WI Atlantis discovered

-Ruins of a society with a mish-mash of cultures existing far from their original source
- A ruin far away of a culture that has no recorded history of being there or even visiting
-Gifts from exisiting cultures i.e. phoenicians, egyptians etc to an atlantian king, clearly marked "king of atlantis" or w.e.

(First, I want to be clear that I too am of the opinion that Atlantis was made up entirely by Plato)

The first two do not implicate Atlantis. However, I could see the discoverers associating them with Atlantis if they are located in the place where those discoverers think Atlantis is at the time of discovery.

Whether the discoverers would recognize this as Atlantis would entirely depend on when the discovery happened. Egyptian writing was not translated by modern civilization until the early nineteenth century. Even then, assuming hieroglyphics were used, as there were generally no vowels, the most you would be able to translate was something like "tlnts". I believe phoenician was similar.

Even then, there're some other problems. I believe Plato said that Atlantis had sunk about 9,000 years before Solon, which would make it 9600 B.C..
The earliest writing system known to modern times, Sumerian, has only been dated back to about 3500 B.C.

If, for some odd reason, there was some known writing system going back that early that could be translated phonetically, there's a lot of time for linguistic drift between that gift and Plato's account, which would probably make the name on that gift almost unrecognizable. Remember that translating a possible Atlantean writing system would be almost impossible as we would have no idea what Altantean language sounded like, unless there was something like a rosetta stone to help.

Of course, Plato may be "wrong" about that date, which, of course, means that he might have been wrong about any other part of the story, including the name. In which case, there is almost no way to connect some ancient civilization to Atlantis -- any ruins found would at most simply get appended to the already long list of civilizations mentioned above which "might" be Atlantis.
 
Ok here is refined question.

Ruins are discovered at Santorini bearing what seems to be a reference to Atlantis or a civilization rather similar to.
Upon dating the artifcats and ruins it is deduced they are from 5000 bc or round that time, so Plato got his maths wrong.

Later on several other historians begin to notice these strange markings on other cultures many hundreds, and then thousands of years after these ruins were said to have been whole.

This coincides with the discovery of more artifacts on Sardinia, Siciliy, Malta, Gibraltar, the Azores, Cyprus, Rhodes & in Cornwall.

A 'rosetta stone' equivalent of this language is found in the far east in i.e Cambodia with early equivalent to asian languages, sanskrit and sumerian.






That is my repined OP. Work off that. And try to give NON ASB answers
 
Ok here is refined question.

Ruins are discovered at Santorini bearing what seems to be a reference to Atlantis or a civilization rather similar to.
Upon dating the artifcats and ruins it is deduced they are from 5000 bc or round that time, so Plato got his maths wrong.

Later on several other historians begin to notice these strange markings on other cultures many hundreds, and then thousands of years after these ruins were said to have been whole.

This coincides with the discovery of more artifacts on Sardinia, Siciliy, Malta, Gibraltar, the Azores, Cyprus, Rhodes & in Cornwall.

A 'rosetta stone' equivalent of this language is found in the far east in i.e Cambodia with early equivalent to asian languages, sanskrit and sumerian.

So, you're saying that this civilization lasted at least 5000 years, from the 5,000 B.C. (ruins at Santorini) to 100 B.C. (the earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit)? What kind of "references" to Atlantis were exactly found at Santorini (or are these only understood after translating the writing)?

I should say that apparently, there have been recent findings of earlier writing in China, dated back to 6600 B.C. I don't know how much these findings are accepted by scientists. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm.

Beyond that, although I think the actual existence of Atlantis as your describing, would belong in the ASB forum, the results of discovering such a civilization would actually pretty limited.

A lot of transcendentalists/romanticists/spiritualists/theosophists/new agers, depending on when the discovery occurs, would jump on it the same way they jumped on Egyptian, Mayan and other "lost civilization" discoveries.

But, unless explorers find something that is advanced technology at the time of discovery (which would be really alien space bat as far as I'm concerned), I would not expect any political changes, just another cultural phase to add to the archaeological literature in some regions. Okay, so you would obviously get dramatic changes in the history of archaeology and our understanding of ancient people. And, I guess, there might be some nationalism issues -- the Middle and Near East could no longer claim to be the cradle of civilization, and the Roman Empire looks like nothing compared to an ancient civilization that traded along the east coast of Europe, throughout the Mediterranean as well as South Asia, and lasted for so much longer.

Instead of Sanskrit, I think it more likely that you'd find Indus Valley Script on your rosetta stone, which is also dated to around 3500 B.C., just like cuneiform. Along with the unknown Cambodian script from the same era, you'd essentially be changing Archaeology in three ways: further understanding of Harappan culture, a previously unknown civilization with writing in Southeast Asia, and the Atlantean civilization.
 
Even then, there're some other problems. I believe Plato said that Atlantis had sunk about 9,000 years before Solon, which would make it 9600 B.C..

That is into the ice age.



If Icelande exist, why wouldn´t have something similar existed further south?

Once it would get away from the rift, it might well start to sink, loose stability.

Otherwise it might simply be a largw volcano or a bulge of the oceanic floor caused by the pressure of ligher magma before.
When much of the magma escapes, the island faces massive earthquakes and sinks.


In the late 1800s, a passing ship have some pieces of maconnerie caught in its anchor, from a submerged city. Might be an accident or an early attempt at studying the sea bottoms.
 
Last edited:
Top