Posted on 08/06/2004 12:41:50 PM PDT by Red Badger
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist.
Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves.
Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly.
"I am amazed no one has come up with this before, it's incredible," he told Reuters.
"Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains.
"I've looked at geographical data from the rest of the world and of the 50 largest islands there is only one that has a plain in the middle -- Ireland."
Erlingsson believes the idea that Atlantis sank came from the fate of Dogger Bank, an isolated shoal in the North Sea, about 60 miles off the northeastern coast of England, which sank after being hit by a huge floodwave around 6,100 BC.
"I suspect that myth came from Ireland and it derives from Dogger Bank. I think the memory of Dogger Bank was probably preserved in Ireland for around 3,000 years and became mixed up with the story of Atlantis," he said.
Erlingsson links the boundaries of the Atlantic Empire, as outlined by Plato, with the geographic distribution of megalithic monuments in Europe and Northern Africa, matching Atlantis' temples with well-known burial sites at Newgrange and Knowth, north of Dublin, which pre-date the pyramids.
His book, "Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land," calculates the probability Plato would have had access to geographical data about Ireland as 99.98 percent.
Previous theories about Atlantis have suggested it may have been around the Azores islands 900 miles west of the Portuguese coast, or in the Aegean sea. Others locate it solely in the long-decayed brain of Plato.
As an Irish physics professor always said to my class after he vomited calculus all over the chalkboard: "It's right there in fronna ya'! I doan know why ya' canna see it!"
Bah! Humbug! Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it was near Bimini! Or was that Bikini? Or maybe Baloney?
Ireland is lost island of Atlantis
Fascinating.
Wrong! Atlantis is in the Pegasus galaxy now...
If Atlantis was in Ireland, then did it sink into an ocean of whiskey?......
Ping
Wouldn't that make Dogger Bank Atlantis?
Cool!
I'm part Atlantian!
My ancestry is Irish. Can get some reparations out of this?
Now what's ... hic ... that about your finding Atlantis? ... hic ...
(I don't advocate the material on this site -- but it's a pretty picture based on the Classical sources...)
Plato never said that it was in the Atlantic, he said that it was "before the Pillars of Hercules" that people assume means beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. However, others think that the Pillars of Hercules refers to another location, possibly closer to Greece.
"Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains."
Problem is that Ireland would have been larger that Atlantis at the time Atlantis was around. It is the same size now due to erosion of the coastline.
No. On the other hand, you'll never again qualify for flood insurance!
Just a lost Oldsmobile, not a lost continent.
Good grief. Everyone knows its in the Pegasus Galaxy.
O'Ping!
Well Patrick Duffy WAS the 'Man from Atlantis'. With a name like that, sur' he had to be Oirish! ;-)
It's going to hurt tourism when folks find out Ireland is actually under water.
Thera is not old enough...besides, if it were Thera we'd know a lot more about it than we do.
Dontcha just love that he carries the probability out to two numbers following the decimal? Heaven forfend it was 99.62 or 99.22.
I think Thera is plenty old enough and given the massive destruction of the Minoan civilization that followed, I'd expect a lot of information to get lost. There is plenty about the Bronze Age that we don't know. Of course it's also entirely possible that Atlantis is simply fiction or refers to some other civilization, but I think Thera is closer than anything else that I've personally seen. Your milage may vary.
Nope--the stories of Atlantis came out of a paganized account of the Flood.
I'm off to a session now - time to get that sinking feelin' (Boom Boom)
That was what the Doctor said in the Dr Who story "The Time Monster"
A claim given reserach credence as the makers of the program made as creditable an attempt to portray Minonian female formal costume as the constraints of 70s BBC Childrens Programming would allow. (basically 2-3" of material added to the ..er, neckline)
They say what? Funny though we have Tir na Og (not to be confused with TG4), the land of eternel youth,seriously though, I just saw this post I'm going to read it now to find out the facts
I always thought it was the (I think), the Minonan's (spelt something to that effect), that civilisation on the Mediterranion that was destroyed by volcancic eruptions, that Plato reffered to when he described Alantis, but then again aliens, apparently, built the pyramids, According to some.
Of course, two civilisations have collasped before the Western World, maybe it is Ireland, after all, we were the the only entire country to stay strong (the Golden Age), when Rome fell, and Europe fell into a dark age- will Ireland stay strong second time- I don't think so, if we don't wake up the entire Western World is going to go belly up!!!
I sure the hell hope not- we had Mary Robinson already!!!
Diana Rigg, love your screen name, though, is Ireland in the Pegasus galaxy- I always thought we lived in the Andromeda Galaxy.
hehe, SG fan :) we should make a ping list (or is there one?)
you forgot the Scots (Picts) and Mongols...
if you wanna get technical.... America was known long before most people think as well. the Asian's certainly had the ability to travel there. the Vikings later as well... the Egyptians traded with both the Northmen and the Asians.... who's to say Egypt didnt get the info from them and landed Atlantis 500 miles south of Hawaii? or off the coast of Maine?
check out the studies on kites and pyramids.
"But these things come not into the tale of the Drowning of Númenor, of which now all is told. And even the name of that land perished, and Men spoke thereafter not of Elenna, nor of Andor the Gift that was taken away, nor of Númenórë on the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue"
Nope. We're in the "Milky Way." Andromeda is a neighbor.
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