Atlantis: The Evidence
In this Timewatch special, historian Bettany Hughes unravels one of the most intriguing mysteries of all time.
She presents a series of geological, archaeological and historical clues to show that the legend of Atlantis was inspired by a real historical event - the greatest natural disaster of the ancient world.
She is tracing the origins of the Atlantis myth and presenting evidence that the Thera eruption inspired Plato's account of the mystical land.
2,400 years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote of an ancient island civilization of unparalleled wealth and splendor, which was struck by earthquakes and floods and was swallowed up by the sea in one grievous day and night.
"But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island." (Plato, as translated by Benjamin Jowett).
Many people can comment on what happened but that It’s only a personal opinion and they are saying they’re part of what they think it happened Everyone talks as if those far advanced civilizations are not still with us today they’re here who’s to say Antarctica isn’t Atlantis and that’s where they keep all of the far advanced civilizations you can’t believe television (tell lie vision) it might be a part of the Mandela affect the government will let you know what they want you to know and by the time it gets to the other millions of viewers of these pages story stretches a lot just like in the biblical books there’s no physical proof of Atlantis being underwater or being in a mountain in Antarctica that’s more logical being underwater literally as another person said when they finally discover or allow us to know the truth we have to wait until that time comes
I like Bettany Hughes, but they sure try very hard to convince us that Atlantis is a MYTH as usual. Also, find it strange that the Wikipedia page on Atlantis is locked so only a select few can modify it.
This programme overlooks completely Plato's Timaeus and refers only to his account in the Critias dialogue. In the Timaeus dialogue Plato tells us that he got the story from Solon who had visited Egypt and had been told about the fate of Atlantis from their written records. The idea in this programme that it was a legend based on folk traditions is rubbish. It shows the ignorance of the scholar on whose limited knowledge this programme was based. In Critias Plato clearly developed the story to suit his literary purposes. But it had a historical basis and that has been confirmed by all we now know about the Thera catastrophe.
When Plato said the size of Libya and Asia by Asia I think he meant Turkey
Well, Santorini. Hmm. About 10,000 years too late, according to Critias. Yes, Critias, not Plato. Criticizing Plato is like shooting the messenger, but I digress.
In the Azores you have the Mid-Atlantic Rift, which is constantly erupting forming new sea floor. You have the intersection of 3 tectonic plates, the North American, the European and the African or Nubian.
Under this geological train wreck you have a mantle plume, pumping up magma under the Azores plateau which is a lithosphere plate floating on a caldera but nobody seems to know how big it is. (Can you say SUPERVOLCANO UNDERWATER?) The magma under the plate comes from two sources, the mantle plume mentioned earlier and lithosphere melt caused by the great frictions and pressures involved.
This can be proven by the Helium isotope content of the magma coming from the seamounts covering the lithosphere plateau and the 16 surface volcanoes on the various Azores island group.
Now, if I were Plato and I wanted to make up a story about a sunken island on the Earth, I'd pick this area, too.
The problem is, in Plato's time how would he know all of this? Besides that, as I said, it was Critias who told the story anyway, so go ahead and keep shooting at the messenger and making these fantastic stories and documentaries about Santorini, and Thera.
The more of them that you make, the more egg you will be wiping off your face when science finally proves what really happened. On this one, there can be no archaeological digs.
The destruction was just too immense. In fact, it ended the most recent ice age...and by the way, how would Plato have known about this?
If you want to know why there are no records, I would refer you to the Taliban blowing up the statues of Budda in Afghanistan.
Yes it sank beneath the Earths crust bit by bit, it was large land masses and parts of the land masses are exposed especially where we find undersea structures. They fell into the dark side as a bunch of mad scientist thought they could spy on people just like they are doing today with this mindless technology. The moon did not exist then and they tried to pull in a stray body and place it in orbit but it broke in half and part of it went into the Atlantic ocean causing it to expand and this part of a moon is buried deep into the Earths crust, there is a part of the ocean where there is no crust, that could be where it is. The Video is interesting which goes to show things did happen. The people of that time were more advanced than we are today, they had space ships and for thousands of years they were at piece until darkness got in.
Seek and you shall find. After the wipe out of the lands the humans that survived started up the early Greeks and so on Then later an invasion of reptile race took control of this world and humanity has been in the dark ever since, and we are at the time where we are going to be set free, but we will need to help ourselves by waking up and take no notice of the crap spewed out by mindless media, so called education system and other parasites who want to keep you in the dark. the yeti or big foot or what ever each country calls these large creatures are the throw backs as they went backwards due to what happened, and here we are on the fresh hold and we need to wake up, because there are those who desire war and could throw us backward millions of years, if they are not stopped.
