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WERE THE VOILENT STORMS OF EARLY 2004 A RESPONSE FROM PLATO TO THE THEORY OF THE LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS BEING DISCOVERED IN CYPRUS?
Janice Ruffle
Generations of experts on the Ancient World, have been making attempts to discover Atlantis and new research, pioneered by Robert Sarmast, claims that the fabled ancient civilisation of Atlantis is located close to Cyprus. After nearly a decade of research, with the aid of ocean mapping technology and accounts from ancient texts, the American explorer claims to have evidence that Atlantis lays beneath the deep blue waters off the southern tip of the Island. Robert Sarmast, a mythologist and expert on the ancient world, makes his claim in a book published in the United States. In Discovery of Atlantis - The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus (Origin Press), Sarmast uses maps to show the location of archaeological remains on a sunken strip of land just off the south coast of Cyprus, which he believes is Atlantis. His research, which cost around $US500,000 and uses data collected by a Russian scientific survey vessel in 1990, was paid for by the Heritage Standard Corporation, an organisation involved in undersea surveys for oil and gas. He intends to carry out an expedition to explore the seabed, to find proof of his theory. Sarmast considers the site matches Plato's account of Atlantis, in the dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 400BC. The description is said to be based on the writings of Solon, who recorded the account told to him by the Egyptians about 600BC. "My discovery will vindicate Plato," he said. "Within his dialogues, Plato provides factual clues as to what Atlantis was like. I have matched all but two of the 45 clues with the area around Cyprus. That's either the biggest coincidence in the history of the world or we have found Plato's Atlantis." "Plato's account is so detailed that it is possible to make city plans based on his description. These match exactly the antediluvian maps of Cyprus as discovered through oceanographic mapping." Sarmast said he had identified many of the areas described by Plato, including a rectangular plain, running east to west, containing a metropolis at its centre. Central to the latest theory is the fact that the Mediterranean basin suffered a catastrophic flood with the destruction of the Gibraltar "dam" that once closed the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic. This substantiates Plato's claim that an epochal flood "swallowed up" the island of Atlantis, leaving only the uninhabited mountainous regions above water, and supports the biblical story of the flood. Sarmast believes that it will not be difficult to launch an underwater expedition and that the rewards will be great. "It's only a mile down in warm, calm waters," he said. "Compare that with the Titanic which is two miles down in freezing, treacherous waters. That was explored fully 20 years ago." "What we have here is a whole city, an ancient civilisation, megalithic sites packed full of artefacts. We can expect to find colossal buildings, bridges, roads, canals and stone temples. With no sunlight, heat, oxygen or wind to degrade its remains, Atlantis will be mummified in the cold waters of the deep sea, frozen in time. " Sarmast's claim about Cyprus is, however, just the latest in a long list of suggested locations for Atlantis, including the Azores, the Sahara desert, Malta, Central America and Antarctica. Cypriot reaction last week ranged from derision to enthusiastic support. Dr Despo Pilides, an Archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities, said: "Serious archaeologists tend to place the search for Atlantis within the realm of fantasy. This latest theory should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Archaeologists only work with hard evidence. There is no evidence whatsoever to give credence to this hypothesis and we have no intention of investigating it. " In the 'kafenios', (the famous or infamous coffee houses of Cyprus), where men pass the time and debate the issues of the day, it was a different story. Christos sipped his strong, dark coffee as he contemplated the idea. "Of course it's true," he said. "We are Atlantis, we are the oldest civilisation, we are the Garden of Eden. This is a very good thing for Cyprus. We will be more famous than anywhere else in the world." The tourist industry agreed. A spokesman for the Cyprus Tourism Organisation said: "I don't think we should be hasty in dismissing this idea. Whether it is true or not it can only be a good thing for us. "People will want to come and visit what could be part of Atlantis. " DISCOVERY OF ATLANTIS IN CYPRUS. Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.) was a revered Athenian Philosopher when he took up the subject of Atlantis toward the end of his career. In two parts of an unfinished trilogy-in the famous dialogues named the Timaeus and the Critias, Plato gave the world its first glimpse into the remarkable mystery of Atlantis. For some unknown reason he left the project incomplete and moved on to write Laws, another great work that was also left unfinished at his death. Nevertheless, Plato's crucial writings about Atlantis, which appear chiefly in the Critias, have managed to inspire almost every generation since his time, and in fact remain vital 25 centuries later. This is perhaps not surprising, considering that his references to Atlantis appear prominently in the body of work of what many consider to be the most influential Western thinker of all time. Coming as he did from a prominent family, Plato was fortunate enough to have made acquaintance with the leading thinkers and teachers of his time (or any time) including, of course, Socrates and Aristotle. After the trial and tragic execution of Socrates that he describes in his Phaedo, Plato declined to follow a political career and instead turned for consolation to philosophy in the hope of finding the truest model of an ideal society. No doubt, this philosophical fascination with exemplary social systems eventually led him to elevate the example of Atlantis and its "golden age" civilization in two of his most profound dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias. In these dialogues, Plato reveals that another renowned Greek figure named Solon (c. 638-559 B.C.), known to history as one of the "Seven Wise Men" of ancient Greece, imported the story of Atlantis from Egypt. Solon was a truly unique figure, a man of altruistic and poetic temperament, and yet a powerful Athenian political leader and lawmaker. Historians credit him with ending aristocratic control of the government of Athens, and for the first time introducing a new and more humane code of laws to the city. Solon is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the democratic ideal and of the Western concept of the rule of law. To commemorate that fact, a marble relief portrait of Solon stands over the gallery doors of the House of Representatives Chamber in the Capitol complex at Washington D.C. We cannot rely solely on Plato's Critias and Timaeus to find the actual location or determine the size of Atlantis. There are inconsistencies in the text itself and uncertainties concerning our knowledge of the ancient Egyptian and Greek understanding of regional geography. It is not surprising then that today's camps in Atlantology are divided on the issue of location. Nevertheless, we have before us an unambiguous set of clues concerning many other important features of Atlantis. These clues, coupled with new empirical data, will offer compelling reasons for the claim by Sarmast to have discovered the location of the sunken isle in Cyprus. A complete list of propositions we now believe can reasonably be inferred from Plato's account of Atlantis.
