Atlantis – an Aegean Island

By Xlibris US

During the summer of 2012 I visited the Aegean island of Santorini. Its awe inspiring topography, peculiar geology, volcanic nature and proximity to Athens caused me to think of Platos reference to Atlantis in his dialogues Timaios and Kritias which I had read more than once in the past. After spending many hours at the museum in Fira, the islands capital, as well at Akrotiri, the uncovered bronze- age settlement on the island, and after seen all the impressive exhibits there, I decided that I should do a thorough research on the legend of Atlantis. The result of that research is the present book whose conclusions are based on Platos texts in conjunction with geographical, geological and archeological data. This book is devoted to all those who look for the discovery of truth through logical reasoning and tangible evidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499031232

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Elias Stergakos. 635378

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014913107

ISBN: Softcover       978-1-4990-3122-5

ISBN: Hardcover     978-1-4990-3124-9

ISBN: EBook           978-1-4990-3123-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/29/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people:

• My daughter, Katina Stergakos-Smythe, for her help in this effort, and especially for developing the illustration maps, and

• Mr. and Mrs. Nick and Katina Kanellakis, for reading and commenting on the draft text.

Table Of Contents

Kernel of Truth

Indisputable Parameters

Controvertible Metrics

Atlantis—An Aegean Island

Geological and Geographic Evidence

Liquefaction, Cataclysmic Rain, Tsunamis—The Three Catastrophic Events

Pavlopetri—Corroborative Evidence that Atlantis was an Aegean Island

Archaeological Evidence

Challenges Regarding Atlantis’ Aegean Location

Size of Atlantis

Atlantis and the Atlantic Ocean

Heracles Pillars:

Gibraltar

Laconia or

Vosporos

Date of Atlantis’s Catastrophe

Atlantis—Plato’s Philosophopolitical Dogma

Atlantis—A Federation of Islands

Santorini’s Role in the Federation

Crete’s Part in the Federation

Artifacts Support an Atlantic Federation of Santorini and Crete

Melos and Andros, Part of the Atlantean Federation—Great Strategic Importance

Sea Peoples—Atlantians’ Renaissance

Bibliography

Kernel of Truth

Many myths similar to that of Atlantis have a kernel of historical facts within them. To validate the historical facts and significance of such myths, it is necessary to identify what is believed to be the kernel of facts and provide indisputable archaeological, scientific, and/or historical evidence relating to it.

The kernel of facts of Atlantis’s myth, as documented by Plato, is that there existed a volcanic island on which lived an advanced Bronze Age civilization with great maritime activity and naval force. The island’s geology consisted of red, white, and black rock formations. Catastrophic seismic events and volcanic eruptions caused the island to sink into the sea’s abyss within a twenty-four–hour period. The same seismic events concurrently with cataclysmic rains, induced by the volcanic eruptions, metamorphosed Athens’s landscape, and buried its army into the earth.

Indisputable Parameters

Volcanic and geological characteristics (of an island), consistent with those assigned by Plato to Atlantis, are very fundamental parameters and can, by themselves alone, serve as indisputable evidence in support of the existence and location of Atlantis. This is because geological and volcanic characteristics cannot be easily altered by humans, consciously or subconsciously, or by nature. They remain as unadulterated evidence for millennia. Great credence is added to the Atlantis legend if the island identified with the same geological and volcanic characteristics as those of Atlantis is in relative proximity to Athens’s homeland, Attica. This is because, as the legend says, the catastrophic events at Atlantis caused drastic landscape changes in Athens, and buried the Athenian army. Of equal importance to the above parameters, for the verification of the Atlantis legend, are discoveries of archaeological artifacts, which substantiate Plato’s description of the Atlantic civilization.

Controvertible Metrics

Metrics such as chronologies, numbers, and dimensions should not be considered as dependable as physical evidence when used to prove the veracity of any legend, especially a prehistoric one, and should, therefore, be used with a measure of skepticism. This is because such parameters can be victims of systematic errors, miscommunications from one source to another, and from one generation to another throughout the centuries, or can be altered for self-serving or sensationalistic purposes. Such parameters can become, and are sometimes controvertible.

Atlantis—An Aegean Island

Throughout the millennia, many have attempted to provide an explanation about Atlantis’s myth or to specify its location, but the great majority of them have failed completely. And that is because they either lacked the scientific information, knowledge, expertise and/or methodological capability, or were guided by subjective motives, or were driven by romanticism and unbridled imagination. They, therefore, either dismissed the legend as Plato’s philosophopolitical creativity, or argued that it is indeed a myth without any factual substance, or placed Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Baltic Sea, Bahamas, Spain, Tunisia, or any other location where there was some submerged geological entity discovered, and whose existence had not been previously identified or explained. There have been some, however, who have approached the legend with objectivity, and have argued that Atlantis did exist, and that it was located in the Aegean Sea.

Indeed, Atlantis was in the Aegean Sea, and more specifically, it was the southernmost island of the Cyclades. It was the present-day Santorini. (Illust. Map No. 1)

(PHOTOS)%20Atlantis_islands_Page_1.tiff

Illust. Map No. 1. Atlantis was the southern most island of the Cyclades, it is present day Santorini. The Cyclades Islands and Crete constituted the Atlantic Federation with Atlantis (Santorini) and Crete been the administrative/commercial and military centers respectively.

Geological and Geographic Evidence

Santorini is still as impressive and awe-inspiring as the Atlantis described by Plato, but for different reasons. Its circular shape, with an effective radius of 7.4 km (4.6 mi), is very close to what Kritias -in Plato’s dialogue Kritias- said to his friends that Atlantis’s shape and dimensions were (10.0 km in radius; 6.2 mi).¹, ² Hot water still bubbles up from its bowels as it did before its catastrophic volcanic eruption when it was used for winter baths for humans and domesticated animals. Red, black, and white are the colors that constitute the island’s geology now as they did then when its citizens used the colored stones to design ornate patterns on their