Atlantis, the Lost Continent
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Atlantis, The Lost Continent Judy Johnston (We are printing Miss Judy Johnston's complete source theme The Lost Island of Atlantis, not only because of its universal interest, but also because of the aid it may offer to those students who are preparing work along the same lines. We recommend it as interesting, informative reading.) THE FACTUAL BASIS FOR THE STORY II In addition to the historical and OF ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT archaeological findings of Schlie- mann in Russia and Crete, the OUTLINE discovery of lava in 1898 near the Since the Renaissance, when active Canary and Azora Islands offers interest in the 25,000 year old Platonian concrete historical support to the story of the lost island-continent of plausibility of the legend of a lost island empire. Atlantis w1l;srevived, archaeological find- A. Papyrus rolls found in the mgs and historical and geological know- museum of St. Petersburg, ledge have given support to the existence Russia, by Dr. Henry Schlie- of Atlantis, while cultural similarities mann refer directly to Atlan- between European and American civiliza- tis. tions have been the basis for locating l. Expedition by Pharaoh Atlantis as a continent in the Atlantic Sent Ocean, where both Plato and the roman- 2. Atlantean civilization at tically interested students place it. start of Egyptian history I The story of At1antis was first B. Some of the treasures of told by Plato in his dialogues Priam, found in 1873, are en- "Timaeus" and "Cr itias." graved with the name of the A. Plato had been told the king of Atlantis. s~ory, which was already C. A history of Atlantis on tab- eight thousand years old, by lets of clay is preserved in a his great grandfather who monastery in Central Asia. had heard it from Solon, a 1. Accompanied by map wise Greek. 2. Account of the breaking 1. Large island empire up of the continent 2. Great in commerce D. In 1898 it was shown that 3. Highly advanced civili- volcanic action had taken zation place near the Can a r y 4. Destroyed by an earth- Islands. quake in twenty-four 1. Laying of a cable hours 2. Lava, cooled on land, B. Although many passages in found ancient literature speak of III Ocean soundings proving that the islands which greatly resem- Canaries and Azores are peaks of ble Atlantis, none call it by submerged mountains and facts name, making Plato's account regarding the formation of the the only documentary evi- Great Central Gas Belt make the dence of the lost island's geological existence of Atlantis existence. "highly probable." A. The Dolphin Ridge is a sub- 1. Str abo, the geographer, merged mountain range go- first to mention Atlantis ing from northwest Africa after Plato and the Iberian Peninsula to 2. Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, described by Central America. Homer in the "Odyssey" 1. Azores and Canaries 3. Diodorus' description of 2. Unorganized masses of an island located west of rocks Libya in the ocean 3. Structural similarity of 4. Theopompus' reference European and American to the outside world mountain ranges 5. Skepticism in regarding B. Atlantis was submerged story as a myth because when the Great Central Gas of scientific discoveries Belt was formed under the -15--. Atlantic, according to one entirely discredit P'lato's geo- Belt was formed under the geologist. graphy are Atlantis m. Amer- ica, the cosmological Idea of 1. Northern and southern Karst, and the theory of Iand divisions between Ireland and Brit- 2. Gas chambers tany. C. The possibility of a flood, instead of an earthquake, de- C. The theory which builds o? stroying Atlantis has been Plato's account most fully ~s advanced. that advanced by LeWIS 1. Melted glaciers Spence and Ignatius Don- 2. Diamond fields support nelly that Atlantis ~as, m earthquake theory reality, an island m the IV There are eight main th;:;ories. of Atlantic Ocean. location of Atlantis now m exist- 1. Spence uses geology for ence. the basis of his conclu- A. The theories of 'l:'art~ssos, sion. North Africa, and Nigeria all 2. Donnelly uses the re- are lacking evidence. semblances between .the 1. Depend on archaeologi- culture of the Americas cal findings and Europe and Africa. 