The lost continent, the underwater city… you've surely heard about Atlantis at some
point. But did this place actually exist? Where was it located? And if it was so advanced,
how come it disappeared? Join us in this trip through history!
Its name comes from the ancient Greek “Atlantís nēsos”, which means "Atlas' island". It
was first mentioned in writings by the philosopher Plato, where Critias was the protagonist.
He described it as a huge military power that existed around 10.000 B.C.
However, he didn't give details about the city's location – probably because it was
located beyond the "Pillars of Hercules", the extremes at the south of Spain and North-Africa,
at the Strait of Gibraltar, which for the ancient Greeks marked the edge of the known
world. Critias does speak about the country's area: Bigger than Libya and Asia Minor together.
Thus, we would be talking about a huge island, almost the same size as Brazil, located in
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
However, despite being so isolated, they say that its military power was huge! The conquests
of its army spanned through all of western Europe and North Africa, until it was stopped
at Greece by the city of Athens. Here is where the legend becomes more enigmatic, and clues
start to get lost. They say that just before the confrontation between both powers, a huge
catastrophe made Atlantis and the two rival armies disappear.
But this disaster is never described – only that it happened "in a single and terrible
day and night". The sea around the island became impossible to navigate, and the few
survivors from Athens decided to forget about he incident, which gradually got lost as generations
passed. However, one place where memories about this civilization were conserved is
Ancient Egypt. That's how, through the writings of governor Solon, the legend came to Critias'
attention.
For many centuries it was considered that Atlantis was just one of the many metaphors
Plato used to transmit his ideas, and that he simply made it up. However, this changed
during the second half of the 19th century: The fact that he mentions it so many times
as a true story, and the detailed descriptions he gives about it, led many researchers to
establish theories about the origins and location of Atlantis.
Many people became excited about this legend and solving its mysteries. Some identified
Atlantis with many millenary civilizations such as the Minoan, pioneers of metalworking
located in the island of Crete. Or the Natufian, located in the Near East, being the first
food producers in history. Some even situated Atlantis in South America, relating it to
the Mayan and Aztec cultures.
Even the Nazis wanted to appropriate its legacy, and situate its origin in the ancient Nordic
villages. However, many of these theories didn't coincide with the geographical position
that Plato provided, in part because it was more important to decipher what was the "huge
catastrophe" that made Atlantis disappear.
Was it a volcano? A tsunami? A landslide due to an earthquake? A recent theory even talks
about a planetary-level catastrophe, and the disappearance of all human civilizations.
It's based on a hypothetical shift of Earth's magnetic axis, and everything that would cause.
Remember our video about what would happen if the moon disappeared? We explain a similar
phenomenon there.
But we can go even further: What if its original inhabitants were more than simple human beings?
That's right tiktakers! Some supernatural theories posit that the Atlantians were so
advanced because they were the result of an extraterrestrial experiment – a new species
which were a mix between Earthlings and aliens, from which current humanity descends.
Intriguing, isn't it? But the truth is that nowadays we know that the supposed Egyptian
sources don't actually exist, and that the Greek narration presents alleged events outside
of their time, as well as impossible data (deita). However, despite that, many researchers
won't stop dreaming about Atlantis being at least partially real. And what do you think,
tiktakers? Did Atlantis really exist? And if so, where could it be located?