Atlantis was an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on which there was a magnificent and refined civilization. The Atlantean empire
dominated Athens. The main city was on a mountain in the middle of rings of water and land, connected by bridges, the inner water rings
providing harborage for the Atlantean fleet. The Atlanteans had running water and other civilized comforts, but for their pride they were
humbled by the gods, their island mostly being sunk under the sea in a single day. The Athenians conquered what was left. According to the
Egyptian historians, this happened 9000 years before Solon of Athens learned the story from them around 600 BC.
Assuming that Plato told the truth as he understood it, and that the actual event on which the story was based was the catastrophic explosion
of Thera in 1650 BC,, the linkage between the actual event and Plato's telling is quite tenuous, covering a span of some 1200 years. It goes
from the event through whoever told the Egyptians about it, to several centuries of Egyptian archivists, to Solon, to Critias's grandfather's
manuscript, and finally to Plato. None of these links can be relied on for accuracy of detail, though if the Egyptians kept written records, they
would have remained unchanged up to Solon's time, and Solon might have transcribed them. If such written Egyptian records ever existed,
modern archaeologists have not found them. However, if we accept the thesis that the vanished island of Atlantis was Thera while the
vanished empire was the Minoan, many details of the event survived the re-tellings with surprising accuracy, despite the large errors of time,
place, and size.
dominated Athens. The main city was on a mountain in the middle of rings of water and land, connected by bridges, the inner water rings
providing harborage for the Atlantean fleet. The Atlanteans had running water and other civilized comforts, but for their pride they were
humbled by the gods, their island mostly being sunk under the sea in a single day. The Athenians conquered what was left. According to the
Egyptian historians, this happened 9000 years before Solon of Athens learned the story from them around 600 BC.
Assuming that Plato told the truth as he understood it, and that the actual event on which the story was based was the catastrophic explosion
of Thera in 1650 BC,, the linkage between the actual event and Plato's telling is quite tenuous, covering a span of some 1200 years. It goes
from the event through whoever told the Egyptians about it, to several centuries of Egyptian archivists, to Solon, to Critias's grandfather's
manuscript, and finally to Plato. None of these links can be relied on for accuracy of detail, though if the Egyptians kept written records, they
would have remained unchanged up to Solon's time, and Solon might have transcribed them. If such written Egyptian records ever existed,
modern archaeologists have not found them. However, if we accept the thesis that the vanished island of Atlantis was Thera while the
vanished empire was the Minoan, many details of the event survived the re-tellings with surprising accuracy, despite the large errors of time,
place, and size.
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