Ireland is Atlantis

bogwalrus

Came across this piece.

Don't know if it has popped up in here before.

http://usahitman.com/lost-ireland/


"A 2004 book investigating the myth of Atlantis said that the mythical island was almost certainly the island of Ireland. The claim was made by Swedish geologist Dr. Ulf Erlingsson[3]in his book Atlantis from a Geographer’s Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land. According to Erlingsson:[4]"

Wibbs

Atlantis was a fable. Plato the guy who wrote it (and didnt even finish the passage) said so. In the ancient world nobody seemed to pay a blind bit of notice to it. All that came much later.

Now it's possible Plato did take a historical place as a basis for his Atlantis story and in that case the island of Santorini or Thera/Thira as it was in the Aegean is by far the most likely candidate. A center of rade and culture of the Minoans, a bunch who made the Greeks on the mainland look like near savages at the time. Two storey houses, running water, huge fleet of ships, fancy temples and all that stuff.

Atlantis is described as an island of circles with a safe harbour in the center.

This is what Thera would have looked like originally.

This was before... well it blew itself to effin bits(vulcanology term) in a huge volcanic explosion that really ruined their day.

Also Atlantis is described as having three coloured soils black yellow and grey IIRC and you see this on Santorini even today(volcanic in nature).

dr gonzo

Wibbs wrote: »

Atlantis was a fable. Plato the guy who wrote it (and didnt even finish the passage) said so. In the ancient world nobody seemed to pay a blind bit of notice to it. All that came much later.

Now it's possible Plato did take a historical place as a basis for his Atlantis story and in that case the island of Santorini or Thera/Thira as it was in the Aegean is by far the most likely candidate. A center of rade and culture of the Minoans, a bunch who made the Greeks on the mainland look like near savages at the time. Two storey houses, running water, huge fleet of ships, fancy temples and all that stuff.

Atlantis is described as an island of circles with a safe harbour in the center.

This is what Thera would have looked like originally.
[IMG][/IMG]
This was before... well it blew itself to effin bits(vulcanology term) in a huge volcanic explosion that really ruined their day.

Also Atlantis is described as having three coloured soils black yellow and grey IIRC and you see this on Santorini even today(volcanic in nature).

My only problem with the Thera theory (:cool:) is that this society would have been contemporary with Minoan Crete, as you rightly point out Wibbs, and thus descriptions of the island's tech advancements as evidence for atlantis just doesnt sit right. Crete would have been the more impressive location and that was still there...

In other words the idea of the rise and fall of a magnificent, advanced society is somewhat negated in this case when the homeland from which these advancements were derived was still intact.

I hope this doesnt sound argumentative Wibbs, its just something Ive coincidentally being giving some thought recently after seeing this theory put forth in a documentary a few months back.

Wibbs

Oh sure Dr. G, I defo see what you mean, but for my mind Plato was knocking up a morality tale, a warning to contemporary Greeks of a culture that gets too big for it's boots and the gods take em out("hint hint lads, dial it back"). The Minoans would have been a bit too fancy for your Greeks and I'd reckon they'd have seen them overall as those "fancy dissolute bastards" and that memory would have been strong down to the time Plato was staring at the blank screen of his MacBook going "damned writers block!".

Why Thera rather than wider Minoan Crete? Storytelling I'd say and in fairness oul Plato could knock out a cracking yarn when he had a mind to*. And cracking yarns were the order of the day. If he had written "well there were these Minoan dudes(fancy dissolute bastards), who had a great trading empire in Crete and an amazing outpost on Thera. One day Thera went bang, blew the people to seven shades of poo poo, people left for a time, the resulting tsunami(plato, note to self WTF is a tsunami? Cool word mind you) took out much of coastal Crete and after a while their whole civilisation kinda petered out. The fancy dissolute bastards. Oh and there is the story of the city of Helika(SP) that sank beneath the waves in one day..." Well then it wouldn't have been much of a yarn. Look how Hollywood even today takes a "true story" and cuts boring stuff out, truncates timelines, even changes major facts in the real story to make for a better yarn.

So while I think you're dead on right Dr G, it's not all about Thera, Thera might well have informed the story that Plato was trying to tell, hence the parallels. With his customary showboating of course. I love that his name may mean chunky bugger, "broad" of body. A prop forward that liked his grub with the mind of a god. No scrawny aesthete. Well cool





*Plato can be a bloody hard read, but he does like to spin great yarns even when discussing really effin heavy philosophical notions. The guy is so well worth the effort. A truly clever clever bloke. When I read a passage and struggle to get what hes on about, I'm not thinking he's doing this for some intellectual effect, its because what he's discussing is actually that complex(unlike a lot of philosophers) and I know I'm forever playing catch up dribbling in the corner. Socrates is another like this(though through the prism of Plato). I find Aristotle is a lot more accessible, more "real world: by comparison, which in itself is a major talent. That might be me mind you.

dr gonzo

Yep, absolutely agree with you. Parallels and inspiration is about as close as Atlantis got to being a real place. Its fairly clear (at least in my mind) that Plato was speaking allegorically.