Atlantis - myths about the myth

15 Jan 2021

• Motivation
• Origin - Plato’s Timaeus and Critias
  • BONUS: Solon in Egypt?
• Interpretations throughout the history
  • Strabo (and Aristotle?)
  • Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus by Proclus
  • Library of History by Diodoros of Sicily
  • See also: Phoenicians in America
  • New World
  • New Age
• Modern times
• Sources

The myth of Atlantis probably doesn’t require much introduction. The mythical lost civilization and its island have generated speculations in countless books since Plato first mentioned it in the 5th century BC, even capturing the attention of famous thinkers like Isaac Newton or Francis Bacon.

It branched into many different beliefs about its true location, linking Atlantis with Crete, Sardinia, America, Antarctica, Iberian Peninsula, Mauritania, and many, many other places.

After several years of relative dormancy in the imagination of the broader public, it has begun to make something of a comeback in recent years, partly driven by recent discoveries about the Younger Dryas period and ancient settlements like Göbekli Tepe.

Motivation

While the most skeptical-minded articles focus on debunking the idea itself or some specific claims, we’re just trying to trace the most repeated claims to their source and show how the perception of the myth evolved through time.

Instead of building an argument, the goal is to gather actual sources, make as few active claims as possible, and let the reader form his own opinion.

Origin - Plato’s Timaeus and Critias

As a speaker in Plato’s Timaeus, a character called Critias states that he heard the Atlantis tale from his grandfather Critias the elder, who heard it from Solon. Solon, a famous Greek statesman who lived two centuries before, allegedly acquired the story in Egypt and “brought it back with him” to Athens, with intentions to adapt it into an epic poem later, which he left unfinished. (Timaeus, p. 17)¹.

CRITIAS: [It’s a story that] Solon, the wisest of the wise seven, once declared. Solon, who, you must know, was, as he says in several places in his poems, a kinsman and a close friend of my great-grandfather Dropides, told my grandfather Critias (so the Critias in his turn, used to repeat the story to me in his old age), that there are great and splendid ancient exploits of our city which have been forgotten from lapse of time and decay of population, and, in particular, one, the greatest of all.

Right away, we have a problem. There are several contradicting interpretations of the genealogy described by Plato. However, it’s certain that at the time the dialogue was written, Solon must have been dead for at least 150 years.

Interpretation of Proclus2	Interpretation of classicist John Burnet3

In regard to Atlantis, here are some main takeaways from Timaeus (p. 17 - 23):

• Athens was inhabited 9,000 ago by Athenians, it was a country “foremost both in war and all besides” before its destruction.
• Atlantis was an island with its own kings ruling over many other islands as well as mainland colonies.
• Located “before Pillars of Heracles” in Atlantic ocean, “larger than Libya and Asia together”
• Atlanteans were wealthy and powerful and set to subjugate all other nations. Athenians revolted and “vanquished the invaders”, even freeing some of their colonies in the process.
• But later, great earth-quakes, and floods sunk the Atlantis (and drown all Athenian warriors as well).

In Plato’s later work, Critias, things get a bit more interesting (pages 116 - end):

• Island of Atlantis was Poseidon’s “lot”.
• He carved the mountain into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats.
• Poseidon’s temple was in the inner ring and “forbidden to enter”.
• Poseidon took a liking to an orphaned girl. She gave him ten sons, who later ruled 10 parts of Atlantis.
• Rich fauna and flora, including plentiful elephants and many fruits and flowers (including ones exuding “gums”), which Atlanteans utilized for their sustenance.
• Gold-red metal called Orichalcum was mined in many parts of Atlantis.
• Apart from the capital city, “mountains contained numerous villages with a wealthy population”.
• the First king of Atlantis, Atlas, had a twin brother who ruled the region now known as Gadeira (Cádiz). (Note: Later, Strabo and Diodoros attribute foundation of this city to Phoenicians, which even archaeology nowadays seem to confirm)

Considering that Plato invented Atlantis for the sake of a political allegory, it can seem quite intriguing that so much detail is provided regarding things like geography, natural resources, agricultural practices, etc. before turning focus to society itself. On the other hand, we can’t simply ignore that the same amount of detail is provided also for Athens in the same period, which the archeology evidence simply doesn’t support.

