Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Atlantis

Atlantis: We will never knowFantasy is a tough sell in the twentieth century.

The world has been fully discovered and fully mapped. Popular media has

effectively minimized the legend and the fantastic rumor, though to make

up for

this it has generated falsities not as lavish but just as interesting. Satellites

have

mapped and studied the earth, leaving only a space frontier that is as yet

unreachable.

But standing out is a charming fantasy the modern world has yet to verify

or condemn:

the lost continent of Atlantis.

The father of the modern world’s perception of Atlantis is Plato (circa

428-

circa 347 b.c.). (1) The Greek philosopher spoke in his works Timaeus and

Critias of a

continent in the Atlantic ocean larger than Africa and Asia Minor combined

which rivaled

Athens as the most advanced in the world. (2) According to the legend surrounding

Plato’s dialogues, the island of Atlantis was violently thrown into the sea

by the

forces of nature, and its few survivors managed to swim ashore and relate

their story.

(3) There the legend was passed by word of mouth until an Egyptian priest

related the

story to Solon, a character in Timaeus. The priest admired the achievements

of

prehistoric Athenians, because when the rulers of Atlantis threatened to

invade all of

Europe and Asia the Athenians, on behalf of all Greeks, defeated the Atlanteans

to avoid

enslavement. (4)

The works of Plato opened the floodgates to endless speculation on whether

the

continent described was fact or fiction. Atlantis has since been placed in

Spain,

Mongolia, Palestine, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, Greenland

and Yucatan.

Every nook and cranny of the globe has been hypothesized; mountain peaks,

desert lands,

the ocean floor and even the barren wasteland of Antarctica have been mentioned

in

theories. (5)

While some of these theories are compatible with Plato’s works and are within

relative reason, numerous crackpot theories have been developed using the

lost continent

as a basis. One of these theories, posted on the computer internet where

it has access

to over fifteen million people, talks in twenty-one pages of pre-historical

lands with

names like Oz and Luxor. These world wide web pages list over two hundred

separate

articles of proof for the existence of Atlantis, as in the following: (6)

“Most all ancient civilizations believed in the TITANS, the race of giant

humans that inhabited Earth long ago. Different races knew them by different

names.

These 7 to 12 foot humanoids were thought to be legendary until the excavation

of over a

dozen skeletons 8 to 12 feet tall, around the world, shocked archeologists.

These

skeletons were positively human. Some of these skeletal remains are on Maui

in lava

caves near Ulupalakua and Olowalu. The Spanish Conquistadors left diaries

of wild

blond-haired, blue-eyed 8 to 12 foot high men running around in the Andes

during the

conquest of the Incas. A couple were reportedly captured but died en route

to Europe. If

giant animals (dinosaurs) were possible then why not giant men? And why are

these

goliaths populating both Eurasia and the Americas? Only on a land bridge

created by the

vast continent of Antarctica can there be a sufficient bridge for the spread

of these

giants.”(7)

This text, written by self-proclaimed Atlantologist Steve Omar, represents

Plato’s text taken to the extreme- using his ideas as a basis for outlandish

and

unfounded ideas.

These unverified fantasies make a dubious complement to the other dark side

of

the Atlantean fantasy: hoaxes. Atlantis has been “discovered” many times,

but most

notably in the fall of 1912 by Dr. Paul Schliemann. Schliemann introduced

himself as the

grandson of the famous Heinrich Schliemann, the archeologist who discovered

the ruins of

ancient Troy in 1873. His “discovery” made front page news (The New York

American,

October 1912.) and boasted of an advanced civilization with aircraft,

power-driven boats

and the like. Schliemann said his grandfather told him on his deathbed of

the family’s

secret: the location of Atlantis. Schliemann’s claims made waves, but didn’t

hold water;

when pressed for details, Schliemann was unresponsive and eventually disappeared

from

public view. (8)

Unfortunately, the falsities concerning Atlantis frequently overshadow the

possibilities. The subject has gathered its share of honest journalists as

well.

Ignatius Donnelly wrote the first extensive study of the possibility of existence

in

1882, and his views have not been found to be false with twentieth century

technology.

Donnelly believed in Atlantis, but believed it to be worldly; his reasons

for Atlantis’s

existence are unable to be proven, but make sense. Some examples:-There is nothing improbable in Plato’s narrative; it describes rich, cultured

and

educated people but doesn’t mention things of fantasy like giants, hobgoblins

etc. (9)-Plato speaks of hot and cold springs in the center of Atlantis, a feature

common to

islands with volcanic activity. Chances are Plato didn’t know this. (9)-Plato says in his stories that the Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, is

always seen

on a chariot with horses because he was originally the god of Atlantis, where

horses

were domesticated. But when Atlantis fell to the sea, the Greeks believed

Poseidon

brought his horses with him. (9)Responding partly to Donnelley’s theories and partly to the urge to discover,

some 20th century archeologists have used twentieth century technology to

look for

Atlantis. But many have dismissed Atlantis as glorified myths of volcanic

eruptions in

the island of Thera in 1450 b.c. The eruption may have destroyed that island

and caused

a small earthquake and tsunamis that ruined the civilization of Crete, but

didn’t sink a

continent. (10)Therefore, none of Donnelley’s theories can be proved without the actual

discovery of the continent. The legend of Atlantis is only a huge collection

of theories

and guesses, but theories and guesses also led to the discovery of the lost

Roman cities

of Pompeii and Herculaneum, discovered after being buried and preserved by

the volcanic

ash of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. Because of this, the mystery of Atlantis’s existence

will

tantalize the world until the continent is either proven or disproven. (11)