The people of Atlanta are legends. Mysterious Atlantis

The debate about whether the existence of Atlantis was a reality or beautiful legend, have not ceased for many centuries. On this occasion, a large number of the most controversial theories were put forward, but they were all based on information obtained from the texts of ancient Greek authors, none of whom personally saw this. mysterious island, and transmitted only information received from earlier sources. So how true is the legend of Atlantis and where did it come from in our modern world?

An island sunk into the sea

First of all, let's clarify that the word "Atlantis" is commonly understood as some fantastic (since there is no direct evidence of its existence) island located in Atlantic Ocean. Its exact location is unknown. According to the most popular legend, Atlantis was located somewhere near the northwestern coast of Africa, bordered by the Atlas Mountains, and near the Pillars of Hercules, framing the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.

It was placed there in his dialogues (works written in the form of a conversation of historical or fictional persons) by the famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato. On the basis of his works, a very popular legend about Atlantis was subsequently born. It says that around 9500 BC. e. in the above area there was a terrible earthquake, as a result of which the island forever plunged into the abyss of the ocean.

On that day, an ancient and highly developed civilization, created by the islanders, whom Plato calls "Atlanteans", perished. It should be noted right away that due to similar names, they are sometimes mistakenly identified with the characters of ancient times. Greek mythology- mighty titans holding the vault of heaven on their shoulders. This mistake is so common that when looking at the sculptures by the outstanding Russian sculptor A. I. Terebenev (see photo below), decorating the portico of the New Hermitage in St. Petersburg, many people associate with heroes who once sunk deep into the seas.

A mystery that excites the minds of people

During the Middle Ages, the works of Plato, as well as most other ancient historians and philosophers, were forgotten, but already in the XIV-XVI centuries, which received the name of the Renaissance, interest in them, and at the same time in Atlantis and the legend associated with its existence , increased rapidly. It does not weaken to this day, giving rise to heated scientific discussions. Scientists around the world are trying to find real evidence of the events described by Plato and a number of his followers, and to answer the question of what Atlantis really was - legend or reality?

An island inhabited by people who created the highest civilization at that time, and then swallowed up by the ocean, is a mystery, exciting minds people and encouraging them to look for answers outside the real world. It is known that even in Ancient Greece the legend of Atlantis gave impetus to many mystical teachings, and in modern history it inspired theosophical thinkers. The best known of these are H. P. Blavatsky and A. P. Sinnett. The authors of various kinds of near-scientific and simply fantastic works of various genres, which also turned to the image of Atlantis, did not stand aside.

Where did the legend come from?

But let us return to the writings of Plato, since they are the primary source that aroused centuries-old disputes and discussions. As mentioned above, the mention of Atlantis is contained in two of his dialogues, called Timaeus and Critias. Both of them are devoted to the issue of the state system and are conducted on behalf of his contemporaries: the Athenian politician Critias, as well as two philosophers - Socrates and Timaeus. We note right away that Plato makes a reservation that the primary source of all information about Atlantis is the story of the ancient Egyptian priests, which was passed down orally from generation to generation and finally reached him.

The troubles that befell the Atlanteans

The first of the dialogues contains a report by Critias about the war between Athens and Atlantis. According to him, the island, with the army of which his compatriots had to face, was so large that it surpassed all of Asia in size, which gives reason to call it the mainland with full right. As for the state formed on it, it amazed everyone with its greatness and, being unusually powerful, conquered Libya, as well as a significant territory of Europe, stretching up to Tirrenia (Western Italy).

In 9500 B.C. e. Atlanteans, wanting to conquer Athens, brought down on them all the power of their previously invincible army, but, despite the clear superiority of forces, they could not succeed. The Athenians repulsed the invasion and, having defeated the enemy, returned freedom to the peoples who until then had been in slavery to the islanders. However, the troubles did not recede from the prosperous and once prosperous Atlantis. The legend, or rather, the story of Critias, which is based on it, tells further about a terrible natural disaster that completely destroyed the island and forced it to sink into ocean depths. Literally within a day, the raging elements wiped out a huge continent from the face of the earth and put an end to the highly developed culture created on it.

Commune of Athenian rulers

The continuation of this story is the second dialogue that has come down to us, called Critias. In it, the same Athenian politician tells in more detail about the two great states of antiquity, whose armies met on the battlefield shortly before the fatal flood. Athens, according to him, was a highly developed state and so pleasing to the gods that, according to legend, the end of Atlantis was a foregone conclusion.

The description of the system of government that was arranged in it is quite remarkable. According to Critias, on the Acropolis - a hill that still towers in the center of the Greek capital - there was a certain commune, partly reminiscent of those that the founders of the communist movement imagined in their imagination. Everything in it was equal and everything was enough in abundance. But it was inhabited not by ordinary people, but by rulers and warriors who ensured the maintenance of the order they desired in the country. The laboring masses were only allowed to reverently look at their shining heights and fulfill the plans descended from there.

Arrogant descendants of Poseidon

In the same treatise, the author contrasted the humble and virtuous Athenians with the high-proud Atlanteans. Their ancestor, as is clear from the work of Plato, was the god of the seas Poseidon himself. Once, having witnessed how an earthly girl named Kleito did not live her young body in the waves, he was inflamed with passion and, having evoked reciprocal feelings in her, became the father of ten sons - demigods, half-humans.

The eldest of them, named Atlas, was put in charge of the island, divided into nine parts, each of which was under the command of one of his brothers. In the future, not only the island inherited his name, but even the ocean on which he was located. All his brothers became the founders of dynasties that lived and ruled in this fertile land for many centuries. This is how the legend describes the birth of Atlantis as a powerful and sovereign state.

Island of abundance and wealth

In his work, Plato also gives the dimensions of this legendary mainland island known to him. According to him, it was 540 km long and at least 360 km wide. highest point of this vast territory was a hill, the height of which the author does not specify, but writes that it was located about 9-10 km from the seashore.

It was on it that the palace of the ruler was built, which Poseidon himself surrounded by three land and two water defensive rings. Later, his Atlantean descendants threw bridges over them and dug additional channels through which ships could freely approach the piers located at the very walls of the palace. They also erected many temples on the central hill, richly decorated with gold and decorated with statues of celestials and earthly rulers of Atlantis.

Myths and legends, born on the basis of the writings of Plato, are full of descriptions of the treasures owned by the descendants of the sea god, as well as the richness of nature and the fertility of the island. In the dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher, in particular, it is mentioned that, despite the densely populated Atlantis, wild animals lived very freely on its territory, among which there were even not yet tamed and not domesticated elephants. At the same time, Plato does not disregard many of the negative aspects of the life of the islanders, which caused the wrath of the gods and caused the catastrophe.

The end of Atlantis and the beginning of the legend

Peace and prosperity that had reigned there for many centuries collapsed overnight through the fault of the Atlanteans themselves. The author writes that as long as the inhabitants of the island put virtue above wealth and honors, the celestials were favorable to them, but turned away from them as soon as the glitter of gold eclipsed spiritual values ​​in their eyes. Looking at how people who had lost their divine essence were filled with pride, greed and anger, Zeus did not want to restrain his anger and, having gathered other gods, gave them the right to pass their sentence. This is where the manuscript of the ancient Greek philosopher ends, but, judging by the catastrophe that soon befell the wicked proud, they were considered unworthy of mercy, which ultimately led to such a sad outcome.

The legends of Atlantis (or information about real events - this remains unknown) attracted the attention of many ancient Greek historians and writers. In particular, the Athenian Hellanic, who lived in the 5th century BC. e., also describes this island in one of his writings, however, calling it a little differently - Atlantiad - and not mentioning its death. However, modern researchers, for a number of reasons, believe that his story is not related to the lost Atlantis, but to Crete, which has successfully survived the centuries, in whose history the sea god Poseidon also appears, who conceived a son from an earthly maiden.

It is curious that the name "Atlantes" was applied by ancient Greek and Roman authors not only to the islanders, but also to the inhabitants of continental Africa. In particular, Herodotus, as well as a no less famous historian, so called a certain tribe that lived in the Atlas Mountains near the ocean coast. These African Atlanteans were very warlike and, being at a low stage of development, waged constant wars with foreigners, among whom were the legendary Amazons.

As a result, they were completely exterminated by their neighbors, the troglodytes, who, although they were in a semi-animal state, still managed to win. There is an opinion that Aristotle said on this occasion that it was not the military superiority of the savages that led to the death of the Atlantean tribe, but the creator of the world, Zeus, killed them for their iniquities.

A product of fantasy that survived the ages

The attitude of modern researchers to the information presented in Plato's dialogues and in the writings of a number of other authors is extremely skeptical. Most of them consider Atlantis a legend with no real basis. Their position is explained primarily by the fact that for many centuries no material evidence of its existence has been found. It really is. There is a complete lack of archaeological evidence for the existence at the end ice age, as well as the nearest millennia of such a developed civilization in West Africa or Greece.

It is also bewildering that the story allegedly told to the world by the ancient Greek priests and then passed down to Plato in oral retelling was not reflected in any of the written monuments found on the banks of the Nile. This involuntarily suggests that the ancient Greek philosopher himself composed the tragic story of Atlantis.

He could well borrow the beginning of the legend from the rich domestic mythology, in which the gods often became the founders of entire nations and continents. As for the tragic denouement of the plot, he needed it. The fictitious island should have been destroyed to give the story an external credibility. Otherwise, how could he explain to his contemporaries (and, of course, to his descendants) the absence of traces of his existence.

Researchers of antiquity also pay attention to the fact that when talking about a mysterious continent located near the western coast of Africa, and about its inhabitants, the author cites only Greek names and geographical names. This is very strange and suggests that he himself invented them.

tragic mistake

At the end of the article, we will cite some very amusing statements that zealous supporters of the historicity of the existence of Atlantis come out with today. As mentioned above, today it has been raised to the shield by many supporters of the occult movements and all sorts of mystics who do not want to reckon with the absurdity of their own theories. Pseudo-scientists are not inferior to them, trying to pass off their fabrications as discoveries allegedly made by them.

For example, in recent years, articles have repeatedly appeared on the pages of the press, as well as on the Internet, that the Atlanteans (the existence of which the authors did not question) have made such a high progress that they have carried out extensive research activities in the field of nuclear physics. Even the disappearance of the continent itself is explained by the tragedy that occurred as a result of their unsuccessful nuclear test.

All this has happened before, and will happen again if the peoples forget that their greatness is determined not by what they take, but by what they give.

In ancient times, there were continents and islands on Earth, which have long been gone. The Flood and other cataclysms forever changed the face of the planet. It is difficult today to judge the ancient states that existed at that time, but fragmentary information in the form of legends and traditions has come down to us. ancient greek scholar Proclus(412-485), wrote:
“The famous Atlantis no longer exists, but we can hardly doubt that it once existed ... for ... this is attested by those who wrote stories about the outside world. Thus they relate that at that time there were seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean dedicated to Proserpina; and in addition to these, three more, of enormous size, dedicated to Pluto ... Jupiter ... and Neptune. But besides this, the inhabitants of the last island, thanks to the stories of their ancestors, preserved the memory of the monstrous size of the Atlantean island, which ruled for many periods all the islands in the Atlantic Ocean. From this island it was possible to go to other large islands located not far from the land, near which there is a real sea ".

Even in ancient times, it was believed that the priests of Egyptian temples store colossal knowledge. Egyptian temples housed grandiose archives and libraries containing thousands of papyri. But this knowledge was trusted only to people who were especially verified and who had received appropriate training. Depending on the degree of initiation, a person received access to one or another category of knowledge. Such an initiate, for example, was the famous Greek philosopher Pythagoras, known to us as the author of the famous theorem. He studied for thirty years in Egyptian temples. Studied in Egypt and the Athenian legislator and poet Solon. Referring to Egyptian manuscripts that came from ancient times, he told his great-grandson, the Greek philosopher Plato, the story of Atlantis. And from him Plato conveyed to his contemporaries the story of a great state. And although Plato had no other evidence, he was believed, including modern researchers. Obviously, they subconsciously felt that this story contains the truth, and therefore in the XX-XXI century, the search for the civilization of the Atlanteans is more intense than ever, despite many failures.

