, but hardly more than the problem of the origin of advanced civilizations in the Andes. This includes the question of the introduction of plants into cultivation, and it is as far from being resolved as the question of where the plants of the New World were first cultivated.
In the April 1949 issue of Science Digest, another scientist, Dr. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University, published a short article entitled "The Lost Continent Called Myth." Ewing, in his words, "since 1935 has been mapping, sampling, echo sounding the ocean floor and descending into the depths himself." He took underwater photographs down to a depth of 5.5 km and "found no evidence of sunken cities anywhere." His research focused on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which stretches from Iceland to Antarctica. At first glance, this may be taken as evidence against the existence of Atlantis, but some reflection leads to a different conclusion. Let us suppose that the United States of America is destroyed by strong earthquakes and volcanoes in a few months or years. Our cities are reduced to rubble and then buried under deposits of ash and lava. Huge tidal waves crashed onto the earth, sweeping and destroying the remains of structures and all evidence of human creations. Finally, the whole country is immersed in the ocean, and for 13 thousand years tidal currents disperse, and oceanic sediments cover all the remnants of our civilization. In 14967, someone will photograph a few tens of square centimeters of the ocean floor or drill a hole 10 cm deep at the bottom. Is it possible to assume that he will see cities or the inside of a car, plane or factory? Everything speaks against it. But he will not doubt that he has the right to conclude that America never existed.
The October 1953 issue of the Atlantic Monthly featured an article by Robert Graves entitled "What Happened to Atlantis?" Graves drew attention to Greek myths and tried to show that the myth of Atlantis arose as a result of mixing different events - the flood of Libya with the splendor of civilization on the island of Crete and its end. He says that the Cretans turned Pharos - small island near the mouth of the Nile - to the port, one of the wonders of the world. The dramatic sinking into the sea of this island shortly after the destruction of Knossos, the chief city of the Minoan culture in Crete, was combined in legend with the legend of the flood at Lake Tritonis, which brought disaster to the people of Libya. (Once this lake was vast inland sea, now it has turned into Maretsky salt marshes). These stories were passed on to the descendants by the priests of Sais through Solon, who, embellishing the legends, thus formed our idea of Atlantis. However, the dating of the events that Graves speaks of is so much younger than the time of the Atlantis catastrophe described by Plato that after reading the article one gets the feeling that all this may be interesting, but there are no less fabrications in it than in some of Donelly's arguments.
One of the last speeches against the possibility of the existence of a mainland in the center of the Atlantic appeared on October 21, 1961 in the issue of the Saturday Evening Post. In an article titled "Expansion of the Ocean Floor", Dr. Robert S. Dietz develops a theory of the structure of the earth's crust and the expansion of the ocean floor, which, he says, seems inconsistent with the existence of Atlantis. If, as he says, the continents move relative to each other by about 2.5 cm per year, then over the past 10 or 15 thousand years this will amount to too small changes. Dr. Dietz is a respected oceanographer, but his theory may be only partly correct. If we assume the existence of catastrophic events on Earth, then on the scale of the earth's history there will always be enough time for one or two continents to slip into the ocean.
In the end, we seem to be going in circles. The harder you try to solve the problem, the clearer it becomes impossible to do so. The current literature does not provide conclusive evidence for either viewpoint or the other. Until other than Platonic written sources are found for its history, or until there is strong evidence that it never existed, Atlantis is likely to remain a mystery.
How is the legend of Atlantis related to Edgar Cayce's Life Readings? If evidence of the existence of Atlantis is never found, Casey will be in an unenviable position. If the correctness of his notes is confirmed, he can become as famous an archaeologist or historian as he was a clairvoyant diagnostician in the field of medicine.
2500 "readings" are documented, given to approximately 1600 people. About 700 of them - almost half of those who received information about their past lives - had incarnations in Atlantis that affect their present life. Moreover, Casey did not mention all the incarnations of each individuality, but only those that most influenced his current life, as well as those that could be most useful to a person. Therefore, there is nothing impossible in the fact that almost everyone living today had incarnations in Atlantis at one time or another.
The marvelous property of this particular trend in "life readings" is their internal coherence. Although the "readings" were given to hundreds of people over the course of 21 years (from 1923 to 1944), they can be collected in a series of related, non-contradictory events. Individual abilities and weaknesses are reflected in the following lives. When many entities that lived together at the same time are reincarnated again in a different era, group or national tendencies become apparent.
According to the "readings" of Edgar Cayce, many individual souls who had one or more reincarnations in Atlantis are reincarnating on Earth in this age, especially in America. Together with the ability to technology, they carry with them a tendency to extremism. They often exhibit individual and group karma, marked by selfishness and exploitative tendencies, as far as relationships with other people are concerned. Many of them lived during the destruction or geological cataclysms in Atlantis. If Cayce's prophecies are correct, then a similar period of earth changes is imminent.
Unfortunately, few questions were asked about the time of the events, and this information was rarely given without questions. Only a few "readings" give specific dates for incidents in Atlantis. However, by comparing names and events in dated and undated cases, we arrive at a picture, perhaps vague and incomplete in places, stretching far into the past beyond recorded human history. Instead of the collapse of the mainland in one day, as follows from Plato's story, we got the impression of human activity on the continent being destroyed during at least three major cataclysms, significantly separated in time.
There is a statement that we need to consider especially carefully: land areas have undergone many changes - subsidence, uplift and subsidence - and millions of years have passed between the first of these and modern times. There is evidence of disturbances (for the mainland of Atlantis - Ed.) about 50,000 years BC. Another shift probably took place around 28,000 BC, during which the mainland was broken up into islands. The final death of the remaining islands took place about 10,000 years BC. I think that it was this last catastrophe that Plato described in his writings. Each period of destruction lasted for, most likely, not days, but months or years. In any case, there were significant warnings, so that many of the inhabitants were saved by moving to Europe, Africa and America. Thus, according to Cayce's "readings", both the Americas and some parts of Europe experienced an influx of Atlanteans more than once in the prehistoric past.
Why does Edgar Cayce claim that incarnations in Atlantis have such a great influence on people, especially in our time? He answers this question in a general "reading" done to prepare material for a lecture on Atlantis:
“If the fact of reincarnation and the existence of souls who once dwelt in such a medium (i.e., in Atlantis) is true, and now penetrates into the earthly sphere and dwells in individuals, then is it surprising if in the past they made such changes in affairs The lands that brought them self-destruction, and if they come now, they can cause many changes in the affairs of peoples and individuals ”(364 - 1).