However, that’s pretty much it. As you can see, there are absolutely no implications of advanced technology or superior esoteric knowledge. From all descriptions (apart from the dating and mythology, of course), they’re portrayed as pretty believable, though remarkably wealthy and powerful, Bronze Age civilization. They armed themselves with spears and shields, they conquered barbaric lands and they waged war against Athenians, which they eventually lost.

BONUS: Solon in Egypt?

Putting all claims about Atlantis aside, even the claim that Solon actually traveled to Egypt in the first place was contested. The first mention of this, apart from Plato’s story, of course, comes from Herodotus’ The Histories (c. 440 BC), some 200 years after Solon’s passing and after Platon’s Timeas and Critias was already well known.

Also, there are many inconsistencies in Herodotus’ accounts of Solon’s travel, and another story about his travel to Lydia is widely believed to be unhistorical. However, the idea that Solon could visit Egypt roughly in the specified time doesn’t seem so unbelievable to be too controversial.

Interpretations throughout the history

So, shouldn’t the story end here? For many it does. However, the debate about Atlantis is almost as old as the myth itself. So how was the story perceived in ancient times?

Strabo (and Aristotle?)

The wikipedia page on Atlantis claims, that even Aristotle believed that Plato, his teacher, had invented the island to teach philosophy. As a source, a 1967 article from Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, is provided. Itself completely unsourced. (Note: Without taking any sides, it’s always important to be very careful with accepting claims you read on Wikipedia and where they come from.)

So, what’s the real story? As always, it’s complicated.

The argument comes from Strabo’s Geography. Strabo (c.60 BC- C.20 BC) endorses Poseidonius’ (c. 135 BC-c.50 BC) view that Atlantis might be more than mere fiction and dismisses the argument that “Its inventor caused it to disappear, just as did the Poet the wall of the Acheans.” (Implying Solon avoided the historical consequences of his fiction by sinking Atlantis, just as Homer did by making Poseidon and Apollo sweep away with a flood the wall built by the Achaeans. (Strabo 2.3.6⁴)

So where does Aristotle come in? Well, in chapter 13.1.36 in a passage completely unrelated to Atlantis, this quote is referenced again, this time attributed to Aristotle. This led some to conclude that the first appearance of a quote does indeed reflect Aristotle’s opinion on Atlantis. This is disputed in the generally well-received book Aristotle and Atlantis by T. C. Franke⁵.

Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus by Proclus

The philosopher Crantor (c. 3rd century BC), a student of Plato’s student Xenocrates, is often cited as an example of a writer who thought of the story as a historical fact. His work, a commentary on Timaeus, is however lost and all our information come from commentary on his work from the 5th century by Neoplatonist Proclus (more than 600 years after the life of Crantor) In regard to Atlantis story, he reports⁶:

With respect for the whole of this narration about the Atlantics, some say, that it is a mere history, which was the opinion of Crantor, the first interpreter of Plato, who says, that Plato was derided by those of his time, as not being the inventor of the Republic, but transcribing what the Egyptians had written on this subject; and that he so far regards what is said by these deriders as to refer to the Egyptians this history about the Athenians and Atlantics, and to believe that the Athenians once lived conformably to this polity.

[He] adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved.

We’re putting ‘He’ in brackets because some translations say it was Crantor, who confirms the story (see 1820 English translation in Sources) but the Greek original uses ambiguous ‘He’, which leaves room for speculations that it was Plato himself who verified the story with Egyptians.

Whatever you lean towards, all we can safely state is that according to 5th CE century Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, Plato, facing ridicule, made attempts to verify the story with Egyptians, and either Plato or Crantor confirmed its veracity.

In any case, we hope that it’s evident that based on this text is absolutely no justification for conclusions such as Otto Muck’s “Crantor came to Sais and saw there in the temple of Neith the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato’s account of Atlantis”⁷

Library of History by Diodoros of Sicily

Diodoros’ Library of History is remarkable for many reasons. This 40-volume book (of which only 15 books survive intact) is considered one of the earliest attempts at Universal history and also it is notably more detached from ‘Hellenocentric’ world-view⁸. It’s also a major source of our knowledge about Alexander the Great!