The destruction of the Gibraltar Dam by earthquake created a disaster of epic proportions for the basin inhabitants, indeed, causing the world's greatest waterfall. As Dr. Hsu puts it in his depiction of the Gibraltar disaster: "Cascading at a rate of 40,000 cubic kilometers per year, the Gibraltar Falls were 100 times bigger than Victoria Falls and a thousand times grander than Niagara. Even with such an impressive influx, it took more than one hundred years to fill the empty Mediterranean. What a spectacle it must have been!" Visualising a waterfall one thousand times greater than the Niagara Falls certainly tests the limits of one's imagination. Like a faucet opening to fill a gigantic bathtub, the incredible torrent of water would have fallen about three miles (three times the depth of the Grand Canyon) and crashed onto the basin before speeding toward the eastern Mediterranean region, travelling at such speeds that anything on its path would have been obliterated. The final weeks of the Glomar Challenger expedition left little ambiguity concerning the implications of the research. There had been an "instantaneous flooding" of a colossal nature that had changed the Mediterranean "from dry salt lake bed to a mile-deep abyss." Is it any wonder that the legend of the great flood is "common to Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians, the city states of Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, and others around the Mediterranean?" Therefore, we know that the Mediterranean was once a vast basin spotted with lakes and lagoons, and that it contained towering plateaus reaching many thousands of feet into the air. We also know that the basin was literally filled in by the greatest flood in human history. This means that Plato's description of the natural disasters that destroyed Atlantis may well have been based on factual events. The new scientific discoveries about the natural history of the Mediterranean directly corroborate the disasters depicted in Timaeus and Critias. Computer Graphics Technology has been crucial in this research. Using the special software developed for the project by the Scotia Group, Sarmast was able to depict the Mediterranean basin at different fill levels during its geologic history; this in turn permitted him to represent coastline and underwater formations as they may have appeared at various stages during an evaporative cycle. In order to see how Atlantis Island might have manifested itself at some point along the water level continuum, he studied the appearance of the basin at various sea levels. The software allowed him to accurately animate the cycle of emptying and flooding in the easternmost part of the Mediterranean. There is little doubt that this work has resulted in the most detailed and realistic computer visualization of the great Mediterranean "salinity crisis" to date, including the inundation of Cyprus by Atlantic waters. Simulating the progressively shrinking water levels in a computer model led to this result: when 1650 meters of water had been subtracted from current sea levels, the Cyprus Arc was raised completely above water. The consequences of this discovery were both exhilarating and puzzling. The exhilaration was immediate in that the Plain of Atlantis had seemed to materialise before his eyes. But a problem remained: By 'draining' the Mediterranean to the levels at which the Plain of Atlantis would have been an elevated surface, it also produced the rather unwelcome effect of rendering so much of the Cyprus Arc above water that the hypothesised Atlantis appeared as neither an Island nor a true Peninsula. What he had failed to account for in his computer simulation, he next discovered, were the regional sources of water input from rivers originating in the Turkish and Cyprus highlands. The mountains which surround the area between Cyprus and Turkey generate large amounts of precipitation that collect into extensive river systems and empty into the North Eastern Mediterranean. It is evident when you attend the audio/visual lecture personally presented by Robert Sarmast, that he is compassionate about his theory. He has invested extensively in his personal time and finance to research the 'Lost Atlantis' with the empirical evidence and the support of 21st century technology. He does not demonstrate an eagerness to capitalise on the sale of his book, though it provides an excellent resource for all who are interested to familiarise themselves with his circumstantial evidence. He has reached the final stage of his discovery, the underwater investigation. Capital Investment to pursue a launch is currently being sourced, though not necessarily in the form of charitable donations, investors are required to exploit the publicity and dividends that are anticipated in a successful conclusion. The concept of ownership remains an interesting and inclusive subject. If Atlantis is discovered, who will have ownership rights to the land, the Cypriot Authorities, the Archaeological Department, World Heritage/Trust Organisations, Corporate Investors or Robert Sarmast as the Researcher and Discoverer? Will the Mythological Greek Gods be issued Title Deeds or will it be made available for residential development? Maybe we are close to a neighbouring community residing on the 'Garden of Eden' with the same governing laws once imposed by Plato and an uncontrollable and unimaginable property growth economy. END.
