Atlantis

Atlantis The legend of the lost continent or island of Atlantis occurs in the mythologies of many parts of Europe. It is found in the writings of Plato, the Greek philosopher of the fourth century bc. Plato gave a rather full account if its geography and inhabitants and its ultimate fate of being engulfed by the sea. Atlantis, he wrote, had existed beyond, that is, to the west of, the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) and was the home of an Aryan people who invaded the Mediterranean, subduing all except the Athenians (Plato was an Athenian). The foundering of Atlantis beneath the ocean was sudden, and little or no trace was said to remain. Celtic folklore regarded Atlantis as a pleasant, romantic place, and in medieval times it was spoken of as possibly the site of the Garden of Eden. Cartographers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and Renaissance writers depicted it as a large island, perhaps part of America, or Scandinavia, or the Canary Islands. All record its end in sudden catastrophe.

Plato was only one of many Mediterranean writers in classical times to dwell upon the civilization that had flourished in Atlantis and also upon the heritage it had bequeathed to the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean in earlier days. There would seem to be some historical basis for this widespread and consistent story of the sudden marine destruction of a previously existing land and a civilized nation with it.

The discovery early in the twentieth century of the Minoan civilization at Knossos in Crete revealed the sudden demise of an early Greek settlement of a highly civilized people. It proved to be a Bronze Age culture, its economy well developed and prosperous but with no defensive fortifications to protect it. The cause of its extinction seems not to have been by conquest from outside. Large buildings had collapsed, and an earthquake was thought to be a possible cause. Once destroyed, the site was not resettled.

About 110 km north of Crete are the closely set islands of Thera and Santorini. They are the remains of an immense volcano, one typical of the kind of volcanicity seen in virtually all the Mediterranean volcanoes, highly explosive. Gigantic explosions occur during what is termed a Plinian eruption, when a blast of upwards-directed gas and dust rises to a great height and then spreads out in a turbulent mass. Torrential rainstorms usually accompany this kind of eruption, causing mud-flows and floods. The dust may settle over very wide areas, hot and toxic, smothering life beneath it. In 1967 excavations on Thera revealed settlement of Late Minoan type, Bronze Age in date and with cultural connections to Crete. The buildings had suffered severe earthquake damage. The ruins lie beneath a thick layer of volcanic ash. The earliest settlement began about 3000–2500 bc. The destruction took place around 1500 bc; 1628 bc is a date favoured by some modern authors; a controversial claim according to others.

Studies on nearby Santorini revealed that a gigantic explosion occurred about 20 000 years ago. The build-up of a new volcanic cone followed, with small Plinian eruptions, and was complete with lush forest and human settlement by about 3000 bc. Later came earthquakes and explosions which blew away most of the island and led to the collapse of a huge central caldera. Gigantic tidal waves, or tsunamis, spread out and may have reached shorelines as far as 100–200 km away, wiping out fleets and coastal settlements. The ash cloud probably covered 200 000 square kilometres, darkening the sky and depositing a thick volcanic dust. The date of these events is put at around 1550–1450 bc.

The destruction of Minoan settlements in Thera–Santorini (and even Crete according to some experts) thus occurred as a result of the destruction of the volcanic centre by explosion, associated earthquakes, and their tsunamis. Small eruptions have occurred since and earthquakes in the region are relatively frequent, but nothing comparable has recurred since that devastation. The effects diminished with distance from the centre, but they would have been imprinted upon the folk memories of Greeks, Egyptians, and others locally. It is unlikely that Thera was literally the Atlantis of Plato. He was using folk memory as a basis for his concept of the loss beneath the waves of a civilization not unlike that of the Greeks themselves.

D. L. Dineley

Bibliography

Forsythe, P. F. (1980) Atlantis, The making of myth. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal; Croom Helm, London.
Luce, J. V. (1970) The end of Atlantis. Paladin, London.