History (Opinion) Minoan Crete is the truth behind the Atlantis myth

Lord Sovereign

Lord Sovereign

The resident Britbong
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To my mind, it could not be more obvious. A nigh invincible ancient thalassocracy, far more technologically advanced than its neighbours, built upon a rich island. Who fits the bill for all of this as far as the Iron Age Eastern Mediterranean would be concerned?

Even Atlantis’ apocalyptic end matches up with the Theran Eruption crashing and burning the Minoan Empire.

“Ah, but Herodotus Plato got the story from Egypt!”

Yes, but Minoan civilisation is about as old as Pharaonic Egypt, so the Egyptians of the 5th century BC would view that as preposterously ancient. And I’d bet good money that the Minoans made contact with the Egyptian Old Kingdom first, and I can’t imagine what the Egyptians in their thatched reed boats would have made of sleek galleys and sails appearing over the horizon. It would leave quite the impression.

Even the bit about the Atlanteans being at war with Athens? Plato jerking Athens off aside, I wonder if that is a dim memory of the proto-Mycenaeans starting to cause trouble and push back against Minoan Imperial hegemony.

Of any known contender for the Atlantis myth, the Minoans fit the bill the best. They are effectively the Sumerians of Europe, the fathers of us all, and I find them entirely worthy of being the truth behind the myth of the Lost Island.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk about ancient history. It is my great passion and I cannot shut up about it.
 
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Yes, the narrative is all from Plato. Herodotus never mentions Atlantis. There is some evidence that there were earlier accounts, and Plato claims that the story came from (his own ancestor) Solon. Who did indeed visit Egypt around the time Plato claims he did; and that's where he supposedly got the story.

Anyway-- @Lord Sovereign is right. The historical Thera eruption and the fall of the Minoan culture is almost certainly the proximate inspiration for the narrative.

This doesn't rule out other, potentially older, inspirations. Flood myths are a dime a dozen, often based on historical events, and often mixing a few vaguely remembered "big flood disasters" into one re-imagined narrative. Compare our current King Arthur mythos, which mixes elements introduced over roughly a thousand-year period. Stories change, stories grow.

The resemblance to actual history may be... merely a passing one.
 
Buba said:
Herodotus?
Didn't the Atlantis tale come exclusively from an essay where Plato was making some statement?
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Yes indeed. My apologies. My brain shat itself.

Skallagrim said:
Yes, the narrative is all from Plato. Herodotus never mentions Atlantis. There is some evidence that there were earlier accounts, and Plato claims that the story came from (his own ancestor) Solon. Who did indeed visit Egypt around the time Plato claims he did; and that's where he supposedly got the story.

Anyway-- @Lord Sovereign is right. The historical Thera eruption and the fall of the Minoan culture is almost certainly the proximate inspiration for the narrative.

This doesn't rule out other, potentially older, inspirations. Flood myths are a dime a dozen, often based on historical events, and often mixing a few vaguely remembered "big flood disasters" into one re-imagined narrative. Compare our current King Arthur mythos, which mixes elements introduced over roughly a thousand-year period. Stories change, stories grow.

The resemblance to actual history may be... merely a passing one.
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I myself think the flood myths may have ended up meshing with the story of Minoan Crete’s fall (no surprise of course, especially when you consider that Thera, a major Minoan settlement at the time, all but disappeared beneath the waves). On account of the end of the Last Ice Age, every culture has a flood myth. Given how oral story telling works, it would be no surprise for such a thing to get mixed up in other tales down the centuries.

But myth can, more often than not, tell truth. Plato bragging about Athens fighting Atlantis, especially if we regard Atlantis as the Minoans, rings a whole lot more heavily when you consider the myth of Theseus.

Especially when you consider that a Minoan outpost would have been in eyesight of pre-historic Athens.
 
The problem is, Atlantis is described geographically as being west of the Gibraltar, and those civilizations around Crete/Eastern Med have separate stories about the Mycenaeans, separate from the Atlantis myth.

I think Atlantis is far more likely to have been out in the Azores, than a misnamed Mycenae.
 
Bacle said:
I think Atlantis is far more likely to have been out in the Azores
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Azores had no human settlement before Portugese discovery and there is no geological indication of larger land are being there before. Similarly, while inhabited, Canary islands never had advanced civilization. Placing the Atlantis beyond Gibraltar is simply storytelling method of making story more mysterious, but the actual Atlantis was the Mycene civilization that collapsed following the Thera eruption.
 
PsihoKekec said:
Azores had no human settlement before Portugese discovery and there is no geological indication of larger land are being there before. Similarly, while inhabited, Canary islands never had advanced civilization. Placing the Atlantis beyond Gibraltar is simply storytelling method of making story more mysterious, but the actual Atlantis was the Mycene civilization that collapsed following the Thera eruption.
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If you go with the Mauritinia theory, it is west of the Gibraltar, and accessible primarily from the river to the south. (which fits the profile for Atlantis).
Cherico said:
I'm pretty much convinced there was a major copper age civilization before the bronze age one that got wiped out.
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Almost certainly, ye

It's a pity nobody has managed the funding yet to go digging in the area, there has to be so much buried there and in the Sahara as a whole.
 
Lord Sovereign said:
To my mind, it could not be more obvious. A nigh invincible ancient thalassocracy, far more technologically advanced than its neighbours, built upon a rich island. Who fits the bill for all of this as far as the Iron Age Eastern Mediterranean would be concerned?

Even Atlantis’ apocalyptic end matches up with the Theran Eruption crashing and burning the Minoan Empire.