ROBERT SARMAST BIOGRAPHY. Robert Sarmast gave up a promising career in architecture in order to pursue his lifelong passion for ancient history, world mythology, and the search for lost civilizations. Leaving behind more conventional pursuits-and sometimes working in odd jobs to support himself-the author read widely and traveled extensively for over a decade in search of facts, sources, and knowledge on a variety of ancient mysteries. After these years of open-ended research, Sarmast narrowed his focus to solving one of the world's greatest riddles: the perennial mystery of Atlantis. The field of Atlantology was still wide open; it was clear to him that no one had yet made a compelling case about the location of Atlantis, or for that matter, proven whether or not Plato's story was an allegory or historical reality. As Sarmast came face-to-face with this broad and deep mystery, he found himself becoming hooked on the quest for this mythical paradise, like so many before him over the centuries. He now plunged deeply into the vast literature of Atlantology. Four years before the publication of his Atlantis book in 2003, the direction of Sarmast's research changed when a series of events led him to conduct a more empirical search for Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea. His preliminary findings led him to work with specialists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as other leading geophysicists and oceanographers in an effort to obtain the most accurate existing data about the eastern Mediterranean seafloor. At one point, NOAA scientists offered to make him a digitized file of the existing raw data. One week later he received a document that was over 2,500 pages long! Little did Sarmast know that the gods of Atlantis had just smiled upon him. His next step was to obtain funding and technical assistance from a private corporation involved in underwater oil exploration. With their support, Sarmast went on to produce the world's first detailed 3D maps and models of the eastern Mediterranean basin. With this unique data in hand, Sarmast began to put the pieces of the Atlantis puzzle together as he drafted his manuscript, while searching for a publisher. In his breakout book, Discovery Of Atlantis: The Startling case for the Island of Cyprus (Origin Press: 2003), Robert Sarmast, presently an independent mythologist and researcher based in Los Angeles, eloquently reveals how he has discovered compelling evidence of the actual location of the lost city of Atlantis. His research has led him to a small section of the sea floor of the eastern Mediterranean region-a sunken land mass stretching between Cyprus and Syria. By precisely following the clues given by the philosopher Plato, Sarmast has discovered a site that matches Plato's famed account of Atlantis with astonishing accuracy. (Scholars in this field know that any credible claim to have located Atlantis must use Plato's famed account found in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. To this day, these classic ancient texts remain the sole source for the Atlantis legend.) Sarmast's work is unusual in joining robust scientific data with multidimensional analysis that incorporates ancient history, mythology, archaeology, and architecture. While matching the region of Cyprus to the physical clues Plato left behind, Sarmast ranges into other disciplines to achieve a match with nearly every other clue that Plato lists; in this the author draws from his earlier studies in world mythology and ancient mysteries. The nearly 50 matches he has made with Plato's descriptions extend from the philosopher's claim that elephants once lived on Atlantis, to the mineral composition of the island, to mythological figures associated with the legend. Robert Sarmast has made this unprecedented series of findings while yet remaining an independent researcher and writer. But his quest is far from over. The next task is to actually explore the small strip of the Cyprus Arc with submersible equipment to verify the existence of archeological evidence of the sunken civilization. The author is now collaborating with marine specialists, a ship captain, archaeologists, and producers to pull together an expedition to the Cyprus region. Still a young man, Robert Sarmast has embarked on a research program that may lead us to an entirely new picture of the origins of culture. His decision to pursue his abiding passion for ancient mysteries seems to have been the right course to follow. Questions & Answers ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q&A with Robert Sarmast Author of Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus Origin Press, October 2003 "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer 1) When did your interest in Atlantis start? In the earlier years, my interest focused on comparative world mythology. As I learned more about our ancient ancestors and began to be able to actually put myself in their shoes and see the world through their eyes, I saw that practically all of the world's oldest civilizations revolved around a so-called myth. Those who are very familiar with ancient history, that is, those who have studied the ancient world enough to know how those people actually viewed reality and what they believed about their origins, see that their lives were profoundly affected by the legend of Atlantis. Their religions, lifestyles, governments, art, architecture and culture revolved around an ancient tale about a garden where civilization started; an event that was already considered "old news" by people living at 5,000 BC. And to them it was most certainly not myth but true history, treated with utmost care by the highest priests of the land and passed down as sacred text. When you know the details of this story well enough, you can also see its fingerprints all over the modern world and our present-day cultures. Through the years, I realized that the legend of Atlantis must have been at least partly based on factual events in order for it to leave such an undying impression on humanity. Moreover, Plato's writings about Atlantis are like a treasure map and finding the remains of the island was a challenge I could not ignore. 