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Nearly
twenty-four hundred years ago, the Athenian philosopher Plato
penned one
of the most controversial and tantalising stories
ever written. Once upon a time, he said, there had existed a magnificent
seafaring civilisation which had attempted to take over the world,
but had perished when its island sank into the sea – the
result of an unbearable cataclysm of earthquakes and floods. This
civilisation had been called Atlantis, and it had heralded from
the Atlantic Ocean, taking its name from the god Atlas who presided
over the depths of the sea. Its main island had sunk some nine
thousand years before the time of Solon, circa 9600 BC by our modern-day
system of reckoning.
The
puzzle of Atlantis is this. On the one hand, Plato was adamant
that the island had sunk in the Atlantic
Ocean, and equally adamant
that the story was absolutely true. And yet, on the other hand,
modern scientists have mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean,
using echo sounders, ‘Geosat’ radar and multibeam
sonar, and found no trace whatsoever of any sunken island. The
result
is a deadlock on how to decipher the story. Some argue that it
is a myth, of uncertain meaning. Others argue that it is a moral
and political fable. And others, still, continue to argue that
it is pure history, and that Plato simply got his geographical
facts wrong.
In
my book ‘The Atlantis Secret’ (Eridu
Books, 2001), I suggest a new solution to this age-old mystery.
The
essence of my theory is that the story of Atlantis – or
strictly speaking the story of the war between Ancient Athens
and Atlantis – was an allegory for the myth of the creation
of the Universe. Or, in other words, an encrypted account of
a secret
tradition which had been preserved for millennia by the mystery
schools of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece.
In
this way, Plato’s
story of Atlantis may be seen as a ‘true
story’. For the ancients sages believed that the myth
of creation was an absolutely true account of how the Universe
had
been brought into being.
My
theory has the rare distinction of being able to explain every
single aspect of Plato’s
story, in contrast to historical interpretations which
are always forced to reject the legitimacy
of one or more crucial elements in the account. This does
not guarantee that the creation myth theory of Atlantis
is correct, but it does
make it the only satisfactory theory currently available.
Support
for my theory comes from Professor Christopher Gill, who is
one of the world’s leading experts on Plato and the Atlantis
story. In his Foreword to ‘The Atlantis Secret’,
Gill writes:
“
Alan Alford’s book has the considerable merit that, while
offering a widely accessible account of the Atlantis
story, it strongly rejects the popular view that the story has
a historical
basis. The book takes as its starting point a fact
often ignored in non-specialist treatments of Atlantis: that
Plato is the original
and only primary source for the story, and that we
must begin by locating the story within Plato’s philosophical
and conceptual world-view... I applaud the lucidity of Alford’s
argument and the transparency with which his claims are based
on either
quoted or fully documented sources... I am very glad
to have encountered such a lucid and wide-ranging statement of
this [creation myth]
hypothesis, and to see it applied so suggestively
to the Atlantis story.”
Before
I summarise the merits of my new approach to the Atlantis
mystery, I will first address
the fundamental
problems of
the historicist theories.
I
should preface the following remarks by reminding the reader
that the story of Atlantis
is told only
in the
works of Plato,
specifically in the books ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’,
which he penned during the 4th century BC.
Many misconceptions have arisen from the fact
that
people have not bothered to read
or understand Plato, preferring instead to
lend credence to the opinions of later commentators
such as Ignatius Donnelly, Madame
Blavatsky, and Edgar Cayce, who have consistently
promoted the idea that the story of Atlantis
was a true in a historical sense.
It is my sincere belief that these modern individuals
have muddied the waters of Plato’s original
account (no pun intended).
Problems
with the Popular Conception of Atlantis
Problem
1: Plato
As
much as Atlantis-hunters would wish Plato to have been a historian
in the mould of
Herodotus or Thucydides,
he
was not.
And nor
was he a geographer in the mould of,
say, Hecataeus. On the contrary, Plato was a
philosopher and
a
part-time mythologist.
Moreover,
he was not even an ordinary philosopher;
rather, he was a ‘true
philosopher’, whose interests lay
primarily in metaphysical, otherworldly
matters. Therefore, if there is any truth
behind Plato’s
account of Atlantis, it is unlikely to
have anything to do with history or geography;
rather, it should be rooted in myth,
mysticism, esotericism and the metaphysical
world.
