Atlantis
by Alan Alford
 Nearly
twenty-four hundred years ago, the Athenian philosopher Plato
penned one of the most controversial and tantalising stories ever
written. Once upon a time, he said, there had existed a
magnificent seafaring civilisation which had attempted to take
over the world, but had perished when its island sank into the sea
– the result of an unbearable cataclysm of earthquakes and
floods.
This civilisation had been called Atlantis, and it had heralded
from the Atlantic Ocean, taking its name from the god Atlas who
presided over the depths of the sea. Its main island had sunk some
nine thousand years before the time of Solon, circa 9600 BC by our
modern-day system of reckoning. The puzzle of Atlantis is this. On
the one hand, Plato was adamant that the island had sunk in the
Atlantic Ocean, and equally adamant that the story was absolutely
true.
And yet, on the other hand, modern scientists have mapped the
floor of the Atlantic Ocean, using echo sounders, ‘Geosat’
radar and multibeam sonar, and found no trace whatsoever of any
sunken island. The result is a deadlock on how to decipher the
story. Some argue that it is a myth, of uncertain meaning. Others
argue that it is a moral and political fable. And others, still,
continue to argue that it is pure history, and that Plato simply
got his geographical facts wrong.
 In
my book The
Atlantis Secret (Eridu Books, 2001), I suggest a new solution
to this age-old mystery. The essence of my theory is that the
story of Atlantis – or strictly speaking the story of the war
between Ancient Athens and Atlantis – was an allegory for the
myth of the creation of the Universe. Or, in other words, an
encrypted account of a secret tradition which had been preserved
for millennia by the mystery schools of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and
Greece.
In this way, Plato’s story of Atlantis may be seen as a ‘true
story’. For the ancients sages believed that the myth of
creation was an absolutely true account of how the Universe had
been brought into being.
My theory has the rare distinction of being able to
explain every single aspect of Plato’s story, in contrast to
historical interpretations which are always forced to reject the
legitimacy of one or more crucial elements in the account. This
does not guarantee that the creation myth theory of Atlantis is
correct, but it does make it the only satisfactory theory
currently available.
Support for my theory comes from Professor
Christopher Gill, who is one of the world’s leading experts on
Plato and the Atlantis story. In his Foreword to ‘The Atlantis
Secret’, Gill writes:
“ Alan Alford’s book has the considerable merit
that, while offering a widely accessible account of the Atlantis
story, it strongly rejects the popular view that the story has a
historical basis. The book takes as its starting point a fact
often ignored in non-specialist treatments of Atlantis: that
Plato is the original and only primary source for the story, and
that we must begin by locating the story within Plato’s
philosophical and conceptual world-view... I applaud the
lucidity of Alford’s argument and the transparency with which
his claims are based on either quoted or fully documented
sources... I am very glad to have encountered such a lucid and
wide-ranging statement of this [creation myth] hypothesis, and
to see it applied so suggestively to the Atlantis story.”
Before I summarise the merits of my new approach to
the Atlantis mystery, I will first address the fundamental
problems of the historicist theories.
I should preface the following remarks by reminding
the reader that the story of Atlantis is told only in the works of
Plato, specifically in the books ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’,
which he penned during the 4th century BC. Many misconceptions
have arisen from the fact that people have not bothered to read or
understand Plato, preferring instead to lend credence to the
opinions of later commentators such as Ignatius Donnelly, Madame
Blavatsky, and Edgar Cayce, who have consistently promoted the
idea that the story of Atlantis was a true in a historical sense.
It is my sincere belief that these modern individuals have muddied
the waters of Plato’s original account (no pun intended).
Problems with the Popular Conception of Atlantis
Problem 1: Plato
As much as Atlantis-hunters would wish Plato to have
been a historian in the mould of Herodotus or Thucydides, he was
not. And nor was he a geographer in the mould of, say, Hecataeus.
On the contrary, Plato was a philosopher and a part-time
mythologist. Moreover, he was not even an ordinary philosopher;
rather, he was a ‘true philosopher’, whose interests lay
primarily in metaphysical, otherworldly matters. Therefore, if
there is any truth behind Plato’s account of Atlantis, it is
unlikely to have anything to do with history or geography; rather,
it should be rooted in myth, mysticism, esotericism and the
metaphysical world.
