The Legend of Atlantis - Case Study Example

Atlantis: The Mysterious Missing According to legend, there was once a glorious full of technological wonders and highly enlightened humans that sank suddenly beneath the waves and buried its knowledge forever. This city was called Atlantis. However, there are a number of legends regarding what this location really was. Some descriptions claim it was an entire country while others claim it was merely a city. Some insist it was a natural island while others suggest it was a floating space craft. The location of this mystical place is also a continuing mystery leading many to question whether it ever actually existed in the first place. In attempting to track down the mystery of Atlantis, one discovers a highly complicated issue that remains unresolved to the present day. These questions can be broadly grouped into three basic categories: the legend, the location and the legitimacy of its claim. The legend of Atlantis is traced back to the writings of Plato, but hints of it can also be found in other places. Plato presents the story of Atlantis both in terms of the legend of its beginnings as well as the history of its end at the hands of the Athenians and then as the result of a cataclysmic tectonic events. According to the legend, the city of Atlantis had its beginnings at the beginning of time as the world was being formed. Poseidon adopted an island reportedly bigger than Libya and Asia together as the home of his people and selected a human woman named Cleito to be his wife. To protect her, Poseidon surrounded the hill on which she lived with five concentric rings of water, gave her springs of hot and cold freshwater and the family thrived and became a great ruling nation. Her first son was named Atlas and it was after him that the island was named. “For generations Atlantis remained peaceful and prospered. Almost all of the populations needs were met from the island’s mines, fields and forests. Anything that the kingdom did not produce was imported” (Hefner, 1997). The people were ruled by the laws passed down to them by Poseidon himself and the country became great. After generations, the rulers had degenerated into power-hungry gluttons and they began a war with the Athenians of Greece. In Plato’s story, his character Solon was informed by Egyptians that the Athenians had defeated the Atlantians 9,000 years earlier. “These ancient and powerful kings or rulers of Atlantis had formed a confederation by which they controlled Atlantis and other islands as well. They began a war from their homeland in the Atlantic Ocean and sent fighting troops to Europe and Asia. Against this attack the men of Athens formed a coalition from all over Greece to halt it. When this coalition met difficulties their allies deserted them and the Athenians fought on alone to defeat the Atlantian rulers. They stopped an invasion of their own country as well as freeing Egypt and eventually every country under the control of the rulers of Atlantis” (Hefner, 1997). The defeated Atlantians had returned home to be killed in a tremendous natural disaster that caused their entire nation to be obliterated as punishment for going against the laws of the gods. The clues that Plato provides makes it seem as though the location of such a unique geographical features and size would be easy to find and thus prove the story true or false. One of the clues Plato gives is that the nation was located to the west of the “Pillars of Hercules” which is today called the Straits of Gibraltar (Krystek, 2006). In spite of numerous efforts to find it though, the proof that the island existed, as well as the proof that it did not, has been elusive. “In 1882 a man named Ignatius Donnelly … located Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the Azores Islands represented what remained of the highest mountain peaks” (Krystek, 2006). Although his theories were eventually rejected, this did not prevent a number of other potential sites from being proposed. “People have made cases for places as diverse as Switzerland, in the middle of Europe, and New Zealand, in the Pacific Ocean. The explorer Percy Fawcett thought that it might be located in Brazil” (Krystek, 2006). One of the more accepted possibilities is that the famous island was actually east of the Pillars on the still existing island of Crete. Although not fully accepted as the answer and in no way verifiable, the argument that Crete is the potential site of the terrifying Atlantians and the site of the world-shattering blast that destroyed them forever is greatly supported by what is known of the history of the area 900 years prior to Plato’s story. If Plato got the numbers wrong and the directions wrong, much of the rest of the story seems to fit. However, because no definitive location has yet been discovered, scientists continue to question whether or not the nation ever existed at all. There are reasons to doubt Plato’s words. It is known that much of his work was dedicated to developing his theories regarding the perfect society. Plato’s pupil Aristotle insisted that his tutor wrote the story as a parable and that is still largely how it is accepted (Hefner, 1997). “Plato was not describing a real place any more than his allegory of the cave describes a real cave. The purpose of Atlantis is to express a moral message in a discussion of ideal societies, a favorite theme of his” (Popa, 2009). As this author points out, it is unusual that such a traumatic event as a dominant naval society being wiped out by the gods would have been so completely wiped from the memory of the people as to have never been mentioned by anyone else in Greek society other than Plato who was known to make up stories to make a point. Another difficult point is the dates that Plato gives for these events. Nine thousand years prior to Plato takes human beings back into very primitive societies in which the levels of advancement discussed would have been extremely unlikely. The potential reality of Atlantis is not helped by the Atlantis buffs who suggest it had otherworldly origins or connections. “The Atlantians were extraterrestrials who destroyed themselves with nuclear bombs or some other extraordinarily powerful device” (Popa, 2009). Some scientists have worked to link stone age cave paintings found on the continent with the advanced culture and civilization of Atlantis as the few survivors made their way to new lands. There are even theories that the Atlantians were the active members involved in phenomena such as the similarities in cultural elements such as written language, mathematics and pyramid building on both sides of the Atlantic and other constructions such as the Nazca Lines with the help of their alien flying machines. It is clear that the question of Atlantis is not a simple issue with any ready answers available. The strongest argument for the nation remains the possibility that Atlantis and the ancient vanished civilization of Minoa might be one and the same. This is largely the result of comparing known archaeological and geologic facts that strongly correlate with information provided by Plato. However, changes must be made to Plato’s account, in precisely those areas that scientists are most ready to trust – numbers, dates and directions – before these events can be linked. That no other viable landmass has been discovered is not sufficient to settle the dispute one way or the other while wild theories continue to abound. In the end, the truth or untruth of the ancient island nation seems to be ultimately determined by how one wishes to define their criteria for proof. References Hefner, Alan G. (March 3, 1997). “Atlantis: The Myth.” Encylopedia Mythica. Available July 12, 2009 from Krystek, Lee. (2006). “The Lost Continent: Atlantis.” The Museum of Unnatural History. Available July 12, 2009 from < http://www.unmuseum.org/atlantis.htm> Popa, Cristian. (2009). “Atlantis.” The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Available July 12, 2009 from < http://www.skepdic.com/atlantis.html> Read More