When we look at people who seem to have once been citizens of a country strikingly similar to 20th century America, we can often see both personal and national vices. This is the first step to salvation, as shown in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). The vices, when understood, can be corrected, and America can still be spared the fate that befell Atlantis. At the very least, individuals, such as Robert Dunbar, may be able to change and lead more creative than destructive lives. (The story about this man is presented in the 2nd chapter of this book. - Approx. ed.).
What kind of nonsense is all this? Is there any basis for such notions other than the imagination of Edgar Cayce? Let's first look at the source of this information and then see if it is backed by light. latest discoveries. If this happens, then we can look into the future with the help of a clairvoyant consciousness and try to glimpse our changing destiny.
Briefly about the article: A country that thousands of years ago could have conquered all of Europe. Huge marble palaces, multi-deck ships, tall strong people, hitherto unseen weapons, the mysterious magic of priests, nobility and ambition - all this could become a reality of our history, if not ...
Lost Civilization
Atlantis - reality or dream?
All that is hidden now will once be revealed by time.
Quintus Horace Flaccus, Epistles, 6:20
A country that thousands of years ago could have conquered all of Europe. Huge marble palaces, multi-deck ships, tall strong people, hitherto unseen weapons, the mysterious magic of priests, nobility and ambition - all this could become a reality of our history, if not for ...
Thousands of books and articles have been written about the ancient country of Atlantis, buried by the deep ocean. What was Atlantis? An ancient and powerful human civilization? Or maybe a refuge for aliens from distant worlds? Why did Atlantis die? Was she the victim of a natural disaster or a devastating war with mysterious weapons?
Other ancient authors also wrote about Atlantis and its inhabitants. True, almost all of them lived after Plato, and therefore, most likely, relied on the data he cited.
The exception is the “father of history” Herodotus (485-425 BC), who mentioned the Atlanteans who lived in North Africa. However, this tribe got its name from the Atlas mountain range.
A surge of interest in the problem of Atlantis falls on the end of the 19th century. In 1882, the American Ignatius Donelly published the book "Atlantis - the antediluvian world", where he argued that this legendary land- the ancestral home of all mankind. To prove the theory, he used the data of archeology, biology and mythology, compared the legends, languages and customs of peoples on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Donelly's work laid the foundation for the modern view of the problem of Atlantis and became a source of inspiration for other authors. The result is more than 5,000 titles of scientific, popular science and fiction books.
Broken phone
As you can see, atlantology is based on a shaky foundation. You are especially convinced of this by a sober analysis of Plato's texts. The philosopher learned about Atlantis from other people's words, and the whole story resembles a children's game of “spoiled phone”.
So what does Plato say? His great-grandfather Critias, being a 10-year-old boy, heard about Atlantis from his then already 90-year-old grandfather, also Critias. And he, in turn, knew tragic story Atlanteans from a distant relative, the great Athenian sage Solon (640 - 558 BC). Solon, on the other hand, received a “relay baton” from the Egyptian priests from the temple of the goddess Neith in the city of Sais (which has not survived to this day), who from time immemorial allegedly kept historical annals in the form of hieroglyphs on temple columns. It turns out quite a long chain of intermediaries ...
Assuming that Plato did not invent anything, there is still plenty of room for error. Critias Jr. claimed that the story of Atlantis shocked him, so he memorized it in detail. However, there are direct contradictions in the dialogue. For example, in one place Critias says that: "... the story is indelibly imprinted in my memory", and in another - that: "... after such a long time, I did not remember the content of the story enough." Further, it turns out that he had some records. Commemorative notes of the grandfather or Solon? Yes, and the grandfather of Kritia in his 90s could well have confused a lot of things, not to mention the fact that many details of the legend of the sunken earth, perhaps, are the fruit of senile boasting. “And I’ll tell you, granddaughter, a great-a-wild fairy tale!”.
So perhaps Aristotle was right, or partly right. Plato could indeed invent the history of Atlantis to illustrate his views (recall Thomas More's "Utopia"). Or, with all his honesty, the philosopher compiled dialogues from some other sources about Atlantis that have not come down to us, historical and geographical works of various authors, legends, myths and his own conjectures. Well, Plato simply could have come up with a chain of narrators for greater reliability.
True, the ending of Critias is most likely lost. Perhaps the "lost files" contained the answers to all questions?
"Pros and cons"
Plato describes the land of the ancestors of the Hellenes as follows: "It stretches from the mainland far into the sea ... and is immersed on all sides in a deep vessel of the abyss." But the ancient Greeks did not know about the presence of depths greater than a few tens of meters! Atlantologists believe that Plato's words about the "deep vessel of the abyss" are evidence of knowledge preserved from the time of the Atlanteans. However, Plato could use this turn as a poetic comparison. Or, based on the presence of the steep coasts of Attica, independently conclude that if the rocks abruptly break into the sea, it must be very deep there.
On the other hand, the war of the ancient Hellenes with Atlantis is very reminiscent of the wars of the Greeks with the Persians. The thought involuntarily creeps in that the philosopher projected the events of real history onto the distant past. The description of Atlantis in terms of relief and natural data resembles the island of Crete. The Temple of Poseidon, the main religious building of the Atlanteans, is very similar to the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Cyprus. The sculpture of the god of the seas on a chariot drawn by six winged horses resembles a very real statue of Poseidon by Skopas (4th century BC). Coincidence or fraud?
Where is this street, where is this house?
Atlantologists also argue about the location of the legendary land, although it would seem from Plato's dialogues that it is extremely clear that the island was located precisely in the Atlantic.
Plato says - to the west of the Pillars of Hercules (the ancient name of the Strait of Gibraltar) lay huge island, more than Libya and Asia combined, from which it was easy to cross the other islands to the “opposite mainland” (America?).
Therefore, many of the atlantologists believe that traces of Atlantis must be sought somewhere at the bottom of the ocean of the same name. Possibly next to existing islands that could be tall mountain peaks sunken land.