However, we need to keep in mind that Diodoros still relied on Greek tradition and historians and he was almost certainly familiar with Plato’s work. What’s interesting though, is that he doesn’t seem to even acknowledge Plato’s story and even disagrees on many details (notably mythical genealogy of Atlas).

According to Diodoros, many generations before the Trojan War, the Atlanteans, the most civilized people of their time, became subject to the Libyan Amazons (author emphasizes that this a different tribe, not the more famous one, living along river Thermodon). He places these Amazons’ land on an island in Lake Tritonis.⁹

This island mentioned was of great size and full of fruit-bearing trees of every kind, from which the natives secured their food. It also contained multitude of flocks, goats, sheeps, […]. But grain the nation used not at all because the use of this fruit of the earth had not yet been discovered among them. The Amazons, then, the account continues, being a race superior in valour and eager for war, first of all subdued all the cities on the island except one called Menê, which was considered to be sacred[…] (III. 53. 3-6)

Their city was called Cherronesus [Penninsula] after its shape. Now, enter Atlantians:

[…]the most civilized men among the inhabitants of those regions, who dwelt in a prosperous country and possessed great cities; it was among them, we are told, that mythology places the birth of the gods. (III. 54)

Their first king had been Uranus, a god who had elevated them from the bestial state and had taught them agriculture (Book III, 56, 3).

Later, the Amazons attacked and conquered a major Atlantian city called Cernê and Atlantians became subjected and that’s the last time their history was mentioned. This is what Diodoros said of Atlantians. Not a word about its conquest of neighboring nations or about the time and circumstances of the cataclysm that should have destroyed it.

So, where does this version of the story come from? Diodoros is very clear about that. Before beginning the story of Amazons and Atlantians, he credits “Dionysius, who composed a narrative about Argonauts and Dionysus, and also about many other things which took place in the most ancient times.” (III. 52)

Side-note: Dionysus’ version of Argonauts is also quite different from the ‘classic’ version you probably know) This Dionysius Scytobrachion, often identified with Dionysus of Miletus, is believed to live in the 2nd century BC in Alexandria, Egypt.

See also: Phoenicians in America

New World

Some later Christian scholars who seem to interpret Atlantis as real were Eusebius, Philo, and Kosmas Indikopleustés (who by the way scorned the view of spherical Earth calling it “pagan lies”).

A big resurrection of the idea came with the Age of Discovery. The Spanish historian Francisco López de Gómara (c. 1511-c. 1566) seems to be the first to believe that Plato’s Atlantis was referring to America.¹⁰

The exception to this sentiment provides Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680), who pictures Atlantis as a separate landmass between Europe and America in an illustration to his book Mundus Subterraneus¹¹.

Map of Atlantis from Mundus Subterraneus

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) his unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis¹². He talks about an island called Bensalem, whose people, ancestors to bigger island New Atlantis located even further west, were of a high moral character, modesty, Christian faith, and scientific inquiry. Some then-futuristic technologies like flying machines, submarines, weather control, etc. are described. However, this book is clearly a Christian utopian novel and nothing suggests it was ever intended to be taken literally, however it might play some role in cementing the idea of Atlantis as a utopian, advanced society.

Another growing theory was Mayanism, which connected Atlantis with Mayan and other indigenous American cultures. Early proponents of this belief were Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) and Augustus Le Plongeon (1825-1908) who seems to be the first to theorize that Atlantis was ancestral to ancient Egypt.

New Age

During the 19th century, the theory shifted into more fringe territory and it was molded to fit various Christian, New Age, and even Nazi beliefs. Also, only now do most of the supernatural claims start to appear. Major figures were Ignatius L. Donnelly, Helena Blavatsky, and Edgar Cayce.