“Ah, but Herodotus Plato got the story from Egypt!”

Yes, but Minoan civilisation is about as old as Pharaonic Egypt, so the Egyptians of the 5th century BC would view that as preposterously ancient. And I’d bet good money that the Minoans made contact with the Egyptian Old Kingdom first, and I can’t imagine what the Egyptians in their thatched reed boats would have made of sleek galleys and sails appearing over the horizon. It would leave quite the impression.

Even the bit about the Atlanteans being at war with Athens? Plato jerking Athens off aside, I wonder if that is a dim memory of the proto-Mycenaeans starting to cause trouble and push back against Minoan Imperial hegemony.

Of any known contender for the Atlantis myth, the Minoans fit the bill the best. They are effectively the Sumerians of Europe, the fathers of us all, and I find them entirely worthy of being the truth behind the myth of the Lost Island.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk about ancient history. It is my great passion and I cannot shut up about it.
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You have a point,but:
Ridiculously Average Guy said:
I thought the current guess for Atlantis is the Eye of Africa/Richat Structure? (sits in modern day Mauritania)
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You also have a point.

Personally,i think it could be Mauritania,Plato after all tell that it was West of Gibraltar.

But,whatever it was,it was certainly smaller then Plato Atlantis,becouse stories always made things bigger.
Best case is Iram,lost city from Koran which supposed to have Palace with 1000 golden columns - when brits found ruins after WW2,it was small fort in which maybe 200 persons could lived.
And where was no place for 1000 columns,golden or not.
 
PsihoKekec said:
Azores had no human settlement before Portugese discovery and there is no geological indication of larger land are being there before. Similarly, while inhabited, Canary islands never had advanced civilization. Placing the Atlantis beyond Gibraltar is simply storytelling method of making story more mysterious, but the actual Atlantis was the Mycene civilization that collapsed following the Thera eruption.
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Incorrect.


www.euronews.com

27,000 tremors shake Azores island as scientists try to solve 'enigma'

The number of daily quakes in Sao Jorge has decreased in recent days but experts are not sure if that trend will continue.
www.euronews.com www.euronews.com


The Azores are geologically active to this day, and submarine landslides can easily drag previously above water sections of an island down into the ocean.

They have found species/fossils in the landslide deposits that could only have come from much shallower water, AKA a much larger Azores, previously an above water plateau.
 
Bacle said:
The Azores are geologically active to this day, and submarine landslides can easily drag previously above water sections of an island down into the ocean.
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Do you have any idea of geological composition of these islands? Azores are result of volcanic activity and have been expanding over millenias, all of the geological surveys found no examples of the large scale collapses you are dreaming of. Tremors and mayor earthquakes have been plaguing inhabitants since the islands were settled and yet there were no collapses of the islands, they only grown through eruptions, last time it was in the previous century.

And most importantly, no signs of human civilization predating Portugese discovery were ever found on the islands, which shows the theory to be bogus. Even Santorini, which blew up Krakatoa style, left behind considerable archeological evidence, while there is nothing on the parts of the Azores that were untouched by lava for ten thousand years.
 

You obviously don't know/understand what a turbidite deposit is.

This raises the question of whether geological events (in particular, eruptions and landslides) can be detected offshore and dated, and whether any relationships (for example, with climate changes) can be revealed using sediment cores. The volcanically active central Azorean islands (Faial, Pico, São Jorge, and Terceira), with their neighboring submarine basins, are potentially good candidates for such an analysis. Here, chronostratigraphies of four gravity cores collected amongst the islands are constructed based on twelve radiocarbon dates and two dates derived by geochemically correlating primary volcaniclastic turbidites with ignimbrites on Faial and Terceira Islands. Age-depth models are built from the hemi pelagic intervals to estimate individual turbidite dates. Volumes of turbidites are modeled by multiplying basin areas with bed thickness, allowing for various turbidite thinning rates and directions.
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Ridiculously Average Guy said:
If you go with the Mauritinia theory, it is west of the Gibraltar, and accessible primarily from the river to the south. (which fits the profile for Atlantis).

Almost certainly, ye

It's a pity nobody has managed the funding yet to go digging in the area, there has to be so much buried there and in the Sahara as a whole.
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The problem is the people running the west are the managerial class, and their right to power comes from being 'experts' this means that when something proves conventional knowlege to be false they get really angry and pissy and try to bury or destroy it. Their not flexible people and their prideful by nature this means that a lot of socitial advances are being held up by them and we really cant progress until their out of power.
 
Bacle said:

You obviously don't know/understand what a turbidite deposit is.
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And all the exploration and research failed to uncover any proof of scenario you are dreaming of, everything points to Azores rising so far, there was no evidence of any major collapse of terrain features within Azores basin, the biggest collapses that could be identified are the ones that created falas on San Giorgio. Also for some reason you fail to understand what lack of any evidence of human settlement means.
 
Bacle said:
The problem is, Atlantis is described geographically as being west of the Gibraltar, and those civilizations around Crete/Eastern Med have separate stories about the Mycenaeans, separate from the Atlantis myth.

I think Atlantis is far more likely to have been out in the Azores, than a misnamed Mycenae.
Click to expand...
You do realize that not everything they say as part of the story is gospel right? As @Lord Sovereign said it’s probably the Minoans they had an ancient sea empire and were prosperous but were quickly broken by a natural disaster.

The ancient myths we tell have a kernel of truth in them but they aren’t documentaries that tell you everything.

For instance the Iliad is based on true events the Trojan war happened but did it happen exactly like how it was told. Unlikely.
 
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