2) What directed you to the Russian underwater survey of the Eastern Mediterranean? I searched the world for good data for the eastern Mediterranean in the late 1990's, without success. By chance, I lived in Boulder, Colorado at the time and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) had a presence there. I arranged for a meeting with their geophysicists. These scientists showed me their own master database and available maps, but their data was not adequate for creating high-resolution maps. Then they remembered than an Israeli geophysicist, Dr. John K. Hall, who is the world's foremost expert in the eastern Mediterranean region, had sent them data, which had been collected by a Russian vessel in the late 1980's. They showed me the area that the vessel had obtained the data and it was exactly the area I was interested in, which happened to be the least studied part of the North Eastern Mediterranean. These geophysicists sent me the digital data a few weeks later and thus the map-making process began in earnest. The process of creating maps and 3d models took place between the years 2000 and 2003. 3) Have you ever visited Cyprus? I have never been to Cyprus, but will hopefully soon visit what I believe was once the mountaintop of Atlantis. The highest point of Cyprus still bears its original, true name: Mt. Olympus. Obviously, after years of studying its geophysical features, underwater formations and ancient mythology, I've developed a great fondness for the "island of love." 4) Have you raised the funds and resources yet to provide the absolute "proof"? The book was released less than two weeks ago and already the whole world has heard this exciting news. The offers are already coming in but it's still an early stage and the field is wide open. The right party for the job will be chosen based on qualifications for the task ahead. 5) When do you expect to start your undersea search? As soon as the right party comes along; that is, the party that can do a thorough job of scanning the rectangular plain and, in particular, the area we believe to be the Acropolis Hill. I don't think it will take too long. 6) The Cyprus Dept. of Antiquities is sceptical about your findings. They say: "Serious archaeologists tend to place the search for Atlantis within the realm of fantasy... the latest theory should be taken with a very large pinch of salt." How do you respond to these types of comments? Did you expect otherwise? Prior to Heinrich Schliemann's work in 1871, the academic world believed that Homer's account of the city of Troy was just fantasy; it was just a story in a book and to actually look for it was considered as silly as trying to find Robinson Crusoe's island. All Schliemann did was to take the story on face value and set out to look for it where Homer had indicated. Needless to say, he found it just as described and the academic world was proven to be abysmally wrong. Likewise, the ancient city of Babylon as described in the Old Testament was for centuries considered by the academic community as no more than a fable written by ancient storytellers. Sir Austen Henry Layard proved them all wrong and subsequently forced the world to rewrite history. In fact, many of the biblical stories that we currently know to be based on factual events were viewed as "myths" just a little while ago. Both of these men and their remarkable achievements functioned completely outside of the academic circles. I do have respect for the scientific community, of course, but tend to hold the highest admiration for the scientific process itself. True science is thirsty for truth, hungry for discovery and fearlessly willing to test theories before reaching conclusions. The entire case for Discovery of Atlantis is built on solid history and science. Our findings went through a rigorous scientific process and the maps and models were created using the latest scientific technology available. Scientific knowledge, particularly geophysical knowledge, is under a constant state of revision. There will always be differences between conservative scientists and those who challenge the status quo; it's only natural. One group acts as the brakes, and the other as the gas pedal in the process of all discoveries - they are both necessary and the resulting friction is inevitable. This organization has its opinions, but many scientists working here on this project have a different point of view. Sit back, read the book, witness the enormous list of compiled evidence pointing to Cyprus, and make your own judgment. 7) Cynics may accuse you of merely trying to make a lot of money from the sales of your book, in much the same way as UFO-ologists - especially George Adamski, who claimed he had watched flying saucers land and met the occupants. What would you like to say to these cynics? This project had a humble origin. No book was ever planned when the research began. As time went on and the evidence began to accumulate to an unusual degree, it became apparent that a book was necessary to reveal the information in a methodical fashion. There are easier ways of making a living, and the years of research and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on this project have put an enormous strain on us. It's not about the money and never has been. 8) What are your academic qualifications and from where did you acquire them? My personality has always been marked by an insatiable desire to acquire knowledge about everything unknown. I studied aerospace engineering, philosophy, and architecture in various US universities for years but even at that age my mind was always drifting to ancient history, questions about human origins, spirituality and ancient mysteries. It was not an easy decision, but I eventually decided that I would never be happy unless I followed an unstoppable urge to travel and educate myself about these multi-disciplinary subjects. What I wanted to specialize in was outside the box of academic programs and I set about a process of intense self-education that has continued to this day. In short, solving ancient mysteries like Atlantis requires an understanding of many diverse fields such as comparative world mythology, ancient history, philology, agriology, archaeology, theology, ethnogeny, palaeoanthropology, oceanography and geophysics. It also requires a mind that is not completely indoctrinated by the sometimes limiting confines of the academic world, which has a propensity to get as conservative and dogmatic as its religionist counterpart. 