July 9, 2023 • 9 mins
The legend of the lost continent of Atlantis is a mythical tale that has captivated imaginations for centuries. According to the ancient philosopher Plato, Atlantis was an advanced civilization that existed around 9,000 years before his time, around 11,000 years ago. Atlantis was said to be a powerful and prosperous empire, with magnificent architecture, advanced technology, and a highly developed society. Plato described Atlantis as a large island located beyond the "Pillars of Hercules," which are believed to be the modern-day Strait of Gibraltar. It was said to be ruled by ten powerful kings who controlled a vast territory. However, due to their greed and arrogance, the Atlanteans were eventually defeated by an Athenian army and were submerged beneath the ocean, vanishing completely. The story of Atlantis has sparked countless theories and speculation about its actual existence. Some believe Atlantis was once a real place that fell victim to a catastrophic event, such as a volcanic eruption or earthquake. Others view it as purely a mythological tale, serving as a moral lesson about the consequences of hubris. Despite numerous attempts to locate Atlantis, no concrete evidence has been found to confirm its existence. The legend of Atlantis continues to captivate the human imagination, leading to various interpretations in literature, films, and popular culture. It remains one of the most enduring legends of a lost civilization.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the pages of the X Chroniclesnewspaper, Why the myth of Atlantis just
won't die. The lack of evidencefor its existence hasn't stopped people from hunting
for it or insisting that archeologists areinvolved in a cover up. From Tutonkarmon's
tomb to the Dead Sea scrolls,there's seemingly nothing archeologists can't unearth, So
(00:22):
why haven't they found Atlantis yet?It's a question regularly fielded by real life
archeologists like David S. Anderson,who says he's barraged with questions about the
island and its supposed existence on adaily basis. It's far more common for
people to ask me about pseudo archeologythan regular archeology, says Anderson, an
(00:44):
assistant professor at Radford University who specializesin the Miya and Mesoamerican archeology. For
Anderson and his ilk, the answeris always the same. Will never find
Atlantis because it's entirely fictitious. Butthat hasn't stopped the supposed sistance of the
lost island or continent from sparking thepublic's imagination and leaving more than a thousand
(01:06):
years of speculation and conspiracy theories inits watery wake Inventing Atlantis. Atlantis is
the stuff of modern fair like Journeyto the Center of the Earth and the
recent Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse, butthe story is the brainchild of the Greek
philosopher Plato, who featured the islandin two of his Socratic dialogs from the
(01:26):
fourth century b c. Plato calledit Atlantis Nissos, or the island of
Atlas, and the philosopher didn't intendit to represent the pinnacle of human achievement.
Instead, the island civilization was designedas a fictional foil to the real
city of Athens. In Plato's dialogs, Atlantis is presented as a sophisticated state
(01:49):
that fell after its hubristic leaders attemptedto invade Greece in retribution for its people's
hunger for power. Said Plato,Atlantis was punished by the gods, who
unleashed natural disasters that caused it tosink into the sea, annihilating what remained
of its power. Plato is aliar, says Flint Dibble, an archeologist
and Maurice Skuadofskkuri Research fellow at CardiffUniversity. He never claims to be writing
(02:15):
history, but though Plato's dialogs includeplenty of clues that the city was imaginary,
including the dialogue's character's own insistence thatthe story was hearsay at best,
the idea of Atlantis has fueled imaginationsever since, along with claims it was
a real place whose remains contained proofof a lost, superior civilization. Atlantis
(02:38):
resurfaces Hundreds of years after Plato's death, The Atlantis story began resurfacing, first
in the writings of Christian and Jewishphilosophers, then in speculative works by the
likes of Sir Francis Bacon, whosenovel The New Atlantis was published posthumously in
sixteen twenty six. In the book, Atlantis is a utopian society on a
(02:59):
remote Pacific island whose inhabitants are learnedhumane and deeply Christian. At the time,
Europeans were grappling with a sea changein their vision of the world,
one that was expanding dramatically with increasingcontact between Europeans and indigenous people throughout the
Americas and Pacific during the Age ofExploration. The Western world was desperate to
(03:21):
try and understand how there could benew continents with people in them, where
they came from, and how theyfit into biblical or classical history, says
Anderson, who will explore Atlantis appealin his upcoming book Weirding Archeology. Rather
than acknowledging that indigenous peoples could haveadvanced civilizations of their own, Anderson notes
Europeans used the story of Atlantis asa possible explanation for the structures and societies
(03:46):
they found in the Americas. Amongthem was Charles de Bauburg, a French
priest who collected Mesoamerican texts and connectedMaya civilization to a real life Atlantis.
