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docyabut
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Topic: Plato`s Atlantis Posted: 11-Jan-2006 at 19:40 |
Hello all. My interest is in finding Atlantis and I do believe in, after all my studies that it was Herodutus `s Tartesso.
Timaeus
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 the sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arganthonios
When the capital fell the city and the empire sank into the Guadalquivir river. Mainake, the Greek colony which protected Tartessia from Carthage, also sank.
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 08:28 |
I have found such good infomation on this site like this one, and wonder what others think of Plato `s writings on Timaeus and Critias.
http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=ancient_iberia
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sedamoun
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 11:09 |
Atlantis is a myth.
Plato used the myth of Atlantis to promote the "Superiority" of Athens (which was at the moments of his writings in full decadence). As told by Plato, Atlantis' armies conquered Libya, Egypt and regions as far as Italy, but were defeated by Athens.
In a more scientific approach, Atlantis can be the extrapolation of the Santorini Island's Volcanic eruption - the black cloud - according to the legend - be seen by all of greeces' coastal cities.
Another theory is that Atlantis is based on the Cretan Civilization - Minoan.
Cheers and don't believe the hype.
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AlbinoAlien
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 11:21 |
I have heard of large stones being placed all around the world so that they relate to constellational stars. all of these huge boulders are about 3 feet high and perfectly round. there are theories that these boulders were used for starnavigation.
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people are the emotions of other people
(im not albino..or pale!)
.....or an alien..
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Maju
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 12:00 |
I believe that Atlantis was in Iberia but it wasn't Tartessos, which
belongs to the period that the Greeks would have recorded more or less
historically but to a more ancient period, of which not even
Phoenicians had memory and only Egyptians, not a sailor nation, but a
country with an old history and in contact with other Mediterranean
cultures, notably Minoan Crete were able to keep a diffuse memory of it.
I have posted in some other topics about what I think but I will
recapitulate. There was a notable but now mostly ignored civilization
in Portuguese central-coastal region that lasted from c. 2600 BCE to c.
1300 BCE, with apogee in the 2100-1900 period, where it was central to
the Bel Beaker phenomenon, which is thouht to be of mainly commercial
nature.
This civilization is known as culture of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro (VNSP),
for the earliest known fortified site, or, sometimes, as Zambujal, for
its main city. The civilization is totally parallel to the SW
civilizations of Los Millares and El Argar, but they show clear
diferent substratum and evolution. While Los Millares and its successor
are clearly Iberian in the ethnic sense and Mediterranean in its
projection, VNSP is rather Atlantic probably belonging largely to the
pre-Neolithic substratum.
VNSP has the following clear parallels with the Atlantis describe by Plato and others:
- It is clearly beyond the columns of Herakles, wether you consider
them to be the strait of Gibraltar or certain columns in Gadir or
elsewhere in Andalusia. It is not far away from them either and it
surely exerted control of the Atlantic trade to the precious tin mines
of NW Iberia and SW Britain, apart of accessing easily many other
minerals in its SW Iberian hinterland.
- Island: actually it is a peninsula but the oldest sources describe it as a perirruthos,
which is just something surrounded by flow (water). The perception for
any foreign sailor that could come from the Mediterranean would be that
of an island, actually two because the smaller peninsula south of
Estremadura is also part of the same civilization.
- The capital was on a mountain in the center of the island. It
was: Zambujal stands on an elevation at the approximate center of the
Estremadura peninsula.
- There were 10 kings: VNSP displays exactly 10 neo-megalithic
tombs of special "artificial cave" design that could well mark the
pantheons of the 10 royal clans.
- The plant of the city is complex: the plant of Zambujal
fortifications are extremely complex and have been reformed once and
again in diferent periods. Further approximation to the Platonian
description could be subject to wider excavations but could also be
partly an adition of the Eastern historians. The distance to the sea or
rather the wide stuary of the Tagus is almost as Plato described it in
any case.
