Atlantis
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THE CITY OF ATLANTIS
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The idea that Atlantis was an actual historical place, and not just a legend invented by Plato, didn’t surface until the late 19th century. In his 1882 book, “Atlantis, the Antediluvian World,” the writer Ignatius Donnelly argued the accomplishments of the ancient world (such as metallurgy, language and agriculture) must have been handed down by an earlier advanced civilization, as the ancients weren’t sophisticated enough to develop these advances on their own. Assuming the Atlantic Ocean was only a few hundred feet deep, Donnelly described a continent flooded by shifting ocean waters that sank in the exact location Plato said it did: in the Atlantic Ocean just outside the “Pillars of Hercules,” the two rocks that mark the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar. Long after modern oceanography and a greater understanding of plate tectonics poked holes.
Assuming the Atlantic Ocean was only a few hundred feet deep, Donnelly described a continent flooded by shifting ocean waters that sank in the exact location Plato said it did: in the Atlantic Ocean just outside the “Pillars of Hercules,” the two rocks that mark the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar. Long after modern oceanography and a greater understanding of plate tectonics poked holes.
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Atlantis, a likely mythical island nation mentioned in Plato’s dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias,” has been an object of fascination among western philosophers and historians for nearly 2,400 years. Plato (c.424–328 B.C.) describes it as a powerful and advanced kingdom that sank, in a night and a day, into the ocean around 9,600 B.C. The ancient Greeks were divided as to whether Plato’s story was to be taken as history or mere metaphor. Since the 19th century there has been renewed interest in linking Plato’s Atlantis to historical locations, most commonly the Greek island of Santorini, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1,600 B.C.
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The ancient Greeks were divided as to whether Plato’s story was to be taken as history or mere metaphor. Since the 19th century there has been renewed interest in linking Plato’s Atlantis to historical locations, most commonly the Greek island of Santorini, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1,600 B.C.
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Atlantis was swallowed up by the Bermuda Triangle.
Inspired by Donnelly, many later writers expanded on his theories and added their own speculations as to where Atlantis may have been. One of these writers was Charles Berlitz, grandson of the founder of the well-known language schools, and author of many books on paranormal phenomena.
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In the 1970s, Berlitz claimed Atlantis was a real continent located off the Bahamas that had fallen victim to the notorious “Bermuda Triangle,” a region of the Atlantic where a number of ships had supposedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Supporters of this theory point to the discovery of what look like man-made walls and streets found off the coast of Bimini, although scientists have evaluated these structures and found them to be natural beach-rock formations
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Another theory–that Atlantis was actually a much more temperate version of what is now Antarctica–is based on the work of Charles Hapgood, whose 1958 book “Earth’s Shifting Crust” featured a foreword by Albert Einstein. According to Hapgood, around 12,000 years ago the Earth’s crust shifted, displacing the continent that became Antarctica from a location much further north than it is today. This more temperate continent was home to an advanced civilization, but the sudden shift to its current frigid location doomed the civilization’s inhabitants–the Atlanteans–and their magnificent city was buried under layers of ice.
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In the first centuries of the Christian era, Aristotle was taken at his word and Atlantis was little discussed. In 1627, the English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon published a utopian novel titled “The New Atlantis,” depicting, like Plato before him, a politically and scientifically advanced society on a previously unknown oceanic island.
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In 1882, former U.S. Congressman Ignatious L. Donnelly published “Atlantis: The Antediluvian World,” which touched off a frenzy of works attempting to locate and learn from a historical Atlantis. Donnelly hypothesized an advanced civilization whose immigrants had populated much of ancient Europe, Africa and the Americas, and whose heroes had inspired Greek, Hindu and Scandinavian mythology. Donnelley’s theories were popularized and elaborated by turn-of-the-20th-century theosophists and are often inco…
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