Problem 2: Herodotus
It is highly significant that Herodotus, the
so-called ‘father of history’, said nothing at all about any
war between Athens and Atlantis. Writing almost a century before
Plato, Herodotus was widely travelled (he had visited Egypt where
the Atlantis story supposedly came from) and very knowledgeable
about military history. But as far as he was concerned, the
greatest wars of history had been those between Greeks and
Persians, notably the battle of Marathon (490 BC), the battles of
Thermopylae and Salamis (480 BC), and the battle of Plataea (479
BC). Moreover, in regard to the battle of Plataea, Herodotus tells
a highly revealing story of a bragging contest between the
Athenians and the Tegeans in which each side listed their greatest
military accomplishments. Here, the Athenians recited their
heroism at the battle of Marathon, but spoke also of their
achievements in ‘ancient times’ – their intervention in the
war of ‘the Seven against Thebes’, their repulsion of the
Amazonians who had invaded Attica, and their instrumental role in
the Trojan War. But as for the idea that their ancestors had
repulsed the invasion of Atlantis, the Athenian soldiers said
nothing at all – a very strange omission if Plato’s account
contained any historical truth.
Plato’s story is also called into question by
several other statements made by Herodotus. The greatest danger
ever faced by the Athenians, he said, was when the Persian army
had invaded Attica and instigated the battle of Marathon (490 BC).
The biggest armed force ever assembled, he said, was that of the
Persian king Xerxes (480 BC). The biggest island in the whole
world, he said, was Sardinia. And the earliest sea empire in the
Mediterranean, he said, had been forged by king Minos of Knossos.
All of these claims fly in the face of Plato’s claim, nearly a
century later, that Atlantis had been the biggest island in the
world and had assembled the largest army ever, to forge the first
sea empire of the Mediterranean.
Thus spoke the historian Herodotus who, had he lived
a century later, would have been highly sceptical of the
historicity of Plato’s story.
Problem 3: Socrates
Socrates was one of the greatest intellectuals of his
day, and yet when Critias introduced the story of Athens’ heroic
victory over Atlantis, he responded by saying: “Tell me though,
what was that ancient deed our city performed...? I’ve never
heard of it.” If the Athenian victory had been magnificent in a
historical sense, or even in an orthodox mythical sense (as in
their involvement in the Trojan War or the earlier epic battle ‘the
Seven against Thebes’), then Socrates certainly would have heard
of it. QED. We must be dealing here with a myth and, moreover,
with a new myth – perhaps a variation on a theme.
Problem 4: The Saite Calendar
That a cataclysm could have instigated the beginning
of a calendar nine thousand years before the time of Solon (c.
9600 BC) is not implausible. Nor is it implausible that such a
calendar could have been preserved for nine thousand years and
handed down for posterity via the Egyptian Saites (compare the
Hebrew calendar which is today nearly six thousand years old). It
is therefore possible that Solon (or perhaps Plato himself)
learned the date of the Atlantis cataclysm from the Egyptian
priests at the town of Sais. But the important question is this:
is it really likely that the date of the cataclysm originated in
this way?
In fact, everything we know about ancient Egypt
argues against the possibility. Archaeologists have found no
evidence at all for a calendar of this ilk. Nor is there any such
evidence in the Egyptian texts, which generally refer to ancient
events in the vaguest of terms. Moreover, even when we do find
numbers in these texts, they usually turn out to be sacred,
symbolic or rounded, the latter suggesting some imaginative
ex-post rationalisation by the priests. To presume, as some
researchers do, that the Saites possessed a calendar dating back
nine thousand years (to a time one thousand years earlier than the
foundation of their own state) is to go far beyond what can be
justified.
There is more. Why is it that the Saite tradition
preserved only the date of the Atlantis cataclysm? After all,
Plato had the Egyptian priest claim that several cataclysms had
occurred after the sinking of Atlantis, including the famous flood
of Deucalion. And yet nowhere in Egypt, nor in Plato, nor anywhere
else in the Greek writings, do we find any record of the dates of
these subsequent cataclysms. If Solon (or Plato) really did
receive the date of the Atlantis cataclysm from the Egyptian
priests, why did he not also receive the dates of the other, more
recent events?
There is another problem, too. Why is it that only the Egyptian
Saites preserved the date of the Atlantis cataclysm? If the event
was historical and as dramatic as Plato suggests, then it would
have affected much of the world and would have been recorded in
other ancient traditions. But, despite the prevalence of worldwide
flood myths, no record has ever been found pointing to the date
9600 BC.
In summary, it is a leap of faith to suppose that the
Egyptian Saites had access to the purported date when no-one else
in the world did; it is a further leap of faith to suppose that
the Egyptian records were entirely destroyed (from an
archaeological perspective); it is a further leap of faith to
suppose that Solon had access to these records when no-one else
did; and it is a leap of faith, too, to suppose that Solon’s
testimony fell into the hands of Plato and no-one else. To go with
all these suppositions is to hop, skip and jump into the land of
improbability. And there still remains the awkward problem of
explaining how Plato (or the Egyptians, if one prefers) knew the
date of the Atlantis cataclysm but not the dates of the three,
more recent cataclysms that followed it, including the well-known
flood of Deucalion.
A more likely explanation for the date of the war is
that Plato was speaking idiomatically and that ‘nine thousand
years ago’ signified ‘nine aeons ago’, i.e. an infinitely
long time ago. See the evidence compiled in my book.