Problem
2: Herodotus
It
is highly significant that Herodotus, the so-called ‘father
of history’, said nothing at
all about any war between Athens
and Atlantis. Writing almost a century
before Plato, Herodotus
was widely travelled (he had visited
Egypt where the Atlantis story supposedly
came from) and very knowledgeable
about
military history.
But as far as he was concerned, the
greatest wars of history had been
those between Greeks and Persians,
notably
the battle of Marathon
(490 BC), the battles of Thermopylae
and Salamis (480 BC), and the battle
of Plataea (479 BC). Moreover, in
regard to the battle
of Plataea, Herodotus tells a highly
revealing story of a bragging contest
between the Athenians and the Tegeans
in which each side
listed their greatest military accomplishments.
Here, the Athenians recited their
heroism at the battle of Marathon,
but spoke
also
of their achievements in ‘ancient
times’ – their
intervention in the war of ‘the
Seven against Thebes’,
their repulsion of the Amazonians
who had invaded Attica, and their
instrumental
role in the Trojan War. But as for
the idea that their
ancestors had repulsed the invasion
of Atlantis, the Athenian soldiers
said nothing at all – a very
strange omission if Plato’s
account contained any historical
truth.
Plato’s
story is also called into question by several other
statements made by Herodotus. The
greatest danger ever faced by the
Athenians, he said, was when the
Persian army had invaded Attica
and instigated the battle of Marathon
(490 BC). The biggest armed force
ever assembled, he said, was that
of the Persian king Xerxes
(480 BC). The biggest island in
the whole world, he said, was Sardinia.
And the earliest sea empire in
the Mediterranean, he said, had been
forged by king Minos of Knossos.
All of these claims fly in
the face of Plato’s claim,
nearly a century later, that Atlantis
had been
the
biggest island in the world and
had assembled the
largest army ever, to forge the
first sea empire of the Mediterranean.
Thus
spoke the historian Herodotus
who, had he lived a century later,
would have
been
highly sceptical
of
the
historicity
of Plato’s
story.
Problem
3: Socrates
Socrates
was one of the greatest intellectuals of his day, and
yet when Critias introduced
the story of Athens’ heroic
victory over Atlantis, he
responded by saying: “Tell
me though, what was that
ancient deed
our city performed...? I’ve
never heard of it.” If
the Athenian victory had
been magnificent in a historical
sense, or even in an orthodox
mythical sense (as in
their involvement in the
Trojan
War or the earlier epic battle ‘the
Seven against Thebes’),
then Socrates certainly would have
heard of it. QED.
We must be dealing here with
a myth
and, moreover,
with a new myth – perhaps
a variation on a theme.
Problem
4: The Saite Calendar
That
a cataclysm could have instigated the beginning
of a calendar nine
thousand years
before the time
of Solon
(c.
9600 BC) is
not implausible. Nor
is it
implausible that such
a calendar could have
been preserved for nine
thousand years and handed
down for
posterity via the
Egyptian
Saites (compare
the
Hebrew calendar
which is
today nearly six thousand
years old). It is therefore
possible that
Solon (or perhaps Plato
himself)
learned the date of the
Atlantis cataclysm
from the
Egyptian
priests
at the
town of Sais.
But the important
question is this: is
it really likely that the
date of the
cataclysm originated
in this
way?
In
fact, everything we know about ancient Egypt
argues
against
the possibility.
Archaeologists have
found no evidence at
all for a calendar
of this ilk. Nor is there
any such
evidence
in the
Egyptian texts, which
generally refer to
ancient events
in the vaguest of terms.
Moreover, even
when we do find numbers
in these
texts,
they
usually turn out to
be sacred, symbolic or rounded,
the
latter suggesting
some imaginative
ex-post
rationalisation by
the priests. To presume,
as
some researchers do,
that the Saites possessed
a calendar dating back
nine thousand years
(to a time
one thousand
years earlier than
the foundation
of their
own
state) is to
go far beyond what
can be justified.
There
is more. Why is it that the Saite
tradition
preserved
only
the date of
the Atlantis cataclysm?
After all,
Plato had the
Egyptian priest claim
that
several cataclysms
had occurred after the
sinking of Atlantis,
including the famous
flood of Deucalion.
And yet nowhere
in
Egypt, nor
in Plato, nor anywhere
else in
the Greek
writings,
do we find any record
of the
dates of
these subsequent
cataclysms. If Solon (or Plato)
really did receive
the date of the Atlantis
cataclysm from the
Egyptian priests,
why did he not
also receive the
dates of the
other,
more recent
events?