De Bauburg's writing went on to BiaAugustus Laplanjeon, a British American archeologist who
attempted to find Atlantis in Yucatan inthe late nineteenth century. He was followed
(04:09):
by Ignacious Donnelly, an American authorand politician whose eighteen eighty two book Atlantis
the Antediluvian World presented a unified theoryof Atlantis as a lost continent that had
been destroyed by the same great flooddepicted in the Hebrew Bible, and whose
technologically advanced superhuman inhabitants has supposedly goneon to birth modern civilizations worldwide. He
(04:31):
uses the Atlantist story to try toexplain all of history, says Dibble,
and modern depictions of Atlantis almost allecho Donnelly's sensationalistic theory a lost utopia.
Acolytes of these past Atlantis theorists havelooked for the lost island in the Mediterranean,
the Pacific, the Atlantic, evenScandinavia. But Atlantis seekers could have
(04:55):
saved some time, Dibble suggests ifthey started and ended their sir in Athens
itself. Greek archeology demonstrates why Atlantisis not a real place to begin with,
and why we shouldn't even be lookingfor it, says Dibble, who
has conducted extensive research in Athens's ancientruins and is writing a book on the
Atlantis myth. In Plato's Dialogs,the philosopher presents Atlantis as a foil to
(05:19):
the city state of Athens, buteven the geographical features in his account of
Athens don't add up against the archeologicalrecord. It's not something that has a
historical kernel to it, says Dibble. Nor does Plato's fictitious city appear in
works of art from Plato's lifetime,indicating that Atlantis was a product of the
(05:39):
philosopher's imagination and not a widespread publicbelief the conspiracy that wasn't. The lack
of actual historical evidence underpinning Plato's parable, however, hasn't stopped people from continuing
their hunt and insisting that archeologists arehiding evidence of the lost city from the
public. The idea that archeologists wouldcover something up or not publish something as
(06:01):
ridiculous, says Anderson. You makea name in archaeology by challenging the status
quo. For both Anderson and Dibble, countering widespread public belief in the legendary
island and claims of a shady archaeologicalconspiracy surrounding its location has become a sideline
to their archaeological specialties. From Dibble'sbiomolecular studies of isotopes in ancient Greek animal
(06:26):
teeth to Anderson's excavations of Preclassic Miasettlements. It's now part of both men's
career to speak out against figures likeGraham Hancock, a British author and TV
host who argues that archaeologists are coveringup evidence that an advanced Atlantis like civilization
really existed thousands of years ago,and that its residents were dispersed around the
(06:46):
world. Then a comet crashed intoEarth, triggering a catastrophic flood. If
you think the study of ancient worldis the solving of a riddle or unraveling
the clues of a puzzle, you'restuck in a fantasy world that was created
by pulp fiction writers, says Anderson. It's a fun world to play in,
but it's not actual archeological research.Then there's the fact that claims about
(07:10):
Atlantis and all in good fun.Nineteenth century speculation about Atlantis helped inspire the
racial theories behind Nazism, including claimsthat the continent was the homeland of racially
superior arians and the insistence that alost civilization was responsible for the magnificent cities
of the pre colonial America's downplays theactual achievements of the real life indigenous people
(07:33):
who built them. I don't thinkthat everybody that believes in this necessarily is
a racist or a white supremacist,but the Atlantis myth reinforces white supremacy,
says Dibble. Both scholars add thatthe search for Atlantis undermines the work of
legitimate archeologists, whose discoveries on allcontinents can be overlooked, ignored, or
(07:56):
disbelieved because of the public's ongoing fixationon the imaginary. When people get enamored
with this idea, it's much easierto stop believing in experts, says Dibble.