- They fought against the Greeks (Athenians): the Middle Bronze Age
(1500-1300 BCE) shows a clear "Hellenization" of El Argar that is
rather transparently rival of VNSP. I believe that El Argar was
supported by Mycenean Greeks and that can explain not just the
appearence of Greeks in the narration of Atlantis but also the western
travels of Herakles in other legends, which are telling the same in a
diferent manner.
- The famous catastrophe: I used to think that it was a
metaphore of the Celtic invasions of Urnfields that are temporarily
coincident with the vanishing of both VNSP and El Argar. But recently I
reas about the devastating effects of the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake and I think otherwise now.
Relevant maps (from my article that so graciously Morty referred to):
Iberia in the
Chalcolithic age: c. 3000-1800 BCE, showing the location of Atlantis
(VNSP) and the parallel civilization of Los Millares
Map of VNSP and nearby areas in the late Chalcolithic period, around its apogee (c. 2000 BCE)
Iberia in the Early and
Middle Bronze Age (c. 1800-1300 BCE), showing Atlantis (VNSP), the
rival ("Hellenized" after 1500) civilization of El Argar, other
important cultures and the location of the strategic tin mines.
Another map from the municipality of Torres Vedras site, showing the
shape that the Estremaduran penisula had in the late Chacolithic, much
more "insular" than nowadays.
Edited by Maju
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 17:10 |
sedamoun qoute-Plato used the myth of Atlantis to promote the "Superiority" of Athens.
I don,t think it was the city of athens the priest was refering to but the country men of the hellenes, a colony, because in timaeus critias says=
The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke.
It shall be the anicent city of athens.
It is not mention where this war took place, I believe it to be this war http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/history3.html
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 17:19 |
maju I believe this was the atlantian war ( men of the sea of atlas ) and it was recorded in egyptain history in 600 bc.
600bc
The Egyptian Pharaoh Necho commissioned Semitic-Phoenician mariners to voyage round Africa. Three years later they returned to report that the continent is surrounded by sea except at the point in Egypt where it joins Asia.
The Egyptians in 600 B.C. recorded the existence of Atlantis. This alleged myth was passed down through Solon to Plato who recorded it in 400 B.C. An epochal flood is believed to have swallowed up Atlantis.
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Maju
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 18:08 |
Most of what we "know" on Atlantis comes through Plato's narrations.
The history of the circunnavigation of Africa, while very plausible,
doesn't mention Atlantis at all, instead Plato mentions that Atlantis
existed 9,000 before his narration. Most people believe this to be an
error (in 9400 BCE there was simply no civilization at all - anywhere)
and that it should read 900, what would place the catastrophe quite
precisely around 1300 BCE, when VNSP is abandoned.
Besides, there are other problems with Tharsis/Tartessos being
Atlantis: it was a known place by those names, the known descriptions,
which would fit with an older geography of the mouth of the
Guadalquivir, are different than those that talk of Atlantis and
Erithia, which I think are the same older civilization that was fought
by the Mycenean Greeks.
The key for me is that while Classical Greeks had contemporaneous
accounts of Tartessos (even Foceans had been once there) they had no
other account of Mycenean and the Dark Ages that Homer's writtings and
their own oral legends. Greeks never fought against Tartessos
(apparently it was destroyed by the Phoenicians) but they may well have
been involved in the geopolitical struggles in Iberia in a more
glorious past. At least Mycenean influence is clear in El Argar (and
more speculatively in the undefined groups of the SW), while there was
no Greek influence at all in the time of the destruction of Tartessos
(pressumably around 800 BCE). The Phoenicians precisely had benefitted
from the Greek Dark Ages to largely replace them as masters of the
Mediterranean waters and colonial outposts.
I make a key point of my argumentation on the late VNSP fitting much
better with this aspect of the narration: that Athenians (Mycenean
Greeks) fought against Atlanteans.
