... according to what facts Santorini is NOT Atlantis? |
The myth of the lost civilization of Atlantis has attracted the attention and
speculation of several eminent personalities over the centuries In addition, In Plato's own time two cities near Athens were
destroyed by giant waves, sinking coastal land, and earthquakes. He did
not have to depend on 1000-year-old memories for the idea that a city
could disappear beneath the sea. As a
soldier he surely had heard that a year before he was born, an
earthquake and gigantic waves destroyed ships and a military outpost
that the city of Athens built on the small island of Atalant?. This
area continues to experience a sinking coastline, the last sudden
sinking happening during a 1894 earthquake. When Plato was 55, an earthquake destroyed the city of Helice, only 40
miles from Athens. Parts of the coastline sunk enough to submerge the
trees that grew there. It was said that the waves that smashed into
Helice swept the city so clean that people who arrived to bury the dead
could find no one left to bury. Plato wrote about Atlantis when he was over 70, at the end of a rich life that would have given him plenty of material to draw upon. The Atlantis story was probably a combination of legends and bits of history woven together? Whatever it took to create a memorable lesson. 2. Kritias was quite clear about date of Atlantis (9000 years before his time). 3. Kritias was also clear about the location: it lay in the ocean outside of the Pillars of Hercules. The claim of Atlantis's location is fairly precise: The Mediterranean is the "haven" with a "narrow entrance," i.e., the pillars of Hercules. Atlantis lies outside of the Mediterranean "at a distant point" in the Atlantic ocean. 4. The size is wrong. Atlantis was a continent, not an island, like Santorini was. 5. The Minoans did not disappear after the Santorini disaster. Egyptian records show normal trade continued with the Minoans long after the Santorini explosion. |