At the same time, atlantologists stubbornly ignore the simplest fact - if an asteroid capable of flooding a hefty island crashed to Earth, this would cause such an increase in atmospheric temperature that almost all life on the planet would be destroyed.
Myths of the peoples of the world
Donelly, the "father" of atlantology, and his followers consider mythology to be the key proof of the existence of Atlantis, or rather, several legends that coincide among many peoples.
First, there are the legends about the flood, which are found in almost all mankind. The gods, tired of human mischief, flood the whole earth with water, adding a number of weighty means of re-educating sinners - in the form of a fiery rain, for example.
Secondly, legends about aliens from distant lands (not to be confused with aliens!). From somewhere far away, an unknown person arrives, speaking in an incomprehensible language and teaching the natives various useful things.
Thirdly, legends about cosmic cataclysms. Something hefty is falling from the sky - a stone, the Moon, the Sun, a Dragon. It does nothing good for people. The people left out of business disperse, who goes where ...
Atlantis in the Mediterranean?
In addition to the Atlantic Ocean, the sunken island is placed in other parts of the world. The Mediterranean Sea enjoys special love.
Upon closer examination, this theory does not look like nonsense at all. Plato wrote that after Atlantis sank, “the sea in those places became ... unnavigable and inaccessible due to the shallowing caused by the huge amount of silt that the settled island left behind.” It is unlikely that in the Atlantic Ocean, with its considerable depths, muddy shallow waters would have served as a serious obstacle to navigation. But in the Mediterranean there are plenty of such places. And the nature of Atlantis may well be correlated with almost any Mediterranean island.
The god of the seas, Poseidon, fell in love with a simple girl, Kleito, who gave birth to him 5 pairs of twins, who laid the foundation for the people of the Atlanteans.
The Atlantean state was similar to Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea - an archipelago of several islands, the main of which was 1110 km long and 400 km wide. The climate is supposedly tropical, as elephants were found on the island. On the south side of Atlantis was its capital - the city of Poseidonis with a diameter of about 7 km. In the center of the city there was a lake, in the middle of which lay an island 965 meters in diameter, riddled with canals, with the Acropolis palace complex, surrounded by two earthen ramparts. The outer shaft was covered with copper, the inner - with tin, the walls of the acropolis were lined with orichalcum (metal unknown to us). The structure of the Acropolis included the joint temple of Kleito and Poseidon, surrounded by a golden wall, and the temple of Poseidon himself with a huge statue of the sea god inside. Outside around the temple were images of the wives and relatives of the kings of Atlantis, offerings from their vassals.
The population of Atlantis was about 6 million people. The state system is a monarchy: 10 kings-archons, the highest of which bore the title "Atlas" and lived in Poseidonis. Every 5-6 years, councils-assemblies were held - "courts" of kings, before which "bull sacrifices" were organized (a similar custom existed in Crete).
The Atlantean army numbered 660,000 men and 10,000 war chariots. The fleet - 1200 combat triremes with a crew of 240 thousand people.
Atlantes - the ancestors of the Russians?
Some scientists go their own way, placing the legendary land in the most exotic places. In 1638, the English scientist and politician Francis Bacon in his book "Nova Atlantis" placed Atlantis in Brazil, where, as you know, there are many wild monkeys. In 1675, the Swede Rudbeck argued that Atlantis was in Sweden, and Uppsala was its capital.
Recently, due to the lack of virgin places, they turned to our boundless expanses - the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, the Black and the Caspian Sea, too, were honored to accept the completely lost Atlantis into their arms. There is also a charming theory that the Atlanteans are the ancestors of the ancient Russians, and the legendary land of Plato ... sunken Kitezh-grad! True, after the stories that Adam and Eve were from somewhere near Moscow, the Russian-Atlantic version no longer looks sensational enough.
R. Silverberg in "Letters from Atlantis" shows the events of a thousand years ago through the eyes of modern man, whose mind has moved into the body of the Prince of Atlantis (an obvious remake of Hamilton's "Star Kings"!).
A time traveler can also witness the events of the past ("Dancer from Atlantis" by P. Anderson, "Atlantis Endgame" by A. Norton and S. Smith).
Sometimes the Atlanteans became aliens from outer space (A. Shalimov, “The Return of the Last Atlantean”), or they were the first earthlings who came into contact with an alien mind (V. Kernbach, "The Boat over Atlantis"; G. Martynov, "Spiral of Time") . Perhaps it was vile aliens who destroyed Atlantis? Here is the hero of the cycle "Atlantis" by G. Donnegan, the tough commando Eric, together with his comrades from the "fur seals" detachment, is trying to stop the insidious alien-sheds who once treacherously drowned the unfortunate Atlanteans.
Many books tell about the adventures of outcasts who survived the catastrophe. Some have preserved the remains of civilization under water (“Atlantis Under Water” by R. Kadu, “Maracot Abyss” by A. Conan Doyle, “The End of Atlantis” by K. Bulychev). Others slipped away. To America (“Temple. A Manuscript Found on the Yucatan Coast” by H. F. Lovecraft), to Africa (“Tarzan and the Treasure of Opar” by E. R. Barrows); to Spain (“This distant Tartessus” by E. Voiskunsky and I. Lukodyanov); even to Britain ("Stones of Power" by D. Gemmel). For some Atlanteans, the shock from the death of their native side turned out to be so strong that other planets seemed to them the best refuge (A. Tolstoy, “Aelita”; A. Shcherbakov, “Cup of Storms”).
In V. Panov's recent novel "The Chair of Wanderers", the ancient artifact of the Atlanteans Throne of Poseidon turns out to be a catalyst for powerful forces. Even Batman ("The Black Egg of Atlantis" by N. Barret) enters the battle for the Atlantean legacy when Penguin Man tries to take possession of an ancient item that gives dark power.
Why did Atlantis die?
There is also no agreement in ascertaining the reasons for the death of the island.
In addition to the basic, albeit absolutely unrealistic version of the fall of a giant meteorite, the hypothesis of a powerful earthquake is very popular. In history, there are cases of a sharp subsidence of the earth by several meters as a result of such a natural disaster. For example, the death of the pirate capital of Port Royal in Jamaica in 1692, when the city plunged into the sea by 15 meters. Strong earthquakes, especially those with an epicenter on seabed, can cause a tsunami. Typical example such a disaster- tsunami as a result of the eruption of Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia in 1883, when the wave height was about 40 meters. Such a wave is quite capable of burying a coastal zone of the mainland or even an entire island under it.