Other points are the concept of island, the 10 "royal tombs", the clear
study of astronomy (mentioned in some Greek legends), the wide cultural
connections with both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the trading
nature of the Bell Beaker phenomenon, the geographical coincidences...
I think that Tartessos replaced partly Atlantis-VNSP not long after the
catastrophe. Yet the known Tartessian culture, while rich, is not the
proud long-lived authoctonous civilization of VNSP, with wide
connections along all the Atlantic coasts, but a semi-colonial country
under clear Phoenician influence, with only a limited regional influx.
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 18:34 |
Maju, your theroy is good, what were the names of these kings? Plato writes, all these kings and their descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea. which make me think that the last of the generations were in this war before the final sinking.
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 18:53 |
I agree that the meaning was a error , that Atlantis`s end was of 9,000 bc . however that it was the sum total of its excistence.
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 19:15 |
Pharaoh Necho was of Sais , where Solon got the story from the priest of Sais. Seems to me if the egyptains were such great records keepers and could record a war before their own excistence they would have recorded this war. a event of such international importance.
Alalia was a tremendous victory and it made a world-wide impression. The ancients understood very well the great significance of this naval battle to the Etruscans and Carthaginians, and rightly considered it an event of international importance. Apart from the victory of Pharaoh Rameses Ill in about 1200 B.C. over the Sea Peoples in a battle off the mouth of the Nile, it was the first great naval battle in history.
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 19:54 |
I guess we have to go by what was the meaning of the word atlantis means .Plato states the names given were not the real names. So in describing this war gives the names of all of the men of the sea of atlas that rule the seas .
Now in this island of Atlantis ( iberia) there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis ( the sea of atlas) had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one.
Arganthonios empire rule over half of Spain, thats a pretty big empire!
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docyabut
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Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 22:05 |
maju the story of atlantis all fits in like when the priest said -
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.
The dark ages - the Aegean prehistorians have no choice but to adapt themselves to the Egyptologists.
http://www.varchive.org/nldag/colon.htm
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docyabut
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 10:36 |
Timaeus
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 the sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arganthonios
When the capital fell the city and the empire sank into the Guadalquivir river. Mainake, the Greek colony which protected Tartessia from Carthage, also sank.
They must have been real close for both to sink , which makes me think it was the greek colony Mainke. Both Tartessos and Mainake are consider lost civilizations and have not been found.
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Maju
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 15:04 |
Originally posted by docyabut
Maju, your theroy is good, what were the names of these kings? Plato writes, all these kings and their descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in
the open sea. which make me think that the last of
the generations were in this war before the final sinking.
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My theory is indeed pretty good: it has withstood my self-criticism for almost a decade now.
We don't have any written or even mythic refrences to those
civilizations. We have no idea of which could be the names of those
kings or even if they were kings as I speculate based on Plato's
narration. The only thing rather sure is that the civilization
(counting in the classical way: since walls were erected around towns
and cities) lasted around 1300 years and the "royal dynasties" could be
even older (I don't have such accurate dates for the tombs but they
could be as old as 3000 BCE, 1700 years before the culture vanished).
Many-many generations in any case (more than 50, depending on when you
start counting). I don't think that the "island" ever sunk and Plato
isn't so precise. But if there was an earthquake as that of 1755 the
effect would have been about the same and the stuary of the Tagus could
have become impassable for some time due to mud, as Plato says.
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Maju
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 15:15 |
Originally posted by docyabut
Now in this island of Atlantis ( iberia) there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis ( the sea of atlas) had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one.
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This is not clear. It is clear that Megalitism reached North Africa
(Lybia) and that African imports reached Iberia, as well as amber from
Scandinavia and probably other products from the Atlantic rim and parts
of the Western Mediterranean.
The extent of VNSP civilization properly speaking is very small as
you can see in the maps but their influx, specially in the Bell Beaker
period, was much larger.
Arganthonios empire rule over half of Spain, thats a pretty big empire!