Almost all peoples of the world have legends about some mysterious land that once went under water. For Plato, the primary source of this story was the dialogues Critias and Timaeus. Dialogue Timaeus It begins with the fact that Socrates and the Pythagorean Timaeus are talking about an ideal state. “... There was an island lying in front of that strait, which is called in your language the Pillars of Hercules. This island exceeded in size Libya and Asia put together ... On this island, called Atlantis, there arose a great and admirable alliance of kings, whose power extended over the whole island ... they took possession of Libya as far as Egypt and Europe as far as Tirrenia ... ("Timaeus").

According to Plato, the ancestor of the Atlanteans was the god Poseidon, who met with the mortal girl Kleito, who gave birth to ten divine sons from him, including the elder Atlas (in Greek, Atlant, hence the name Atlantis and the Atlantic Sea). Poseidon wisely divided the island between his sons, who became the ancestors of royal families, people of unreal wealth and intelligence. To protect them, Poseidon turned the island of Atlantis into a fortress-palace, surrounding it with rings of water and earth.

They covered the walls around the outer earthen ring around the entire circumference in copper, applying the metal in molten form, the wall of the inner shaft was covered with tin casting, and the wall of the acropolis itself was covered with orichalcum, emitting a fiery brilliance. (Researchers are inclined to think that this is nothing but amber. Orichalcum could be heated and, after melting, applied to objects, the melting point of amber is about 300 degrees). For several centuries of their existence, the Atlanteans adorned their island with unprecedented buildings and sacred monasteries, the greatness of which Plato described in his creation, communicating canals and bridges. In the center stood a luxurious royal palace, lined with silver and gold. The ceiling was lined with ivory. The walls and floors were covered with mountain copper. Every year, each of the ten destinies brought gifts here.

Inside the temple, statues of solid gold lined up, including a statue of Poseidon on a chariot. Six golden-winged horses were harnessed to the chariot. There were also a hundred Nereids sitting on dolphins. The sacrificial altar of the temple corresponded to all this wealth. Plato in Critias writes that the laws given to the Atlanteans by Poseidon “were written down by the first man on a column... which was in the middle of the island in the temple of Poseidon, where people gathered together... At the turn of the day they wrote them down on golden tablets and put them as reminders in their clothes. Among them were specific temple laws that were described by several kings.

Plato's source of information was his great-grandfather Critias. He, in turn, learned this story from his grandfather, whose name was also Critias. He was told about Atlantis by a relative of his father Solon - "the first of the seven wise men." At one time, Solon visited one of ancient cities in the Nile Delta - Sais. Egyptian priests from ancient times kept records of all significant events, and knew about Atlantis. It was from them that Solon learned about the rise and fall of the Atlantean civilization. Critias Jr. read the notes of his grandfather, who in turn read the notes of Solon. Solon, on the other hand, personally copied this story from the columns of the Egyptian temple. Many ancient philosophers considered Atlantis as fiction, however, there were also philosophers, geographers, historians who took Plato's story at face value. One of them was Krantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, who was trying to find evidence for the existence of Atlantis. His work, the Timaeus commentary, is lost, but another ancient historian, Proclus, reports that Crantor went to Egypt and actually found columns with the history of the island written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. As in all works of antiquity, it is difficult to evaluate the ambiguous proclamations here, since there is no evidence other than written evidence.

The main city of Atlantis was very densely populated, most of the inhabitants lived here. Outside the city were fertile fields and farms, surrounded by another canal used to collect water from rivers and mountain streams. Each year, the climate of Atlantis allowed two crops to be harvested.

High mountains surrounded the plain to the north. small villages, lakes, rivers and grasslands covered most of this area. The fertile land allocated by the father fully provided the people with food. In addition to lush vegetation and a rich natural world, "even elephants lived there", the island was unheard of rich in various metals: gold, copper, bronze, silver, many types of stones, mountain copper.

According to legend, the Atlanteans have reached a very high level of development, they were granted the ability to receive information from a single universal field. In terms of scientific and technological progress, their culture far surpassed all others on Earth. Foreign researchers Renata and Yaroslav Malina in their works on natural disasters write that the Atlantean navigators explored the Earth ...... They say that “they traveled through the air and under water, photographed objects at a great distance, used X-rays, recorded images and sounds on video tapes, used a laser from a crystal, invented a terrible weapon using cosmic rays," also used the energy of antimatter. Using supernatural abilities for their own purposes, the inhabitants of the mainland began to bring dissonance into the great harmony of Nature. A large amount of accumulated negative energy has accumulated over Atlantis. This threatened the death of the entire planet and could upset the energy balance of the solar system. The reason for the death of Atlantis, according to the same Plato, was the war with the Athenians.

The rulers of Atlantis understood that only Hellas could resist the greatness of their state, and therefore they went to war with her in order to capture Athens and annex them to Atlantis or destroy them. The Athenians fought desperately and almost won, but the noise of the battle attracted the attention of the Olympian gods, who were angry with the people for their greed.
From Plato's story: “... when the share inherited from God weakened, dissolving many times in mortal impurity, and the human temper prevailed, then they were no longer able to endure their wealth and lost their decency.<…>They were a shameful sight, for they had squandered the finest of their treasures;<…>They boiled with unbridled greed and power.

In plots dedicated to Atlantis, it is not she who occupies the most important place, but ancient Athens. In ancient Athens, there was that system that Plato promoted as ideal, and Atlantis embodied everything that Plato considered detrimental to human society.
The Critias dialogue is a direct continuation of the Timaeus dialogue. Through the mouth of Critias, Plato speaks in detail and reliably here about Atlantis: “Nine thousand years ago there was a war between those peoples who lived on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules, and all those who lived on its side ... Our state was at the head of the latter ( that is, Athens), and at the head of the first - the kings of the island of Atlantis; ("Critius").

When the civilization of the Atlanteans reached the peak of its development and the sins of the Atlanteans went beyond all measure, people were given warnings about the coming cataclysm due to the abuse of energies. The first catastrophe occurred 800 thousand years ago. The fall of the Atlanteans continued, and 200 thousand years ago there was a second catastrophe. The third catastrophe occurred 80 thousand years ago. In strength and fury, it exceeded all previous ones. The destruction of Atlantis was stretched out in time, perhaps for centuries or even millennia, and took place in several stages. First, Atlantis is an island of “monstrous size”, then an archipelago of several large islands, and at the end of a series of catastrophes, all that remains to remind of it are small islands that were once the tops of its high mountains. Sao Paulo, Azores, Canaries, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cape Verde Islands, as we now call them.

While the divine nature was preserved in the Atlanteans, they neglected wealth, putting virtue above it; but when the divine nature degenerated, mixed with the human, they sank into luxury, greed and pride. Outraged by this spectacle, Zeus, having convened a meeting of the gods, decided to punish the Atlanteans for exorbitant pride. Plato did not say what Zeus intended - the dialogue "Critias" mysteriously ends here. For what reason Plato did not finish his work on Atlantis is not known.
And so Zeus, the God of the gods, observing the laws, being well able to see what we were talking about, thought about a glorious family that had fallen into such miserable depravity, and decided to impose punishment on him, so that he, having sobered up from trouble, learned goodness. ("Critius").

V.S. Ivanov. Wrath of the gods

The death of Atlantis was sudden and powerful. The last island "sank into the water with a terrible roar." During this final destruction, part of the inhabited lands of Central and South America also sank into the water, and coastlines Caribbean accepted modern look. This cataclysm took away the last trace of Atlantis, except for Ceylon and a small part of what is now part of Africa. There is no doubt that our planet was once really hit by a gigantic flood that flooded vast spaces. Perhaps there were many floods and they did not occur at the same time. However, atlantologists believe that one of these floods occurred after the death of Atlantis. Of course, it is now impossible to say with accuracy what exactly happened once to Atlantis and what contributed to its death. And many of the hypotheses set forth by the researchers can only come close to the truth.

Modern archaeologists consider the thinker's story about the Atlanteans a fiction. Circular networks of canals, hydraulic structures in those days were still beyond the strength of mankind. Researchers of Plato's philosophy and literature believe that he wanted to call for the creation of an ideal state. As for the period of disappearance, Plato names information that this happened eleven and a half thousand years ago. But during this period, man was only emerging from the Paleolithic, the Stone Age. Those people were not yet sufficiently developed mind. Perhaps these data of Plato about the time of the death of Atlantis are incorrectly interpreted.
Plato places the death of Atlantis 9,000 years before the founding of Athens. The question of the error in dating Plato was recently raised by M.F. Butavan in his work “The True History of Atlantis”, which says: “This date is, of course, erroneous, since the Hellenic Republic did not exist during the period mentioned; the civilization of Egypt did not exist; and the statements of the priest Sais are implausible. According to Eudoxus of Knidos, who studied astronomy in Egypt and could verify the story of the priest Sais with sufficient skill, Critias spoke of a period not equal to nine thousand years, but nine thousand months. This would shift the date of the founding of Atlantis to approximately 1400 BC. e. or to the times of the XIX dynasty in Egypt, but this is a new approach to the history of Atlantis.

At the same latitude as the alleged Atlantis in Mauritania in the west of the Sahara Desert, there is an amazing Richat ring structure. The rings are formed by different rocks, some contain minerals. If these minerals are developed in an open way, then ring ditches are formed, when filled with water, they will turn into channels. It is quite possible that the stone of white, black, red color for palaces and fortress walls and bridges was mined in ring quarries from a ring structure similar to the Rishat structure. The ring structure in Mauritania in the middle of the Maur Adrar desert has a diameter of 40 km. From space, it is an amazing sight.

Richat ring structure

« The future catches up with us from the past"

Theosophist, writer and traveler Elena Blavatsky formed a classification of existing terrestrial civilizations - Indigenous Human Races:

• I race - angelic people,
• II race - ghost-like people,
• III race - Lemurians,
• IV race - Atlanteans,
• V race - Aryans (WE).

Researchers believe that there were two Atlantean civilizations. One of them, the civilization of the Atlanteans Pacifida, non-human, participated in the construction of the Lemurian civilization. There were no human species back then. Experiments were carried out first on animal lizards, then on apes, and at the end of the Lemurian period on humanoid species.

Lemuria - this is a part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana well known to geologists (existing from 200-180 million years ago) after Africa with South America broke away from it about 150 million years ago. According to Blavatsky's calculations, parts of Lemuria sank in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans about 12,000 years ago. This continent included Siberia and Kamchatka, stretching from Norway to Easter Island. However, it should be noted that there is an opinion that the continent Mu (Pacifida) existed in this region, and Lemuria was located in Indian Ocean. But it is very difficult to say anything definite in this matter. Among the interesting facts pointing to the possible location of the ancient continents (including Lemuria), one can cite the famous Ica stones from the collection of the Peruvian researcher Dr. Javiera Cabrera Daquea. Studying these stones, he found on some of them a map of the ancient world with Atlantis, the continent Mu and Lemuria marked on it. According to this map, Lemuria was located on the same stone "page" with Europe, Africa and Australia. The complex of Ica stones is a kind of "library" or an ancient "encyclopedia" left for posterity.

The appearance of the first completely physical man occurred about 18 million years ago. They were Titans and Cyclops, had one eye in the middle of their foreheads, with limited intelligence. They were well adapted to successfully fight the giant monsters of the air, seas and land of that time. After 9 million years, man became similar to the modern one, although representatives of some groups still had giant bodies.
“On Earth, when material flesh arose, eyes appeared and began to develop, the function of the “third eye” began to die off. In other words, evolutionarily we lost the ability to communicate with the Higher Beings. But there were whole golden Millenniums on Earth, when people had not yet lost their fantastic abilities, and they still had a connection with the Higher Cosmic Beings, with the Absolute. Mankind has lived in harmony with the environment for a long time"- Academician A.E. Akimov.

