Lost City of Atlantis

The fabled "Lost City" of Atlantis is one of mankind's greatest and most enduring mysteries. First written of 2,350 years ago by the Greek philosopher Plato in his works the Timaeus and the Critias, the island beneath the sea has fascinated historians, poets, and the public ever since, but has remained tantalisingly hidden, shrouded in myth, legend and exaggeration.

However, a new book by acclaimed historian Andrew Collins provides for the first time a clear argument for the civilization's existence and a pointer to its location.

Plato described Atlantis as an empire founded by the sea god Poseidon on a land mass the size of "Libya and Asia put together". It possessed a thriving capital, with sumptuous palaces, royal courts and harbours constantly receiving vessels from all over the world. For many generations, it ruled the Atlantic Ocean as well as parts of what Plato called "the opposite continent", what we now know as the Americas.

Its downfall came when its masters set their sights on conquering the Mediterranean. The Greeks rose in defiance and, in a terrible naval battle, defeated the Atlanteans. In the wake of this defeat, the god Zeus unleashed earthquakes and floods and submerged the island of Atlantis in a single "terrible day and night". Plato gives two dates for this catastrophe: 8,570 BC in the Timaeus, and 9,421 BC in the Critias.

More than 2,000 books have been written about Plato's lost kingdom, placing it in the Americas, the mid-Atlantic, North Africa, Northern Europe and Antarctica. The current favourite location in academic circles is Crete.

But Collins says we must look for Atlantis in the place where Plato said it was all along: the Atlantic. In the Critias, he records that the island had a vast, irrigated plain that "stretched for three thousand stadia [552km] in one direction, and at its centre, for two thousand [368km] inland from the coast". To the north, west and east were "mountain ranges" stretching to the shoreline, and the southern end of the plain was at sea level and housed the great capitol. Plato was thus describing an east-west oriented island, perhaps as little as 700km by 400km in size.

The great size attributed to Atlantis by Plato refers not to the "home" island, but to the extent of the empire over which the Kings of Atlantis held dominion. The Empire consisted of a series of islands that lay in front of the "opposite continent". But if the opposite continent was the Americas, and thus the series of islands referred to situated on the West Atlantic seaboard, then how could Plato, writing in 350 BC, know of their existence? After all, America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Yet there is evidence to suggest that there was transatlantic contact thousands of years before Columbus. In Paris in 1976, the mummy of Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II was found to contain tobacco. The implications were clear; the tobacco plant, thought to have been introduced to the west by Sir Walter Raleigh was known in the Ancient World as early as 1200 BC. In 1992, the German toxicologist Svetlana Balabanova examined mummies in the Munich Museum. Extensive evidence was found of high amounts of cocaine having been absorbed into the bodies. Cocaine is the active ingredient of the coca plant, native only to the Americas. Thus the possibility stands that coca leaves were being imported to Ancient Egypt via transoceanic contact with the Americas.

Also, in the eastern provinces of Mexico are great stone heads, each weighing several tonnes, positioned at the centres of the Olmec peoples who thrived between 1200 and 400 BC. They display Negroid features, suggesting the presence of black Africans in the American continent at this time. Other statues show Semitic features, suggesting contact with Mediterranean seafarers.

AND the evidence mounts. As a consequence of the submergence of Atlantis, Plato tells us "the outer ocean [the Atlantic] cannot be crossed or explored, the way being blocked by mud, just below the surface, left by the settling down of the island". This can only have been what we call the Sargasso Sea; the free floating seaweed stretching between the Azores and the Bahamas. The Bahamas are notorious for shallow banks and take their name from the Spanish "baja mar", meaning shallow sea.

It seems certain, concludes Collins, that Plato's Atlantis was on the western Atlantic seaboard, somewhere in the Caribbean. In the Timaeus, Plato tells us the island was situated within easy reach of other islands that acted like stepping stones for voyagers. Such a description matches the chains of the Caribbean. The idea that Atlantis may have been in the Caribbean is not new. In 1798, Italian scholar Paul Cabrera identified Atlantis with Hispaniola, or Haiti and the Dominican Republic as the land mass is now called. He thought so "not only on account of its position and magnitude exceeding all others, but also from its fertility and numerous navigable rivers".

However, he picked the wrong island. Plato tells us "the district as a whole...was of great elevation and its coast precipitous", an adequate enough description of Hispaniola's mountainous coastline. However, the island had no strategic importance to seafarers, unlike neighbouring Cuba, whose many lobe-like bays made for better ports. Furthermore, Cuba's coastal waters guard the northerly and southerly entrances to the Gulf of Mexico, making it ideal for journeys to Mexico or North America.

Cabrera's claim that Hispaniola was "in magnitude exceeding all others" is also wrong. At around 640km by 256km, it is around two thirds the size of Cuba. He also mentions Hispaniola's "fertility" and Cuba is the most fertile island of the Caribbean, famous for tobacco and sugar. Cuba also has "numerous navigable rivers".