There
is another problem, too. Why
is it that
only the Egyptian
Saites preserved
the
date
of the Atlantis
cataclysm?
If the
event was historical
and as dramatic
as Plato suggests,
then it would
have affected much
of the world
and would have
been recorded in other
ancient traditions.
But, despite
the prevalence
of worldwide flood
myths, no record
has ever been
found pointing
to the date
9600 BC.
In
summary, it is a leap of
faith
to
suppose
that
the Egyptian
Saites had
access to
the purported
date when
no-one else
in the world
did; it is a further
leap of
faith
to
suppose that
the
Egyptian records
were entirely
destroyed (from an archaeological
perspective);
it is a further
leap of faith
to suppose
that
Solon
had
access to
these records
when no-one
else did;
and it
is a leap of
faith, too, to
suppose that
Solon’s
testimony fell
into the hands
of Plato and
no-one else. To go with
all these suppositions
is
to hop, skip
and jump into the land
of
improbability.
And there still
remains the awkward
problem of explaining
how Plato (or
the Egyptians, if one
prefers) knew
the date
of the Atlantis
cataclysm but
not the dates of the
three, more recent
cataclysms that
followed
it, including
the well-known flood
of Deucalion.
A
more likely
explanation for
the date of
the war is
that Plato was
speaking
idiomatically
and that ‘nine
thousand years
ago’ signified ‘nine
aeons ago’,
i.e. an infinitely
long time ago.
See the evidence
compiled in
my book.
Problem
5:
Lost Civilisations
The
implication of the historicist
argument
is that
two highly advanced
civilisations – Atlantis
and Athens
respectively – existed
c. 9600
BC. And
yet,
according
to archaeologists,
civilisation
began much
more recently,
c. 4000
BC (in
the lands
of ancient
Egypt and
Mesopotamia).
How, then,
could the
two fantastic
civilisations
described
by Plato
have existed
more than
five thousand
years earlier,
during
what
archaeologists
call ‘the
neolithic
period’?
The idea
is controversial,
to say
the least.
As
regards
Atlantis,
Plato
placed the former
island
in the
Atlantic
Ocean.
On
this
point, his language
is unequivocal.
Atlantis
had
been
in the great
Ocean,
in the
Atlantis
Ocean,
in the
realm
of Atlas,
opposite
the Pillars
of Heracles
(the
straits of Gibraltar)
and,
fully consistent
with
this, the
Atlantians
had directed
their
hostilities
against
Europe
and Asia.
To
look
for
Atlantis
anywhere
else
but the
Atlantic
Ocean
is to totally
ignore
what
Plato actually
wrote.
Unfortunately
for Atlantis-hunters,
this
leads to a
fundamental
problem,
namely
that
scientists
have
nowadays
mapped
the floor
of
the Atlantic
Ocean,
in outline,
using
echo
sounders, ‘Geosat’ radar
and multibeam
sonar,
without
discovering
any trace
of the
sunken
island
or continent
as described
by Plato.
The historicist
interpretation
of Plato’s
Atlantis
is thus
strongly
contradicted
by scientific
evidence.
Moreover,
there
is
equally strong
evidence
against
the
idea of a
10th
millennium
BC
civilisation in Athens
in
Greece.
The
earliest temples
in
Athens, for example,
have
been
dated
archaeologically
to
only the 8th
century
BC;
below
their
foundations
there
is
only
virgin
soil.
On
the
face
of
it,
then,
as
we
enter
the
21st
century
AD,
the
notion
of
two
highly
advanced
civilisations
fighting
a
worldwide war
c. 9600
BC
would
seem
to
be
a
complete fantasy.
Rather,
the date
of ‘nine
thousand years
ago’ is
surely idiomatic
for ‘an
infinitely long
time ago’,
as suggested
earlier.
Moving
the Goal
Posts
The
reaction of
Atlantis-hunters to
the non-discovery
of Atlantis
on the
floor of
the Atlantic
Ocean has
been to
suggest that
the story
was garbled
at some
point or
else expressed
in poetic
terms, thus
causing Plato
to cite
an incorrect
geography. This
assumption means
that the
lost island
can be
moved from
the Atlantic
to any
other alternative
location, preferably
one that
has not
been mapped
by sonar!