In addition to more or less scientific explanations, there are also occult-fantastic theories about Atlantis, sometimes very specific. For example, members of the Rising Atlantes sect, founded in the 70s of the last century, believe that the Atlanteans are the descendants of aliens, who then laid the foundation for the Egyptian civilization.
The bestsellers of ophthalmologist Ernst Muldashev, who is terribly popular among some Russians, also contain amazing discoveries. It turns out that the Atlanteans possessed extrasensory perception, and 75,000 years ago, with the help of psychokinetic energy, the Egyptian pyramids were erected. A number of great personalities - Krishna, Buddha, Christ - were also Atlanteans. And somewhere in the depths of Tibet in the caves, the surviving Atlanteans are still sleeping in a special form of suspended animation - samadhi.
Atlantis - a myth?
With all the many disagreements, the only thing that cements the discordant ranks of atlantologists is the idea that Atlantis really existed. However, there are many who say: Atlantis is a myth!
These are their main arguments. Firstly, apart from the dialogues of Plato, there are no other reliable references to Atlantis. Secondly, the island had to be too big, and it is not easy to stick it somewhere in terms of geography. Thirdly, modern geological and oceanographic studies do not confirm the sinking of a large part of the land to the ocean floor. Fourthly, 10 thousand years ago there was no developed human civilization. But for any of these arguments, if desired (and many have it!) No less logical counter-arguments are easily found.
The most impartial scholars nevertheless admit that Plato's dialogues contain a rational grain and they describe real natural disasters that have befallen the Mediterranean - the same Crete.
The only thing that can draw a line under many years of discussion, indisputably proving the veracity of the legend, is the discovery of the remains of Atlantis on the sea or ocean floor. But is it possible?
Remains of former luxury
Scientists from many countries are constantly exploring the seas and oceans, making the most valuable archaeological discoveries from time to time. True, nothing has yet been found that would prove the existence of a sunken mainland or a huge island. Given the constant improvement of the technical equipment of such expeditions, landmark discoveries may not be far off. Another question - what can scientists find at the bottom?
The main building materials of antiquity were marble, granite, basalt and sandstone. Over thousands of years, most of the buildings will completely dissolve in sea water, except for some of the marble structures. In addition, some types of mollusks and the presence of strong underwater currents can be destructive to sunken buildings.
In salty sea water, metals undergo accelerated corrosion. Iron oxidizes after 200 years at sea, copper and copper alloys disappear after 400 years. True, if copper products are large (bells, cannons, anchors), a layer of carbonates forms on their surface that can protect the object. But high-grade gold can lie in the water for a very long time.
Wooden objects die in a couple of centuries, and high-quality ceramics lie at the bottom for millennia. At the same time, many items, if they are quickly overgrown with corals, are also able to be stored for a long time - however, it is difficult to detect them in this case. In general, some of the heritage of the Atlanteans is theoretically able to survive to this day.
Perhaps a miracle will still happen, and humanity will take a fresh look at its history? Schliemann was once also made fun of, but he, in spite of everything, discovered the legendary Troy ...
Egyptian priests, based on ancient records, said that once in the "Atlantic Sea" (as the ocean was then called) lay a huge island - "larger than Libya (that is, Africa) and Asia taken together." On this island “a great and formidable power of kings developed, whose power extended to the whole island and many other islands (...).
In addition, they (...) owned Libya to Egypt and Europe to Tirrenia ”(as Italy was called at that time). The legend of Atlantis tells that in the original times, when the gods divided the earth among themselves, this island fell into the possession of Poseidon, the god of the seas. Poseidon settled there his ten sons, born of an earthly woman, Clito. The eldest of them was called Atlant, after his name the island was named Atlantis, and the sea - the Atlantic.
One of the Ica Stones with a Map of North (top center) and South America (bottom center), the deceased Continent Mu on the left, Atlantis on the right
From Atlantis came a powerful and noble family of kings of Atlantis. This family "gathered such huge wealth, which had not yet happened before in the possession of kings, and later on it will never be easy to form such."
Earth fruits grew in abundance on the island, various animals were found - “both tame and wild”, minerals were mined in its depths, including “one breed, which is now known only by name, (...) - the orichalcum breed, extracted from the earth in many places of the island, and after gold, which had the greatest value among the people of that time.
The inhabitants of Atlantis built beautiful cities with fortress walls, temples and palaces on their island, built harbors and shipyards.
The main city of Atlantis was surrounded by several rows of earthen ramparts and canals - "rings of the sea". The city walls were covered, "like mastic", with copper, tin and orichalcum, "which emitted a fiery sheen", and the houses were built of red, white and black stone.
A temple to Poseidon and Clito was erected in the center of the city. The walls of the temple were lined with silver, the roof was covered with gold, and inside “there was an ivory ceiling, colored with gold, silver and orichalcum. They also erected golden idols inside the temple - a god that, standing in a chariot, ruled by six winged horses, and himself, due to the enormity of his size, touched the crown of the ceiling.
The Atlanteans carried on a lively trade, the harbors of Atlantis "swarmed with ships and merchants from everywhere, who in their mass day and night deafened the area with screams, knocks and mixed noise."
Atlantis had a strong army and navy, consisting of one thousand two hundred warships.
The code of laws that Poseidon himself gave to the Atlanteans was inscribed on a high orichalcum pillar, installed in the middle of the island. Atlantis was ruled by ten kings - each with his own part of the island. Once every five or six years, they gathered in front of this pillar and "conferred about common affairs or sorted out if anyone had committed any misconduct, and made a judgment."
The Atlanteans were distinguished by their nobility and lofty way of thinking, “looking at everything except virtue with disdain, they valued little that they had a lot of gold and other possessions, were indifferent to wealth as a burden, and did not fall to the ground in the intoxication of luxury, losing power over himself."
But time passed - and the Atlanteans changed, filled with "the wrong spirit of self-interest and power." They began to use their knowledge and the achievements of their culture for evil. In the end, Zeus became angry with them and "in one day and a disastrous night (...) the island of Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the sea." According to Plato, this happened in the X millennium BC. e. Modern scientists are of the opinion that the death of the island was caused by a catastrophe caused by some of the man-made achievements of the ancient Atlanteans.