All this suggests Cuba is the location of Atlantis. According to Plato, "around the city was a plain, enclosing it and itself enclosed in turn by mountain ranges which came down to the sea". The description matches Cuba's western plain, that stretches from Havana westwards to Pinar del Rio. Until around 9,000 years ago, the plain extended southwards, across what is today the bay of Batabano to the Isle of Youth. In other words a great plain, drowned in part during the time Plato wrote of.

And it is the great drowning, the "terrible day and night", that provides the last piece in the puzzle. Just such a cataclysm did annihilate the western Atlantic at the time Plato posits for the destruction of Atlantis.

In around 8500 BC, a comet exploded above North America. The fragments made more than 500,000 craters, known as the Carolina Bays, ranging from a few hundred metres to 11km in length. Each explosion held the force of a small nuclear blast, causing a huge tidal wave drowning the Caribbean and Bahamas. Any great civilization on Cuba would almost certainly have been razed, ruined, and lost to the sea - as if Zeus himself had struck it down.

• Gateway to Atlantis, by Andrew Collins with an introduction by David Rohl, published by Headline, at £18.99, is available from The Express Bookshop, 250 Western Avenue, London W3 6EE or call 0870 901 9101.

I believe it did. Some require hardcore proof... - I have enough information to believe in it's existence. Scientist believe they have found part of a stone road underwater that may have been part of Atlantis, Georgia.
Atlantis is very real a rare genetic trait can be found in random countries around the world amongst men, children,women, and some very rare salmanders. the genetic trait amongst all others can not be traced anywhere. I think Atlantis is in the Bermuda Triangle not all of the city flooded and they are very advanced so advance a glass dome protects the island...
Yes Atlantis, Georgia did exist. Some on the island still exist.

Atlantis is one of the most famous legends that are believed to be true.
the info clearly states that the Atlantis was of great existence a long time ago

I also believe Atlantis existed as per the writings of the late prophet David Brandt Berg. In his writings he stated that once North America was joined to Europe and South America to Africa. Push North and South America against Europe and Africa and they almost fit! There was at one time some land between them which is now lost in legend as the Lost Continent of Atlantis.

Also see Lemuria for similar cultures.

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The short answeris that The Bermuda Triangle is supposedly where Atlantis is located.

2nd Answerer says: Atlantis is a lost island near the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. This is in the western corner odf the Bermuda triangle. Berliz ( a famous writer and languager teacher_ wondered if something remained of that powerful civilization.If it did perhapes it had something to do with the disaperences.

" When the great gods divided the Cosmos between them, Poseidon the Lord of the Ocean took possession of a chain of islands stretching from Spain to central America. The largest of these islands was as big as the whole of Asia Minor.

When Poseidon inspected his new domain he found the islands to be more beautiful than anywhere else in the world. Every leaf on every tree glistened as brilliantly as an emerald, and the rolling pasturelands were as sleek and green as the waves of a summer sea. The flowers were so richly scented that they made the warm air as intoxicating as wine. Great herds of tame cattle grazed the pastures, the water in the streams was as clear as crystal and as fragrant as clover, while the hillsides shone with veins of white, black, and red marble and with deposits of every kind of precious metal.

The great god discovered that the people of the islands were singularly handsome and intelligent, but so newly created that they had no leaders or social organisation. They had not even given a name to their island home.

As Poseidon explored the land he came to a hill rising from the very center of the largest island, and he climbed through its flowering forests until, close to summit, he found the abode of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She told him her name was Cleito. The dazzling glance of her sea-blue eyes, and the sumptuous beauty of her face and form, aroused such lust in the potent deity that he conquered her without delay. She responded ardently to his power and splendour and in due course bore him ten fine sons. They named the firstborn Atlas, and Poseidon named the islands and the surrounding ocean in honour of his son. They became Atlantis while the oceanis the Atlantic.

Poseidon is the most violent and most jealous of the gods, distrustful of all mortals including Cleito, and so he isolated her upon her hill by digging three great moats around it. Each was about a kilometre wide, and separated from the others by a circle of land of the same width. Thus the Hill of Cleito was surrounded by great concentric circles of land and water. When Poseidon's ten sons grew to maturity he made them all into kings, each with responsibility for one-tenth of Atlantis. Under his orders they formed themselves into a council, led by Atlas, to rule the nation for the benefit of all its people. The Atlanteans were so vigorous and intelligent, so adept at developing their arts and technology and so industrious in exploiting the resources of the islands, that they soon established the world's first and finest civilisation.

With Poseidon's permission, and under the guidance of the ten kings, they built a magnificent city upon the circles of earth surrounding the Hill of Cleito. Atlantean architects used the red, black and white marble of their county to design buildings of dazzling splendour, with the three colours artfully blended or contrasted to attract and please the eye.

On the hill of Cleito they built her a great palace, and this together with the palaces of the ten kings and the temple of Poseidon all blazed with inlays of gold and precious stones.

The principle temple to Poseidon was the wonder of all the world. The pinnacled roof was so high that clouds drifted around its spires, and it contained an enormous image of Poseidon riding in his chariot attended by sea nymphs and dolphins. The unique beauty of the city, on its circles of land linked by great bridges across the circles of water, was further enhanced by brilliant gardens, groves of flowering trees, and innumerable sparkling fountains.