The problem
with this
approach is
that, once
one presumes
Plato to
have made
one mistake
(with the
location), it
becomes tempting
to take
a little
licence with
the text,
and then
some more
licence still,
and thus
the situation
arises where
Atlantis-hunters produce ‘solutions’ that
owe little to what Plato actually said.
What
we should
be looking
for is
an island
of circular
shape, larger
than Libya
and Asia
Minor combined
(!), fringed
by mountains,
with a
rectangular plain
and a
six-ringed, circular
city within.
But what
we get
is the
mountains alone,
or the
plain alone – and
always of the wrong dimensions – with the other
features conveniently ignored. At the extreme,
some researchers have even
staked their reputations on islands that have not
yet sunk. To which one must retort that if an island
isn’t sunk, then
it aint Plato’s Atlantis.
The
Creation Myth
Theory
My
theory rejects
the historical
interpretation of
Plato’s
story and suggests instead that the Atlantis
story – or rather
the story of the war between Ancient Athens
and Atlantis – was ‘true’ in
a mythical sense in that it allegorised
the
creation of the Universe. The validity
of my theory stems from the ancient axiom
that the
myth of creation was a true story.
The
four keys
to my
theory are
as follows:
1
Atlantis was
a metaphor
for the
primeval underworld
(the interior
of the
earth).
2
The invasion
of the
known world
by Atlantis
allegorised the
eruption of
the underworld.
(Note: this
is a
key aspect
of the
creation myth).
3
Ancient Athens,
which represented
the ideal,
or archetypal,
city, first
existed in
the sky
in the
form of
a celestial
body, i.e.
a metaphorical
city. (Note:
the lowering
of cities
from the
heavens to
the Earth
is a
feature of
Mesopotamian
and
Hindu mythology.)
4
The defeat
of Atlantis
by Ancient
Athens allegorised
the fall
of the
sky and
the war
between
Heaven
and Earth.
(Note: this
is another
key aspect
of the
creation myth,
and parallels
Hesiod’s
tale of the cataclysmic battle between the gods and
the Titans.)
The
Merits
of
the
Creation
Myth
Theory
1
The
theory
accords
with
the
most
important
facts
of
Plato’s
story. By identifying Atlantis with the underworld, it
allows
Atlantis to be in
the Atlantic Ocean (which symbolised the subterranean
sea); it allows Atlantis to be sunk; and it allows Atlantis
to be larger than two
continents. These are fundamental points, and
yet all other Atlantis theories reject the legitimacy of
either
one, two, or all
three, of these statements and suppose, instead,
that Plato somehow, like an idiot, got things cockeyed.
2
The
theory
decodes
Atlantis
in
the
context
of
its
invasion
of
the
world
and
ensuing
war
with
ancient
Athens.
The
worst
thing
a
researcher
can
do
is
to
study
either
one
of
these
cities
in
isolation
from
the
context
of
the
war.
My
theory,
however,
makes
the
inter-relationship
between
Athens
and
Atlantis
a
fundamental
basis
of
the
interpretation.
3
The
theory
accounts
for
all
of
the
bizarre
elements
in
Plato’s
story. It explains how the six-ringed city of Atlantis
came out of Clito’s primeval hill. It explains
why the island was a perfect circle (code for a
sphere).
It explains the unknown
metal oreichalkos (meteoritic iron). It
explains
how the island was transformed into a shallow sea of
mud. It explains
why the Athenian army sank suddenly into the
Earth. And it even explains the opposite continent
which, bizarrely, was said to completely surround the
true Ocean.
4
The
theory
is
able
to
resolve
a
crucial
perceived
anomaly
in
Plato’s text. By proposing that Athens descended
from Heaven against Atlantis, it verifies Plato’s
statement that the war between the two sides coincided
with the foundation of Athens
in the Earth ‘nine thousand years ago’,
and it thus exonerates Plato from the accusation
that he made a careless chronological error. The
supposed error, in fact, turns
out to be a linchpin to understanding the story.
5
The
theory
improves
substantially
the
reading
of
the
story.
By
proposing
that
the
Athenian
army
descended
from
Heaven,
it
explains
why
the
warriors
sank,
all
at
once,
beneath
the
earth.
The
Athenians,
far
from
suffering
a
tragic
accident
some
time
after
the
war
(as
the
badly
mistranslated
text
suggests),
rather
died
a
heroic
death
at
the
climactic
moment
of
the
war.