In The Secret Doctrine, Helena Blavatsky writes that the inhabitants of Lemuria were the "root race" of mankind. The inhabitants of Lemuria possessed superhuman abilities and could use the energy of the Subtle World, penetrating into it and receiving knowledge from there. This gave them the opportunity to build structures that are incomprehensible by modern concepts. At the same time, the British occult writer James Churchward, as well as Helena Blavatsky, argued that the inhabitants of Lemuria were the "root race" of mankind, and Lemuria was ruled by the undersized priestly race of the "Naskals". Despite its power, the civilization of Lemuria died in a terrible catastrophe, hiding in the waters Pacific Ocean, and only small sections of the great continent survived.

And just before the sinking of the Lemurian continent, the civilization of the Lemurian-Atlanteans was created, which only managed to spread to the shores of neighboring continents, where, due to its small number, none of the migrating populations could be reborn into civilization. The Third Race was near the middle point of its development when the earth's axis shifted and a severe cooling set in. Due to the decrease in the speed of the earth's rotation, earthquakes and underground fires. 65 million years ago, a geological Flood occurred on Earth. The mainland Lemurs began to be divided into smaller continents. After the great flood, the people of the Third Race shrunk considerably in stature and their life span shortened. Atlantis at that time was part of the seven great Mainland Islands that are left over from Lemuria. These Islands were located approximately where the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is now.

During this geological Flood, along with the majority of humanity of the Third Race, entire species of the animal world died out forever: dinosaurs, flying lizards disappeared. Dinosaurs died out as a result of such natural selection, and their contemporaries, cockroaches, not only survived to this day, but also achieved incredible endurance. As you know, cockroaches are the only animals that can survive in the epicenter of a nuclear explosion.

The era of extinction lasted about 200 years. The sedimentary rocks of the oceanic deposits that formed at that time give us documentary evidence of the transience of those dramatic events - entire cemeteries of dinosaurs. After the death of dinosaurs, the mind became in demand and introduced for the survival and development of everything on the planet. The mind has existed since the birth of life on Earth, and received a powerful impetus for development a little later, as the conditions of life became more complicated and the appearance of a reasonable person.

The Fourth Race of the Atlanteans was born after the people of the Third began to die out. Prior to this, ordinary death did not exist - there was only transfiguration, because. people did not yet have a personality. Death came after the completion of the development of the physical organism. The Atlanteans of the Fourth Race received their knowledge from a small number of people of the Third Race - the northern Lemurians 3 million years ago. Thus, the beginning of the Fourth Race includes the first use of fire and the discovery of a method for kindling it, as well as the domestication of animals and the beginning of agriculture: the cultivation of cereals, their development from certain wild herbs and the crossing of plants. The Fourth Race had its periods of higher civilization ... "Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the Third Race [after its separation]” - H. P. Blavatsky.

Blavatsky assigned Atlantis two continents at once - one in the Pacific and the other in the Atlantic Ocean. The islands of Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, the islands of Polynesia and Easter Island turned out to be the remnants of the once great and ancient land in her view. Easter Island is part of the mainland Lemuria that has gone to the bottom of the ocean. The famous idols are the most ancient surviving structures on Earth. They are over 60 million years old.

In the Fourth Race, a high level of scientific and technological progress was achieved. The inhabitants of Atlantis had unique abilities. They could use the "third eye" to move heavy objects, had advanced technology and science. Atlantis discovered a method of transmitting sound and images at a distance, they could receive and transmit messages to other countries. At that time, there was remote photography, reading texts through walls even at a distance, the possibility of transmitting thoughts through the ether was studied, gravity was overcome. Various energy resources were used to provide life's amenities, lighting, heating, vehicles: solar energy, electricity, gas, steam. Developed means of transportation allowed the Atlanteans to move not only within the country, but also to fly to other countries. It was from the Fourth Race that the first Aryans learned meteorography and meteorology, as well as aeronautics. The ancients knew astronomy, geodesy, cosmography and cosmogony. Scientists of Atlantis discovered the law of action of universal forces, the so-called forces of the “night side of life”, or the negative influences of the earthly spheres, which they widely used for their own needs and for destructive purposes.

The Atlanteans were able to collect and store the energy received from large crystals that condense sunlight. This energy was used to control the movement of sea, air and submarine ships, as well as in everyday life. The ships of the Atlanteans were set in motion by rays concentrated in narrow beams, descending by a "fiery stone." A firestone was a large glass cylinder, cut in such a way that the energy that was concentrated between the top and bottom of the cylinder was centered by the stone at the top of the cylinder. The stone was located in the center of the building, lined from the inside with an insulating material resembling asbestos. The dome above the stone was oval, and part of it moved back to let in the radiation of the stars. Then there was a concentration of these fiery energies, as well as energies of atmospheric and extra-atmospheric origin. The resulting energy could propel vehicles directly and at a distance, and there were practically no obstacles for it: ships could be within sight or out of it, under water or in some kind of shelter. Beams invisible to the eye affected the stones installed in the engines of vehicles that either rose high in the air with gases, or flew low above the ground, or floated on and under water. The same fire regenerated the bodies of people, while the rays from the stone burned out the harmful effects of destructive forces on the body. As a result of irradiation, the physical body was rejuvenated, and life expectancy increased. The Atlanteans knew the secrets of metals and produced various effects on metals, using the energy of the sun's rays, enhanced by means of crystals, as well as their combinations. They made extensive use of iron, as well as an alloy of iron and copper. An alloy of copper with a small admixture of iron after quenching acquired extraordinary hardness. Items made from such alloys have been found in Egypt, Peru, and in some places inhabited by the Chaldeans in antiquity. From the Atlanteans, the Aryans inherited mineralogy, the science of the hidden properties of precious and other stones, as well as alchemy, geology and physics.

In Atlantis there were high achievements and in the arts. The musicians of Atlantis could reproduce all the sounds of nature with the help of instruments. Buildings and temples were decorated with gems and precious stones Knowledge of architectural proportions by the Atlanteans is demonstrated by monuments that have survived to this day - Temples, Pyramids, Cave Sanctuaries. The Atlanteans of the later period were famous for their magical powers and their depravity, ambition and daring challenge against the Gods, using magic spells even against the sun, and then completely cursed it. Only a handful of the first people remained the chosen guardians of the Secrets revealed to man by the Divine Teachers, many of whom were embodied in certain groups of the human race, especially in the ruling dynasties of the early centuries, among kings and rulers, as well as ministers of science and religion of the Fourth and Fifth Root Races. The Atlanteans used psychic energy during various rituals. Some of their rituals were preserved by the Druids.
The 4th Root Race of the Atlanteans died before the scheduled date due to its spiritual corruption or passion for Dark magic, although this factor, which played its negative role with them, was not the main one. It's just the fate of every continent and the human civilization located on it. Like everything else in this material world, civilizations are born, grow, reach the peak of their development, grow old and die. Global cataclysms on Earth are planned in advance even before its birth, as they are necessary for the creation of an ideal spiritual human race on it in the end in the form of the last 7th Root Race. Therefore, with each such global catastrophe that occurs on the planet, the vast majority of the next civilization leaves the historical stage, and the remaining tiny part of people become the seeds of future physical bodies that will become carriers of new active souls, participants in the evolutionary spiritual upsurge of the next civilizations.

Atlantis called and called people of gigantic stature and incredible physical strength. It is believed that these are mythological characters. In all the myths of every nation there are references to amazing civilizations that once existed. In these myths there are references to the giants who once lived and ruled on our planet. Every legend has a grain of truth The ancient Egyptians believed that their dynasty began its existence from a race of giants themselves, who sailed to them from the sea and taught them both medicine and the construction of pyramids. The finds of archaeologists confirm the fact that on our Earth, long before modern people, the planet was inhabited by giants. Descriptions of giants are found in all ancient writings among the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Hindus, Sumerians and Indians. In the myths of the ancient Sumerians, the Atlanteans are the gods who came from heaven, who had an unusually tall stature compared to a human. Sumerian images of giant people have also been found. There are also mentions of giants in the main book of mankind - the Bible. In the Old Testament, giants are people born as a result of the marriage of the Sons of God and the daughters of Men.

The race of giants left traces everywhere on Earth. Their remains are found in Central America, Tanzania, Ceylon, Mongolia and the Caucasus. In 1999, the skeleton of a 15-meter humanoid creature was discovered in Mongolia, the age of the find is about 45 million years! In 2000, skeletons of four-meter people were found in the Caucasus. So the Roman Pliny discovered the skeleton of a giant, his height was twenty meters. This skeleton was named Orion. The scientist and philosopher Philostratus was able to find in Ethiopia an ancient burial with the remains of a skeleton, the length of which was sixteen meters. Thais believe that the very first people were simply gigantic. The Scandinavians, even before the advent of Christianity, believed that the very first people who lived after the creation of the world were as large as mountains. Partially, the giants lived in the western part, on an island located relatively close to the coast, which everyone called Thule. The Toltecs tell us that in ancient times their lands were once inhabited by giants, who almost all disappeared after devastating earthquakes swept the Earth.

Russian writer climatologist Vl. Shemshuk drew attention to the fact that the level of carbon dioxide in sea water is 60 times higher than that of river water and the atmosphere. Shemshuk suggested that the reason for the supersaturation of the oceans with carbon dioxide was a grandiose fire that raged on the planet in time immemorial. Gigantic forests grew on the site of modern deserts and semi-deserts. A colossal natural cataclysm radically changed life on the planet: atmospheric pressure dropped, the climate became colder, the surviving plants became dwarfed, respectively, giant people disappeared from the face of the earth forever.

The famous American atlantologist Dan Clark in 1998 discovered the remains of an ancient civilization near Cuba. For almost ten years he was looking for funds for the expedition, his efforts were crowned with success. The expedition was equipped and began research. A human skeleton 3.5 meters high was discovered. The researcher is sure that all the Atlanteans were of this height, which confirms the ancient legends about giant people who lived before the Flood. Unfortunately, the business structures sponsoring the expedition took away the remains of the giant as compensation for their costs. Where the skeleton is now, the scientist does not know.

Although no direct evidence has been found, many indirect signs suggest that the Earth could be ruled by a civilization that disappeared after the Ice Age.

The search for Atlantis was and is being conducted everywhere - all over the globe.

Even in ancient times, supporters and opponents of the existence of Atlantis appeared. The hypothesis was supported by Pliny the Elder and Diodorus Siculus. Neoplatonist Dionysius Cassius Longinus (3rd century AD) believed that the story of Atlantis is an illustration of Plato's socio-political views. A lie "likened to the truth" is useful, in his opinion, if we "do not know how it all was in reality in antiquity."

Opponents were the geographer Strabo and the best student and the greatest encyclopedic scientist of antiquity Aristotle, speaking out against the existence of Atlantis, he believed that his teacher Plato used the description of Atlantis only to present his views on the problem of the state and added: "he who invented Atlantis sent it to the bottom of the sea. In the dispute about Atlantis, he uttered the famous phrase: "Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer" .

Meanwhile, the legend of Atlantis has been haunting mankind for the third millennium. The search for Atlantis began already at the very beginning of a new era - in the 50th year from the birth of Christ. Almost two thousand years since that time, there have been many hypotheses about the location of Atlantis. Many were attracted not only by the wealth mentioned by Plato. Modern researchers obviously subconsciously feel that this story contains the truth, and therefore in the XX-XXI century the search for the civilization of the Atlanteans is more intense than ever, despite many failures. Perhaps something very important for all mankind is connected with the history of Atlantis, which is why researchers have been trying for centuries to penetrate its secret. In accordance with the instructions of Plato, Atlantis was placed behind the Pillars of Hercules - the Strait of Gibraltar, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The mainland described by Plato was located between Cyprus and Syria. Small archipelagos - the Azores, Canary and Bahamas - were called the remnants of the drowned mainland.

A sufficient number of facts indicate the reliability of Plato's story about Atlantis. Back in 1945, the Dane Frandsen pointed out that the bottom topography in the region of the Azores plateau corresponds to the description of Atlantis by Plato. Recent work by the Swedish scientist Malez confirmed the correspondence of Frandsen's calculations to the bathymetric maps of the area.
After the discovery of America, there were suggestions that this continent is the legendary Atlantis. With such a hypothesis, in particular, was Francis Bacon.
X. Schulten in 1922 came up with the idea that Atlantis should be understood as the city of seafarers known in antiquity Tartessus, located in Spain, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, and gone under water around 500 BC. e.

