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I don't know if Atlantis existed or not. Plato's seventh-hand information may have been seriously warped by the time he got hold of it. Or maybe not. All cultures in the world have stories of an older, higher civilization destroyed by cataclysm --- usually flood. So I can't help but think that there is some truth to it.
And we ignore the ancients at our peril. Remember the Hittites? For decades they were mentioned only in the Bible and a couple of other sources. The intelligentsia --- even as late as Voltaire --- scoffed at the lack of evidence, saying it only further proved the inaccuracy of the Bible and ancient sources. And then archaeologists started finding not only evidence of the Hittites, but LOTS of evidence. They brought the Iron Age to the Middle East.
So yes, just because we haven't found any evidence yet doesn't necessarily mean there isn't evidence waiting to be found.
That said ...
When it comes to Atlantis there are so many crackpots out there willing to take a little evidence and leap far beyond reasonable conclusions.
I don't know if Atlantis existed or not. Plato's seventh-hand information may have been seriously warped by the time he got hold of it. Or maybe not. All cultures in the world have stories of an older, higher civilization destroyed by cataclysm --- usually flood. So I can't help but think that there is some truth to it.
That's the problem with a lot of these ancient sources -- it's like the game of telephone played by schoolkids -- you don't know what the original story was. It's been suggested that the myth of the centaur arose when people first encountered horseback riders; dragons were the result of pre-Darwin attempts to explain fossils; cyclops to encounters with elephant or mammoth skulls. It's also been suggested that observations of sea life fossils far from water led to stories of a great flood - but the fact that so many of these stories share certain details (punishment for a fall from grace, one family selected for survival, etc) makes this seem unlikely.
Those looking for proof of the existence of Atlantis should expect to be disappointed--> it was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, right? Nothing man made would be expected to be left for discovery. OTOH- geologic evidence, like the concentric rings business, may well be there. The island of Santorini has that going for it, although it's to the east, not west of The Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar).
Keep in mind that Atlantis was supposed to be 10,000+ y/a. That would put its destruction just about the time of the end of the last Ice Age. During the Ice Age, sea levels were considerably lower than today. The Mediterranean Basin would have been habitable land.https://www.bing.com/images/search?v...x=0&ajaxhist=0 As the glaciers melted relatively quickly and sea levels rose, the land retaining the Atlantic Ocean may have given away more or less suddenly, flooding the Med Basin--giving rise to the Gilgamesh/Noah Story & maybe the Atlantis Story.
The article cited in the OP makes the same mistake so many make: they assume all humans 10,000 y/a were "cavemen" hunter/gatherers. We could point out that the Egyptians seemed to be among the first "civilizations." That was 5000 y/a. What was really going on 5000 yrs before them? Maybe an advanced civilization living on what is now the floor of the Mediterranean? Their artifacts would be out of our reach now, and only the primitive folks living on the periphery of civilization at higher elevations have left evidence for us to find.
There's an old joke about a guy walking down the sidewalk one evening and he comes upon another guy down on all fours, patting the grass on the parkway, apparently looking for something. "Did you lose something?" asks the first guy. "Yea, my car keys," answers the second..."Oh, let me help you look."...After 20 minutes of searching and finding nothing, the first guy finally asks, "Are you sure you lost them here?".."Oh, no. I lost them about 200 ft farther down...but the light's better here."
Those looking for proof of the existence of Atlantis should expect to be disappointed--> it was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, right? Nothing man made would be expected to be left for discovery.
Not necessarily. Lots of man-made artifacts were buried for later rediscovery at Pompeii. Also, don't forget Ubar, Thonis, or even the more recent Port Royal.
If the story of Atlantis has its roots in a previously dry basin suddenly flooded to become the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, or some other body of water, then it depends entirely on the nature of the man-made artifacts. It's unlikely much wood would have been preserved under all that salt water. But stone or even early metal work? Maybe.
Personally, I've always believed that the Atlantis story is simply the advanced civilization that was in existence and that came before Noah's world-wide flood, as stated in the Bible.
The world flooded and destroyed everything and drowned them all, except for Noah and his family...
The article cited in the OP makes the same mistake so many make: they assume all humans 10,000 y/a were "cavemen" hunter/gatherers. We could point out that the Egyptians seemed to be among the first "civilizations." That was 5000 y/a. What was really going on 5000 yrs before them?
What was going on then? The culture that built Gobekli Tepe, for one thing - apparently hunter-gatherers were more sophisticated 12K years ago than we'd like to think:
Ocean levels are 3-400 feet higher these days than they were during the last ice age.... millions of square miles of former lands are now underwater, in an environment that is probably the worst on the planet for long-term preservation of artifacts (generally warm, relatively shallow water full of churning life).
I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't several civilizations of at least the size and magnitude of Ancient Egypt or Mesoamerica from 12K+ years ago that were totally wiped away by the by extreme planetary changes occurring at the time. Even the pyramids of Giza wouldn't be around anymore if they ended up partially submerged in the ocean for ten thousand years, so it's no wonder we don't currently have any archaeological evidence.
It makes no sense that the first "official" ancient civilization (Sumer) sprung out of nowhere fully formed with written language, incredible architectural and artistic achievements and a fully formed complex culture... that stuff had to come from somewhere else. Considering that anatomically modern humans have been around for upwards of 450,000 years, it's not unlikely at all that civilization actually has it's roots in the paleolithic era.
Interestingly enough, the Persian Gulf was actually the "Persian Valley" before the sea levels rose... who knows what might still be under all that mud?
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