Disputes about whether Atlantis really existed or was invented by Plato began in ancient times. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, a friend and student of Plato, argued that Atlantis is completely fictional (according to legend, it was on this occasion that Aristotle uttered the famous saying: “Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer”). However, many believed that Atlantis really existed and traces of it could be found.
Interest in Atlantis over the following centuries faded, then awakened again, but never completely disappeared.
It is estimated that about 3,600 scientific papers have been written about Atlantis to date (not to mention numerous works of fiction). Atlantology has become an independent branch of science. Scientists-atlantologists expressed many guesses about the location of Atlantis and the reasons for its death, put forward a hypothesis about the influence of the Atlantean civilization on the development of world civilization.
Poet V.Ya. Bryusov, who was professionally engaged in atlantology and taught a scientific course on this topic, wrote at the beginning of the 20th century - “We still have no right to assert (...) that“ Atlantis has been proven ”. But it is certain that science must accept Atlantis as a necessary "working hypothesis." Without the assumption of Atlantis, much in early antiquity will remain unclear, inexplicable (...). Atlantis is necessary for history and therefore must be discovered!”
On the island of Crete, located in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, the Greeks have long lived. “All European art in the broadest sense of the word is rooted in the Greek tradition: everything that European artists, writers, thinkers have achieved bears the deep stamp of the amazing successes of a small ancient people,” writes the English scholar John Chadwick.
The great discoveries of the 20th century in archeology have called into question many established views regarding the Greeks. In 1900, the Englishman Arthur Evans began archaeological excavations on the island of Crete. In the north of the island, near the city of Knossos, near Mount Yuktas, Arthur Evans unearthed the remains of a huge palace of a hitherto unknown culture.
The palace had two or three floors, not counting the basements, which contained cellars, workshops, food stores, weapons, and dungeons. The ceremonial premises of the palace consisted of large and small throne rooms and rooms cult purpose. In the alleged female part of the palace there were a reception room, a bathroom treasury and various other rooms. A wide sewer network of clay pipes of large and small diameters was laid in the palace, serving the pools, bathrooms and latrines. More than 2 thousand clay tablets with various records were found in the palace. The rich decoration of some rooms, a huge number of products made of precious metals, highly artistic wall paintings, frescoes, spacious warehouses - all this indicates that the palace was the seat of the kings - the rulers of Knossos and all of Crete. The total area of the palace is 16 thousand square meters. m.
At Mallia, Gournia, Phaistos, and elsewhere in Crete, Evans and his students also excavated ancient palaces. Archaeological discoveries have also been made on other islands. Aegean Sea. Thus, the world learned that before the Greeks, another people, unknown in history, lived and left a great culture. This culture in the scientific literature is called Cretan (Minoan) or Aegean-Minoan.
Evans divides the Cretan culture into three periods. Most ancient period accounts for 3000-2000 years. BC e., and the latest - for 1600-1100 years. BC e. In other words, the earliest period of the Cretan (Minoan) civilization, according to Evans, began five thousand years ago. As we know from history, in the same period there were centers of world culture - Sumer and Egypt.
“The civilization of Crete was incomparably older than the Greek. And even in the Late Bronze Age, Cretan culture surpassed that of classical Greece. The legend tells that Athens obeyed Minos, the king of Crete. A foreign people lived here, who kept the Greeks in fear, ”writes Chadwick, a quote from which we quoted above.
"Greek art, which until now has served as the ideal of perfection, which has been a classic for all generations of artists, turns out to be only a continuation of the greatest culture that arose in the Mediterranean 2000-1000 years earlier." When and how did the Cretan culture die? For an answer, we turn to Plato.
Plato's stories about Atlantis
, who lived in 427 - 357 years. BC e., in his dialogues "Timaeus" and "Critias" writes about some state of Atlantis, the center of which was on the island of the same name. The Greek philosopher and statesman Solon, who lived two centuries earlier than Plato, in 640-559, first learned about Atlantis. BC e. Solon traveled a lot and when he was in Egypt, the servants of the temple told him about Atlantis. Plato belonged to the family of the Athenian kings, where the wonderful story of Solon was passed down from generation to generation.
Through Plato's Dialogues, the whole world learned about the mysterious state of antiquity. According to Plato, the island of Atlantis was in front of the Pillars of Hercules. He reports:
This island exceeded in size Libya and Asia put together and continues: “on this island, called Atlantis, there arose a great and admirable alliance of kings, whose power extended over the whole island, to many other islands and to part of the mainland, and beyond moreover, on this side of the strait they took possession of Libya as far as Egypt and Europe as far as Tirrenia.
Atlantis had no equal in its economic and cultural development. According to Plato, the capital of the state was located on the same island, on a plain where a small mountain towered. The first people lived on the mountain - husband and wife. They had one and only daughter named Kleito. When Kleito's mother and father died, she was left completely alone on the island. Poseidon, the god of the sea, fell in love with her. They began to live together, and Kleito gave birth to five twin sons. The god of the sea raised his children, equipped the island, divided Atlantis into ten regions and gave it to his sons to manage.
He gave the elder the largest and best part of the island and made him king over all the brothers. Poseidon also arranged a mountain on a plain - he surrounded it with water and earthen rings. There were two earth rings and three water rings. Two streams flowed from the mountain - one with cold, the other with hot water. Temples, palaces and other buildings were located on the mountain.
Since the time of Plato, scholars have been arguing:
was Atlantis real? If yes, where and when?
The death of Atlantis
During the two thousand years that this controversy has been going on, Atlantean logical literature has accumulated 25,000 volumes, some of which are over 500 pages long! When the time came for unprecedented earthquakes and floods, in one terrible day, all your military strength was swallowed up by the unfolding earth; in the same way, LtLi5, tida disappeared, plunging into the abyss, ”reports the author of Timaeus” and “Critias”. By the words "all your military strength" is meant the hypothetical military force of the Athenians, allegedly preparing for the war with the Atlanteans.
The death of Atlantis occurred as if 9000 years before the era of Solon. If we count from our time, we get 11500 or rounded about 12 thousand years. However, as is known, 12,000 years ago there was not a single people on Earth whose achievements would resemble the culture of the Atlanteans, as described by Plato.