In the 1930s, A. Herrmann hypothesized that Atlantis was located on the territory of modern Tunisia and was covered with the sands of the Sahara. "The French scientist F. Gidon suggested that the legend of Atlantis tells the story of a dive into the sea of ​​the northwestern coast of France.

In 1997, this hypothesis was revived and developed by a Russian scientist - a member of the Geographical Society V. Kudryavtsev, hypothesized that as a result of this event, the so-called Celtic Shelf, the bottom of the modern North Sea between France and South England, was flooded.

The German pastor Jurgen Spanut put forward in 1953 the theory that Atlantis was located in the Baltic Sea, near the island of Helgoland. He based his hypothesis on the fact that in this place at a depth of 8 meters, in the highest part of the underwater Steingrund ridge, the remains of a destroyed settlement were found.

Among Soviet scientists, such remarkable thinkers as N. Roerich and academician V. Obruchev were supporters of the existence of Atlantis. In the works of N. Zhirov about the sunken earth, it is said that the huge archipelago of Atlantis was within North Atlantic, where Plato had it. The archipelago extended from Greater Iceland (Hyperborea) to the equator and even further south. In the west, Atlantis reached Greater Newfoundland and the Antilles, in the east to Spain (Tartessa) and could exist subaerially (above the surface of the water) at times close to those indicated by Plato in his legend. It is possible that some of these areas of land existed until historical time.

As Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences A. Gorodnitsky points out, the death of Atlantis occurred as a result of the manifestation of deep, tectonic processes occurring at the border of two giant continental plates: African and Eurasian. Where the lithospheric plates converge, the thinner and deeper oceanic lithosphere, colliding with the continental one, breaks and moves under it, dragging the oceanic islands with it. Both the Mediterranean Sea and the Azor-Gibraltar fault system became the site of the collision of the plates.
Proposed by A.M. Gorodnitsky (2006) the option of placing Atlantis on top of the Amper seamount is unlikely. It is assumed that a more realistic option may be to place Atlantis on an island within the highly seismic shelf zone of the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, which is characterized by giant seismotectonic allochthons, landslides and landslides. The largest of the discovered allochthons has a base size of 180 × 300 km. During one of the seismic disasters, a fragment of the shelf with the island of Atlantis collapsed into the sea.

Western atlantologists Frank Joseph and Andrew Collins believe that it is necessary to look for Atlantis not far from Cuba. It was there that Antilia could be located - the “country of the Seven Cities”, depicted on medieval maps, the last remnants of which sank into the abyss on the historical memory of the Phoenicians.

In 1991, a Canadian expedition discovered in the Gulf of Guanahacibibes, off the western part of Cuba, the ruins of an underwater city more than 8,000 years old, which confirmed the widespread version of Atlantis as a civilization with many points located all over the planet. According to Alexander Voronin, president of the Russian Society for the Study of the Problems of Atlantis, the civilization of the Atlanteans was in Cuba, the Azores, Malta, Crete. Such a spread seems strange at first glance, but Plato, who was the first to tell about the secrets of Atlantis, spoke about the ten kingdoms of the sons of Poseidon, centered on the mainland. According to Blavatsky, Atlantis was a huge archipelago, consisting of "an accumulation of many islands and peninsulas." Numerous analogies in the culture of various peoples, especially America, Africa and Eurasia, collected by Donnelly, Spence, Sykes, Zhirov, Heyerdahl, Hancock and other researchers, show that the main kingdoms of the Atlanteans and the colonies mastered by them were scattered all over the world.

There are many more hypotheses for the location of Atlantis, but the main two are "Atlantic" And "Cretan-Minoan". In favor "Atlantic" You can find many arguments if you carefully read the texts of the dialogues.

Atlantic Ocean

This map of the Atlantic Ocean shows the Mid-Ocean Ridge - the zone of spreading of the ocean floor - just opposite the Strait of Gibraltar and Spain, where Plato indicated Atlantis. One can see a large underwater uplift located in the zone of intersection of the meridional and latitudinal tectonic faults on the ocean floor. Some peaks of this rise rise above the level of the ocean - these are the Azores. On a larger-scale map of the bottom area southeast of Azores you can see a strange square, cut with straight lines. 620 km from the northeast African coast, near the Canaries and Azores, a network of lines crossing each other was discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

At the beginning of the 20th century, three expeditions were equipped and sent in search of Atlantis, one of which (the second) was led by Pavel Schliemann, the grandson of the famous discoverer of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann. "According to Pavel Schliemann, his famous grandfather left a sealed envelope in order to be opened by one of the family members who will give a solemn promise to devote his whole life to research, indications of which he will find in this envelope. Pavel Schliemann took such an oath, opened the envelope and Heinrich Schliemann reported that he undertook research on the remains of Atlantis, the existence of which he has no doubt and which he considers the cradle of our entire civilization.In the summer of 1873, Heinrich Schliemann supposedly found (during excavations in Troy), a peculiar sizes, inside of which were smaller clay vessels, small figurines of a special metal, money from the same metal, and objects “made from fossil bones.” On some of these objects and on a bronze vessel was written “Phoenician hieroglyphs”: “From Chronos, king of Atlantis.” But many Russian and foreign researchers distrust this story.

Azores

Plato, Herodotus, and then Plutarch wrote that it is difficult to swim across the Atlantic in a certain place, because it is full of liquid mud: "The ocean is viscous, like a marsh." Such a strange fact, as noted above, can be regarded as a consequence of a cataclysm that threw up billions of tons of volcanic rock. According to the historian and writer A. Gorbovsky, the oceanographic expedition of 1947-1948 confirmed the reports of ancient scientists. The ocean floor between the Azores and the island of Trinidad turned out to be covered with an almost thirty-meter layer of viscous silt. Exploring the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists came to the conclusion that the average thickness of sedimentary rocks there is 4 meters, and this is 300 thousand years at modern rates.

The second hypothesis of the location of Atlantis "Crete-Minoan" convenient for official science, because the corresponding civilization does not go beyond the traditional chronological framework, but the date of the catastrophe is disputed. The legend of the appearance of the myth of Atlantis appeared as a result of a volcanic eruption that destroyed the island of Strongill. The consequences of the volcanic catastrophe were terrible. Civilization completely disappeared from the face of the Earth, which managed to achieve incredible success in the sciences and crafts, navigation, architecture and art. Strongilla Island in translation into Russian means "Round". In the 17th century BC, the French-born geologist F. Fouquet called it "Pompeii in the Aegean".
For one and a half thousand years BC. the sudden shift of the African tectonic plate and its collision with the European one, caused the eruption of the Santorini volcano. The eruption of a local volcano, without any exaggeration, can be considered a grandiose catastrophe in the history of mankind. The explosion demolished the central part of the island, its remains today are three islands - Thira, Thirasia and Aspronisi. 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 the 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. There are many coincidences in the Atlantis described by Plato and the life of the inhabitants of Santorin: political structure, public and cultural life, farming methods, metal processing. The capital of the Cretan-Minoan state was Knossos - the "Great City", glorified by Homer. The fleet of the Cretans dominated the sea, and extensive trade and numerous wars contributed to the strengthening of the state. Around 1580-1500 BC. e. Aegeus, the king of Athens, was defeated by the Cretan king Minos, and Athens was forced to pay tribute to Crete. But suddenly the Cretan civilization ceased to exist...

Plato wrote that Atlantis plunged into the depths of the sea and completely disappeared in just one day, as a result of an unprecedented earthquake and flood. The tragedy on the island "Round" developed approximately according to the same scenario. locals used to powerful earthquakes, but one day the volcano on the island simply exploded. The caldera, which arose as a result of the explosion, had the shape of a broken ring, and its diameter reached 10 kilometers.

Eruption

Strongilla has become an archipelago of five land masses of various sizes. Today they are covered with ash and solidified lava. The area of ​​the largest of the formations called Santorini is 76 square meters. km. The remaining islands are less significant and with a smaller area. It turns out that the Santorini archipelago is the fragments of Strongill, in the center of which there is a volcano. The Russian scientist A. S. Norov considered the island of Crete and many small Greek islands to the north of it to be the remnants of a continent that had sunk into oblivion. The well-known Soviet geographer L. S. Berg agreed with this opinion. Today, this theory is supported by the vast majority of scientists. The assumption that Atlantis was in the Eastern Mediterranean was made by the Italian Bortolli in 1780. In 1972, L. Figui expressed the opinion that Plato's Atlantis was an island in the Aegean archipelago that sank as a result of a geological catastrophe. This island could be Santorini. In 1976, the famous French scientist and aquanaut Jacques Yves Cousteau discovered the remains of an ancient Minoan civilization at the bottom of the Aegean Sea near the island of Crete. According to his calculations, it was destroyed during the crushing eruption of the Santorin volcano, which occurred in 1450 BC. e.

According to the calculations of historians and geophysicists, around 1450 BC. Another extraordinary event occurred, which was the result of seismic activity and caused the breakthrough of the Atlantic waters into the Mediterranean Sea and the emergence of the Strait of Gibraltar. It is believed that up to this point Africa was connected with Iberia (Spain) by a narrow isthmus. In the mythological cycle "Apples of the Hesperides" described as one of greatest catastrophes that occurred in the Western Mediterranean: " To protect himself from the chase, Hercules rested his hands and feet on two continents and pushed Africa away from Europe. The earth shook, high waves surged, and the place of the battle between Hercules and Antaeus fell into the sea with a terrifying roar.. In memory of this feat, Hercules erected on the edges of the resulting strait the rocks of Abile and Calpe - the Pillars of Hercules.

The version that Atlantis is Antarctica was recently put forward by the American Rand Flem-Ath. The theory that Antarctica - this is the place where Atlantis once sank, was especially popular in the 1960-1970s. It was fueled by Lovecraft's The Ridges of Madness, as well as the Piri Reis map, which allegedly shows Antarctica as it would be without ice, as far as knowledge of that period allowed. Charles Berlitz, Erich von Daniken, and Peter Colosimo were among the popular authors who made this suggestion. The hypothesis that the mysterious Antarctica is the lost civilization of the Atlanteans is based on the fact that before the previous displacement of the earth's axis, Antarctica was located near the equator. There was a warm climate, rich flora and fauna. On it, people lived in cities. Ancient cities can be clearly seen on satellite images. However, the theory of continental drift contradicts this idea, because during the lifetime of Plato, Antarctica was in its current location and retained its inhospitable climate. Nevertheless, the romance of unexplored regions gives rise to many ideas like Atlantis to this day.

Antarctica

The ancestral home of mankind, a symbol of an ideal state, whose inhabitants possessed secret knowledge - this is what is meant by Atlantis. In mythology, this country is opposed hyperborea - a civilization whose name in Greek means "beyond north wind". However, a number of scientists over the past centuries have tried to prove that the legendary Atlantis was located in the north before its death. The first of those who gave a serious scientific justification for the polar concept of the origin of civilizations and world cultures was the Frenchman Jean Sylvain Bailly, a famous astronomer and public figure of the 18th century. Having studied the information available to him, Bailly came to the conclusion that all the available developments of the ancients are based on even earlier achievements of an unknown ("lost") people who had highly developed knowledge. Jean Bailly was sure that before the cold snap in the North, Spitsbergen and other Arctic territories were inhabited by powerful Atlanteans. "Atlantes, he wrote, who came from an island in the Arctic Sea, there are definitely Hyperboreans - the inhabitants of a certain island, about which the Greeks told us so much. For Bailly, as for ancient authors, Atlantis and Hyperborea were identical.
In the 20th century, scientists came to the conclusion about the existence of a powerful Tulean land in the Arctic Ocean in the distant past. Zoologists called her Arctida. They drew attention to the fact that North America and the same species of animals live in the polar regions of Eurasia. This is how the hypothesis arose about the existence of the "Arctic bridge" - the land that connected America and Eurasia from 100 to 10 thousand years ago. (However, some geologists give dates closer to us - only 2.5 thousand years ago.) As you know, the Lomonosov mountain range runs along the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, from Russia to Greenland. Its peaks rise above the ocean floor for three kilometers and do not reach the surface of the water by only one kilometer. I am sure that the ridge was the main axis of the "Arctic bridge". In the course of further research, this concept was more and more concretized and supported by new facts. Careful studies of glacial deposits conclusively prove that Antarctica has been covered with ice for at least the last hundred thousand years.

The "Arctic Bridge" could go under water as a result of geological shifts. But in order for it to get colder where there was a tropical climate, just some kind of “shake-up” of the planet is needed ... Valery Demin speaks about a cosmoplanetary cataclysm, and not just about geological shifts. The reason for the cooling could be a change in the tilt of the axis and the shift of the Earth's poles. It is known that they have repeatedly changed their position throughout the history of the planet. Along with the change of poles, the specific location of the zones with cold and warm climates on Earth changed. Where ice now reigns and there is a long polar night, tropical vegetation once flourished. There could be several reasons. One of them is the influence of cosmic factors, for example, the invasion of the solar system of a new massive body, which changed the balance of forces of attraction between the planets and our star. Or a cosmic explosion - within the solar system or beyond. Paleontologists have managed to discover relict remains of heat-loving equatorial trees in Antarctica.
Modern geophysicists do not rule out that the "somersault" of the planet could occur due to the massive accumulation of ice at the poles and their asymmetric location with respect to the earth's axis. By the way, this hypothesis was supported by Albert Einstein. Here are his words, written in the preface to a book by an American scientist: “The rotation of the Earth acts on these asymmetric masses, creating a centrifugal moment, which is transmitted to the rigid earth's crust. When the value of such a moment exceeds a certain critical value, it causes the earth's crust to move relative to the part of the Earth's body located inside ... "
Lomonosov, having studied written sources, made the following conclusion: “Therefore, it follows that in the northern regions in ancient times there were great heat waves, where elephants were born and reproduced and other animals, as well as plants, near the ordinary equator.”
Only knowledge of the geological history of the Atlantic Ocean, especially the eras of the ice and post-glacial periods, along with thorough and objective oceanographic research, will help to finally solve the centuries-old mystery of Atlantis.

The American mystic and psychic Edgar Cayce, after his visions, argued that we, the people of the fifth earthly civilization, who followed the erroneous path of excessive passion for science and technology, it is difficult to imagine how much they were above us. This civilization developed according to a different principle. They understood each other telepathically, they could freely break away from the ground, "losing weight" (levitate), control the biofield. Their internal energy was such that with the effort of thought they moved multi-ton slabs, which themselves walked as if on air. Casey specifically points out that Atlantis was located in the Bermuda Triangle. This prediction later found a number of confirmations - at the bottom of the ocean in this area, as Cayce predicted, large, well-preserved pyramids were discovered, containing crystals on their tops, which helped to obtain a large amount of energy.

The main part of the sunken mainland Atlantis was located exactly in the place where the Bermuda Triangle is now located, the center of which is the Sargasso Sea, and the borders are Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the Florida peninsula.
Radiation emitted by a large crystal lying at the supposed site of the death of Atlantis leads to the sudden disappearance of ships and aircraft in the famous Bermuda Triangle. Employees of the Australian Monash University in Melbourne, Joseph Monaghan and his assistant David May, argue that mysterious disappearances ships and planes in the infamous region of the Atlantic Ocean, all the fault of natural gas methane, released from the cracks of ancient plates, which "lined" the ocean floor in this region. The gas released from the bottom of the ocean turns into giant bubbles that reach the surface and "absorb" everything that they meet on the way. Scientists say that methane formations reach such sizes that, bursting on the surface of the water, they can even shoot down low-flying aircraft. Scientists also explained why ships with dead bodies were often found in the Bermuda Triangle: the crew members simply suffocated from harmful methane. At the moment, the world scientific community is in no hurry to officially recognize the theory of the Australians.

A lot of films have been shot about Atlantis, a sea of ​​​​books has been written, perhaps a rare phenomenon can compare with so many creations, especially whose existence has not been officially proven. Millennia are capable of destroying the material traces of any civilization. In salt water, the building materials of the ancient world - granite, basalt, shell rock and wood - have already turned into sand. Only marble buildings and golden statues could survive. The study of tectonic plates proves that there was and is no continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the primary source of the legend of the Atlanteans is, in fact, a literary and philosophical treatise, which gives rise to natural doubts about the authenticity of history, especially since not a single ancient historian mentions the existence of such a civilization. Well, "Unfortunate people!- you can repeat after the Marquis de Custine. - They need to rave to be happy.". Therefore, fictions about some kind of “highly developed ™” civilization of the Atlanteans can only cause sympathy. Modern science proves that Atlantis never existed: a whole continent could not have sunk into the ocean abyss just some 3,000 years ago and left no traces.

E. Hewish, English physicist, Nobel Prize winner: “It seems to me senseless to think that the universe and our existence are only an accident on a cosmic scale and that life arose as a result of random physical processes simply because favorable conditions were created for this. As a Christian, I begin to understand the meaning of life thanks to faith in the Creator, Whose nature was partly revealed in a Man born 2000 years ago… I believe that we need science and religion to understand our place in the Universe.”

K. Anfinsen, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry: “We have to recognize the existence of an incomprehensible force with infinite wisdom and knowledge, a force that laid the foundation for the universe ... Our own existence can only be explained by the existence of some omnipotent and omniscient Being.”

"All things are afraid of time, but time is afraid of the pyramids"

All the data about this amazing country comes down to the works of Plato, who got them from the Egyptian priests. No other reliable data about the lost Atlantis was found. Atlantis was reborn in the Egyptian pyramids and irrigation systems of the ancient peoples of America, in the luxurious temples of Ancient Babylon and the medical achievements of the Paracas civilization. The people of Atlantis built the first pyramids in this country even before the advent of the "Eastern Ethiopians", as Herodotus calls the Egyptians. When researchers study the structure and position of the Giza pyramids, they come to a paradoxical conclusion: the ancient Egyptians must have had the knowledge that we discovered for ourselves a thousand years later. The inhabitants of Atlantis had unique abilities. They could use the "third eye" to move heavy objects, had advanced technology and science.

Andrey Sklyarov, President of the Third Millennium Foundation, about the Egyptian pyramids and history: “We are sure that the Egyptian pharaohs were simply building on what they got from a past, much more advanced civilization, the foundations of some of the pyramids in Giza are much older than their tops”. Currently, the pyramids, except for the well-known ones in Egypt and Mexico, are open in all parts of the world except Antarctica.

The correctness of the blocks, their enormous weight, the amazing accuracy of fitting, one thing - this is capable of raising questions in the future civilization for which there is no simple answer. It is possible to assume that people of the Stone Age did all this, but scientists find it difficult to explain HOW they did it, and, most importantly, WHY. Their hypotheses will crumble under the onslaught of new and new facts. The same Egyptian pyramids, standing on the Giza plateau, cannot be the creation of our civilization, but we inherited from the previous one, which has reached no less heights than ours today.

These mysterious extraordinary structures contain encrypted knowledge that will be revealed to people as they grow spiritually. Perhaps this is information that we are still not able to decipher, or are not yet ready to accept for understanding.

“We have a lot of facts collected by trustworthy people. These facts prove the presence of some kind of intelligent beings interfering in our lives. K. E. Tsiolkovsky

More than 6 thousand volumes have been written about her. But did this mysterious civilization? If yes, when and where? How to interpret the testimonies of the ancients?

Legend of Atlantis. 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 historians 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 the theories of fixism, according to which the positions of the earth's continents are unchanged, allowing the emergence of oceanic depressions 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 is contrary to modern ideas about lithospheric plate tectonics, according to which continents cannot sink. 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 the oceanic islands with it. 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 are still happening. Both 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 exhibits 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 was surprisingly reminiscent of 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, structures 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 no "ruins ancient city" does not exist. 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 "registered" in Brazil, Scandinavia, Palestine, in the Pas de Calais, etc. Among the active supporters of its existence were the artist and philosopher Nicholas Roerich and geologist, 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.

Recently, the views of researchers are increasingly turning to the islands of Crete and Thira (Strongel), in antiquity the island of Thera, the Minoan culture of these islands died as a result of a major catastrophe in one and a half thousand years BC. Among the supporters of the latter hypothesis are Anagelos Galanopoulos, Bacon, tectonist Evgeny Milanovsky, a well-known researcher 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 the 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 a plate collision, 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 about 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 the 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.

Valery Bryusov at work teacher teachers defends the authenticity of Plato's account of Atlantis. In his opinion, if we assume that the description of Plato is a fiction, we will have to recognize him as a superhuman genius who foresaw the development of science for thousands of years to come and foresaw the discovery by historians of the world of Aegea, the voyage of Columbus to America, the discovery of the Mayan civilization, etc. With all due respect to the great philosopher, such insight is impossible, so a more plausible explanation arises: Plato referred to Egyptian manuscripts that came from ancient times.

A series of disasters. According to the calculations of historians and geophysicists, around 1450 BC. another extraordinary event occurred, which was the result of seismic activity and caused the breakthrough of the waters of the Atlantic into the Mediterranean Sea and the emergence of the Strait of Gibraltar. (It is believed that up to this point Africa was connected with Iberia (Spain) by a narrow isthmus). In the mythological cycle about the exploits of Hercules ( Apples of the Hesperides) describes one of the greatest catastrophes that occurred in the Western Mediterranean: “To protect himself from the chase, Hercules rested his hands and feet on two continents and pushed Africa away from Europe. The earth shook, high waves surged, and the place of the battle between Hercules and Antaeus fell into the sea with a terrifying roar. In memory of this feat, Hercules erected on the edges of the resulting strait the rocks of Abile and Calpe - the Pillars of Hercules.

Thus, it can be stated that in the middle of the second millennium BC. in the Mediterranean there were two extraordinary events associated with seismic activity: the death of the island of Thira and the Minoan culture, and the formation of the Strait of Gibraltar.

It is worth recalling another global catastrophe. The study of the glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland indicates that 7 thousand years BC there was a sudden grandiose rise in water, which was reflected in the mythology of all countries of the world as a legend about the Flood. Actually, legends tell about several floods. The last, so-called Deucalion Flood, happened around 1495 BC.

According to Greek mythology, Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, was the ruler of the city of Phthia in Thessaly. When an angry Zeus sent a flood as a punishment to people, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were the only ones who managed to escape. On the advice of his father, Deucalion built an ark, where he took refuge with his wife. For nine days the ark rushed over the waves, and on the tenth day, when the waters subsided, it landed on Mount Parnassus (according to another version, on Etna). Deucalion made sacrifices to the Thunderer and begged him to repopulate the earth with people. By divine direction, Deucalion and Pyrrha began to throw “the bones of the foremother Gaia” over their heads, i.e. stones, and those thrown by Deucalion turned into men, and Pyrrha into women. Thus, Deucalion is considered the progenitor of humans.

The biblical exodus of the Jews from Egypt is also associated with a catastrophic eruption, which entailed the "darkness of Egypt", epidemics, famine. The Book of Exodus says that Moses led his people during the day, focusing on a pillar of smoke, and at night on a pillar of fire - probably a volcano, despite the fact that Santorini is about 200 km away from Egypt. It is logical to recall the episode when the sea parted, letting the Jews through, and then closed, and a giant wave swallowed up the army of the pharaoh sent after. Such a cataclysm is very reminiscent of a tsunami, which could be the result of a grandiose volcanic eruption ( see also EXODUS).

Thus, we can talk about a whole series 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 challenge researchers face is data interpretation and date correlation.

Fabulous Atlantis, a powerful and mysterious wonderland, still keeps its secrets and is waiting for the discoverers.

Alexander Gorodnitsky

LITERATURE

Plato. Op. in 3 volumes, vol. 3., part 1. M .: Publishing House "Thought", 1971
A.M. Gorodnitsky. Science and Life, No. 6, 1985

www.krugosvet.ru
© 2001-2009 Krugosvet Company. All rights reserved.

