I was lost, then I was found, you might hear some of the wonders of the world say if they
could speak.
We might look at perhaps the best known once-lost city in Machu Picchu, that was abandoned in
the 16th century and discovered again in the 20th century.
Then you have the spellbinding city of Angkor in Cambodia, which was never really lost,
but certainly needed a lot of restoration for it to look as magnificent as it does today.
We also have cities that are perhaps only legends, El Dorado, The Lost City of Gold;
or The Lost City of Z, whose mystery lured explorers from Europe… and some never returned
home.
But today we’ll talk about perhaps greatest legend of them all, in this episode of the
Infographics Show, The Evidence That The lost city of Atlantis Existed.
If we want to know the origins of the city of Atlantis we have to go back to the great,
Greek ancient philosopher known as Plato.
You’ve probably heard of the guy.
Some writers have said all philosophy is just a footnote to Plato, while he’s the man
that wrote the Socratic dialogues; he came up with The Cave allegory we still talk about
today and he advanced ideas on justice, law, and learning that we all should be thankful
for.
With that in mind, if Plato was the one that started the story of Atlantis, perhaps we
should take him seriously?
Well, while there are still people that believe Atlantis was real, most others, tell us Plato
told that tale as an allegory, meaning the story had a hidden meaning in it.
Plato said in 360 B.C. that these Atlanteans had a pretty good life.
No doubt if such a thing existed back then, Atlantis would have come very high in standard
of living indexes.
The people that lived there were human, but also God-like, according to Plato.
Where the island is, is actually widely debated, with some saying that the island, and surrounding
islands, were just somewhere in the Mediterranean, and others saying near Spain, in the Pacific,
the Caribbean or even close to Antarctica.
The place is described as having one main island, with smaller islands surrounding it.
It was a wonderful spot, too, where exotic wildlife not seen anywhere else wandered around,
and where precious metals were plentiful.
It was said living there was a Utopian existence, before Sir Thomas More wrote his book 'Utopia’
in 1516 and we started using that word to mean the apogee of human civilization.
You get the picture, Atlantis was supposed to be perfect in every way.
No one messed with the Atlanteans, either, because they had an impenetrable navy.
So, as we said, a lot of people don’t think this place actually existed and Plato wrote
the story as an allegory of hubris.
Hubris could be said to be when someone or something gets too big for its boots, that
pride comes before a fall.
For the Greeks it meant, "excessive pride, violating the bounds set for humans.”
We all know what happened to Greeks in their mythologies, when they got cocky and started
thinking they were almost above the Gods: they were taken down a notch or two, and often
in violent fashion.
And that’s what happened to Atlantis.
You see, in Plato’s story these people living the high life in Atlantis started to become
corrupt, greedy, morally bankrupt.
Maybe he foresaw this happening to all great civilizations, that empires decline, and that’s
why we have a theory of Declinism.
The people became warlike, they tried to expand into other territories, and they lost their
way.
For that, the Gods sent them all kinds of horrors, including earthquakes and floods.
Plato wrote, “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.
For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there
is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.”
And that was that, goodbye Atlantis.
While this is thought to be an allegory, Plato may not have pulled this tale out of a hat.
Not only was Plato well aware that societies are easily corruptible, and greatness can
soon turn into something counter to that greatness, but he also knew that civilizations had been
rubbed off the face of the Earth due to the sometimes-brutal whims of nature.
It was known to him that a massive volcanic eruption could wipe out a people.
Still, we must now ask, was Plato totally making this story up, or was it based on a
real civilization with perhaps a few embellishments?
Some scholars do believe such a place existed, and throughout history in spite of being called
components of pseudoarchaeology, they have tried to present a case for Atlantis existing.
Let’s now have a look at what they say.
One man is said to have brought the Atlantis story back to life in the 19th century, and
his name was Ignatius L. Donnelly.
The U.S. congressman and part-time scientist wrote the book “Atlantis: the Antediluvian
World.”
It’s important to see what kind of a man he was when we consider he believed that a
world used to exist that was perhaps technologically superior and morally superior to other places.
He once wrote about America, saying, “Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures,
the Congress….
The people are demoralized; The newspapers are largely subsidized, or muzzled, public
opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished.”
