The lost city of Atlantis
Atlantis: the legendary island that sank beneath the waves in the
distant past, taking down with it an advanced civilization. Is it
possible that we will ever find it? Or, more importantly: Did it even
exist?
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The mystery of Atlantis
In Plato’s telling, Atlantis was
The short answer to both: No. All
no utopia. Rather, it was a foil
available evidence indicates that the
for an idealized version of Athens
philosopher Plato, sometime
from long before Plato’s time.
around 360 BCE, invented the
This ancient Athens “was very
island nation in order to illustrate a
similar to Plato’s notion of the
point about the dangers of
ideal state,” says Jyl Gentzler, a
aggressive imperialism.
professor of philosophy at
Amherst College. Plato laid out
the details for what such a state
would look like in his famous
work, The Republic. According to
Gentzler, it should be small and
virtuous, and reject ostentation.
The residents of Atlantis, on the
other hand, were eventually
“filled with an unjust lust for
The Making of Atlantis
In Plato’s texts, Atlantis was “larger than Libya and Asia combined,” (which, in Plato’s time, would have referred to
modern-day northern Africa and over half of Turkey). It was situated in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere outward
from the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s a landmass large enough that, if it really existed somewhere underwater in the
Atlantic, it would certainly appear on sonar maps of the ocean floor.
So how did Atlantis come to represent a lost utopic civilization? For that, you can mostly blame (or thank) Ignatius
Donnelly. In 1882, the former U.S. Congressman published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. The book laid out 13
hypotheses, centered on the idea that Atlantis had truly existed, and indeed represented a place “where early
mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness.” According to Donnelly, Atlantis was the original source of many
ancient civilizations around the world. If one followed the clues in Plato’s writing, Donnelly believed, Atlantis could
be found. “It would be hard to overstate the impact that this introductory chapter to Donnelly’s book had on future
Atlantology,” wrote Mark Adams in his 2015 book, Meet Me in Atlantis: Across Three Continents in Search of the
Legendary Sunken City. “It gave this sort of template that people could start to follow in decades to come,” he says.
Atlantis seekers
In the years after Columbus brought news of the New World back to Europe, many claimed that America was
the fabled Atlantis. But the search really gained steam in the 20th and 21st centuries. Some searchers have
pointed to a volcanic eruption that destroyed parts of the island of Santorini around 1600 BCE, wiping out
Minoan settlements. And in 2018, a team announced, to much fanfare, that they had found “CONCRETE
proof that Atlantis existed.” Key evidence included a series of circles in a national park in Spain. They turned
out to be experimental ponds created in 2004 and 2005 for a study involving zooplankton.
Kenneth Feder, an emeritus professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University, has dealt with
claims of Atlantis for much of his professional career. And while there’s no evidence that Atlantis as described
by Plato actually existed, says Feder, people who get hooked by that story can sometimes be drawn into real
archaeology. “As a discipline, we don’t do enough proactive work,” Feder says. Archaeologists really do know
a lot about other oft-mythologized locations like Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids or cities built by the
Aztecs, he says. “But if what we’re stuck with is people seeing documentaries about Atlantis or ancient aliens,
and that’s what gets them curious, then ... we need to be able to run with that.”
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Hello!
So what do you think? Is Atlantis real or is it just a result of
a rich imagination?