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I don't know where you got that from: he's a semi-mythical character
and it's doubtful that he and the other Tartessian kings ruled beyond
some parts of Southern Iberia but I don't think he held control of half
of the peninsula ever. Still Tartessos was probably the most powerful
native state of Western Europe in its time. Yet the Phoenicians were
able to destroy it and absorb the country into their colonial influence
area.
[/QUOTE]
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Maju
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 15:23 |
Originally posted by docyabut
maju the story of atlantis all fits in like when the priest said -
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.
The dark ages - the Aegean prehistorians have no choice but to adapt themselves to the Egyptologists.
http://www.varchive.org/nldag/colon.htm |
Your link actually seems to say that the Egyptian chronology was wrong. Not sure.
I don't trust any source more than any other but unlike the peoples of
the Atlantic, Egyptians knew the art of writting and kept record that
we can luckily read now and that Ancient Greeks could also refer to
when exploring their own past. Yet it's just a reference: archaeology
is what seems to give a mute but defined response with some clear data
that is not just words.
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docyabut
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 17:14 |
maju qoute-
I don't know where you got that from: he's a semi-mythical character and it's doubtful that he and the other Tartessian kings ruled beyond some parts of Southern Iberia but I don't think he held control of half of the peninsula ever. Still Tartessos was probably the most powerful native state of Western Europe in its time. Yet the Phoenicians were able to destroy it and absorb the country into their colonial influence area.
According to Herodotus, Arganthonios ruled Tartessia as king for 80 years, from 630 BC to 550 BC. Much of this Tartessian dynasty is told in legends, so no one knows what part is actually historical. He is said by the Greeks to have lived for 120 years while others state that he lived a longer 150 years. His empire consisted all of Andaluca and extended to the Cabo de la Nao (a cape east the Costa Blanca, south of the Gulf of Valencia). His empire was what possibly attracted Greek colonists to the Spanish coast. One of those colonies was Mainake, present day Mlaga. Though the capital of Tartessia sank in the mouth of the swampy Guadalquivir River (and now is famously thought of to have been Atlantis), its ruins show great fortifications and columns though hard to see as it is under water. Herodotus records his death after a naval battle between the Greeks and a united fleet of Carthaginians and Etruscans. The battle was a Greek victory. But loosing over half of its fleet, the Greeks stopped challenging military dominance in the area and Tartessia, without an ally, became exposed to Carthaginian expansion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arganthonios
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docyabut
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Posted: 13-Jan-2006 at 17:21 |
Solon returned to Athens in the 550s BC
Maju, I`m just saying this was the war and the story of atlantis the egyptain priest told Solon.
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Maju
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Posted: 14-Jan-2006 at 05:56 |
The Wikipedia article on Tartessos is awfully wrong in its last part:
nobody knows for sure where the city of Tartessos lies, though recently
some satellite images seemed to show some buildings in the swamps of
the mouth of the Guadalquivir (now a National Park, the largest one of
Spain) and someone was "selling" it as Atlantis.
Mainake wasn't founded by Greeks but by Phoenicians. While there's a
semilegendary account that the King of Tartessos recieved some Greek
sailors and even gave them enough silver as to build the walls of
certain city, so to resist the attacks of the Perisans, Greeks disn't
settle in the Far West (the Hesperides, from where Hispania-Spain comes
from) before c.600 BCE, when Marseilles was founded. The only colonial
settlement that Greeks ever had in all Spain was Emporion, a Marsellian
outpost.
It's the first time I read that Arganthonios played any role in any
battle of antiquity. The recognized account of the end of Tartessos is
that it was destroyed by the Phoenicians, at least that was what these
claimed.
Phoenician colonization in Southern Spain is much older than any Greek
presence west of Sicily (apart of whatever happened in the Bronce Age).
Phoenicians claimed to have founded Gadir (Cdiz) in the 11th cenctury
BCE, being the first colony ever founded by Phoenicians at all (funny
that they crossed all the Mediterranean to do that) though
archaeological research has only found data since the 8th century.
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