Atlantis: Fabrication or Fact?
"In those days. . . there was an island situated in front of the straits which you call the Columns of Heracles. . . the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together and was the way to other islands and from the islands you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean. . .Now, in the island of Atlantis, there was a great and wonderful empire. . . " (Spence, 45). This quote from Plato's Timaeus, written circa 360 B.C.E., serves as part of the only primary source for the story of Atlantis, the legendary lost continent which according to Plato was located somewhere off the coast of northwest Africa/southern Europe near the "Columns of Heracles," now known as the Straits of Gibraltar. Beginning approximately in the 19th century, a great debate has raged in archeological and scholarly circles as to whether or not Atlantis truly existed. Critics of the Atlantis theory support the view that the tale of the so-called "lost continent" is simply an allegory created by Plato to symbolize the natural processes of the world which during Plato's time were relatively unknown. In contrast, those that support the view that Atlantis was a real place claim that "an abundance of hard archeological ev
At this time, most archeologists agreed that civilization first began in Sumeria, the oldest known civilization in the world and that man had lived in "unorganized chaos for tens of thousands of years until the Sumerians came into existence around 9000 B. As of 1996, archeological evidence from the island of New Ireland east of New Guinea demonstrates that "perhaps 30,000 years ago, men in ships were sailing about in the Pacific Ocean" which makes it feasible to believe that man was sailing the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic some 15,000 years B. Also, nearly every culture in the world has created and maintained some type of legend concerning ancient civilizations and their dramatic destruction at the hands of nature's fury in the way of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunami. Some skeptics add that in many ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Greece, scientific and technical advances were rather commonplace yet were kept hidden from the general public or were used as novelties to entertain the crowds at festivals and religious ceremonies. As recently as 2002, a British expedition claimed that it had discovered Plato's Atlantis in the Bolivian Altiplano, yet Atlantean skeptics quickly dismissed this claim, especially when the same expedition claimed it had found El Dorado or the lost "City of Gold" which turned out to be a Pre-Columbian site partially excavating and photographed in the 1950's (Vranich, xi). One form of this evidence is the use of ancient electricity, for it is a well-known fact that the Egyptians and Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia used electricity to electroplate various objects. Thus, throughout a good portion of the world, there exists a type of megalithic construction known as "Atlantean" by those who support the former existence of Atlantis. southern Europe (France and Spain) and northwest Africa in the vicinity of present-day Morocco and further up north in Lebanon with its Temple at Baalbek. Not surprisingly, the exact location of Atlantis has also been hotly debated for many years.
Common topics in this essay:
Temple Baalbek,
BCE Frank,
Egyptians Sumerians,
Middle East,
Critics Atlantis,
Babylonians Tomas,
Egypt Greece,
Ark Covenant,
Stone Age,
Egyptian Mayan/Aztec,
existence atlantis,
atlantis existed,
atlantean scholars,
archeological evidence,
lost continent,
support view,
egyptians babylonians,
students scholars,
france spain,
electrical devices,
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Acceptance Essays