9) What is the cost of all your research data and is any group or organization funding this project for you? Roughly half a million dollars. The project was mainly funded by Michael Wisenbaker, President of Heritage Standard, Inc., but many others have given financial support. The map-making and modelling was executed by Patrick Lowry, President of the Scotia Group (http://www.scotia-group.com/). 10) What if at the end of the day, you discover that Atlantis doesn't exist where you thought it would? Would you continue your quest? If it's not there as revealed in our maps, and the dozens upon dozens of matches with Plato's clues are merely accidental, then this is one heck of a coincidence. The matter can easily put to rest since I am not offering a vague hypothesis. I have no alternative theory in the wings. 11) Are you finding many people in a disagreement with you - especially other authors, researchers or scientists? How does this affect you? Many more people agree than disagree. This is particularly true of those who have actually bothered to read the book and see for themselves the tremendous amount of relevant data we've compiled. Among the sceptics, many of them are simply not versed in the true story of Atlantis and envision mermaids and underwater cities enclosed in glass bubbles when the legend is brought up. Popularization of this ancient legend has recently associated it too much fantasy, very different from the original account. This project has been fuelled from the very beginning by nay-sayers, and I suspect it shall continue until the expedition happens. 12) What do you say to all those people who think that Atlantis has always been just a story - a myth? Without a thorough education in the history of the ancient world this sort of superficial assessment is inevitable. I would encourage people to study the matter more closely before making such perfunctory claims. Evaluating the veracity of this, the world's oldest legend, requires in-depth study of topics that most people will never learn in any school; and a casual read will not suffice because the subject is rather complicated. Rest assured that there is good reason why some of the greatest minds in history have become obsessed with Atlantis, and why so many people have risked their lives to find its remains. Myths come and go, but the legend of Atlantis once formed the very backbone of ancient cultures worldwide. Can any of us today create a "fairy tale" that will sweep the whole planet and give shape to the culture of every nation, with enough power that its impact will last for thousands of years into the future? Even with all the modern technology at our disposal, it would be impossible. Human beings have always valued and relayed real history from generation to generation, and factual events have a way of leaving long-lasting impressions on society. Those who have studied the topic know that Atlantis could not have been concocted out of thin air. The details may have changed, but something real gave birth to the undying legend of the island - count on it. 13) If all the clues were there all along, how come no one else has come up with your find to date? They didn't know where to look, and even if they did, they wouldn't have had the maps. Our generation is the first to have a detailed look at the seafloor in that region. Additionally, most researchers concentrate on Plato's clues relating to names and places rather than the more prevalent circumstantial clues to be drawn regarding the island's physical characteristics. That's what has thrown them off course. 14) Traditional references are that Atlantis was an island located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This may be geographic nit-picking but your maps show it to be far removed from the Atlantic and not an island at all, but an isthmus bridging Cyprus-Syria. The Greek word "Nêsos," used in connection with Atlantis in Plato's Critias and the Timaeus, can be translated to mean either an island or a peninsula. When you think of Plato's account, it is absolutely vital to keep its original source in mind. The original account could not possibly have mentioned an "Atlantic Ocean" since this is a relatively modern name. Before that it was known as the "Sea of Atlas." The incredibly detailed records which the Egyptian priests gave to Solon were reportedly handed down for nine thousand years (counting from 2,600 B.C.). Obviously, the people who recorded the intricate details of the island must have been around to see it before the flood, which means that the original authors were living in what we call prehistoric times. After all, Atlantis was considered by the ancient world to be the source of all civilization, which existed in the so-called Golden Age. Accordingly, Plato wrote in the Critias that the original account of Atlantis was written in a language even older than the Egyptian tongue, and that the Egyptian priests had translated the original text to their own language long ago. As is always the case with translations (particularly the translation of geographical terms), name changes and errors must have been inevitably imported into the Atlantis legend. Then Solon got a hold of it and changed things around even more when he translated the text to Greek, which explains why the name Atlantis is not commonly found before his era. We do not even have the Egyptian records so it's impossible to trust the integrity of the geographical terminology, but it's safe to say that people living 11,600 years ago in the Near East didn't have the remotest clue as to what or where "Atlantic Ocean" was. These primitive people could not have even known the difference between a sea and an ocean and modern translations still reflect this common confusion. To say that the Pillars of Hercules and the Sea of Atlas are synonymous with the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean is careless assumption, not fact. The original authors of the legend lived at a markedly primitive time when the earth was considered to be flat and have an "edge," enclosed within a giant bubble that was floating in a cosmic ocean. It's vital to project back to these ancient people's conception of the world and see things through their eyes. Even in Solon and Plato's day "the world" meant little more than the southern parts of Europe, the northern parts of Africa, and the Near East, all of which were surrounded by the Sea of Atlas. In other