How is anybody supposed to understand what you're all talking about? The majority of the comments relating to this Documentary are not even coherent. Why do people believe themselves to be intelligent? This Documentary may or may not be accurate but the truth is, she is fit.
I don't understand everybody in here saying about how Plato wrote s*** when he was born around 450 B.C. ... 2000 years after the presumed cataclysm of Atlantis.. so how the f*** would he be able to witness it and write about it?
I read Platos account very carefully. It is obvious that his second hand account was definately incomplete and wrong in places. Plato new the difference between an island and a continent. If you read his account carefully it says Atlantis was an island, and then references a continent, but it can not be both. He wrote that it was 9000 years before him and the Athenians defeated the Atlantians. Archiology knows for a fact that Athens and that Greek culture did not even exist that far back. He also said it was larger than Libia and Asia combined. That would have made the land mass larger that 1/2 of the worlds land mass today. It is rediculous to think that a continent that size could just sink into the ocean. Anyone that understands anything about plate techtonics knows that the cause of such a catistrophic disaster would have destroyed all life on earth. There certainly would not have been anyone around to notice it missing the next day! There is only one letter difference in the greek word that was translated "larger than" in the text than a greek word meaning "between" which is exactly where the islands of Crete and Thera are located. They are directly between Libia and Asia. The egyptian records point to Crete, and Thera possibly being its capital and certainly its main traiding port. This video did not bring all the evidence to bare. In the Biblical book of Amos ch 9 the Philistines were from Caphtor which translated from the Strongs concordance means "a reath shaped island" which is exactly what Thera looks like. Archiology shows the Philistine art found in Palistine is near identical to that found on Crete. Also the archiological finds on Thera and Crete match exactly with Platos descriptions. The pillars of hercules are believed by some greek researchers to be a passage which ships passed between islands just off the coast of Greece.
In the first place, it wasn't Plato's great grand uncle, it was the great uncle of a young man named Timeus who traveled all over the ancient known world at a young age, much as Hippocrates, and tried to bring foreign knowledge to his people. His name was Solon and as a young man he traveled up and down the Nile trying to ulneash the secrets of their history to the rest of the world. He finally was able, with stubborness, wicked word-play, (he probably spoke egyptian) to annoy a priest of the first order of Ammon (read scholar, librarian, professor, teacher) who took the young Solon aside and told him (probably in Greek so he would not be misunsterstood) "You are not even what you think you are (your Greek people). You are merely the vestiges of your once and proud civilization. You have died in the great floods, only the shepards and goathedrerers who were in the mountains remain. The Alanteans mounted a great war to take our lands from us and came to the eastern Medditerran to do it. It was the Greek people who met the
Atlaneans and defeated them. Very unususal for a great Superpower of that time to give credit to another, especially one considered a Barbarian. Especilaly a learned man. Unless he was quoting actual history. Coming off his academics intstead of his Pharonics, the aqiecense of Pharonic greatness. He gave heroic stance to Solon, not only for him, but his people. No great empire of this period would have ever done so if it weren't written in the record.
Although I am not sure if Atlantis was real, I do believe it was based on some truth. There is more than enough evidence around the world to support the existance of civilizations existing in our past, that modern man and history has forgotten.
I cannot believe that we went from cavemen, to beings that understood astrology, advanced mathmatics, and the ability to create stone structures that are impossible for us to recreate today, in the timeline offered by our current records of history.
It is obvious that there is much more to the story of mankind. The way we look at our oldest written records as pure fairy tales and mythology is a mystery in itself.
When we cannot understand something in written records, we seem to either discredit it as mythology, or assume that fiction was the first purpose of the oldest text found?
I believe much has been hidden from us in history about our origin, because it didn't fit what the majority was willing to, wanted to, or able to believe.
With our new technology, we are finding so many more ancient sites today, I can only hope that the mysterious origin of modern man will be discovered someday and end the arguments over it among us.
If we are take the landmass of Atlantis being West of the Pillars of Heracles, then I'm surprised that no one has yet looked at the Cape Verde Islands. An archipelago full of volcanoes that were uninhabited until the Portugese discovered them in the 15th Century.
The Santorini theory of Atlantis fails entirely in light of the fact that the Minoan civilization reached its peak on Crete in the century AFTER that eruption. The Minoans were brought down by an invasion of the warlike Achaeans (ca. 1450 BC). And of course the location is all wrong; Plato is very clear that Atlantis was west of Gibralter. It was in fact a supervolcanic island off Portugal that exploded and sank in the 17th century BC (see Roots of Cataclysm, Algora Publ. NY 2009).