Great universities, observatories, libraries, laboratories and academies for people of all ages showed that Atlantis was the well-spring of human arts and sciences.

Portions of the city were devoted to commerce and industry, because the Atlanteans used the discoveries of their scientists and technologists as the basis of a flourishing trade with other nations. They dug a great canal from the city to the sea, so that ships could sail right up to the water-circles and pass from one to another by tunnels dug through the land-circles.

Visitors to the city wrote enthusiastically of its beautiful women and handsome men; of the freedom they enjoyed under the laws of the ten kings; of the skilled craftsmen who wrought in base and precious metals, and of fresh sea breezes which cleared the smoke of their foundries from the air; of the busy markets where countryfolk sold the rich and colourful produce of their farms; and of the frequent festivals which brought throngs of Atlanteans singing and dancing into the streets. The greatest of these festivals was staged once every five years, when the ten kings assembled in Poseidon's temple for their quinquennial parliament.

While they deliberated, stockmen drove a number of splendid bulls in from the outlying ranches and corralled them within the temple grounds. Great crowds assembled to admire these monstrous animals with their sleek hides and sword-like crescent horns, while warriors and nobleman prepared for the bull-hunt.

When the parliament was over, the bulls were released and the hunters chased them barehanded through the temple grounds, dodging their charges as they attempted to seize one and throw it to the ground. At last a group of hunters would manage to corner a bull and wrestle it to the ground, and the animal was then sacrificed to the glory of Poseidon. The other bulls were taken back to their ranches and the festival concluded with a great public banquet.

The scientists and technocrats of Atlantis were not jealous of their skills and learning. They acted as industrial missionaries who spread their knowledge all over the known world. They taught the Egyptians and the Mayans how to build pyramids and the Greeks how to construct Atlantes, the sculptured figures of males which support the architraves of temples and other buildings. They spread their knowledge of metallurgy, astronomy, medicine, magnetism, and many other arts and sciences, wherever the ships of Atlantis could sail. They invented reading and writing, mathematics, agriculture, architecture, and all the concepts of human civilisation.

It was rumoured also that Atlantean scientists expected to discover the mystic force which powers the Cosmos, and that when they had harnessed this force there would be no limit to human achievements.

For many centuries, Atlantis was the center of the world.

The peace and security of the nation were protected by a great army and navy, too strong to be challenged by any other country, and the Atlanteans enjoyed long contented lives of achievement and prosperity. But, about 1200 centuries ago, the parliament of the the Ten Kings began to alter its attitude towards the outside world. In one of the quinquennial parliaments, the kings decided that it was not enough for the Atlanteans to spread their civilisation far and wide. Those who benefited from the Atlantean technocracy should also become its subjects and pay tribute to their imperial masters.

Thus the Atlanteans embarked upon the conquest of the world. their ships took expeditionary forces to Central and South America, where they overwhelmed the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayas and sent rich booty back to Atlantis. Another force conquered the whole of North Africa, and regrouped in Egypt so that they might invade Greece and then sweep eastwards through the kingdoms of Asia.

In about 9500 BC, a great Atlantean invasion fleet sailed into the bat of Athens, where a vastly outmubered force of Athenians waited to resist them. When the two armies clashed the arrows flew in such clouds that they darkened the sky, the hooves of the chariot horses were like thunder upon Olympus, the brazen armour of the Atlanteans dazzled the eye and their spearheads seemed as multitudinous as wheat growing in a field.

But the Athenians fought desperately in defence of their city-state and at last the massed batalions of Atlantis faltered, fell back, and turned in headlong retreat towards their ships.

The Atlantean fleet was about to set sail when the whole sky turned the colour of dry blood, and a mass of black clouds swept across it with such a dreadful sound as had never been heard before. The seas rose in gigantic waves which swallowed the entire fleet, while the whole world reverberated with earthquakes and the ocean roared and rushed from one sea to another like water swilling around in an immense bowl. For days on end it seemed the whole Cosmos would fly apart. The skies deluged the earth with water, the mountains shuddered and cracked apart, the oceans were a torment of monstrous waves.

When at last the seas became calm again a few battered ships crept into port. They brought the news that Atlantis had disappeared, and that the Atlantic Ocean rolled over the place where this magnificent empire once flourished in all its glory.

Ever since those days, historians have debated the reason why Atlantis was obliterated. Some say that Poseidon was angered by the Athenian victory, and punished his people with total destruction. Others say that an Atlantean scientist had discovered the forbidden secrets of the Cosmos, and released the forces which may eventually destroy the whole of mankind." ---

Zuez saw how powerful the atlantians were beckoming so so in a blink of an eye Atlantis wwas brought dow, with it's people

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Many people believe that the historical basis for the Atlantis myth was the Minoan civilization on the island of Thera in the Mediterranean (now called Santorini).
The Minoan eruption is a key marker for the Bronze Age chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean world.
The Island exploded in a huge volcanic eruption that destroyed the Minoan civilization across the whole Mediterranean somewhere between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE.