Atlantis. Fact or myth?

[koan]

What do you think Atlantis was all about? Where do you think it was? Why do you think it disappeared?

[koan]

Okay, I just found an older thread that I missed...but all that was talked about is where it might have been.

What kind of culture do you think it was? Why would it sink? I've even heard that in that time, people were the size of giants and didn't have a body of similar organic composure.

What's the craziest Atlantis theory you've ever heard?

[koan]

I guess no one else cares, but I just answered my own question. The psychic drywaller I mentioned in 'weirdest people' told me today...and I didn't ask him...that Atlantis was three islands and they didn't sink, they are in another dimension. He said they just told the people it was going to sink so they would go somewhere else. :wah:

[gmc]

Forget the fantasy bit and third dimensions. There is now a lot of evidence of violent climatic cghange in the past. As volcanic eruption like the discribed must have seemed like the end of the world. Archeologists now exploring in the sea are incerasing dinfing evidence for what seem to have been large cities that were drowned as the sea level rose. Not just in the meditarranean but off the coast of india. The catasclismic events described in the bible rather than being propehecies is more likely to be descriptions of what people saw as the result of earthquakes, volcanoes far away from where they were. makes a lot more sense than believing them to foretell the future. What is factual description becomes fantasy in a later age.

If the destruction of santorini happened then it woiuld have destroyed civilisations that would have been cebntered ropund the coast. A trading nation would have been a power centre just as they are nowadays.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Thera

http://www.santorini.gb.com/

[koan]

Warsai wrote: In the two original books describing Atlantis, Timeas and Critias, Plato describes Atlantis as being larger than Europe and Asia Minor (Turkey) combined


This is great! I've not done a lot of reading on Atlantis but it comes up in conversation a lot (with the type of friends I have) This is one of the things that always threw me. People talk about it as if it was a small island. My "intuition" just laughs. I'm under the impression that Atlantis was very large. The actual date of it's existence is quite important as geological masses have shifted, split and moved over time. What was the configuration of the continents at the supposed time of Atlantis' existence?

I think I might go check out some of the Blavatsky theories and report back.

[gmc]

Koan

This is great! I've not done a lot of reading on Atlantis but it comes up in conversation a lot (with the type of friends I have) This is one of the things that always threw me. People talk about it as if it was a small island.


Don't to forget the relative sizes of the world's population. Most of the great battles and events of history involved very small numbers of people by today's standards. It's only when you go to places like Crete (ok I've not been there yet) or Malta (Which I have) that you appreciate how large and at yet how small scale these things really are.

warsai

In the two original books describing Atlantis, Timeas and Critias, Plato describes Atlantis as being larger than Europe and Asia Minor (Turkey) combined, located west of the Pillars of Hercules, now the Straits of Gibraltar.


When Plato was writing Atlantis was already the stuff if legends. Maybe it was in the atlantic but santorini seems the more likely origin of the story at least to me it does.

Koan

try these

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovsky/

http://skepdic.com/velikov.html

http://www.sumeria.net/cosmo/veli2.html

The books themselves are a heavy read but it is an intriguing idea

[A Karenina]

This is out of nowhere, but Taylor Caldwell wrote a very interesting book about her dream of Atlantis. Has anyone read it?