More than one generation of researchers has been arguing about the existence of Atlantis, a mighty ancient state that once and for all disappeared from the face of the Earth. Interest in this topic arose after the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato saw the light. It was Plato who first wrote about Atlantis, described the ancient civilization, the strength and power of the Atlanteans. Whether it was a deliberately and skillfully created myth, or we are dealing with a description of the real facts of the ancient history of human civilization - remains a mystery. Neither before nor after it was possible to obtain and find evidence of the existence of the Atlantean state. The secrets of Atlantis remain unsolved until now, forcing historians to put forward new hypotheses, and researchers to look for the place of the disappeared island-state on the planet's map.

The civilization of Atlantis is a source of controversy

Today, a huge number of works have been written about the disappeared mighty civilization of the ancient world, starting with poetic essays and literary descriptions, ending with serious scientific treatises. In each individual case, you have to deal with a huge set of assumptions and hypotheses that the ancient world looked different than today's map of the world looks like. Another new hypothesis gives rise to a new myth, which instantly acquires new details, assumptions and details. Another thing is the complete absence of facts capable of answering the question: did Atlantis exist in reality or not. This meager research material remains the lot of science fiction writers and atlantologists. Skeptics believe that the history of Atlantis is an artificially created phenomenon in modern historical science.

It is necessary to consider the problem of Atlantis in two aspects: from the point of view of the historical epic, and using a scientific approach. In the first case, one has to deal with the evidence base and materials, the existence of which is never disputed by anyone. The palm in this area belongs to the works of Plato. The ancient Greek philosopher mentioned the mighty state of antiquity in the dialogues Critias and Timaeus, which were compiled on the basis of the diaries of another prominent ancient Greek philosopher Solon, who was Plato's great-grandfather. With the light hand of Plato, the name of the ancient state appeared, and its inhabitants began to be called Atlanteans.

In his notes and books, the ancient philosopher relied on a legend according to which the ancient Greeks fought against the state of the Atlanteans. The confrontation ended with a grandiose cataclysm that led to the death of Atlantis. According to the ancients, it was this catastrophe that led to the fact that the city-island of Atlantis disappeared forever from the face of the planet. What catastrophe on a planetary scale has led to such consequences is still not known and has not been proven. Another question is that in the scientific community at the moment there is a point of view that 12 thousand years BC. the world really befell major disaster that changed the geography of the planet.

Plato's dialogue "Timaeus" quite accurately indicates the location of the country of the Atlantes, is full of descriptions of the details of the culture and life of the Atlanteans. Thanks to the efforts of the ancient Greek philosopher, the lost civilization is being persistently searched for in the Atlantic Ocean. Just one phrase "opposite the Pillars of Hercules", recorded by Plato, indicates the location legendary country. More accurate data on the location of the mysterious ancient state are not available, so many researchers on this topic believe that Atlantis could be located in any other part of the ancient world.

The inconsistency of many of the facts set forth in the works of Plato raised a number of questions for subsequent generations. The main secrets of Atlantis are as follows:

• whether there is a high probability of the existence of an island of such a large size, traces of which are almost completely absent today;
• what catastrophe that occurred in antiquity could lead to the instant death of a large state;
• could there have existed in such ancient times a civilization with such a high level of development, which is attributed to the Atlanteans by ancient and modern researchers;
• why today there are no real traces from the past, indicating the existence of Atlantis;
• whether we are descendants of a highly developed culture of the Atlanteans.

How did the contemporaries of the ancient Greeks see Atlantis

Studying Plato's works, one can briefly summarize the information that has come down to us. We are dealing with the history of the existence and mystical disappearance of a large archipelago or a large island, which was located in the west of the then ancient world. The central city of the superpower was Atlantis, which owes its name to the first king of the state, Atlantis. The island location explains the state structure of the empire. Probably Atlantis, like many cities of ancient Greece, was a union of island rulers united under imperial rule. Perhaps there was a different state system in Atlantis, but Plato's dialogues give the names of kings, after whom other islands of the empire are named. Hence, ancient civilization took the form of a union or confederation.

Another question is detailed description Plato of the life arrangement of a mysterious power. All the main buildings and structures of the state are located on the central island. The acropolis, royal palace and temples are protected by several rows of earthen ramparts and a system of water channels. The inner regions of the island are connected to the sea by a huge shipping channel, so we can safely say that the power of Atlantis was focused on achieving sea power. Moreover, according to Plato, the Atlanteans worship Poseidon (the ancient Greek god, the ruler of the seas and oceans - the brother of Zeus). In Plato, the temples of the Atlanteans, their architecture and home improvement shine with luxury and wealth. Reaching the shores of Atlantis, surrounded on all sides by water, and the path to the island lay only by sea, was not an easy task for sailors of that time.

Plato in his narratives is very fond of describing the improvement of the capital of the Atlanteans. The most interesting thing in this aspect is that the descriptions of the ancient Greek philosopher strongly resemble the descriptions of other ancient Greek cities found in other ancient sources. The described infrastructure, weapons, ships, religion and lifestyle of the inhabitants of Atlantis look like the height of human perfection and a model of well-being.

The mystery of Atlantis in Plato's descriptions is present at every turn. Is it not surprising that people live far from the centers of civilization known to the then world, but they have a fairly high level of development, they can make long sea voyages, trade with everyone around, eat spices and other cultures. The Atlanteans have a powerful army and a numerous fleet capable of confronting the armies of the ancient states of the Mediterranean.

This should be the point. Only Plato was able to describe the life and structure of the legendary state in such a clear and detailed way. To find other sources that would point to such facts was not, is not, and probably will not be. Neither the Sumerians nor the ancient Egyptians say anything about a large state in the Western Hemisphere. The ancient ruins of the Indian civilizations of North and South America are silent about interaction with the mysterious and powerful state. How many years ago could such a powerful civilization be located in the central Atlantic, about which there is still no real evidence.

Secrets of Atlantis: myths and legends against real facts

Some researchers continue to feed the world with illusions that Atlantis really was. Following the lead of Plato, who indicated the exact location of the island, researchers in search of Atlantis check the territory in the Azores, in the Bahamas. This is facilitated by the consonance of the names of the Atlantic Ocean and the legendary island.

According to one version, Atlantis was located in the Azores. Studies of the seamount Ampere, located on the way from Europe to America, and the adjacent areas of the Atlantic mid-ridge did not give any results. The geological and morphological structure of the seabed does not give grounds to believe that a large geological formation existed in this area of ​​the earth's crust in ancient times. Even a gigantic cataclysm that wiped out such a large island or archipelago from the face of the earth would have left behind indisputable evidence. If the island sank as a result of a successive chain of earthquakes and floods, then its remains could be found today.

Modern scientists do not have data on a major geological and tectonic catastrophe that befell the earth in antiquity. The biblical data about the global flood that befell the Earth and mankind take us to a completely different era. All information, events and facts that speak in favor of the existence of Atlantis in this part the globe, do not withstand any criticism, if you rely on the theory proposed by Plato.

Supporters of another hypothesis, the Mediterranean one, have stronger evidence in their favor. However, there are also a number of points that cause controversy. What were the real boundaries of such a powerful union, and where could such a large island or a small mainland be located. Western border known to people that time of the world, runs along the Pillars of Hercules - now the Strait of Gibraltar, connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic. Why, with such a richness of events and closeness, the ancient world did not have cartographic data on the location of a large state that influences the political and economic structure of the world. On the maps compiled by the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians and Egyptians, which have come down to our times, the known areas are limited to the Mediterranean region, the territories of Southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Many atlantologists increasingly agree that a civilization of this size could exist in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the explored sphere of political and economic interests of ancient states. The disappearance of the island and the death of the country of the Atlanteans can be tied to the catastrophic eruption of the Santorin volcano, which erupted around the 17th century BC. This hypothesis takes place, since it is during this period that the heyday of Cretan state. According to this theory, the volcanic eruption not only destroyed half of the island of Thera, but also destroyed the numerous city-states that existed in this region. If we put aside the question of names and the reference to Plato's statements about Pillars of Hercules, such a picture of the ancient world has the right to life.

In this context, the version of the existence in ancient times powerful state, competing with the ancient Greek city-states. The facts of the strongest cataclysm of that time were also noted in ancient sources. Today, volcanologists and oceanologists reasonably consider this version of the death of Atlantis to be quite real. Scientists have found evidence that Minoan civilization really possessed enormous military power and had a high level of development, allowing it to wage confrontation with the Greek states.

Sparta and Athens are located 300-400 kilometers north of the islands of Thira and Crete, which are ideal for the location of the Atlantean state. The explosion of the volcano, which destroyed a mighty state in one night, destroyed the balance in the world that existed until that moment. The consequences of such a large-scale disaster affected the entire southern Europe, North Africa and the coast of the Middle East.

Versions in favor of another location of the legendary power today have no basis. Researchers are increasingly linking the existence of Atlantis with Plato's philosophical view of the existing world. This is echoed by other sources in which the land of the Atlanteans is associated with other mythical territories and states that existed in the imagination of the ancient Greeks.

Hyperborea and Atlantis - ancient mythical states

When asked where to look for Atlantis today, the answer may sound prosaic. You have to search everywhere. Relying on ancient sources is possible only in those cases when the question is raised about the cultural heritage that has come down to our times. In the sense in which we perceive Atlantis today as an imaginary country and highly developed civilization, the ancient Greeks at one time represented Hyperborea. This mythical country, located in the far north, a thousand kilometers from the coast of Ancient Greece, was considered by the Greeks as the habitat of the Hyperboreans, the descendants of the gods. Is this not the Atlantis that Plato wanted to tell the world about when writing his treatises?

Hyperborean lands, according to modern scientists, should have been located on the territory of the current Scandinavian countries: in Iceland or in Greenland. The Greeks directly pointed out that even Apollo himself, the god of the sun, was considered the patron of this people. What are these lands, do they really exist? It was assumed that Hyperborea is a fictional country for the ancient Greeks, where perfect and powerful people live, the gods rest. The country that Apollo regularly visits may be the same Atlantis - the state that the ancient Greeks aspired to in their development.

It is not necessary to assume that only seas and lakes disappear and appear. In the same way, islands appear and disappear. The best example of this is history of Atlantis, an island that was larger than Libya and Asia combined.

History of the island of Atlantis

Atlantis Island

Of course, in the time of Plato, (more:) they represented the size of both Libya and Asia in a different way, but still Atlantis island was not small.

The Atlantis hypothesis begins with Plato's Timaeus and Critias. In them, the great ancient Greek scientist talks about a once-existing large island in the Atlantic Ocean, which was swallowed up by the abyss of water.

But what does Plato say? ancient legend or your own fantasy about a mythical island? Or maybe he reports the real facts of the existence of an ancient civilization, information about which came to him by accident? So what is this story of Plato - legend, hypothesis, reality? Since the first half of the 4th century BC, attempts have been made to answer this question. But there is still no definitive answer.

Legends of Atlantis

Legends of Atlantis inspired many writers and poets.

• Remember the Julvernian Captain Nemo, who, with his arms crossed over his chest, looks at a beautiful city, illuminated underwater eruption volcano. Before him is the dead Atlantis...
• From the golden top of the giant pyramid, spacecraft resembling huge eggs take off to carry away the last Atlanteans from the raging elements to distant Mars. And the waves of the ocean are already licking its foot, and the tremors of a raging earthquake are absorbing the legendary “City of a Hundred Golden Gates”. You probably remember this picture, it was painted in Aelita by Alexei Tolstoy.
• And here's another thing: Aksa Guam, a priest who rebelled against the almighty priests on the pages of Alexander Belyaev's story "The Last Man from Atlantis", steps on the rocky coast of Europe.

And this list could be continued almost endlessly, a list of beautiful fictions generated by an ancient legend.

Atlantis in scientific literature

There are about Atlantis literature and others. No less fantastic in content, but claiming the right to be called scientific literature.

One of these books was rather self-confidently called "The History of Atlantis".