It was fiction when Plato wrote it. The Ancients understood Atlantis to be fictional.
Atlantis was NOT Santorini, or Crete's civilization. To understand it, you must follow the hole conversation on Plato's book. The participants of the dialogue mention Santorini as an example of the only similar to Atlantis catastrophe they knew, and made a hypothetical thesis on that. It is quite clear that they knew the difference. Also, Atlantis is clearly mentioned that was outside of the Columns of Heracles, which are at Gibraltar. There are many more elements like these in the original text to make it even more understood as well that we're talking for a continent between Europe, Africa and America.
I can understand that it's a bit difficult for everyone to follow greek philosophers when they discussed about something, but they're supposed to be archaeologists and should know what they're dealing with.
There is no better advise for everyone who is interested about this subject, than reading the text ''Timolaos and Kretias'' by himself from the most direct and precise translation possible.
i can only conclude based on your findings - the old man says, they might have been in a camp somewhere on the island then the lady says it was an organized departure or evacuation, both of them are correct and the latter might have included their writings with them when they evacuated the island and eventually reached the mainland and which plato somehow got hold of it a thousand years later.
you think he just re-published it?
But on the upside there was some interesting things about "bronze age" Crete, none of which had anything to do with Atlantis what about the line to do with it being beyond the pillars of hercules?
And why no mention of the fact that the sea levels rose 400 feet at the end of the last ice age in a geologically short period of time, a complete whitewash by those wishing to hide the truth. Don't waste your time watching this drivel.
Full of false assumptions, factual inaccuracies and out right lies and cherry picked lines that avoided the scope of Plato's account. One of the worst documentaries I have ever seen on the subject. Simply terrible. If you want something closer to the truth of the matter look into the work of Graham Hancock. What a waste of 59 minutes of my time.
i love docs like this!
@debs That's the first thing I thought! She's FIT!
Just a few comments.
1. yes plato heard it from his grandfather who in turn heard it from the Egyptians.
2. I have heard that the size decrepancies were due to a translation error by the Egyptians of a factor of ten. Making the island ten times larger than it actually was. This would explain why it was placed in the "Alantic" ocean rather than the Agean sea.
3. A Volcanic eruption of the size that we now know that Thera had, would have caused massive disruption of all sea faring peoples of the day.
4. The freash water wells on the island of Crete may well have been poisened by saltwater and made unuseable for many years afterward.
5. Remember it was a Bronze Age civilization. Not some advanced civilization as we now have worldwide today.
Yes they were VERY advanced compared to their neibors but not some "star faring race" as some people have sugested.
6. One of the rerasons that they were as advanced was postulated that unlike Greeks and others of that day, the Alantans could and did navigate over open water by use of some unknown knoledge. The Greeks would not sail anywhere that they could not see land to get their berings from. (following the coast line for example)
@dano
Interesting you mention the Azores. I have a sneaky suspicion there was once a large landmass there. If you look at a elevation plan of the area (Google Earth shows it well) you will see some radial marks that could have come from a large volcanic explosion.
This island would have been similar to Iceland, being created by a hotspot beneath the mid Atlantic trench. There would have been many volcanoes just like in Plato's description. It's close proximity to Africa means it could have been one of the first non-African places to be settled. Because it was surrounded by water the volcanic dust would have turned the water to mud just like in the description.
Many people will scoff at the thought though as there is little evidence for an island there let alone a civilisation.
My apologies. I appear to have made myself perfectly redundant without reading all the comments prior to posting. Someday our kin will unearth Chernobyl and treat it like the arc of the covenant. And the reincarnated Steven Spielberg will make another horrible Indiana Jones movie.
Stranger things than Atlantis lying on the sea floor have happened. The Piri Reis Map of Antarctica was discovered centuries before any recent explorers rediscovered the continent; only to find it encapsulated in ice. Hell, the Mayan Calendar is feat. The Aztecs weren't even responsible for creating their own capital. They just moved in after the smarter guys left, or the spacemen forged them to act as a beacon to bounce interstellar transmissions off. Perhaps all the really smart ancient scientists moved to the Azores until they were blown apart by a big undersea volcano and the subsequent earthquake storm that followed. Regardless of the actual existence of a single advanced culture we should gain the assumption that we don't give the ancients enough credit. Our brains haven't changed much in twenty-thousand years and neither has our capacity to absorb knowledge. Only our point of reference has changed. The earth does a good job of burying secrets. In a thousand years LA could very easily be reclaimed by the Mojave and we might be living in another dark age with no recollection of the past glory we had once achieved.
ha ha ha, yes the bible is point of reference for geological questions... c'mon don't embarrass yourself, come around