words, the Atlantic as they knew it was not only to the west, but also to the north, east and south. In short, to say that the Pillars of Hercules is the Strait of Gibraltar is the same as saying that people living 11,000 years ago in the Near East were not only aware of the Gibraltar Strait but also had a name for it, and used it as a common point of reference! That would be like saying that prehistoric men in the Near East knew what existed at the westernmost edge of the European continent at a time when nothing remotely close to a civilization existed anywhere near the region. The common association with the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar is illogical and based on faulty conjecture. There are many other clues in my book that point to the Mediterranean as the place where the disaster took place, and they are studied in-depth. In any case, I'm certainly not the first author to say that Atlantis could not have possibly been in the Atlantic; the most popular theory today places Atlantis in Santorini, just north of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus is only a few hundred miles away. 15) Why do you dismiss the most common assumption that Thera, whose volcanic eruption caused the destruction of the Minoan civilization, was the Atlantis? There are too many reasons to mention, or at least in this format. My book reviews all the major current theories out there today, compares, and contrasts these theories with Plato's concrete markers. Almost all of these current theories are based on the most superficial aspects of the story, sometimes requiring the shifting of the crust of the earth itself, and often taking huge leaps of faith in proposing potential locations that haven't the remotest similarity to the description of the island. The Cyprus theory matches to an almost perfect degree, which is unheard of, and the amount of supporting documentation from various fields is truly astounding. The most problematic feature of the Thera theory is the age of the volcanic eruption, which was roughly a thousand years before the legend of Atlantis was imparted by the Egyptian priests to Solon. As Atlantis was repeatedly asserted to be the source of the Egyptian as well as the Greek civilization, and indeed, the source of all civilization, it would be unwise to think that the Egyptians could have mistaken a volcanic eruption merely a few centuries before their time as the cause of the greatest legend in human history. The tale of the Garden and its destruction was already well-established and inscribed on clay tablets by the Sumerians and other ancient people. These records, which were unearthed in the 19th century, date back to 5,000 BC! The Egyptians kept the most accurate records of the ancient world and religiously handed them down generation after generation in an unbroken line extending back for thousands of years. There are many other problems with the Thera theory. Finding a few sewer lines and some plumbing does not mean Atlantis has been found. If you read Plato's account you will see that the remnants of Atlantis City are due to be found on a rectangular plain at the foothills of a mountainous island, which must now be under thousands of feet of water. In short, the Thera theory does not match even a small percentage of the clues in Plato's account, and is often promoted by those who want to make light of the legend and brush it under the rug. It's just not that simple. 16) In view of the contiguity of present day Cyprus' with the drowned territory shown on your maps, it seems odd that no archaeological evidence has shown up here on Cyprus to suggest a highly organized level of civilization within the time-frame given for Atlantis. Even Neolithic settlements on Cyprus excavated so far, date from no earlier than circa 6000 BC, i.e. a few thousand years after the period given for the city. The current island of Cyprus is what used to be the mountaintop of Atlantis and would not have been populated before the great flood. Archaeologists have not found Atlantean artefacts on present mainland Cyprus simply because there are none there to find. According to the description in Plato's Critias, all the cities of Atlantis were located on a flat, rectangular plain at the foothills of the island. The rectangular submarine valley that is presently stretching between south-eastern Cyprus and the shores of Syria is currently one mile under the waters of the Mediterranean and no human eyes have ever examined the area. We are the first generation to be able to do it, and it's fair to say that given the rate of our technological progress we will know the area intimately before long. At this rate, with the uncanny match we have with Plato's account, it will likely happen sooner rather than later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17) Getting more technical, the Atlantis city kingdom is said to have flourished from around 11,000 BC and to have been destroyed by 'an epochal flood' somewhere between 9600-9550 BC. You claim this to have been the result of the breach of the so-called 'Gibraltar Dam'. However, there is now a high level of agreement among earth scientists that this final breach took place 5.3 million - repeat, million years ago - with the subsequent and final re-flooding of the basin taking place in the century that followed. There is a whole chapter dedicated to this topic in Discovery of Atlantis, but I will provide a few basic points here. First, it should be noted that gathering knowledge about the geological history of the Mediterranean is a brand new science, barely in a stage of infancy. Just twenty years ago, even the notion that the Mediterranean was ever devoid of water would have been rejected and ridiculed as nonsense. Now it is a recognized scientific fact. Second, the amount of data compiled over the last few decades and the number of comprehensive surveys conducted by scientific expeditions are few and far in between. The bathymetric maps and models we've developed for the book constitute humanity's first relatively detailed peek at the eastern Mediterranean seafloor. We've just started to even be able to see it! That should tell you something about our level of understanding regarding other, far more complex matters relating to the structural scheme of the area. Third, the only thing scientists agree about is the general date that the