Problem 5: Lost Civilisations
The implication of the historicist argument is that
two highly advanced civilisations – Atlantis and Athens
respectively – existed c. 9600 BC. And yet, according to
archaeologists, civilisation began much more recently, c. 4000 BC
(in the lands of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia). How, then, could
the two fantastic civilisations described by Plato have existed
more than five thousand years earlier, during what archaeologists
call ‘the neolithic period’? The idea is controversial, to say
the least.
As regards Atlantis, Plato placed the former island
in the Atlantic Ocean. On this point, his language is unequivocal.
Atlantis had been in the great Ocean, in the Atlantis Ocean, in
the realm of Atlas, opposite the Pillars of Heracles (the straits
of Gibraltar) and, fully consistent with this, the Atlantians had
directed their hostilities against Europe and Asia. To look for
Atlantis anywhere else but the Atlantic Ocean is to totally ignore
what Plato actually wrote. Unfortunately for Atlantis-hunters,
this leads to a fundamental problem, namely that scientists have
nowadays mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, in outline, using
echo sounders, ‘Geosat’ radar and multibeam sonar, without
discovering any trace of the sunken island or continent as
described by Plato. The historicist interpretation of Plato’s
Atlantis is thus strongly contradicted by scientific evidence.
Moreover, there is equally strong evidence against
the idea of a 10th millennium BC civilisation in Athens in Greece.
The earliest temples in Athens, for example, have been dated
archaeologically to only the 8th century BC; below their
foundations there is only virgin soil.
On the face of it, then, as we enter the 21st century
AD, the notion of two highly advanced civilisations fighting a
worldwide war c. 9600 BC would seem to be a complete fantasy.
Rather, the date of ‘nine thousand years ago’ is
surely idiomatic for ‘an infinitely long time ago’, as
suggested earlier.
Moving the Goal Posts
The reaction of Atlantis-hunters to the non-discovery
of Atlantis on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean has been to suggest
that the story was garbled at some point or else expressed in
poetic terms, thus causing Plato to cite an incorrect geography.
This assumption means that the lost island can be moved from the
Atlantic to any other alternative location, preferably one that
has not been mapped by sonar! The problem with this approach is
that, once one presumes Plato to have made one mistake (with the
location), it becomes tempting to take a little licence with the
text, and then some more licence still, and thus the situation
arises where Atlantis-hunters produce ‘solutions’ that owe
little to what Plato actually said.
What we should be looking for is an island of
circular shape, larger than Libya and Asia Minor combined (!),
fringed by mountains, with a rectangular plain and a six-ringed,
circular city within. But what we get is the mountains alone, or
the plain alone – and always of the wrong dimensions – with
the other features conveniently ignored. At the extreme, some
researchers have even staked their reputations on islands that
have not yet sunk. To which one must retort that if an island isn’t
sunk, then it aint Plato’s Atlantis.
The Creation Myth Theory
My theory rejects the historical interpretation of
Plato’s story and suggests instead that the Atlantis story –
or rather the story of the war between Ancient Athens and Atlantis
– was ‘true’ in a mythical sense in that it allegorised the
creation of the Universe. The validity of my theory stems from the
ancient axiom that the myth of creation was a true story.
The four keys to my theory are as follows:
1 Atlantis was a metaphor for the primeval underworld
(the interior of the earth).
2 The invasion of the known world by Atlantis
allegorised the eruption of the underworld. (Note: this is a key
aspect of the creation myth).
3 Ancient Athens, which represented the ideal, or
archetypal, city, first existed in the sky in the form of a
celestial body, i.e. a metaphorical city. (Note: the lowering of
cities from the heavens to the Earth is a feature of Mesopotamian
and Hindu mythology.)
4 The defeat of Atlantis by Ancient Athens
allegorised the fall of the sky and the war between Heaven and
Earth. (Note: this is another key aspect of the creation myth, and
parallels Hesiod’s tale of the cataclysmic battle between the
gods and the Titans.)
The Merits of the Creation Myth Theory
1 The theory accords with the most important facts of
Plato’s story. By identifying Atlantis with the underworld, it
allows Atlantis to be in the Atlantic Ocean (which symbolised the
subterranean sea); it allows Atlantis to be sunk; and it allows
Atlantis to be larger than two continents. These are fundamental
points, and yet all other Atlantis theories reject the legitimacy
of either one, two, or all three, of these statements and suppose,
instead, that Plato somehow, like an idiot, got things cockeyed.
2 The theory decodes Atlantis in the context of its
invasion of the world and ensuing war with ancient Athens. The
worst thing a researcher can do is to study either one of these
cities in isolation from the context of the war. My theory,
however, makes the inter-relationship between Athens and Atlantis
a fundamental basis of the interpretation.
