It is an interesting story that has kept historians throughout the ages busy. We know of one video where two men walked through the Minoan remains and declared that Plato was talking about that civilization.
We watched that video so long ago we do not remember the title, etc. What we remember is that the two men seemed to have been doing their investigation with a pre-drawn conclusion.
Then even Simcha Jacobovici got into the act and did a television show on searching for Atlantis (click here). We watched it and while he may have found evidence to support the theory that Atlantis was real.
What Mr. Jacobovici and others like him have ignored is that Plato could have used real geographical locations in his dialogues. In other words, they were finding what Plato or Kritias and others may have inserted into the tale, not the real descriptive markers laying out Atlantis’ true location.
The story of how Plato got the information is also suspect.. it was supposed to come from Kritias who heard it from his 90-year-old grandfather, who in turn heard it from his father who had been told the story by Solon. As you know Solon was told the tale by Egyptian priests who served Sias. Solon lived in the 7th century BC and Plato lived in the 5th (#1).
We are not big fans of oral tradition even though many researchers claim that oral tradition is very accurate. How they came to that conclusion is unknown as no oral tradition dating past the last hundred years or so ago cannot be verified, let alone actually taking place.
No one can even verify if Solon was actually told this tale by those Egyptian priests. It is just someone’s memory or insertion into the story a detail that may or may not have taken place. Or someone lied.
Also, we are not the only ones who are or were skeptical about this tale:
Even Plato’s contemporaries were divided over the question of whether the Atlantis story was actual history or a “serviceable lie.” Given the context in which Critias offers the Atlantis story, it is reasonable to assume that Plato simply made the story up so he could train the microscope of philosophy on certain ideas about piety, politics, and human nature. Others, however, citing Critias’ lengthy preamble and repeated insistence that the story is true, have argued that, while the philosopher may have used the story to serve his philosophical ends, he nevertheless believed the story to be true. Therefore, they argue, the story of Atlantis has at least a kernel of historical truth in it. (#2)
We can agree with the theory that Plato may have believed the tale to be true but that too cannot be verified. We cannot begin to speak for Plato and his beliefs about Atlantis.
The best we can do is surmise that Plato, being a non-believer, did not have any objective moral code to govern his words and actions. He could have lied about the tale as well or he mixed up his dates and said 9000 instead of 900.
If, Plato did that, the 9000 years prior to Solon would place the destruction of ‘Atlantis’ at the time of the great Santorini volcanic eruption of Thera which wiped out the Minoans as they were known at that time (#1., pg. 200).
This is a very real possibility as Plato, being Greek, would have known about this natural cataclysm. He could easily insert it into his dialogues under the guise of some other ancient city and still made his point.
Then given literary license so many authors like to use to justify their embellishments, Plato could have added to the story. he may have thought the original told him was too dull and boring and decided to spice it up. We will never know if that were true or not (#3).
What also is ignored, is that ancient writers who wrote before Plato, including Herodotus who also spoke to the priests at Sias, do not mention anything about Atlantis at any time (#1).
What this means is that we may not have found any extant ancient writers who did write about this catastrophe or Plato is making it all up, using the Minoan disaster as a historical framework.
What is interesting is that roughly 1400 years before Solon another similar story was told in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. This story could be even older than that era we just do not know. It is called The Tale of the Shipwrecked Traveller. The last word has that papyrus in Leningrad.
The story ends with the dragon telling the traveler that the island they are on will not be found again as it will sink. What this means is that the Priest of Sias could have altered that tale when talking to Solon or just repeated the version, Plato recites, as they had known it.
In either case, the two stories are fables and may only be loosely based on different tragedies at different times, or elements of both were woven together. With the presence of talking dragons, we know that the Tale of the Shipwrecked Traveller cannot possibly be literally true.
We should point out that the Middle Kingdom was been dated between 2040 BC to 1648 BC (#4). The latter date is important as that is one of the estimated times for the volcanic eruption of Thera.
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Traveller may be based on the destruction of the Minoan society. Again, that is something we cannot prove. it is safe to say though that the absence of ancient writers mentioning this disaster, Atlantis is and remains a myth.
Plato had no reason to tell the truth or tell a true story. He was trying to illustrate his own personal points. Plus, we should not take his descriptive words literally. We have no way of knowing if he recorded the exact information or altered them to fit his points.
With all the explorers who have searched for the real Atlantis and coming up empty-handed, we can conclude that Atlantis only existed in the minds of those who told and re-told the story.
In our discussion with Henry Smith of ABR several years ago about Carthage and how any extant information remains is from their enemies. He said that we must take their words as true because they were the only extant writers writing about that city (done from memory).
That is a dangerous thing to do as we do not know if those sole writers were lying or not. We cannot verify their accounts or content and to assume they were writing the gospel truth even though they were not following God’s objective morality is not very smart.
The same applies to Plato and Atlantis. He was not following God’s objective morality, just his own moral code. His words cannot be taken to be true because he is the only writer recording the story of Atlantis.
We cannot verify his words. When we do as Mr. Smith said, then we lose the truth and base all conclusions and further writings on any topic on possible lies. That would ruin anyone’s credibility and do a disservice to the ancient people we are writing about.
The best we can say about Atlantis is that it may be based on the Minoan destruction at the hands of Thera and that is about it. it was not a real place but an adaption for whatever purpose the people telling the story had in mind.
Sources
#1. Westwood, J., (1987), “The Atlas of Mysterious Places”, Guild Publishing, London, pg. 198.
#2. https://saleonard.people.ysu.edu/PlatosAtlantis.html
#3. https://mysteriumacademy.com/what-did-plato-say-about-atlantis/
#4. Malek, J., (1999), Phaidon Egyptian Art, PhaidonPress Limited, London, pg. 430
theoarch 