2. Only suggestive value at present 3. Theory most popular b~- B. Three of the theories which cause of its romantic interest. great is 1and - Atlantis was the largest island in the empire, vanish- group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean 2 ing fro m the and could be reached by going from one face of the earth island to another.3 in the space of a When the world was divided between day and a night the Olympians, the island of Atlantis and -has ever another story been told to the nearby land went to Poseidon, who match this one? Twenty-three hundred became the first Atlantean king and years ago the story of Atlantis was first founded the Poseidon Dynasty. After a told by Plato; today it is still as fascinat- while, Poseidon divided his land among ing and stimulating to the imaginative mind as it then was. his five sets of male twins. Atlas, the older one of the first sets, was the head When he was a child, Plato had been of all the rest, and was the one to whom told the story, already eight thousand the island was given. The entire island, years old, by his great grandfather who the capital city, and the surrounding sea had heard it from Solon, one of the wisest were all named after him _ thus, Atlan- of the ancient Greeks. Egyptian priests tis.'4 had related the story of Solon when he VIas traveling in Egypt.1 In Timaeus The island consisted of a large, fertile plain bounded on the north by high moun- Plato describes Atlantis as an island, tain ranges. The capital city, also called larger than Asia Minor and Libya com- Atlantis, was connected to the sea by a bined, lying ten thousand stadia (one deep, artificial canal and was surrounded thousand miles) beyond the Pillars of by three large stone walls.5 The city of Hercules, the ancient name for Gibralter. Atlantis was tamous for three things: two -16- :;:::: springs of running water, one hot and one means 'a center for commercial ex- cold, which Poseidon had created; a large change.'ll Before the Phaeacians had harbor with many. docks; and a magnifi- lived in Scher ia, they had lived in Hy- cent temple with much gold and silver pereia near the Cyclopes who are said to which was used for the worship of have lived in Sicily. They were brought Poseidon.6 The AtIanteans made their west to Scheria by Nausithons, a son of country a great commercial center and Poseidon. 12 Because of these resem- built many ships, temples, and canals; blances, "it is quite possible that Scheria, their main city resembled Carthage or the island of the Phaeacians in the Tyre at their peak of wealth and pros- Odyssey, is connected with Plato's perity.7 island." 13 "But in spite of the resem- For many years the Atlanteans dwelt blances, the differences are marked if' this land, living mainly by commerce enough to exclude the possibility of a and agriculture. After a while, however, direct relation between the Critias and the they became warlike and conquered much Odyssey. It is more likely that both con- of the territory within and around the tain elements of the same tradition, or Mediterranean. When they tried to con- elements of different versions of the same quer Greece, the Athenians rallied and tr adi tion." 14 managed to defeat the invaders. They A famous passage describing a some- were conquered in approximately 9600 what similar island located in the ocean B. C.8 While the Athenian army was still west of Libya is contained in the Histori- occupying the island of Atlantis, an earth- cal Library of Diodorus, a Sicilian histor- quake Came and in a day and a night the ian living in Caesar's time.15 Another entire land, with its temples, cities, civil- possible literary reference to Atlantis is ization, and people, disappeared. from the given by Theopompus of Chios, a contem- face of the earth. This is the essential porary of Plato's. This Greek historian material contained in Plato's dialogues, wrote that Europe, Asia, and Libya, the Timaeus and Critias, "not only the earliest three islands making up the known world, but the sole documentary evidence of the were surrounded by the sea with nothing existence of Atlantis."9 outside but a huge continent with much Strabo, the geographer, who was born gold and silver.I6 in 54 B. C. is the first to mention Atlantis Atlantis was reganded only as an in- after Plato.lO Although he did not be- vention of Plato's until recent years.17 lieve the tale, he tells of a first century After the Renaissance when interest in Stoic, Poseidonuis, who did believe it to the classics was revived, many men such be tnue. There are many passages in an- as Voltaire and Buffon seriously debated cient literature which are thought to refer the possibility of the island's real exist- to Atlantis although they don't call it ence.18. One reason for considering the by name. Scheria, land of the Phaeacians, story as fiction is that no writer before told of by Homer in the Odyssey, resem- Plato - even Herodotus who had visited bles Atlantis in many ways.