3 The theory accounts for all of the bizarre elements
in Plato’s story. It explains how the six-ringed city of
Atlantis came out of Clito’s primeval hill. It explains why the
island was a perfect circle (code for a sphere). It explains the
unknown metal oreichalkos (meteoritic iron). It explains how the
island was transformed into a shallow sea of mud. It explains why
the Athenian army sank suddenly into the Earth. And it even
explains the opposite continent which, bizarrely, was said to
completely surround the true Ocean.
4 The theory is able to resolve a crucial perceived
anomaly in Plato’s text. By proposing that Athens descended from
Heaven against Atlantis, it verifies Plato’s statement that the
war between the two sides coincided with the foundation of Athens
in the Earth ‘nine thousand years ago’, and it thus exonerates
Plato from the accusation that he made a careless chronological
error. The supposed error, in fact, turns out to be a linchpin to
understanding the story.
5 The theory improves substantially the reading of
the story. By proposing that the Athenian army descended from
Heaven, it explains why the warriors sank, all at once, beneath
the earth. The Athenians, far from suffering a tragic accident
some time after the war (as the badly mistranslated text
suggests), rather died a heroic death at the climactic moment of
the war. This, surely, was Plato’s intention, given that the
story was told, ostensibly, to depict Socrates’ ideal state in
action (“I’d love to see our city distinguish itself in the
way it goes to war and in the way it pursues the war...”).
6 The theory vindicates Plato’s claim that the
story of the war was absolutely true. By proposing that the story
was a re-telling of the creation myth (the war between Heaven and
Earth variant), it allows that the story be true in the mythical
sense.
7 The theory takes into account the wider aspects of
Platonic philosophy. It must be emphasised (no doubt to the great
disappointment of many Atlantis-hunters) that Plato was no
historian or geographer, and thus we are hardly likely to find an
account of a lost civilisation at the heart of his works. On the
contrary, both Plato and Socrates were ‘true philosophers’,
who were obsessed with cosmogony and the theory of the soul. In
their way of thinking, something important had indeed been lost,
but it belonged to myth rather than to history, and to Heaven
rather than to Earth. Here, the Theory of Forms is the key, for it
presupposes a fall of the archetypes from Heaven to Earth,
including, most significantly, the archetype of the ideal state,
which was, after all, the subject of Plato’s story. By proposing
that Ancient Athens (and earlier Atlantis) had fallen from Heaven
to Earth (into the underworld), my theory cuts to the very heart
of Platonic philosophy.
8 The theory sets Plato’s story of Athens and
Atlantis against the broader context of ancient Greek myths, and
the older Near Eastern myths from which the Greek ones were
largely derived. In these myths, important parallels are found for
ideas such as: the birth of the Universe in a cataclysm; the fall
of the sky; the fall of the golden age; the wars of the gods of
Heaven and the underworld; the fall of gods, islands and
continents from Heaven into the underworld or subterranean sea;
the birth of all things from the Earth or subterranean sea
(impregnated by the seed of Heaven); and the idea that mythical
peoples dwelt in Heaven, the Earth and the underworld. Most
importantly, these creation myths enshrine the principle of
personification, with the poets using human-like gods or heroes to
personify the falling sky and the erupting underworld. My
interpretation of Plato’s story thus has its roots in a
well-documented, three-thousand-year-old literary tradition.
Summary
In summary, I would remind the reader that there is
no archaeological evidence for the historicity of the war between
Athens and Atlantis (quite the opposite); that there is no
evidence whatsoever for a sunken island-continent on the Atlantic
Ocean floor; that Herodotus and Socrates had never heard of the
Athens-Atlantis war; that Plato did insist on the poetic (i.e.
mythical) nature of Solon’s story by comparing Solon to the
great poets Homer and Hesiod; that Plato did place the war in a
pre-diluvian era (predating the creation of mankind!); and that
Plato was not a historian, nor a geographer, but a true
philosopher, whose interests lay primarily in metaphysics, myths
and mysticism.
It therefore makes sense that Atlantis signified the
‘true myth’ of the creation of the Universe, encapsulating
ideas such as the antediluvian paradise lost, the fall of the sky,
the mystery of the underworld, and the mystery of the soul, or
spirit, that had brought everything to life.
Thus Atlantis becomes a symbol for a spiritual quest
– the quest for knowledge of the origins of the Universe, the
quest for knowledge of the origins of life, and the quest for
knowledge of what life truly is.
Alas! To search for Atlantis here on Earth, in the
form of a lost civilisation, is the veritable antithesis of Plato’s
philosophy. The great man would be grieved indeed to witness such
materialistic folly.
For further details on ‘The Atlantis Secret’, or to place an
order, click on Bookshop.
Copyright Alan Alford and
Eridu Books
Presented with permission of the author
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ATLANTIS SECRET:
FOREWORD &
INTRODUCTION >>
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