22.03.2011, 05:59
A remarkable find. An old city certainly, but Atlantis? Nope. That's just wishful thinking. Atlantis is after all a fictional allegory of man's folly, written by Plato and based on an obscure tale told by Solon who had heard it from Egyptian priests.
It actually refers to the Santorini explosion and the destruction of the Minoan Empire. The sudden demise of that powerful culture by the effects of a depression wave left a deep scar in folk lore.
What happened was that sea water got into a volcanic rift under the sea off the coast of Santorini following an earthquake. The resulting steam pressure blew the island to smithereens. This probably wasn't too suprising because we know there was a central volcanic cone in the middle of Santorini in minoan times which indicates a previous explosioon in distant prehistory.
The space left by the explosion rapidly filled with seawater. The water then piled up under momentum and then spread outward again as a tsunami. You can try this at home. Place your hand on a water surface. Wait for the surface to calm. Then sudeenly push down into the water. Initially the water will rush in and spout upward, then you'll see a tiny tsunami spreading out.
Because Plato wanted to make it a morality tale he exeggrated the scale of 'Atlantis' to a mini-continent bigger than Libya. However, the mediterranean world was full of people who knew their way around, and to suggest Atlantis was a huge land mass in the Med was going to cause scorn and amusement. So Plato simply moved it beyond the Pillars of Hercules (The Straits of Gibraltar) because no-one knew what was out there.
In a sense, Plato wrote a science fiction novel. Atlantis isn't real. Never was.
It actually refers to the Santorini explosion and the destruction of the Minoan Empire. The sudden demise of that powerful culture by the effects of a depression wave left a deep scar in folk lore.
What happened was that sea water got into a volcanic rift under the sea off the coast of Santorini following an earthquake. The resulting steam pressure blew the island to smithereens. This probably wasn't too suprising because we know there was a central volcanic cone in the middle of Santorini in minoan times which indicates a previous explosioon in distant prehistory.
The space left by the explosion rapidly filled with seawater. The water then piled up under momentum and then spread outward again as a tsunami. You can try this at home. Place your hand on a water surface. Wait for the surface to calm. Then sudeenly push down into the water. Initially the water will rush in and spout upward, then you'll see a tiny tsunami spreading out.
Because Plato wanted to make it a morality tale he exeggrated the scale of 'Atlantis' to a mini-continent bigger than Libya. However, the mediterranean world was full of people who knew their way around, and to suggest Atlantis was a huge land mass in the Med was going to cause scorn and amusement. So Plato simply moved it beyond the Pillars of Hercules (The Straits of Gibraltar) because no-one knew what was out there.
In a sense, Plato wrote a science fiction novel. Atlantis isn't real. Never was.