The lost ancient city known as Atlantis is a possibly mythical island subcontinent, known to have mysteriously disappeared in the duration of one day and one night. The legendary island serves as an object of endless captivation and relentless obsession among various historians and philosophers for nearly 2400 years. Unlike many ancient legends, who's origins have been misplaced throughout time, we know exactly when and where the story of Atlantis first emerged. The first account of Atlantis was mentioned in Plato’s dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias” written in 360 B.C, where he describes the utopian society to be thriving, wealthy and powerful. It was these dialogues that conceived the present day sub-culture of devoted ‘Atlanteans’ that challenge
Atlantis was an extraordinary city that tragically and mysteriously vanished from a day and a night. The story that Plato said is that Atlantis was a island that was better than life itself, As Stemman stated in his book about Atlantis “Poseidon, Greek God of the sea and also of earthquakes was given Atlantis, and there he fell in love with a mortal called Cleito” (56). The city of Atlantis is a place that had questionable existence, Atlantis was a real naval power in the ancient world, but sunk into the ocean. Everything about it was extraordinary including the people that lived there. But something happened and it is to be
With the start of recorded storytelling in The Epic of Gilgamesh societies have defined themselves through their writings. Their beliefs, what they hold in high esteem, and what they regard as evil or barbaric, all of it is contained within the stories they’ve told. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first, telling of the king of Uruk from around 2100 BCE, in Mesopotamia. Later the first two books of the Old Testament, Genesis and Exodus, are presumed to have been written around 600 BCE near Babylon. Then Thucydides of Athens begins to record history in a more modern format, in the late 400s, BCE. Finally, Plato recreates conversations of his mentor — Socrates, also of Athens — in the early 300s BCE. These writings span several civilizations and a vast segment of early recorded human history. The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Old Testament, the writings of Thucydides, and the writings of Plato all reflect distinct ideals of civility in their respective cultures. Over time they show a transition from valuing power to valuing wisdom, cooperation, and government.
In many cultures there are flood myths that normally pertain to angered Gods who release their anger by flooding the world to cleanse whatever caused the anger in the first place. In the Roman culture, one of the flood myths mentioned states that Jupiter had been angered by the evil that came with humanity and had wanted to burn the Earth. However, Jupiter had feared by doing so Heaven would be set ablaze as well and thus, with Neptune's help, flooded the Earth. The hero Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha had been the only two to survive. Jupiter had recognized their religious lifestyle had let them live and retracted the flood. Deucalion and Pyrrha had then repopulated the world by throwing stones behind them. In the Murato culture, there is a myth in which a man had been fishing in a lagoon of the Pastaza river, a crocodile had swallowed the fisherman’s bait and the man killed the crocodile. The mother of crocodiles had been angered by this and had slashed the water with her tail creating a flood in the area and drowning everybody except for one man who had climbed up a palm tree. After the flood had subsided the man climbed down from the tree, cut off a piece of his flesh, planted it in the soil, and had grown a woman. He had then married the woman and begun to repopulate the world.
Pseudo-history, pseudo-science, and pseudo-archaeology have delivered ‘proof’ of numerous sites where Atlantis, the lost city of which Plato wrote, could have thrived and then suffered total destruction
Loewen is able to further develop his argument by pointing out events that American history textbooks simply avoid or cover up. For the most part, each chapter in this book discusses a certain time in history that is not covered to the fullest extent. For example, chapter two of this book talks about Christopher Columbus and how he was the one to discover The Americas. When in fact, there is a huge possibility that the Phoenicians made a voyage to The Americas or even an African voyage, “Of all the textbooks I surveyed, only two even mention the possibility of African or Phoenician exploration.” Loewen points out that textbooks like to think of the Europeans being the best and the smartest.
If the history of ancient civilizations are ever told, they are told in a few paragraphs or a page or two of a history textbook. They are considered natives that lived in harmony with nature and that not many even existed so they must not be of importance. But now, we have books that challenge the way people normally would think of these civilizations. One book is called 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. He challenges these ideas, but not just saying them, but by actually showing the reader evidence he, himself, has found. In order to challenge these ideas, we can analyze the origins, demography, and ecology of ancient times to realize there was life before
Augustine died in 430 as the Vandals were besieging his city of Hippo. Some 20 years before, Rome had fallen. In the West the ancient empire was a thing of the past; in its place a variety of `barbarian kingdoms’, although for the most part considering themselves a part of the Roman Empire.
Atlantis is known to most people as a legend or myth written by the Greek poet Plato, but is it possible that this lost continent really existed? Is it all legend or could there be some fact to it? Contrary to common belief there have been numerous geological and historical findings that actually give proof to the existence of this lost city. In the book Imagining Atlantis it tells us the story written by Plato. "According to ancient Egyptian temple records the Athenians fought an aggressive war against the rulers of Atlantis some nine thousand years earlier
Over the past hundred years or so, there has been a drastic change in our perception of the Age of Exploration. As our historical knowledge in this era increases, we have begun to look past the biased European perception of this era and get a better understanding of this era. For example, it is now common knowledge that Columbus did not discover America. Rather, we came into contact with peoples who had been there perhaps for millennia. We also now have a better understanding of the motivations behind the European nations’ exploration of this “New World”.
of a philosopher. The city is nothing but a myth “Atlantis is a fascinating legend, but
Evidence of the concept of the Otherworld existing in Celtic literature is even seen throughout other historical narratives, with the idea of an island off the coast of Ireland existing, referred to as ‘Brasil’. This idea embodied the Irish idea of a perfect place that had a perfect climate and abundance of lavish luxuries. This idea began to extend to other countries, where explorers and conquistadors would set out in search of these mystical lands. This was the pull factor for Columbus beginning his expedition in order to find these lands which promised luxuries and perfect weather. Despite the fact that this island did not actually exist, it reiterates the concept which the Celts had instilled in their history of this idea of the Otherworld.
In trying to summarize this piece of writing, I have tried to talk about what stood out to me, all quotations used for emphasis are from The myth of the continents: A critique of metageography (University of California Press: 1997).
The popular story about Christopher Columbus we’ve all been told since we were young is simple. He was a radical explorer who was the only one of his time who thought that the world was round, while everyone else believed it was flat. After getting denied his voyage multiple times, he finally got to sail for miles and miles with a complying crew to where he thought was the West Indies. However, he discovered that he was in fact in the Americas. He befriended the many indigenous people who had lived there for many years before he’d gotten there, and everyone was happy! Yet, almost all of this popular story is false.
In the movie series “Pirates of the Caribbean”, which took place in the Golden Age of Piracy, many “sea myths” are told to cause fear and enjoyment. Three of the most popular myths included in the movie were Calypso, Davy Jones, and the Flying Dutchman. Calypso was depicted in “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl” as a black woman with a strong Jamaican accent, but according to the Greek myth, from which it originated, she is a pale skinned woman with golden blonde hair. The movie also shared that Calypso had part in ferrying souls to the afterlife, which is erroneous. According to Greek mythology, it was the god Charon who shipped souls to the afterlife. Another popular “sea myth” was the story of Davy Jones. Davy Jones was a ghost of