The discoveries of Arthur Evans on the island of Crete enabled scientists to approach the problem of Atlantis in a new way.
The center of Atlantis could not necessarily be located in front of the Pillars of Heracles, i.e., near the modern Strait of Gibraltar. It could be in the eastern Mediterranean.
As a result of surveying the water depths with modern methods, it turned out that the islands of the eastern Mediterranean Sea from ancient times were located in a particularly seismically unstable zone of the earth's crust. It turns out that in Crete and the nearby islands of the Aegean basin, there were both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, during which parts of the land were swallowed up by the sea.
Modern scientists have established that several strong earthquakes occurred in the Aegean Sea basin, as a result of which ancient structures were completely destroyed. For example, in 1800-1700. BC e. There were just such strong earthquakes. Palaces at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, Gurnia in Crete, and other islands are believed to have been destroyed during this period.
Now the third Cretan population lives on the island, along with the remnants of the former inhabitants. Other ancient authors also have information that other peoples lived on the territory of Greece before the Greeks. The same Plato in the dialogue "Cratylus" writes:
It seems to me that the first of the people who inhabited Hellas revered only those gods that many barbarians still revere today: the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Stars, the Sky
Strabo has these words: Hecateus of Miletus reports about the Peloponnese that barbarians lived there before the Greeks. However, in ancient times, barbarians lived throughout Greece.
In the XV century. BC e. in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, on the island of Santorini, which is located north of Crete, there was another strong earthquake and a volcanic eruption. It is believed that during this period the entire Cretan civilization was destroyed. The end of the period was marked, apparently, by a strong earthquake, as a result of which a number of deposits, both at Knossos and at Phaistos, were isolated and preserved in a pure, unmixed state.
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Crete
For some time between 1450-1400 BC. e. all cities in Crete, including Knossos, were destroyed by fire. Two strong earthquakes undermined the well-being of the city. The first occurred at the end of the Late Helladic - II period, between 1450 and 1425, the second, around 1400. According to many archaeologists, geologists and oceanologists, the explosion of the Santorin volcano in the Aegean Sea in the middle of the II millennium BC. e. led to the death of the great power of the Mediterranean, the center of which was on the island of Crete, the former cradle of the most ancient civilization of Europe
The volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, or rather, on its remains of Thera and Therasia (otherwise Thira and Thirasia), also occurred later than the estimated time of the death of Atlantis. Here is how Strabo describes this eruption:
halfway between Thera and Therasia, a flame suddenly burst out of the sea and lasted for four days, so that the whole sea around boiled and burned; the flame spewed out the island (gradually, as if by levers raised from the water and consisting of a red-hot mass) stretching 12 stadia in a circle.
The energy of a volcanic eruption, according to the definition of P. Heidervari, is calculated by the atomic bomb equivalent. The energy of one atomic bomb is assumed to be 8.4 1014 J. “It turned out that the Bezymyanny explosion was equivalent to 4 thousand, Krakatau-20 thousand, and Tambor - 200 thousand atomic bombs.” Nameless, Krakatoa, Tambora are the names of the most famous volcanoes on the ground. It is assumed that the energy of the volcano Santorini, which destroyed the Cretan civilization, was equal to or even greater than the energy of the explosion of the volcano Tambora. Thus, the eruption of Santorini in the XV century. BC e. belongs to the greatest geological catastrophes
In order to more clearly imagine the scale of the catastrophe, let us give some examples from the history of volcanoes. During the eruption of Tambor (in Indonesia) on April 5, 1815, the roar of the explosion spread over 1400 km. Colossal masses of ash, sand and volcanic dust rose into the air. Stones weighing up to 5 kg were ejected from the crater of the volcano over a distance of more than 40 km. Volcanic ash during the explosion can rise into the air up to 50 km.
The tephra or volcanic ash from the eruption of Santorini spread over a thousand kilometers from the center of the explosion. Modern scientists, using special devices, took soil samples from the seabed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It turned out that 130 km southeast of Santorini, the ash layer reaches 212 cm, and in the northeast of the island the same ash layer is 78 cm.
Before the explosion of the volcano, there was a large city on the island of Santorini. Archaeological excavations are currently underway here. As in Crete, the remains of ancient structures have been found in Santorini. Greek scientists from the University of Athens unearthed here the remains of one-, two- and three-storey buildings, as well as numerous handicrafts of the Minoan period. It is assumed that the city had about 30 thousand inhabitants. Due to the volcanic eruption, the northern part of the city was completely destroyed, and South part was buried under a layer of volcanic ash.
In modern Thira, Thirasia, Aspronisi - the remains of Santorini - the depth of petrified tephra reaches 30 - 40 meters. Archaeologists have found no human remains buried under the tephra. This means that people managed to escape from the city and escaped.
Many scientists believe that the Cretan civilization, destroyed in the II millennium BC. e. the eruption of a powerful volcano, and there is the mysterious Atlantis.
True, not all the details of Plato's description correspond to the facts of Cretan culture. Plato writes that Atlantis died 9000 years before the era of Solon. Here Plato himself or the scribes could be wrong by one "zero". If we consider the date of the death of Atlantis not at 9000, but at 900 years from the era of Solon, then we get an approximate chronology of the eruption of the Santorini volcano - the 15th century. BC e.
At the end of the topic, we present a TASS report entitled "Volcano - two thousand Hiroshima", which says the following: "The most powerful eruption volcano in the foreseeable history of mankind occurred in the 17th century BC on one of the islands in the Aegean Sea.
As scientists from the University of California (USA) reported at a press conference, the force of the eruption was about two thousand times greater than the power of the nuclear device that led to the tragedy in Hiroshima. According to the researchers, the consequences of the eruption were felt everywhere on the earth's surface. One of its consequences, according to the hypothesis put forward, was the disappearance of Atlantis, which gave rise to a highly developed civilization
The mythical continent, or island of Atlantis, was first described by Plato (427-347 BC) in the dialogues Timaeus And Critias with reference to one of the seven sages of Ancient Greece - Solon. During his trip to Egypt, Solon wrote down the story of the ancient Egyptian priests of the temple of the goddess Neith in Sais, who, according to historians and Egyptologists, relied on written evidence left by the ancients more than 30 thousand years ago on papyri that have not come down to us. Atlantis is named after Atlas, the brother of one of the titans of Greek mythology, Prometheus. According to Plato, mysterious continent inhabited by the Atlanteans - a fearless and powerful people who reached the highest level of civilization and fought with a certain pra-Athenian state. She was located in the Atlantic Ocean beyond Gibraltar and died about 12 thousand years ago (between 9750 and 8570 BC), plunging into the abyss of the ocean "in one day and a disastrous night" as a result of a grandiose natural disaster. Aristotle (384/383–322/321 BC), the ancient Greek philosopher and student of Plato, categorically did not share the concept of his teacher and it was in the dispute about Atlantis that he uttered the famous phrase: “Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer.”
