Plato much believed that the civilization of Atlantis existed (Writer873). The origins of Atlantis are written in Plato’s “Critias” and “Timaeus” (Plato). Written around 350s B.C., the main character Solon, travels to Egypt and learns of Atlantis by priests (Writer873). He claimed his dialogues to be true records (Atlantis Subplots). Timaeus explains Atlantis was the “island situated in front of the straits, which are by you called Pillars of Herakles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together” (Plato). It goes on further “Atlantis was a great wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island” (Plato). Through short explanations Timaeus ends Atlantis “defeated and triumphed over the invaders,” “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 sea” (Plato).
Plato isn’t one for depth in Timaeus, but he vaguely states there was a battle against invaders and after Atlantis’ triumph the city falls in twenty-four hours from natural disasters (Plato). He doesn’t explain who the invaders were or if there were any possibilities for natural disasters to demolish an empire that stood for 9000 years prior of Timaeus being written. Fortunately, Plato wrote a second piece, Critias, to fill in most of the holes. Unfortunately, Plato never completed Critias.
Critias starts with a vivid description of Atlantis, similarly describing that of “volcanic island” (The Island). The war is stated to be against Athens and describes the “allotments” each ruler “received each one his own” (Plato). Then Poseidon is put in the picture and is said to “begat” five...
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...an numerals on Plato’s part, or mistake in translation on Plato’s work” (Writer873) is the cause of one extra zero.
Works Cited
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The ginormous volcano at Akrotiri on the island of Thera during the Bronze Age was devastating, and is speculated to be related to the fall of the Minoan civilization. Starting in 1867, archeologists discovered pottery, a buried city and frescoes. These discoveries are the most significant as the pottery and the buried city helped historians learn about the art, trade and societal aspects of Akrotiri, and the frescoes found revealed more information about Akrotiri’s art and religion.
The development of an empire is a change strongly emphasized in the Archeology as a radical departure from the Hellenic tradition, and consequently a major source of conflict among the Greeks. Prior to the adven...
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I believe the Mycenaean’s took advantage of the confused Minoans to invade, burning most of the palaces and keeping Knossos as the head installation. We know the Mycenaean’s are a war-like people, so the concept of invasion is not out of character. Their invasion is proved by the new pottery and introduction of Linear B tablets.
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The Mycenaean civilization flourished for four hundred years in the late Bronze Age before collapsing in to small bands of subsistence farmers. Some historians attribute this decline to ‘the Sea People’ who terrorized the Egyptians, Anatolians and the Hittites. But could a mysterious people who left no archeological proof of their existence really bring about the collapse of entire civilizations?
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In 1882, Ignatius L. Donnelly published a book named “Atlantis: the Antediluvian World”. In this book, Donnelly tried to demonstrate his hypothesis that all known ancient civilizations were descended from a specific civilization, which was Atlantis. He observed that ancie...
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