HISTORY

Atlantis was first mentioned in the dialogues of Plato Timaeus and Critias. The first, Timaeus, said that the continent laid beyond ‘the pillars of Heracles (Hercules)’. One of these pillars is the Rock of Gibraltar, and the other is uncertain. Nevertheless, Plato certainly says that Atlantis is in the Atlantic, connecting up the various islands around there.

While he specifically calls Atlantis ‘a continent’, some of his calculations (as you may already know) are way off. “…bigger than Libya and Asia combined” was his estimate, or at least the estimate of Critias who is the only one in the Dialogues to talk of Atlantis.

Critias (or Plato) describes Atlantis as a historical legend even in 400BC. He received the tale whilst journeying in Egypt, where a priest of Sais (on the Nile) helped him translate the stories of Atlantis recorded on papyri, stories supposedly over 9,000 years before his lifetime.

Critias would tell of how the island was owned by the god Poseidon, who wed a native woman of Atlantis called Cleito. One of their sons was Atlas, who became king of the island and for whom the island and the ocean were named. Poseidon carved the island into three great rings connected by great bridges, and walls surrounded each ring made of brass, tin and orichalcum.

The empire of Atlantis would spread across many lands, but in the end (supposedly – this according to a Greek remember) the Athenians rose up and held forced back this empire. Then Plato describes how “the island of Atlantis was swallowed up by the sea and vanished”.

While Critias first mentions Atlantis in the Dialogue of Timaeus, Critias’ own Dialogue was entirely devoted to describing the wonders of Atlantis. Many of the technologies talked about were far in advance of what mankind elsewhere would have developed, even if the supposed magical metal orichalcum “that glittered like fire” was probably not as magical as some believe – it was probably just some sort of bronze alloy.

There are many theories regarding in the location of Atlantis or the source of the stories, such as the Bahamas, where the ‘Bimini Road’ could possibly be seen as part of Atlantis. The Nazis even searched for the city, with Heinrich Himmler leading search parties into Tibet to search for evidence of ‘white Atlanteans’.

However, the most compelling explanation is that Atlantis was in the Mediterranean and the Atlantean Empire was in fact the Minoan Empire.

It firstly must be noted that there is actually no such thing as a ‘Minoan’ civilisation. The term was coined by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans after his discovery of the palace of Knossos on Crete (more on that in a moment) after the story of King Minos and the Labyrinth. The original name for what we call the Minoans is unknown – could they have really been Atlanteans? It’s just as rational as the logic behind calling them ‘Minoans’ anyway.

The Minoans ruled in Bronze Age Europe between 2700BC and 1450BC. They were principally mercantile in nature, focusing on overseas trade. They were highly involved in this period’s important tin and copper trade, and of course the bronze for which this Age is named. The fall of the Minoans and the ending of the Bronze Age are very closely correlated.

The religion of the Minoans was based largely on goddesses rather than male gods, and famously one of their principle religious celebrations was the Bull Dance. Dancers would confront the bull, grab hold of the beast’s horns and somersault over the bull. This was as you can imagine extremely dangerous, but unlike Spanish bull-fighting the animal was never killed – at least not in the dance anyway, although it may have been sacrificed later.

Of note is that both male and female dancers were allowed to participate in this sacred ceremony, suggesting as many historians believe that both genders were considered equal. This lends credence to the theory that the Minoans are the Atlanteans, as one piece of information noted by Plato (through Critias) was that Atlantis was a place where men and women had equal standing.

The Minoans were highly organised, powerful, intelligent, had equal rights between the sexes, travelled to distant lands, were at the height of technology in their period of history and while strong most likely did not wage war against the rest of the world. They were highly advanced and possessed many qualities that would not be seen in humanity again for several thousand years. They built palaces, roads and sewers while most Europeans lived in huts. They were not called Minoans – what they called themselves has not been discovered.

If this does not persuade you that the Minoans were actually Plato’s Atlanteans, then perhaps how they perished will. The volcanic eruption on the island of Thera devastated the island and the whole of the Mediterranean. The eruption itself was one of the worst in recorded history, but the following tsunami (perhaps 15 metres above sea level) was worse. It swept across the Greek islands. Against such a close island to the eruption as Crete and to a seafaring civilisation, with perhaps a mortality rate greater than 80%, this would have wiped them out completely – perhaps even destroying or sinking an undiscovered island or city between Thera and Crete.

This was the fall of an advanced civilisation, the ending of an Age and the birth of many legends. Atlantis is one, the Labyrinth and King Minos is another.

Located on the island of Crete, Knossos is believed to be the centre of the Minoan Empire. The ruins of the palace were discovered in 1878 by the coincidentally named Minos Kalokairinos, but it wasn’t explored properly until 1900 when English archaeologist Arthur Evans purchased the entire site and conducted excavations.