Atlantis is a mystery both for geologists, geophysicists, seismologists, oceanologists, and for historians, archaeologists, art critics and people studying ancient cultures. There is no hope of finding golden statues of goddesses in the depths of the ocean, a temple of Poseidon, or anything like that. The processes of erosion, sedimentation and other natural processes mercilessly destroy the traces of ancient civilizations, but indirect evidence of their existence still reaches us.
Tectonic processes and the death of the continent.
If we approach the problem from a geological point of view, then it boils down to the following question: did there exist in historical time a microcontinent or a huge archipelago that submerged catastrophically quickly? Not more than 20 years ago, science was dominated by theories of fixism, according to which the positions of the earth's continents are unchanged, allowing the emergence ocean trenches due to sharp subsidence of blocks of the continental lithosphere. This was a strong argument in favor of the existence and death of Atlantis. However, this concept contradicts modern ideas about lithospheric plate tectonics, according to which continents cannot submerge. Continents! And the archipelagos?
From the point of view of this theory, the model of the death of Atlantis looks like this.
The outer shell of the Earth consists of separate, slowly moving lithospheric plates. The hypothetical death of Atlantis is of particular interest, firstly, as the largest geological catastrophe that occurred in the memory of mankind; secondly, as a result of the manifestation of endogenous, i.e. deep, tectonic processes occurring at the border (or in the junction zone) of two giant continental plates: the African, which is part of the southern Gondwana series, and the Eurasian, which is part of the northern Laurasian. Where the lithospheric plates converge, the thinner and deeper oceanic lithosphere, colliding with the continental one, breaks and moves under it, dragging oceanic islands. Continental plates collide to form mountains. So, as a result of the fact that Africa "piled up" on Europe, Alpine folding arose, giving rise to the Pyrenees, the Alps, Karadag in the Crimea and the Pamirs. Within these mountain ranges, earthquakes still occur). The Mediterranean Sea and the Azores-Gibraltar fault system, on the axis of which, like a skewer, a chain of seamounts is strung, which stretches from the Azores archipelago to Gibraltar, became the place of the collision of the plates.
Thus, Atlantis was in a tectonically active zone, which still shows volcanic activity. (Suffice it to recall the Messinian earthquake of 1908 or the catastrophe of 1775, when Lisbon perished in half an hour.)
On the map of the geophysical knowledge of the Azor-Gibraltar region, a huge crack is clearly visible. Seismic data reveal short and long focus earthquakes, an anomalous magnetic field and heat flow in this area. The methods of deep seismic profiling made it possible to detect signs of a partial subduction of one plate under another, which could have resulted in the death of Atlantis.
Secrets of Mount Ampere.
In 1981 and 1984, the Institute of Oceanology equipped two expeditions for test diving of an underwater diving bell and testing other equipment of the Vityaz research vessel. The studies were carried out in the area of the Amper Seamount, located in the Atlantic Ocean about 500 km west of the Strait of Gibraltar and part of the Hosshu Seamounts.
On the flat top of the mountain, formations resembling the ruins of a city were discovered. The expedition members managed to photograph what looked like masonry walls and made a number of drawings from nature, which caused sensational reports in the newspapers. What they saw surprisingly resembled ancient dwellings in Chersonese: firstly, cells ranging in size from 5 to 10 m, very similar to the rooms of houses, and secondly, although, as you know, nature avoids right angles, and scientists saw many straight parallelepipeds, buildings resembling stairs and even something like an arch.
Divers chipped off fragments of weathered basalt from one of the alleged masonry, and specialists checked them for traces of tooling. It was not possible to find an unequivocal answer, however, experts were inclined to conclude that the “walls” are still miraculous and there are no “ruins of the ancient city” there. Further careful study showed that the mountain is old volcano, broken by deep cracks, elongated almost at right angles to each other and giving the impression of "rooms". Another thing was more important: when the basalt was subjected to chemical analysis, it became clear that it was formed not under water, but in air, i.e. in those days when Ampère towered above the surface of the ocean.
The system of underwater ridges Hosshu stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Azores archipelago and forms a ridge dominated by flat-topped mountains, once cut off by surface erosion, as evidenced by pebble-boulder deposits formed as a result of surf-wave activity. Considering that 40 thousand years ago the level of the world ocean was 100–120 m lower than now, and the age of mountains (according to the potassium-argon definition) ranges on average from 7 to 9 million years, it is quite natural to assume that these ancient volcanic formations may once have been islands. And people could live on the islands. However, the rise in the ocean level during the Cretaceous transgression (subsidence) or later could not lead to catastrophic consequences, since the rise in the ocean level is a very slow process, as evidenced, in particular, by coral deposits. It can be assumed that the subsidence of the islands, or, conversely, the rise of the sea, occurred as a result of some kind of grandiose catastrophe, for example, the collision of the African and Eurasian plates. The question is how and when did it happen? And is it not about Atlantis, which has been searched for for the third millennium?
Where to look for Atlantis? If we collect and publish all the data on where Atlantis could be located, we would get a fascinating book in which we would have to tell about South America, with which the famous philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) identified Atlantis in a utopia New Atlantis; and about the North Sea, where, according to the German pastor Jürgen Spanut, there was a mysterious continent not far from the island of Heligoland, and about searches at the beginning of the 19th century. from Yucatan to Mongolia and from Svalbard to Saint Helena. Atlantis was "prescribed" in Brazil, Scandinavia, Palestine, in the Pas de Calais, etc. Active supporters of its existence included the artist and philosopher Nicholas Roerich and the geologist and academician Vladimir Obruchev.
