Atlantis is a place known to every consumer of literature, movies or history books. The idea of the lost island considered an utopic and advanced society whose wisdom could have brought peace and harmony to the world is an idea that has captivated dreamers for generations. Much has been written about it and many men have spent fortunes and sacrificed their lives in the quest for it. However, it is still one of the many myths or legends that have reached our days, but like every myth, it completely lacks truthfulness.
The origins of this story are known, unlike many other legends whose beginning is unknown. It was mentioned and described for the first time in the Dialogues of Timaeus and Critias, text written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle). The text was written about 330 years b.c.e. It is paradoxical that today many speak of it as a peaceful utopia, when according to Plato's notes:
“Atlantis is not a place to admire and imitate, nor the perfect society; it is the opposite, Atlantis is the embodiment of a prosperous, technologically advanced and militarily powerful nation that was corrupted precisely because of its economic prosperity, sophistication and power.”
Atlantis, in few words, is more the legend of a rival city of Athens than a submerged civilization. The conclusion is that Plato created Atlantis as a fictional literary element, because there are no traces of it in any other part of the world. There is no evidence from anywhere in the world that Atlantis existed before the famous philosopher wrote about it. The problem is that if Plato knew the effect of his writing it would make him laugh out loud. It is as if in two thousand years in the future someone will look for the "Middle Earth" of The Lord of the Rings or the Hogwarts in Harry Potter.
A series of "experts" on Atlantis has speculated on the alleged location of the fictitious place: each one with its particular set of evidence and arguments, has put it in the Atlantic Ocean, in Antarctica, in Bolivia, Turkey, Germany, Malta and Caribbean. Despite all, Plato left no doubts as to location: "beyond the Columns of Hercules; and it is described as larger than Libya and Minor Asia together." In other words, it was in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean. However, it was never seen in the Atlantic, or anywhere else. The only way to make Atlantis a place of mystery is to ignore the fantastic origin of Plato's history, forgetting that it was a moral and fantastic fable and to defend that the philosopher wrote something he really saw. None of the locations proposed above correspond to the original description.
The most obvious sign of the mythical Atlantis is that, despite advances in oceanography and soil mapping in past decades, no one has been able to detect traces of it. For two millennia, it is inconceivable that, assuming for a moment the unreal scenario that actually existed, the world's oceanographers, submarine operators and underwater probes have completely missed and overlooked a mass of land “larger than Libya and Minor Asia together.” What has been studied on tectonic plates also does not favor speculation: the sea expanded over time, not contracted, so it could not be used as an excuse for not detecting even the slightest trace of such territory. Therefore, the ocean floor could not have swallowed Atlantis, as some claim to justify its absence. Geology and modern archeology give a clear verdict: THERE IS NO ATLANTIS, and there was never such an advanced civilization with that name or any another similar one.
In conclusion ... nothing that has been written about Atlantis has the slightest archaeological, geographical, historical or logical evidence of its truthfulness. It is just a lucrative myth, just another one...
Josher
February 12, 2019
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