Evans called the civilisation ‘Minoan’ after King Minos, and the palace of Knossos has long been suggested as the source of the Labyrinth of legend.

In the myth, the Labyrinth was built for Minos to hold the Minotaur, the offspring of his wife Pasiphaë and a sacrificial bull sent by Poseidon (stop sniggering at the back there). Human sacrifices were made to the Minotaur, but the monster was eventually killed by Theseus.

The religious significance of Knossos, the confusing nature of the palace’s design, the worshipping of bulls, the evidence that human sacrifices were made on the site and the many two-headed axes found in and around Minoan sites all back up the theory of Knossos being the legend’s Labyrinth.

How do two-headed axes fit in you ask? Well, the word ‘labyrinth’ comes from the word ‘labrys’, meaning… anyone? Yes, a two-headed ax. It was often used in religious sacrifices – in particular, the slaying of bulls!

Now we’ve established where, when and what Atlantis was, let’s get back to a couple of specifics. Firstly, Plato. Along with Socrates and Aristotle, Plato helped lay the foundations of Western philosophy. He founded the first institute of higher learning in the world (the Academy of Athens) and was the writer of such great works as Republic and the Dialogues.

The Dialogues featuring Atlantis are supposed to be talks made between the politicians Critias and Hermocrates and the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus, although some historians believe them to be fully written by Plato rather than records as he claims. However, the argument that Plato didn’t write the Dialogues and merely recorded them stems from his so-called ‘unwritten doctrine’, where Plato supposedly contradicts a lot of the writings in the Dialogues. Indeed, in his other teachings he often belittles his own written work.

"Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing."

The Dialogue of Timaeus was completed in full, but Critias was never finished for some reason. The Lost Dialogue of Hermocrates may have been planned, as scholars such as Benjamin Jowett of Balliol College Oxford suggest, but very probably never written if Plato never even completed Critias.

In addition to these, Plato’s Dialogues also include Laws, Philebus, Sophist, Statesman, Parmenides, Phaedrus, Theaetetus, and many others. Plato never himself appears in any of his Dialogues, and may not have even heard them firsthand.

One of the areas Sophia Hapgood reminded me of during the search for Atlantis was the claim Dr. Ubermann made that the Nazis were capable of making nuclear weapons. While Ubermann was lying, scientists of all sides during the Second World War were all desperately clamouring to create the most devastating weapons of all time.

While it was Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898 who first discovered radiation and introduced the world to a dangerous new energy source, it wasn’t until the 1930s that that energy would start to be harnessed and the race for the Nuclear age began.

The atom was split in 1932. In 1934 Leó Szilárd proposed the idea of a chain reaction via the neutron and patented the atomic bomb. In 1936, England’s navy took over the patent. In 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann bombarded uranium with neutrons and then detected the element barium, which was identified as nuclear fission. Their work was released as peace still reigned, and was experimented for the first time in the US at Columbia University in 1939.

When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland, scientists had begun fleeing from the imminent conflict. They all knew nuclear weapons were feasible, but would not publish any more findings in case the opposing side used their data to their enemy’s own advantage.

The first Allied experiments to create nuclear weapons took place because they were worried the Nazis would be doing the same – which is what they were. However, many Nazi experiments were mostly aimed at creating an energy source rather than a weapon, although there have been recent claims that near the end of the war they invented and tested a ‘dirty bomb’ variety of nuke. In reality, their scientists (under the charge of Werner Heisenberg) identified that nuclear fission would not significantly contribute to the ending of the war. The government then pulled a lot of their funding and scientists towards other more pressing matters.

On the other side, in 1942 Britain and the US agreed to pool their resources under leading scientist Robert Oppenheimer into the Manhattan Project, with the goal of creating a nuclear weapon. After the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8th 1945, the Manhattan Project was still months away from a working weapon, but the Project’s existence and goal was finally revealed to the new President – Harry Truman. Despite the difficulties, a test of their current bomb was made in July. The test was successful.

In August, a uranium-based A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and a plutonium-based bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. 100,000 people were killed instantly, with tens of thousands dying of radiation sickness and poisoning. Truman ordered Japan to surrender, promising “a rain of ruin” if they did not. Truman was bluffing, as no more A-bombs had been created, but the Japanese surrendered. The Second World War ended August 15th.

After the testing of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer famously quoted his favourite text, the Sanskrit bible Bhagavad Gita:-

- BBC News Report, ‘the wave that destroyed Atlantis’
- Plato’s Dialogues of Timaeus and Critias
- The Palace of Knossos on Crete
- A Short Version of the Legend of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur
- Report on ”Hitler’s Bomb”

LINKS