And the author of the other was Schliemann - the grandson of a man who discovered the stones of the legendary Troy from under the layers of many centuries. Shamelessly speculating on the name of his famous grandfather, he titled the book very pretentiously: "How I Found lost Atlantis". Both of these books are from the stream of so-called "occult literature" that shrouded the problem of Atlantis in such a thick mystical fog that for other scientists it obscures the scientific significance of this problem even today.
However, real science is interested in the problem of Atlantis, because it has countless questions waiting to be solved:

• Here, it would seem, is a science very far from the problem of Atlantis - botany. Where is the birthplace of the banana - a plant cultivated so long ago that it can now only be propagated by cuttings? How did bananas end up in the number cultivated plants in America and Africa?
• Where is the birthplace of maize - a plant that is now included in the famous "troika" of the main breads of mankind along with wheat and rice? Modern corn is completely incapable of propagating by self-sowing, and plants that could be considered its ancestors have not been found. Meanwhile, corn has long been known not only in America, but also in Africa. So where did this plant come from in the cultivated cereals of the two continents?
• Here is comparative linguistics. How did the roots of Greek words get into the Mayan language - one of the Indian peoples that inhabited Central America?
• How did the word "atlas" get from America to Europe? From North Africa, this word passed into the name of the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, it has nothing in common with European languages, but in the Pagua language, which has long lived in Mexico, words with the same root mean "water", "sea", "death".
• Why did the myths of the American continent preserve stories about the death of the land located across the ocean in the east, and in the legends of European peoples about the sunken land across the ocean in the west?
• History of culture. Why were ancient sculptures of lions and other animals not living in America found in Peru, and no less ancient images of saber-toothed tigers that died out here about 300 thousand years ago in Europe?
• Why was the custom of making mummies widespread not only in Egypt, but also among the Maya in Central America?
• Ethnography. Why do Cro-Magnons, the ancient ancestors of Europeans and some Indian tribes have a close anthropological resemblance?
• Zoology. Why do eels from the rivers of Western Europe go to spawn in the Sargas Sea, whose algae are related to the Mediterranean?
• Wild horses were known in Europe during the Paleolithic era, they were used as a hunting item by cavemen. Then their traces disappear, and in the Bronze Age, a domestic horse appears. Who carried out this domestication?

It seems that these and many other questions do not give the right to an unconditional denial of the existence of Atlantis, although they do not give the right to assert that Atlantis existed. Therefore, again and again, researchers turn to the primary source of information about the sunken mainland, to two dialogues of Plato.

The history of Atlantis in Bryusov's poem

One of the first in modern times made an attempt to investigate the history of Atlantis by a remarkable Russian poet.

He was an amazing person, a poet, writer, mathematician, a great connoisseur of ancient history, an expert in research in various fields of the natural sciences. The problem of Atlantis interested him literally from childhood. In his youth he worked on poem "Atlantis".

In the years of creative maturity, he wrote a cycle of poems dedicated to the same problem. He published a large scientific work "Teachers of teachers". The poet-scientist called the ancient inhabitants of Atlantis, in which

all knowledge originated

and in which

everything that is possible, comprehended the first children of the Earth.

(lines from the "Atlantic" cycle of Bryusov's poems are in quotation marks). He made an attempt to trace their influence on the most ancient peoples of the world, and first of all on the Cretan-Mycenaean culture.

After analyzing the stages of development of ancient cultures, including the Egyptian and Aegean, Bryusov comes to the conclusion that their initial stages are strange and incomprehensible.

Egyptian culture begins mysteriously: the most ancient pyramids are also the highest. The origins of their arts are unclear, they suddenly appear before the astonished world, like Pallas Athena, who arose in dress and weapons from the head of Zeus.

Bryusov also sees something similar in the Cretan-Mycenaean culture. The legendary labyrinth appears as if suddenly. Before him, only the remains of people who had not yet left the Stone Age could be found on the island. Shouldn't this leap be explained by someone's influence that spread to the culture of peoples living on different continents? Does not all this testify to the existence in ancient times of a people who became a universal teacher,

teacher of teachers?

It was after these arguments that the poet-scientist moved on to that culture that could claim the honor of being called

teachers teachers.

Tradition prompted him the right name - Atlantis. And in search of an answer, Bryusov turns to Plato's Dialogues.

Based on contemporary data about Atlantis, analyzing the messages of Plato, Bryusov comes to the conclusion (lines from the work "Teachers of Teachers"):

If we assume that the description of Plato is a fiction, we will have to recognize Plato as a superhuman genius who managed to predict the development of science for thousands of years to come, to foresee that someday learned historians will discover the world of Aegeia and establish its relations with Egypt, that Columbus will discover America, and archaeologists will restore the civilization of the ancient Mayans, etc.

Needless to say, with all our respect for the genius of the great Greek philosopher, such insight seems impossible to us and that we consider another explanation simpler and more plausible: Plato had at his disposal materials (Egyptian) that came from ancient times.

The method adopted by Valery Bryusov is simple and logical: he read Plato's dialogues and compared them with the objective level of knowledge of the ancient philosopher as a man of his time. Based on this, the poet comes to the conclusion that Plato could have obtained most of the information contained in the Dialogues only from people who knew about the existence of Atlantis. Well, for example,

Plato, like all Greeks, knew nothing of the Aegean kingdoms, which preceded the Hellenic on Greek soil. Therefore, Plato could not have had any reason to imagine a strong state in Attica many centuries before the beginning of Greek history.

Plato writes that Atlantis was located on the islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., beyond the Strait of Gibraltar) and from it it was possible, sailing further west, to get to another "opposite" mainland. But the ancient Greeks knew nothing about America! Does this not indicate that these data also reached Plato from some competent source?

Having established in such a way that on the very first pages of his dialogues Plato makes two brilliant discoveries in different fields of science - in history and geography, Bryusov is convinced that Plato is surprisingly close to the truth even in seemingly insignificant details. This applies, say, to the unknown metal orichalcum. After there was no place for him in the periodic table, his very existence became doubtful.

Bryusov believed, however, that this unknown metal could be aluminum. True, to obtain it, an electric current is used, which the Atlanteans did not know about. Or maybe they knew another method for obtaining aluminum?

To this we can add a historical fact reported by the ancient historian Pliny: in the first years of our era, an unknown master brought a metal bowl that shone like silver, but extremely light, to the Roman emperor Tiberius. The master said that he received this metal from clay earth. Tiberius, fearing that the new metal would devalue his reserves of gold and silver, ordered the master's head to be cut off. It is quite possible that we are also talking about aluminum.

Scientists believe that orichalcum could be a natural alloy of copper and zinc, according to modern brass. Occasionally there are ores containing both of these metals at once. Such an alloy also corresponds to the color of orichalcum - "red, having the color of fire." In Plato's "Dialogues" we learn about the flora and fauna of Atlantis. They are amazingly realistic.

Apparently, the most fantastic in the fauna of Atlantis can be considered elephants and horses. According to Plato, the Atlanteans had horses and elephants in their colonies in Africa and America. But this does not contradict the truth at all: both horses and elephants in America died out relatively recently.

In "Teachers of Teachers" Bryusov, getting acquainted with the description of the capital of Atlantis - the City of the Golden Gate, believes that he

also does not go beyond the scope of the possible ... The statue of Poseidon, described by Plato, was huge, but even it approaches in size the statue of Olympian Zeus, sculpted by Phidias ... And in general, in the whole description there is not a single feature that would reveal deliberate fiction ...

Bruce writes. Does Plato's description of Atlantis correspond to new scientific data? After Bryusov, scientists returned to this issue more than once, who found new amazing coincidences. Well, for example, two springs feeding Plato's Atlantis - hot and cold water - could really be on an island associated with the active activity of volcanoes. Scientists also found a mysterious, maybe even for Plato himself, a tree,

which gives drink, and food, and ointment.

It could be a coconut palm, which really gives both "drink" - coconut milk, and "food" - the pulp of a nut, and "ointment" - semi-liquid coconut oil. Even Plato's remark that the walls and towers of the City of the Golden Gate were built of stone of three colors: white, black, red - found interesting confirmation: it is from such stones that the cities on the Azores are built; they are sometimes considered the mountain peaks of the sunken Atlantis.

Studies carried out in recent years have confirmed the date of the tragic catastrophe indicated by Plato, when the remains of a giant transatlantic island that once connected two great continents sank to the bottom of the ocean. What does not confirm such an ancient date? Changing currents?

Ocean currents to one degree or another determine the climate of the continents. Perhaps their appearance and disappearance is the rocket, at the signal of which the glaciers begin their movement? As the glaciers melt, they expose the earth's surface, leaving giant blocks of boulders, as if abandoned in a panic of retreat. Well, why do sea currents arise and disappear?

Atlantologist E. F. Hagemeister suggested that the end of the last ice age was caused by the outburst of the warm Gulf Stream into the cold Arctic Ocean. And it happened, she believes, this is because

Atlantis sank to the bottom of the ocean and opened the way for the Gulf Stream.

Academician fully agreed with this assumption. V. A. Obruchev. He wrote:

The sinking of Atlantis again cleared the way for the Gulf Stream, and in the north, its warm waters gradually stopped glaciation around the North Pole.

The remains of living beings found in the sediments at the bottom of the ocean can tell a lot. Here, for example, is what foraminifers testify to. The coils of foraminiferal shell spirals are twisted to the left in heat-loving forms, and to the right in cold-loving forms. Studying the soil columns taken in the North Atlantic, scientists came to the conclusion that about 10-13 thousand years ago, the waters of the North Atlantic warmed sharply. This is also associated with the breakthrough of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.

But when did it happen? Russian hydrogeologist , examining soil samples from the bottom of the polar seas, found that for the first time the hot flow of the Gulf Stream penetrated into the northern seas about 12 thousand years ago. This was shown by radioisotope analysis.

Similar results were obtained by American scientists. They studied volcanic ash found in sediments at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. And it turned out that he appeared here about 12 thousand years ago. This once again confirmed the legendary date of the death of Atlantis: the island sank to the bottom of the ocean under the thunderous fireworks of volcanic eruptions.

Most of Bryusov's work is devoted to the connections between the most ancient civilizations of our planet. The poet-scientist pays special attention to the Cretan-Mycenaean culture. His book was published when the excavations in Crete had not yet been completed. This gave her an additional interest, which the author could not ignore. Well, today, does science confirm the existence of such connections?

The oldest civilizations of our planet

It is the question ancient civilizations our the planet is dedicated to the book of A. A. Gorbovsky “Riddles ancient history". Some of Gorbovsky's conclusions may be questioned, but the facts he cites are, as a rule, accurate. And they most often relate to the most ancient ideas about the structure. Well, for example:

1. The idea of ​​a plurality of inhabited worlds, for which Giordano Bruno was burned. It turns out that Egyptian texts, the sacred books of ancient India and Tibet, expounded it as an indisputable truth. Gorbovsky quotes the ancient Sanskrit book Vishnu Purana:
   

   Our Earth is only one of thousands of millions of inhabited worlds similar to it, located in the Universe.

   The idea that creatures like people live on distant stars was also common in ancient Peru.

2. Another example - The ancient Egyptians knew about it.
   

   "The earth was in front of me like a round ball"

   This quote is from the Leiden Demotic Papyrus. The Aztecs depicted the planets as small circles or balls played by the gods.

3. In the Middle East, in ancient Egypt and India, the year was divided into 12 months. But why did the same subdivision exist in South America? Why was the ancient Mayan year, which had 360 days, still used in ancient Egypt, Babylon and India?
4. The ancient Greeks, Indians, Celts, Mayans divided the history of mankind into four periods, and each of them was considered to be colored with a special paint. Surprisingly, they all considered the last, fourth, period to be painted with black paint.
5. Another example. The biblical myth about the construction of the Tower of Babel and the subsequent confusion of languages ​​is well known. It is not surprising that the Babylonians have a similar story: the creators of the Bible simply stole it. But where did this legend come from in ancient Mexico? And they talk about it like this:

They built a high tower... But their languages ​​suddenly mixed up, they could no longer understand each other and went to live in different parts of the Earth.

And more, and more... You can often read that the legends of the "global flood" are common only among coastal peoples and that these are memories of previous floods. In reality there is no such ancient people who would not have this tradition.

Everyone knows the story of the Bible. Many people know that it is borrowed from the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. But the English ethnologist reports that of the 130 Indian tribes of North, Central and South America, not one does not have a myth of a great catastrophe.

In the fifty post-Bryusov years, this list has lengthened almost to infinity.