Mediterranean completely dried out, leaving its telltale deposits. Even this date is calculated using dubious and utterly primitive methods, measuring the thickness of the accumulated ooze on top of the salt layer to arrive at a conclusion. Surely, that methodology leaves much to be desired. Scientists know that roughly 18,000 year ago, there was not just one Mediterranean Sea, but three. Furthermore, we know for a fact that the Mediterranean has been subject to repeated flooding, occurring a dozen or more times in its long and turbulent existence. The age of each of these events is unknown. The only way we can gauge the desiccation of the Mediterranean is by salt deposits accumulated through the complete emptying of the basin. Therefore, we really have no way of knowing the details of other periods of low water levels in the basin when the evaporation cycle was not complete. In other words, if the Mediterranean had evaporated to a significant degree but had not totally dried up, we would not know about it. Our technological means are simply not at a level where we can reach concrete conclusions about such complex phenomenon. Nor do we have the technological wherewithal to date the break of the Gibraltar dam, even though we know the European and African plates often meet and diverge. Any meeting of minds between scientists regarding the Mediterranean desiccation cycles can only be of the most elemental variety, concentrating on the general details that can be measured with our faulty tools. There is far more work to be done and I imagine that what geophysicists will learn about this highly volatile area in the next few decades will completely rewrite what we think we know today. The process of accumulating solid data has barely just begun. There is very little scientific data, and lots of room for conjecture. Finally, I would submit what may be the most intriguing question of all. We have records from ancient geographers stating that they knew about the Gibraltar disaster. I repeat, ancient people knew about the Gibraltar disaster that turned what was once a dam into what is presently a strait, allowing the Atlantis and the Mediterranean to meet. All the science in the world will never be able to explain how our ancestors knew about this event if they were not around to see it, period. Logic dictates that without actually witnessing the break of the Gibraltar and the tragedy that followed, such knowledge would not have been available to the ancients. This means that the last ensuing flood did not occur five million years ago, but at a much later date when humans lived in and around the Mediterranean basin. Consider the fact that the association of the Strait of Gibraltar with the "Pillars of Hercules" is due to the old myth that Hercules had destroyed what was the Gibraltar dam with his giant mace, causing the Atlantic Ocean to rush into the Mediterranean. Pray tell, how did our ancestors know that this present eight-mile wide strait was once a dam? 18) You claim that the Atlantis city remains lie 'one mile down' between present day Cyprus and Syria. That would imply that sea level has risen by one mile since the drowning of Atlantis. In fact, the sea level has risen by only around 70 meters in the past 11,000 years. Moreover, calculations are that it has risen by a total of only 120 meters since 16,000 BC. I would predicate my answer by stating that these numbers are based on our limited knowledge of the Mediterranean and prone to error. Given the minute data accumulated over the course of the last few decades, the odds of gross error are certainly strong. The eastern Mediterranean is one of the most geologically active areas in the world with seismic shifting, volcanic activity, and geological phenomenon to throw a big question mark on any scientific conclusion. An article published by the Encyclopedia Britannica puts it this way: "Where plate boundaries adjoin continents, matters often become very complex and have demanded an ever denser thicket of ad hoc modifications and amendments to the theory and practice of plate tectonics in the form of microplates, obscure plate boundaries, and exotic terrains. A good example is the Mediterranean where the collisions between Africa and a swarm of microcontinents have produced a tectonic nightmare that is far from resolved. More disturbingly, some of the present plate boundaries especially in the eastern Mediterranean appear to be so diffuse and so anomalous that they cannot be compared to the three types of plate boundaries of the basic theory." Nevertheless, our hypothesis about the antediluvian state of Cyprus is not predicated solely on the rising of the water level. The events that surrounded the submergence of Atlantis, according to the ancient Egyptians, were of a monumental nature. We are told of massive earthquakes, flooding and sinking basins that "swallowed up" the human populations in the eastern Mediterranean region. These cataclysms in the Mediterranean would have naturally been accompanied by violent volcanic eruptions in the vicinity, and the combination of these events may well have caused the entire eastern Mediterranean to sink, taking Atlantis below rising water level. In other words, the breaking of the Gibraltar dam may have raised the water level of the Mediterranean while the surrounding volcanic activity, with its massive displacement of soil, lowered the eastern Mediterranean seafloor. Cyprus is surrounded by volcanoes and highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Moreover, these earthquakes may have caused tsunamis by breaking into the seafloor and rupturing the bottom sediment layer. Then, of course, we have the tremendous weight of surging waters pressing down on the basin. This is a ferocious catastrophe in our planet's history and we have nothing to compare it to. The destruction of the Gibraltar dam, according to leading scientists, caused a waterfall one thousand times larger than the Niagara Falls. Combine this with widespread, earth-shattering earthquake activity, explosive volcanic activity, sinking basins, and the greatest flood in history, and you have a related series of cataclysms of such proportions as to boggle the mind. The Mediterranean is simply the only place where Plato's account of the disaster, which befell Atlantis, could have taken place, and not surprisingly, the legend of the great flood and the paradisiacal Garden is a product of the Mediterranean peoples. 