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Ireland Is Lost Island of Atlantis, Says Scientist
REUTERS ^ | 8/6/2004 | Kevin Smith

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.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Technical; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: akrotiri; antarctica; archaeology; atlantis; barbiero; catastrophism; crete; critias; cuba; cyprus; doggerbank; egypt; emiliospedicato; fartyshadesofgreen; geology; ggg; gibraltar; godsgravesglyphs; hispaniola; history; ireland; kondratiev; legend; lyonesse; lyonnesse; mythology; newgrange; peru; plato; santorini; schoch; science; sinkinglands; spedicato; tantalus; theory; thera; timaeus; troy; tunisia; ulferlingsson; wisconsin; zangger
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1 posted on 08/06/2004 12:41:51 PM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Thinkin' Gal
They're just trying to throw us off the Antarctic trail.
 
;^)

2 posted on 08/06/2004 12:44:44 PM PDT by AnnaZ
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To: Red Badger

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!"


3 posted on 08/06/2004 12:44:55 PM PDT by randog (What the....?!)
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To: Red Badger; blam
I'd say that I'm 99% certain that Atlantis, if one existed, was the island of Thera where a rich and advanced Minoan trading hub was blasted to bits by a volcano that not only left a big hole where their city once was but probably led to the end of the Minoan civilization. It fits a whole lot better than any of the other suggestions that I've seen.
4 posted on 08/06/2004 12:48:34 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: Question_Assumptions

Bah! Humbug! Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it was near Bimini! Or was that Bikini? Or maybe Baloney?


5 posted on 08/06/2004 12:50:56 PM PDT by dljordan
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To: All

Ireland is lost island of Atlantis




Yeah, and I'm the freakin' tooth fairy


6 posted on 08/06/2004 12:52:12 PM PDT by cwiz24
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To: Red Badger
But Atlantis, you see, sank. Ireland is still there.

7 posted on 08/06/2004 12:52:31 PM PDT by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: Red Badger

Fascinating.


8 posted on 08/06/2004 12:52:41 PM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and establish property rights)
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To: Question_Assumptions
Thera
9 posted on 08/06/2004 12:53:01 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Red Badger; All

Wrong! Atlantis is in the Pegasus galaxy now...


10 posted on 08/06/2004 12:53:41 PM PDT by KevinDavis (Let the meek inherit the Earth, the rest of us will explore the stars!)
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To: Question_Assumptions

If Atlantis was in Ireland, then did it sink into an ocean of whiskey?......


11 posted on 08/06/2004 12:54:06 PM PDT by Red Badger (The FOURTH ESTATE is the FIFTH COLUMN!.....)
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To: blam

Ping


12 posted on 08/06/2004 12:56:56 PM PDT by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: Red Badger
Dirk Pitt's already beat 'em!


13 posted on 08/06/2004 12:57:31 PM PDT by TheBigB (I'm more frustrated than a legless Ethiopian watching a doughnut roll down a hill.)
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To: Red Badger
Let me see if I understand: Ireland is Atlantis, and the idea that Atlantis sank, comes from Dogger Bank, which is a shoal, northeast of England, which sank 6000 years ago.

Wouldn't that make Dogger Bank Atlantis?

14 posted on 08/06/2004 12:59:51 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The Fourth Estate is a Fifth Column)
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To: Red Badger
Atlantis was actually Ireland

Cool!

I'm part Atlantian!

15 posted on 08/06/2004 1:02:05 PM PDT by MamaTexan (Our government is NOT a 'democracy')
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To: MamaTexan

My ancestry is Irish. Can get some reparations out of this?


16 posted on 08/06/2004 1:06:40 PM PDT by frankenMonkey
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To: Red Badger
Give me another Stout & Mild will ya Erin.

Now what's ... hic ... that about your finding Atlantis? ... hic ...

17 posted on 08/06/2004 1:10:06 PM PDT by G.Mason (A war mongering, red white and blue, military industrial complex, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Santorini Today

Atlantis (I don't advocate the material on this site -- but it's a pretty picture based on the Classical sources...)

Pre-Eruption Thera

18 posted on 08/06/2004 1:11:18 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: Red Badger
"Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean"

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.

19 posted on 08/06/2004 1:20:11 PM PDT by looscnnn ("Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils" Gen. John Stark 1809)
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To: frankenMonkey
My ancestry is Irish. Can get some reparations out of this?

No. On the other hand, you'll never again qualify for flood insurance!

20 posted on 08/06/2004 1:21:35 PM PDT by Tallguy (If Clinton did a good job stopping the Millenium Bomber, I've got 2 Towers in NYC to sell you...)
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