That can be entertainment for some,but for others it's a gateway into
even darker conspiracy theories. Atlantis wasthe bad guy. If the public is
(08:16):
interested in Atlantis, the scholars suggest, they might want to focus on other
parts of the ancient story that stillsparks the imagination to this day. For
Dibble, who studies ancient people's responsesto climate change in their times, the
natural disasters inherent in the Atlantis storyshow how easy it is to focus on
floods or earthquakes instead of more ordinarybut equally perilous climate threats like drought and
(08:41):
food insecurity. And for Anderson,it's worth looking at the story Plato was
really trying to tell, instead ofwasting time searching for an island that only
existed to prove a philosophical point.According to Plato, Atlantis was trying to
destroy civilization, says Anderson Atlantis wasthe bad guy in Plato's story. Instead
(09:03):
of obsessing over the likelihood of theisland's existence, the archeologist says it's worth
revisiting Plato's own exploration of hubris andthe dangers of unchecked power, themes that
still resound all too well, sometwenty four centuries after the philosopher first spun
his tale. For more stories fromthe pages of the X Chronicles newspaper,
(09:24):
visit www dot x Chronicles dot net.
From the pages of the X Chroniclesnewspaper, Why the myth of Atlantis just
won't die. The lack of evidencefor its existence hasn't stopped people from hunting
for it or insisting that archeologists areinvolved in a cover up. From Tutonkarmon's
tomb to the Dead Sea scrolls,there's seemingly nothing archeologists can't unearth, So
(00:22):
why haven't they found Atlantis yet?It's a question regularly fielded by real life
archeologists like David S. Anderson,who says he's barraged with questions about the
island and its supposed existence on adaily basis. It's far more common for
people to ask me about pseudo archeologythan regular archeology, says Anderson, an
(00:44):
assistant professor at Radford University who specializesin the Miya and Mesoamerican archeology. For
Anderson and his ilk, the answeris always the same. Will never find
Atlantis because it's entirely fictitious. Butthat hasn't stopped the supposed sistance of the
lost island or continent from sparking thepublic's imagination and leaving more than a thousand
(01:06):
years of speculation and conspiracy theories inits watery wake Inventing Atlantis. Atlantis is
the stuff of modern fair like Journeyto the Center of the Earth and the
recent Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse, butthe story is the brainchild of the Greek
philosopher Plato, who featured the islandin two of his Socratic dialogs from the
(01:26):
fourth century b c. Plato calledit Atlantis Nissos, or the island of
Atlas, and the philosopher didn't intendit to represent the pinnacle of human achievement.
Instead, the island civilization was designedas a fictional foil to the real
city of Athens. In Plato's dialogs, Atlantis is presented as a sophisticated state
(01:49):
that fell after its hubristic leaders attemptedto invade Greece in retribution for its people's
hunger for power. Said Plato,Atlantis was punished by the gods, who
unleashed natural disasters that caused it tosink into the sea, annihilating what remained
of its power. Plato is aliar, says Flint Dibble, an archeologist
and Maurice Skuadofskkuri Research fellow at CardiffUniversity. He never claims to be writing
(02:15):
history, but though Plato's dialogs includeplenty of clues that the city was imaginary,
including the dialogue's character's own insistence thatthe story was hearsay at best,
the idea of Atlantis has fueled imaginationsever since, along with claims it was
a real place whose remains contained proofof a lost, superior civilization. Atlantis
(02:38):
resurfaces Hundreds of years after Plato's death, The Atlantis story began resurfacing, first
in the writings of Christian and Jewishphilosophers, then in speculative works by the
likes of Sir Francis Bacon, whosenovel The New Atlantis was published posthumously in
sixteen twenty six. In the book, Atlantis is a utopian society on a
(02:59):
remote Pacific island whose inhabitants are learnedhumane and deeply Christian. At the time,
Europeans were grappling with a sea changein their vision of the world,
one that was expanding dramatically with increasingcontact between Europeans and indigenous people throughout the
Americas and Pacific during the Age ofExploration. The Western world was desperate to
(03:21):
try and understand how there could benew continents with people in them, where
they came from, and how theyfit into biblical or classical history, says
Anderson, who will explore Atlantis appealin his upcoming book Weirding Archeology. Rather
than acknowledging that indigenous peoples could haveadvanced civilizations of their own, Anderson notes
Europeans used the story of Atlantis asa possible explanation for the structures and societies
(03:46):
they found in the Americas. Amongthem was Charles de Bauburg, a French
priest who collected Mesoamerican texts and connectedMaya civilization to a real life Atlantis.
De Bauburg's writing went on to BiaAugustus Laplanjeon, a British American archeologist who
attempted to find Atlantis in Yucatan inthe late nineteenth century. He was followed
(04:09):
by Ignacious Donnelly, an American authorand politician whose eighteen eighty two book Atlantis
the Antediluvian World presented a unified theoryof Atlantis as a lost continent that had
been destroyed by the same great flooddepicted in the Hebrew Bible, and whose
technologically advanced superhuman inhabitants has supposedly goneon to birth modern civilizations worldwide. He
(04:31):
uses the Atlantist story to try toexplain all of history, says Dibble,
and modern depictions of Atlantis almost allecho Donnelly's sensationalistic theory a lost utopia.