It would be fair to consider that the work of Valery Bryusov "Teachers of Teachers" summed up the first period of studying the problem of Atlantis, turning the legend set forth in Plato's dialogues into a scientific document. Approximately this is how the author himself assessed the result of his work: “From now on, the “problem of Atlantis” goes out of the realm of fortune-telling, becomes a certain historical hypothesis and must share the usual fate of scientific hypotheses, depending on whether the newly discovered facts will refute or confirm it.”

And yet, it would not be entirely fair if, having paid tribute to the merits of Bryusov's work, we keep silent about its fatal flaw: carried away by a charming legend, he recklessly considered the culture of the Atlanteans to be super-high.

Over the course of millennia, their power increased and their culture developed, reaching a height that, perhaps, was not reached by any of the earthly peoples after that.

This assessment, obviously, was also facilitated by the influence of the books of the occultists, who believed that the Atlanteans knew aeronautics, rocketry, etc.

Scientists in particular N. F. Zhirov, have carefully analyzed the question of how high culture Plato describes.

What metals is Plato talking about? About gold, silver, lead, iron, about the mysterious orichalcum? But gold and silver are found in native form, and their abundance in the capital of the Atlanteans does not indicate that these metals were widely used in the life of the city. Iron, which is mentioned only once in Plato, was probably meteoric.

Indeed, in the "Dialogues" there is no mention of iron or bronze weapons or tools. Metals were used only for facing giant stone walls or for decorating temples. All this cannot be considered evidence of the onset of the copper or, even more so, the bronze age. Both weapons and tools, say, for cultivating the land, and household products were made only of stone and bone, which is quite consistent with the Stone Age.

Plato does not mention lime, cement, gypsum as binding building materials. To fasten the blocks of walls, obviously, metals were used, primarily copper. This also corresponds to the first period of the transition from stone to Bronze Age. There is nothing contradictory in Plato's story about giant size temples. It is at this stage of development that many peoples of the world gravitate towards gigantism in architecture.

A number of authors associate with the culture of the Atlanteans megalithic buildings scattered along almost all sea coasts of the globe. Especially a lot of them in the west of Europe. Megaliths are structures made of unhewn or semi-hewn giant blocks of stone, laid in rows or circles. They were built so long ago that even the legends about it are silent. But they are known in Europe, South America, Palestine, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Madagascar. There is only one doubt - these structures were supposed to be built by people of the Stone Age.

The high culture of agriculture, by no means, does not contradict the general assessment of the level of development of the people of Atlantis, given by N. F. Zhirov. By the way, agriculture, apparently, arose 30-20 thousand years ago, which coincides with the date of the heyday and death of Atlantis.

The Russian scientist, Doctor of Chemical Sciences N. F. Zhirov, can rightly be considered the greatest atlantologist. He appeared with articles in newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, and published several books. The last of these, Atlantis, came out in 1964, a few years before his death. According to N. F. Zhirov, the question of the existence of Atlantis should be solved by science. In particular, oceanology has the final say here. It is she who must answer whether there could be and whether there was a sufficiently large island in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite Gibraltar, several millennia ago.

Yes, N. F. Zhirov answers these questions. Atlantis could exist. The data of modern science indicate that in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there is an underwater North Atlantic Ridge, which could exist subaerially (above the surface of the water) at times close to those indicated by Plato in his legend. It is possible that some of these areas of land existed until historical time. So, maybe it makes sense to look for traces of Atlantis on these islands?

The islands of the Atlantic Ocean have long attracted the attention of atlantologists. Unfortunately, there was nothing like a large complex expedition that would conduct thorough archaeological excavations, record everyday rituals and legends, study flora and fauna in detail, etc., on these islands. Although, according to many assumptions, it is here that the key to Atlantis should be sought.

Curious legends are associated with some of the Azores.

• So, on the island of Corvo, an equestrian statue was allegedly found. The person depicted on it extended his hand to the west. This fact is reported, in particular, by the German scientist R. Hennig.
• On other islands, gravestones were found with inscriptions in an unknown language.
• On one of the islands of Cape Verde, a dolmen and rock inscriptions in the Berber language were found.
• Some experts consider the population of the Canary Islands to be direct descendants of the Atlanteans. After a brutal war waged by the Spaniards against the population of the islands, who did not know any metal, let alone firearms, the twenty thousandth population of the islands was destroyed. By 1600, not a single purebred native remained alive. Palaeanthropological studies have shown that the natives belonged to various ethnic groups. These conclusions were made by the French scientist R. Vernot, who excavated the corresponding burials. The Guanches, as it is customary to call the inhabitants of these islands, spoke languages ​​of Berber origin. Two types of rock inscriptions have also been found. It is believed that one of these types is related to the hieroglyphs of Crete. But not a single inscription has yet been deciphered or read. During one of the first visits to the islands by the Portuguese, a statue of a man holding a ball was discovered here. She was taken to Lisbon, but her whereabouts are now unknown.

Not a little interesting conceals the bottom of the ocean.

• A Swedish oceanographic expedition aboard the Albatross discovered freshwater diatoms in one of the columns of soil west of Africa raised from the bottom. Maybe they were washed into the ocean by the waters of the Congo or Niger River? But in this case, freshwater species would be mixed with marine ones. It is more logical to assume that the soil column was taken where a freshwater lake was once located.

Unfortunately, so far, scientists have not been able to raise any statues of Poseidon, or even a fragment of his trident, from the site of the death of Atlantis. However, there have been findings...

• In the mid-1950s, a sea dredge raised about a ton of very strange formations from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean south of the Azores. These were limestone discs with a recess on one side, which gave them the appearance of plates. On average, the diameter of these discs reached 15 centimeters, and the thickness - 4 centimeters. Their outer side was relatively smooth, but the inside of the depressions was rough. The strange shape of these formations testifies to their artificial origin. It was possible to establish the age of these "sea biscuits". It turned out to be equal to 12 thousand years, which corresponds to the date of the death of Atlantis. It was possible to establish something else: the "biscuits" were made in atmospheric conditions. By whom? For what? How did they get to the top of the seamount?

N. F. Zhirov in his book mentions the custom that existed among some Caucasian peoples to sacrifice food to the spirits on the tops of the mountains. Maybe the found "sea biscuits" - plates for similar sacrifices made by the inhabitants of Atlantis?

These are the few pieces of evidence for the existence of Atlantis. They could have been cited incomparably more.

Well, in general, what can be said about the problem of Atlantis from the level of modern knowledge?

• First of all, the mountain range located in the center of the Atlantic Ocean is the center of numerous earthquakes. This indicates a high seismic activity in the area.
• In the Atlantic Ocean there are a number of areas that were relatively recently dry land, and
  

  for all these places

  Notes N. F. Zhirov, -

  we do not exclude the possibility of the existence of islands even in historical time; some of them may have been inhabited.

• The scientist compares information about the islands that existed in historical times, available on modern maps. Surprisingly, they are identical. However
  

  there is every reason to assume the possibility of subsidence of individual islands and banks of the North Atlantic in our historical time, which had the character of a cataclysm.

  By this Zhirov explains the impossibility of carrying out such an identification in a number of cases.

• However, according to Plato, there is a lot of evidence of the existence of Atlantis exactly where it should be expected. Thus, relatively recently, a piece of coral was lifted aboard the ship Mikhail Lomonosov from one of the peaks of the North Atlantic Ridge. As you know, corals live only at relatively shallow depths. And since the coral was raised with a piece of bedrock from a depth of two and a half kilometers, it remains to be assumed that the mountain range has recently sunk at least two kilometers into the depths of the ocean here.
• And although many scientists categorically deny the possibility of the existence of large areas of land in the Atlantic Ocean in historical time, there are specialists who assert with equal conviction: yes, Atlantis could have existed and disappeared precisely in the time period that Plato spoke of, i.e., about 12 thousand years ago. In any case, it was precisely at this time that serious changes took place in the Atlantic Ocean, accompanied by breaks in the earth's crust, volcanic eruptions, a change in ocean currents, perhaps the warming of the entire northern hemisphere, which caused the end of the ice age.

More than half a century has passed since Bryusov wrote the work “Teachers of Teachers”. Unfortunately, even today the general attitude of scientists to this issue has not essentially changed. Most still treat Plato's story as unsubstantiated fiction. Evidence of this is that "such fabulous tales, as you know, are full of narrations of ancient writers." There have been no new confirmations of this over the past years. And the quotation given here refers to the very beginning of our century. Often there is an impression that the "opponents of Atlantis" did not read the works of Bryusov. However, this is also possible.

Bryusov's work was published only once, in 1917, in a magazine that was published in an insignificant circulation. Time did not contribute to his fame either: the world then shook World War. Russia stood on the eve of the revolution. The liveliest problems of modern life were incomparably more important than the history of the mainland that drowned thousands of years ago. And very soon the article "Teachers of teachers" became a bibliographic rarity. And she did not have the opportunity to convince readers that a particular "fabulous tale" contains too much information that Plato could not have, and this requires a more condescending attitude towards him. It remained the property of only specialist atlantologists who came to the same conclusion in their own ways.

But we must not forget another. The world has entered the era of the scientific and technological revolution, capturing ever new areas of knowledge. The ocean succumbed to this irrepressible pressure of science. Researchers have already reached its limiting depths in bathyscaphes. Yes, and without descending into the abyss of the ocean, scientists can already study its bottom in order to find the ruins of giant temples, the remains of city walls and surrounding canals. There is almost no doubt that these search for Atlantis will be undertaken in the near future.

What machines, devices, devices will they work with? Of course, clumsy, clumsy bathyscaphes are not very suitable for working on the ocean floor. But, perhaps, bathyscaphes will not be needed for this. Perhaps the search for Atlantis will be carried out by atlantologists-scuba divers.

Atlantologists scuba divers?! At a depth of more than 3 thousand meters?! Are such depths available for scuba diving? Or will they be available?

It is difficult to answer this question. After all, scuba gear as a means of underwater work appeared quite recently, in 1943, J.I. Cousteau believed at first that this invention of his would help a person master a maximum of two to three tens of meters of water. But…

Here are the record dives for the post-war 30 years. It must be said that in our time, today's record becomes a public value tomorrow. This can be confirmed, say, by an increase in the speeds of cars and airplanes. Probably, everyone remembers the story of overcoming the sound speed by aircraft. Was it a long time ago?! And today, supersonic passenger aircraft have become an everyday reality in many countries of the world. The same thing happens with the records of the diving depth achieved by scuba divers.

So, the first tens of meters are available for an amateur scuba diver who has put on an aqualung for the first time. But it is necessary not to cross the permissible physiological threshold. This threshold is breathing with highly compressed air. In this case, the blood is supersaturated with oxygen and nitrogen dissolved in it. Oversaturation with oxygen causes convulsions, and with nitrogen - intoxication and leads to decompression sickness. At the same time, nitrogen dissolved in the blood begins to be released directly in the veins and arteries. And people often die.

To prevent this from happening, divers rise from the depth extremely slowly, and then the blood has time to free itself from excess nitrogen. At the same time, the ascent from a depth of a hundred meters is delayed for 5-6 hours.

The witty idea of ​​a Swiss scientist helped to defeat decompression sickness Hansa Keller A. The essence of this idea is to use when lifting from great depth various gas mixtures. Once, while testing his idea, he rose from a depth of 222 meters in just 53 minutes! But the record for diving in a diving suit was only 180 meters, and the ascent from this depth took 12 hours.

Keller descended to a depth of 400 meters. It was in 1960-1962.

In 1970, English scuba divers descended to a depth of 457 meters. But at the end of the same year, the French moved it beyond the half-kilometer mark, they reached 520 meters! And in 1972 another was taken great depth- 565 meters.

The next step is striking in courage and magnitude. Four American volunteers descended to a depth of 1520 meters, spent 4 hours at the indicated depth and rose to the surface without any harm to themselves. True, the last experiment was carried out in a pressure chamber, but the essence of the matter does not change from this.

Depth reached!

It remains to double, triple it, and the depths of Atlantis will be in the power of scuba divers. They will be able to search for sunken land and, without returning to the surface of the ocean, relax in special underwater houses. Today, underwater houses of various designs are being tested in the USA, Holland and Italy, Japan and Cuba.