That was in 1892, and we can hear similar things said today.
He believed Atlantis was a great culture, and one which spawned other ancient cultures
such as the Maya culture.
“There now lies beneath the waters of the Atlantic, covered, doubtless, by hundreds
of feet of volcanic debris, an amount of gold and silver exceeding many times that brought
to Europe from Peru, Mexico, and Central America since the time of Columbus,” he said in
his book, but the problem was a lack of incontestable proof.
Nonetheless, he had a lot of people thinking about Atlantis again, a utopia to show that
something existed better than the corrupt modern world he talked about.
He even went as far to say that The Garden of Eden had been in Atlantis, and the reason
for the sinking of the city was due to the great flood as depicted in the Old Testament.
So, to believe his theory you also have to buy into the Great Flood, and not everyone,
even some Christians, are certain that ever happened.
Let’s move on.
We have a theory that Atlantis was actually somewhere off the coast of the Bahamas.
Thanks to Donnelly a slew of writers started telling us that indeed Atlantis had existed.
One such writer was Charles Berlitz, who in the 1970s said that the Bermuda Triangle had
swallowed the city.
People have agreed, seeing as that underwater close to the Bahamas you have something called
the “Bimini Road”.
This is a large group of stones that lie on the ocean floor, which do look like the remnants
of a sunken city.
But as spectacular as it looks, geologists tell us this is just a natural phenomenon.
Then you have the theory that Atlantis was part of Antarctica.
In 1958 a book called “Earth’s Shifting Crust” writer Charles Hapgood said that
about 12,000 years ago Atlantis split off from Antarctica and that part which remained
more temperate was home to this advanced culture.
But scientists know a lot more about plate tectonics now than they did then, and that
theory has been widely debunked.
Or was Plato talking about the Minoan culture, which went from great to ruined in a short
time.
It’s thought this advanced culture, situated on what we now call Crete and other Aegean
Islands, was the home of King Minos.
The early Minoan culture goes back as far as 3500 BC and historians tell us this was
a great culture that influenced the upcoming Greek culture.
It’s said earthquakes as well as an eruption of the Thera volcano brought an end to this
vibrant place, destroying palaces and leaving the place vulnerable to hostile outsiders.
Perhaps Plato’s allegory was just based on this, and like any other writer of poems
or fiction he just took a real event and embellished it for the sake of making a point.
In this case how the mighty can fall, and one should always prepare for the vicissitudes
of nature and the risk of power turning to corruption.
What does Graham Hancock have to say?
Have you heard of this guy?
He is well known for controversially re-telling the history of some ancient cultures, as well
as taking powerful hallucinogens such as ayahuasca.
These, he believes, can take us into different realms that are possibly a gateway into more
truth about the human existence.
He believes that there is something in nature that connects us all, and perhaps even into
the past.
Well respected scientist Dr. Rick Strassman who courageously went on a mission to discover
what these hallucinogens were about also said something uncanny happens on those trips.
Writer Michael Pollan talked about “merging with the universe, or with nature” and the
“mystical experience.”
That’s not to say these guys believed in Atlantis, but it might say, as Hancock thinks,
that there is more out there than science tells us?
People who tell you they have entered other worlds, or visualized mysterious symbols from
the past in hallucinations or dreams, might not be on your reading list this year.
But according to Hancock, ancient civilizations across the globe were somehow connected.
He believes there was indeed a golden age of these ancient civilizations, but they were
all wiped out due to a catastrophic event some 12,000 years ago.
But he does not tell us there was definitely an Atlantis, only that there were certainly
very advanced ancient cultures that just went missing.
Or perhaps Atlantis was downed in the Black Sea of circa 5600 BC.
Some people even say Atlantis was Ireland, or the Portuguese island of Madeira.
And there are more incredible theories, but none pose any threat to what rational science
tells us in that Plato was likely making this great world up for effect.
We need solid proof, and there isn’t any.
If someone entered Atlantis while travelling through time and space on DMT, it likely isn’t
going to change the minds of Atlantis skeptics.
Now we’d like to turn this over to you.
Did Atlantis exist?
Where, and what was it like?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Places Even Stranger Than Bermuda Triangle.
Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.