From the end of the 19th century the version of the Russian traveler and scientist, academician Avraam Norov (1795–1869), who suggested the existence of an island in the Mediterranean, gained the greatest popularity.
IN Lately the views of researchers are increasingly turning to the islands of Crete and Thira (Strongele), in antiquity the island of Thera, the Minoan culture of these islands died as a result major disaster one and a half thousand years BC. Among the supporters of the latter hypothesis are Anagelos Galanopoulos, Bacon, tectonist Evgeny Milanovsky, famous explorer sea depths, French oceanologist Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who discovered on the periphery underwater island Tira (Fera?) fragments of buildings, indicating that the city really died there. But was it Atlantis? According to Plato, Atlantis disappeared between 9750 and 8570 BC.
Insidious volcano.
For one and a half thousand years BC. in the Aegean Sea on the island of Strongele, the largest eruption of the Santorin volcano in the history of mankind occurred (the previous catastrophic eruption, judging by deep-sea bottom sediments, dates back to the period of 25 thousand years BC). The explosion demolished the central part of the island, and in its place a giant (11 km wide, up to 300 m deep) caldera arose (a funnel formed as a result of an explosion in the upper part of the crater cone), into which the sea rushed. A huge amount of ash escaped from the mouth of the volcano, and the shock wave, earthquakes and tsunamis destroyed the cities and settlements of the Minoans on Crete and other islands. A cloud of volcanic gases mixed with ash enveloped Greek archipelago, killed a significant part of the population, burned vegetation and destroyed the animal world. The Cretan-Mycenaean (Aegean) culture, which had flourished so recently, was wiped off the face of the earth.
Ash, according to geologists, circled the globe 3 times with air currents, traces of it were found even in South America. It is known that any eruption emits thousands of tons of "acidic" substances into the atmosphere, which are carried by the wind throughout the Earth, settling on glaciers in the form of rain or snow, and forever preserve the memory of past events. Studies of glaciers made it possible to establish the date of the catastrophic eruption - approximately 1645 BC. (plus or minus 20 years). The date was also confirmed by employees of the University of Arizona in the USA, who, using the annual rings on the saw cut of an ancient pine tree, determined that the trees in that period received much less heat and sunlight than in previous and subsequent years. Staff at the University of Cambridge radiocarbon-dated fossil trees found on Santorini and determined that the disaster occurred between 1639 and 1603 BC. Thus, the date of the death of a once flourishing civilization is correlated with the date of the explosion of the volcano, but did the eruption cause a catastrophe or were there any other reasons?
From the point of view of tectonic theory, the explosion of the Santorin volcano is not a cause, but a consequence of the collision of plates, which provoked a number of disasters in the Mediterranean region. Santorin could have exploded due to the activation of a nearby volcano, which, like Santorin, could have been active even in prehistoric times. A clear example of such interaction or interdependence is demonstrated by the events of the 19th century: first, the eruption of the Tamboro volcano occurred, and then, almost 80 years later, in the same mountain system - Krakatoa. From a geological point of view, this is a negligible time.
How did Atlantis die? Let's turn to Plato's dialogue Critias, where we are talking about the reasons for the death of Atlantis: “And so Zeus ... thinking about a glorious family that fell into such miserable depravity, and decided to impose punishment on him, so that he, having sobered up from trouble, learned goodness. Therefore, he called all the gods ... and addressed the audience with these words ... ". This is where the story ends. What kind of punishment did Zeus prepare for Atlantis?
Where the myth ends, the painstaking work of scientists begins. Now more and more researchers are inclined to believe that Atlantis could have died as a result of a strong earthquake or volcanic eruption, and most likely both at the same time. Some scientists believe that Atlantis was destroyed by giant waves - tsunamis, which often occur as a result of earthquakes. But there are also more exotic options. The Polish astronomer L. Seidler believes that the death of the continent is connected with the fall of a comet or asteroid on our planet. Astronomer O. Muk put forward a hypothesis about the fall of a huge meteorite in the region of the Florida peninsula on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, which, according to his calculations, occurred on June 5, 8499 BC. (according to the Gregorian calendar) and became the cause of the disaster. Hans Schindler Bellamy suggested that Atlantis was wiped off the face of the Earth by giant waves that arose as a result of the Moon falling into the Earth's gravitational field. But perhaps the most probable from a geological point of view is the version according to which deep tectonic processes and mutual collisions of continental plates gave rise to both earthquakes and tsunamis that destroyed this civilization.
Testimony of the Ancients.
Supporters of the Mediterranean hypothesis say that the Greeks were inaccurate both in dating events and in determining the location of this or that object, as evidenced by disputes over where the Pillars of Hercules were located - in the Strait of Messina, as they argue, or in Gibraltar. In the first case, it turns out that the Greeks never went beyond strait of Gibraltar. However, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
IN Odyssey Homer describes how Greek sailors observe the dances of the dawn goddess Eos, in which it is easy to guess the description of the aurora. This phenomenon is not observed in the Mediterranean Sea, which means that the ships had to go beyond Gibraltar and rise to at least 50 degrees north latitude. Another example: in the second dialogue of Plato, a strange tree is described, which gives "ointment, drink and oil", i.e. coconut tree, which mediterranean coast does not grow. To see it, travelers had to go out into the Atlantic and descend to tropical latitudes. Talking about Atlantis, Plato mentions the mysterious metal orichalcum (something like brass, an alloy of copper), which "sparkled like the sun" and ranked second in value after gold. The fact that this is not an invention of Plato himself is evidenced by the fact that this name is also found in other works of the classical era. It should not be forgotten that the smelting of metals among the Sumerians appeared much later - in the first millennium BC, and Atlantis died long before the onset of the Bronze Age.
Thus, we can talk about a number of catastrophes of the ancient world associated with one global geological cataclysm that caused earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions: firstly, the death of Atlantis, secondly, the fall of the Crete-Minoan (Aegean) culture, in Third, the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
The search for Atlantis can become a unique interdisciplinary study using the methods of geology, oceanology, history, analysis of ancient manuscripts and documents. But the biggest difficulty they face researchers, this is the interpretation of data and the correlation of dates.
Fabulous Atlantis, a powerful and mysterious wonderland, still keeps its secrets and is waiting for discoverers.
Alexander Gorodnitsky
