The Engines of Our Ingenuity by John H. Lienhard
Posted on 05/20/2012 5:46:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In this Timewatch special, historian Bettany Hughes unravels one of the most intriguing mysteries of all time.
She presents a series of geological, archaeological and historical clues to show that the legend of Atlantis was inspired by a real historical event -- the greatest natural disaster of the ancient world.
She is tracing the origins of the Atlantis myth and presenting evidence that the Thera eruption inspired Plato's account of the mystical land.
2,400 years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote of an ancient island civilization of unparalleled wealth and splendor, which was struck by earthquakes and floods and was swallowed up by the sea in one grievous day and night.
"But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; 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." (Plato, as translated by Benjamin Jowett).
(Excerpt) Read more at watchdocumentary.com ...
I’ve always thought, considering the “Libya and Asia combined” tidbit, that if Atlantis had any basis in reality, it was from stories about early travels to the Americas.
she would be the sentimental favorite I guess. Like the “girl next door”.
At some point in the docu. Hughes compares the wall paintings found on Thera and those of Egypt. Interestingly enough, the Minoan artists were apparently also employed by at least one Egyptian pharaoh.
Did Unemployed Minoan Artists Land Jobs in Ancient Egypt?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2422780/posts
Old Egypt investigator identifies to mysterious Hyksos kings [sic]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1605198/posts?page=26#26
A Storm in Egypt during the Reign of Ahmose [The Tempest Stele]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2375891/posts
Akrotiri, Santorini: the Minoan Pompeii - part 1 [of 6]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2376007/posts
The other clincher in Plato is that one could leave the western side of Atlantis and get to another landmass that could truly be called a continent — the Americas.
Alas, there never was a girl next door to me... well, one about maybe a dozen or so doors down, up a street, to the right, and up another to the left... but she was a blonde, and she moved when she was 6. Not like those hot ancient Egyptian girls.
One of Plato’s signposts was that Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, usually taken to mean the straits of Gibraltar. However (and I’m reaching way back in memory on this one to a book I read 30 or so years ago), there is a set of islands nearby to Greece which was also known as the Pillars of Hercules, which could fullfil Plato’s requirements without having to venture from the Mediterranean Sea. Mayhap I’ll rummage around the internet tonight and see if I can find a reference to that.
OK. So there was some traffic between them, they must have been at least a little familiar with each other.
(1) The Sumerians seem to have recorded an object which shared the same barycenter with Earth in the same orbit ~ it came close to Earth then jumped to a similar orbit with Venus, and someday it'll jump back. THis is reflected in the Sumerian story of Gilgamesh and his ginormous playmate Inkydoo. The data dates from BEFORE writing was invented and is in special symbolic notation.
(2)The escarpment keeping the Mediterranean out of the Black Lake basin broke in the same period of time.
Now, a question, how close did this asteroid have to get to Earth to appear to be nearly the same size as the Moon? Obviously it had to be pretty close. And, pretty big. The guy at http://www.barry.warmkessel.com/4related.html tells us of an expert in astrophysical phenomenon who says it was 3 miles wide ~ the body now crossing Venus' orbit is about 200 yards wide ~ however, 7,000 years ago if it passed earth as a large bolid just at the edge of the atmosphere it would have caused a stir ~ maybe a tsunami in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity by John H. Lienhard
Santorini Eruption in 1950.
Probably the biggest issue never addressed by the Santorini contingent is you have to reduce Plato’s time and size numbers by a factor of 10 to make the eruption work. I’m not willing to do that though many Greek archeologists are. I guess they could all get jobs with Barry’s economic team.
Yup, there’s an imaginary Pillars of Hercules dreamed up by an author in the 1960s, who, not surprisingly, was trying to peddle the Thera-was-Atlantis idea. :’) THE Pillars of Hercules were at Gibraltar, then as now. Trying to relocate Plato’s Atlantis (his is the only surviving ancient source for the story) by reducing it in size by orders of magnitude and reducing it in age by about one order of magnitude, while arbitrarily picking a location still above water really makes no sense at all, but people continue to do it. :’)
Apparently the Minoans were referred to as the Keftiu; Keftiu was the Egyptian version of Caphtor, which refers to Cyprus (not Crete, as is usually claimed; Crete was the Tarshish or Tharshish of the Bible), a big source of copper (or perhaps a transship point) which was shipped in the form of “oxhides”, ingots with two limb-like handles on each end.
After the Mycenaeans took over in most of the Aegean, and expanded settlement in Anatolia, they similarly took over in Cyprus, and spread westward into Sicily. The Etruscans (among others) had already colonized in Italy and other points west in the Med, but carried along their cultural traces, as well as DNA, from the Aegean. The Ionian Greeks were most closely associated with the Etruscans in trade.
/bingo
It’s also amazing how often the Theran stuff is repeated as if it were an original idea.
"Even when, during the respective Thera Conferences, individual scientists had pointed out that the magnitude and significance of the Thera eruption must be estimated as less than previously thought, the conferences acted to strengthen the original hypothesis. The individual experts believed that the arguments advanced by their colleagues were sound, and that the facts of a natural catastrophe were not in doubt... All three factors reflect a fantasy world rather than cool detachment, which is why it so difficult to refute the theory with rational arguments." -- Eberhard Zangger, "The Future of the Past: Archaeology in the 21st Century", pp 49-50.
The complete true story of what is now called Atlantis is on YouTube. The Great Deceiver was instrumental in it's destruction.
Actually they found it off Spain recently.
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