Acolytes of these past Atlantis theorists havelooked for the lost island in the Mediterranean,
the Pacific, the Atlantic, evenScandinavia. But Atlantis seekers could have
(04:55):
saved some time, Dibble suggests ifthey started and ended their sir in Athens
itself. Greek archeology demonstrates why Atlantisis not a real place to begin with,
and why we shouldn't even be lookingfor it, says Dibble, who
has conducted extensive research in Athens's ancientruins and is writing a book on the
Atlantis myth. In Plato's Dialogs,the philosopher presents Atlantis as a foil to
(05:19):
the city state of Athens, buteven the geographical features in his account of
Athens don't add up against the archeologicalrecord. It's not something that has a
historical kernel to it, says Dibble. Nor does Plato's fictitious city appear in
works of art from Plato's lifetime,indicating that Atlantis was a product of the
(05:39):
philosopher's imagination and not a widespread publicbelief the conspiracy that wasn't. The lack
of actual historical evidence underpinning Plato's parable, however, hasn't stopped people from continuing
their hunt and insisting that archeologists arehiding evidence of the lost city from the
public. The idea that archeologists wouldcover something up or not publish something as
(06:01):
ridiculous, says Anderson. You makea name in archaeology by challenging the status
quo. For both Anderson and Dibble, countering widespread public belief in the legendary
island and claims of a shady archaeologicalconspiracy surrounding its location has become a sideline
to their archaeological specialties. From Dibble'sbiomolecular studies of isotopes in ancient Greek animal
(06:26):
teeth to Anderson's excavations of Preclassic Miasettlements. It's now part of both men's
career to speak out against figures likeGraham Hancock, a British author and TV
host who argues that archaeologists are coveringup evidence that an advanced Atlantis like civilization
really existed thousands of years ago,and that its residents were dispersed around the
(06:46):
world. Then a comet crashed intoEarth, triggering a catastrophic flood. If
you think the study of ancient worldis the solving of a riddle or unraveling
the clues of a puzzle, you'restuck in a fantasy world that was created
by pulp fiction writers, says Anderson. It's a fun world to play in,
but it's not actual archeological research.Then there's the fact that claims about
(07:10):
Atlantis and all in good fun.Nineteenth century speculation about Atlantis helped inspire the
racial theories behind Nazism, including claimsthat the continent was the homeland of racially
superior arians and the insistence that alost civilization was responsible for the magnificent cities
of the pre colonial America's downplays theactual achievements of the real life indigenous people
(07:33):
who built them. I don't thinkthat everybody that believes in this necessarily is
a racist or a white supremacist,but the Atlantis myth reinforces white supremacy,
says Dibble. Both scholars add thatthe search for Atlantis undermines the work of
legitimate archeologists, whose discoveries on allcontinents can be overlooked, ignored, or
(07:56):
disbelieved because of the public's ongoing fixationon the imaginary. When people get enamored
with this idea, it's much easierto stop believing in experts, says Dibble.
That can be entertainment for some,but for others it's a gateway into
even darker conspiracy theories. Atlantis wasthe bad guy. If the public is
(08:16):
interested in Atlantis, the scholars suggest, they might want to focus on other
parts of the ancient story that stillsparks the imagination to this day. For
Dibble, who studies ancient people's responsesto climate change in their times, the
natural disasters inherent in the Atlantis storyshow how easy it is to focus on
floods or earthquakes instead of more ordinarybut equally perilous climate threats like drought and
(08:41):
food insecurity. And for Anderson,it's worth looking at the story Plato was
really trying to tell, instead ofwasting time searching for an island that only
existed to prove a philosophical point.According to Plato, Atlantis was trying to
destroy civilization, says Anderson Atlantis wasthe bad guy in Plato's story. Instead
(09:03):
of obsessing over the likelihood of theisland's existence, the archeologist says it's worth
revisiting Plato's own exploration of hubris andthe dangers of unchecked power, themes that
still resound all too well, sometwenty four centuries after the philosopher first spun
his tale. For more stories fromthe pages of the X Chronicles newspaper,
(09:24):
visit www dot x Chronicles dot net.
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