19) The alternative possibility that the drowning was the result of subsidence seems highly unlikely in the Eastern Mediterranean. In fact as the result of African - Eurasian Plate convergence, Cyprus has undergone long periods of uplift, with added uplift arising from hydrothermal expansion within the Troodos ophiolite. It's hard to imagine therefore why present day Cyprus should have risen, while its co-joined Atlantis portion should have sunk. The localized effects of the Cyprus uplift are insignificant in view of the overall effect of the eastern Mediterranean subsidence. Again, here we reach that point where concrete facts are few and far in between. Our hypothesis rest on this scenario: A giant flood resulting from a breach in the Gibraltar dam, due to the divergence of the African and Eurasian plates, accompanied by massive earthquakes and violent volcanic eruptions, rocked the Mediterranean world sometime in the distant past. We are certainly not at liberty to put an exact date on it but suffice it to say that it happened when humanity was around and actually witnessed the event. The rising waters in the eastern Mediterranean, in conjunction with the vast submergence due to the volcanic activity in surrounding lands, concomitant with the elevation of the coastline, created the geophysical makeup of present-day Cyprus. When contemplating the incredibly active Mediterranean region, consider that there was an international dispute in 1831 over a small island that appeared in connection with an earthquake, rising from the sea near the strategically desirable Sicilian Channel between Europe and Africa. Britain, France, Spain and Sicily all laid claim to the tip of this submerged volcano, now known as Graham Island. In about a month the island was two hundred feet high and three miles in circumference. Conflict raged for five months as nations fought over the small island, situated nineteen miles south of Sicily, while visitors climbed to its summit and investors frantically prepared to set up holiday resorts on its beaches. Their high hopes were dashed, however, as the disputed territory sank beneath the surface again, thus extinguishing the little brushfire of nationalist bickering. Interestingly enough, Graham Island made headlines again in November of 2002 as it is once again expected to rise from the depths due to seismic activity associated with the eruption of Mt. Etna. Are scientists today sure when this island will come up, whether it will stay up, and how long it will be before it submerges again? Certainly not. In the end, nothing short of an expedition will put the Cyprus matter to rest. The amount of evidence I have compiled and present in Discovery of Atlantis speaks for itself. All the technical questions aside, it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, I would end this by presenting this image so the reader can understand why we are so intensely interested in this landscape.
20) Why do you believe that Atlantis was in the eastern Mediterranean when Plato wrote that it was in the Atlantic? Before attempting to understand the dilemma regarding the location of Atlantis, one must first decide whether or not the island was indeed the place where civilization began. Study of ancient history and world mythology would affirm this proposition. Certainly, that is what the Egyptian priests recounted and what Plato clearly wrote in the Critias. Those who prefer to interpret something else from the description have already paved a different path that does not concur with Plato's writings or world mythology. For our purposes here, the foundation of the research rests on the fact that Atlantis was indeed a land where the arts of civilization took origin, precisely as it was remembered throughout the ancient world. When one wants to solve a puzzle as complex as that of Atlantis, one must dig deeper than a surface read of Plato's Critias. The most important thing to keep in mind is that Plato is not the author of Atlantis's legend; he was only one link in a long chain that extends back to prehistoric times. The Egyptian priests had told Solon that the original story predated their own ancient civilization, and that their distant ancestors had translated the description of Atlantis from an even older language. We are not told what that language was. The key to cracking the code about the location of Atlantis relies on the ability to keep one's eyes on the ball. Who was it that actually saw Atlantis before it sunk, and wrote the information for future generations to remember? In other words, who were the original authors? Without going straight to the source of it all, confusion and error is inevitable and that is why so many people have been thrown off track. The real authors of the Atlantis legend were not Plato, Solon, or even the Egyptian priests, as they only relayed what they read in the records. The original authors simply must have lived in prehistoric times in order to see the island with their own eyes, period. This crucial fact is nearly always overlooked, and is usually the cause for all the confusion. Failure to keep this fact in mind will inevitably lead the researcher away from the land that must have given birth to the legend. If the Egyptians translated the legend from an even older language, then the question becomes: Who had a language older than the Egyptians? There is only one written language that predates Egyptian hieroglyphics and that is cuneiform. Since the legend of the paradisiacal island (not always called Atlantis) was indeed centre stage in many of the oldest cuneiform tablets unearthed, it would not be a stretch to say that the Egyptians got the story from the Sumerians or some other ancient race in their relative proximity. After all, the ancient world's cultures virtually revolved around this legend, which they considered sacred. It's important to remember that there were no written languages in Europe at the time that Atlantis supposedly existed. The oldest alphabets sprang from the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. I will clarify what this point means to solving the puzzle by asking certain questions that will help us to put things in perspective:
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Janice Ruffle
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