Ignatius L. Donnelly (1831-1901) is probably the reason why this myth became so widely known. He was probably inspired by Mayanism, but he saw Atlantis as an actually lost continent in the Atlantic sea, which disappeared in a flood. He also originated quite a few original claims, which are still perpetuated today. To name a few, Atlantis was the region where man first rose from barbarians [sic] to civilization. From there the civilization was distributed to all ancient civilizations around the world. Gods of Greeks, Phoenicians, Hindus, etc. were simply kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis. From all colonies, the religions of Egypt and Peru were the closest representations of the original religion of Atlanteans.¹³

This video summarizes all 13 hypotheses that Donnelly is trying to prove: Book Review: Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius L. Donnelly (youtube.com)

Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), a Russian mystic and founder of the Theosophical Society. Despite claiming that she was given access to “secret wisdom” in Tibet, she repeated many claims of Donelly, mainly concerning and further elaborating on the idea of “progenitor race” (first very briefly proposed in Isis Unveiled). In her next book, The Secret Doctrine, she tells much more about Atlantis. Tibetan masters revealed to her that Atlantians were only a fourth of seven “root races”, following i.a. Hyperboreans and Lemurians. The fifth “root race” is the “Aryan race” and the sixth and seventh have yet to be.¹⁴ By the way, this unscientific race theory could be one of the contributing factors to forming of Nazi ideology.¹⁵ But, of course, Blavatsky was in no way responsible for that.

While Blavatsky attributed her knowledge to “sacred wisdom” bestowed upon her by Ascended Masters, Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that the knowledge of Atlantis came to him through his psychic abilities. But it can be demonstrated that he must have been familiar with the works of Donnelly, Blavatsky, and probably other theosophists.¹⁶ In regard to Atlantis, he originates a plethora of claims. Atlanteans migrated to Egypt after the disaster and that their History of Records is still hidden under the Sphinx (likely inspired by Paul Chrisitan’s Histoire De La Magie) and also “in another [place] in the Aryan or Yucatan land”. He also made many claims concerning crystal technology, the capability of flying and moving through the water, telepathy, etc.¹⁷ (probably inspired by Bacon)

Modern times

In the 20th century, the Continental drift hypothesis started to gain acceptance, which offered new possible explanations for Atlantis believers. More recently, the myth was once again revived by new discoveries about catastrophic events during the Younger Dryas period. This is still fresh stuff, so it naturally captures the minds of ancient history enthusiasts who often see it as a solution to all the flood myths of ancient cultures.

While most of the proponents of this “scientific stream” don’t seem to acknowledge the supposed esoteric and advanced technology proposed by New Age authors, some ideas persist. Mainly connection to native Americans, Egyptians, and other early civilizations - basically the idea of progenitor race, but stripped of all the Aryan connections.

Although there’s very little doubt, that catastrophic events like Megafloods and meteor strikes did happen in a relatively short period and might greatly influence the human population of that time, that itself doesn’t imply that some great civilization was destroyed by it. Moreover, archaeological evidence of any bronze culture in the neolithic is still lacking.

The most prominent scientific hypotheses, which don’t directly relate to Atlantis but somehow tie into the “progenitor civilization” theory, are YD impact hypothesis and Sphinx water erosion hypothesis. Graham Hancock also mentioned Orion correlation theory in the BBC documentary Atlantis Reborn Again.

The latest “candidate”, propagated mainly by the youtube channel Bright Insight, is the Richat Structure in Mauretania. Claims of this video are thoroughly analyzed by an actual historian in two videos from another youtube channel, World of Antiquity.^{18 19}

It should be also noted, that some academics propose that the destruction of Atlantis was inspired by the explosion of a volcano on Santorini (c. 1600 BC). Louis Guillaume Figuier (1819-1984) was the first to suggest a link between the Theran explosion and Plato’s Atlantis.²⁰ Supporters of this theory note that Minoans were a significant naval power and they could be seen as ancestors of Greeks by Egyptians.

Many other locations were proposed: Bermuda Triangle (Charles Berlitz), Doñana National Park (Bruce Blackburn), Great Meteor Seamount, Azores, Black Sea, etc.

In regards to these efforts, writer L. Sprague de Camp fittingly noted in his book “Lost Continents,” “You cannot change all the details of Plato’s story and still claim to have Plato’s story. That is like saying the legendary King Arthur is ‘really’ Cleopatra; all you have to do is to change Cleopatra’s sex, nationality, time period, temperament, moral character, and other details, and the resemblance becomes obvious.”

Sources