This,
surely,
was
Plato’s
intention, given that the story was told, ostensibly,
to depict Socrates’ ideal state in action
(“I’d love to
see our city distinguish itself in the way
it goes to war and in the way it pursues the
war...”).
6
The
theory
vindicates
Plato’s claim
that the story of the war was absolutely
true. By proposing that the story was a
re-telling of the creation myth (the war
between Heaven and Earth variant),
it allows that the story be true in the
mythical sense.
7
The
theory
takes
into
account
the
wider
aspects
of
Platonic
philosophy.
It
must
be
emphasised
(no
doubt
to
the
great
disappointment
of
many
Atlantis-hunters)
that
Plato
was
no
historian
or
geographer,
and
thus
we
are
hardly
likely
to
find
an
account
of
a
lost
civilisation
at
the
heart
of
his
works.
On
the
contrary,
both
Plato
and
Socrates
were ‘true philosophers’,
who were obsessed with cosmogony and
the theory of the soul. In their way of thinking,
something
important had indeed been lost, but it
belonged to myth rather than to history,
and to Heaven rather than to Earth.
Here, the
Theory of Forms is the key, for it presupposes
a fall of the archetypes from Heaven
to Earth, including, most significantly,
the archetype
of the ideal state, which was, after
all, the subject of Plato’s
story. By proposing that Ancient Athens
(and earlier Atlantis) had fallen from
Heaven to Earth (into the underworld),
my theory
cuts to the very heart of Platonic philosophy.
8
The
theory
sets
Plato’s story of Athens and
Atlantis against the broader context
of ancient Greek myths, and the
older Near
Eastern myths from which the Greek
ones were largely derived. In these
myths, important parallels are found
for ideas such as: the
birth of the Universe in a cataclysm;
the fall of the sky; the fall of
the golden age; the wars of the gods of
Heaven and the
underworld; the fall of gods, islands
and continents from Heaven into
the underworld or subterranean sea; the
birth of all things
from the Earth or subterranean sea
(impregnated by the seed of Heaven);
and the idea that mythical peoples
dwelt in Heaven, the
Earth and the underworld. Most importantly,
these creation myths enshrine the
principle of personification, with
the poets using
human-like gods or heroes to personify
the falling sky and the erupting
underworld. My interpretation of Plato’s
story thus has its roots in a well-documented,
three-thousand-year-old literary
tradition.
Summary
In
summary,
I
would
remind
the
reader
that
there
is
no
archaeological
evidence
for
the
historicity
of
the
war
between
Athens
and
Atlantis
(quite
the
opposite);
that
there
is
no
evidence
whatsoever
for
a
sunken
island-continent
on
the
Atlantic
Ocean
floor;
that
Herodotus
and
Socrates
had
never
heard
of
the
Athens-Atlantis
war;
that
Plato
did
insist
on
the
poetic
(i.e.
mythical)
nature
of
Solon’s
story by comparing Solon to the great poets Homer and Hesiod;
that Plato did place
the war in a pre-diluvian era (predating the
creation of mankind!); and that Plato was not a
historian, nor a geographer, but a true philosopher,
whose interests lay primarily in metaphysics, myths and mysticism.
It
therefore
makes
sense
that
Atlantis
signified
the ‘true
myth’ of the creation of the Universe,
encapsulating ideas such as the antediluvian paradise
lost, the fall of the sky, the
mystery of the underworld, and the mystery of the soul,
or spirit, that had brought
everything to life.
Thus
Atlantis
becomes
a
symbol
for
a
spiritual
quest – the
quest for knowledge of the origins of the Universe,
the quest for knowledge of the
origins of life, and the quest for knowledge of
what life truly is.
Alas!
To
search
for
Atlantis
here
on
Earth,
in
the
form
of
a
lost
civilisation,
is
the
veritable
antithesis
of
Plato’s philosophy.
The great man would be grieved indeed to witness
such materialistic folly.
For
further details on ‘The Atlantis Secret’, or to place
an order, click on Bookshop.
For the full text of Christopher Gill’s Foreword to ‘The
Atlantis Secret’, click on Foreword.
For further information on Plato and his mysticism, see the Plato
link to this page.
For a position statement re lost civilisations, see the Lost
Civ. link to this page.
For an article on the Greek myths and the cataclysm
of
creation,
see the Greek Myths link to this page. |
