A city with rounded buildings buried in the swamps not far from Cádiz, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Is she the source of the legend of Atlantis
Plato wrote about an island of five stadia (a stadia is a unit of measurement of the ancient world that is 185.2 meters long), i.e. 925 meters, surrounded by several circular bodies - concentric rings - some of which are made of earth and others of water. The images show concentric rings exactly as Plato described, Dr. Kuhn tells the BBC
Everyone has their own Atlantis. Carl Sagan describes in his book A Haunted World, a taxi driver named William Buckley, who drove him from an airport to a remote location for a lecture. That man knew nothing about the scientific news, but he knew how to tell him about the crystals that the Atlanteans knew their power, and about the expeditions that go on diving expeditions to look for the lost continent.
However, some are looking in different ways for ancient cities submerged in water, with some possibility that one of them may have inspired the legend of Atlantis. A few months ago, we revealed for the first time on the Hvidan website an attempt by a team of American researchers to go on a search this summer. This, after collecting evidence that points to their exact location - between Cyprus and Syria, at a depth of about one and a half kilometers in the sea (see link at the bottom of the article). Now a German scientist claims that he found a city submerged in a swamp and not in the sea not far from the Atlantic coast in southern Spain.
Since many cities were destroyed during history and some were abandoned, there is no obstacle to finding such cities. It is more difficult to prove the claim that it is Atlantis.
Satellite images of southern Spain reveal features on the ground that appear to match the description of the island of Atlantis, which appears in Plato's work "Utopia". According to the German researcher Rainer Kuhn, who is quoted on the BBC and describes his research in the online edition of the journal "Antiquity", the Platonic description of Atlantis referred to an area on the coast of southern Spain, which was destroyed by a flood in the years 500-800 BC.
The utopia of Atlantis has captured the imagination of scholars for centuries. The earliest known documentation of the legendary land appears in the Platonic dialogues "Critias" and "Timaeus". Plato's descriptions of the land of extreme wealth, advanced civilization and natural beauty spurred many adventurers to seek it out.
Haaretz reported today that satellite images of the Marisma de Inujos salt marsh area, near the city of Cádiz, now reveal two rectangular buildings submerged in mud and parts of concentric rings (having a common center) that may have surrounded them in the past. "Plato wrote about an island with a diameter of 925 meters, surrounded by several circular, terrestrial and marine forms. You can see in the pictures concentric rings identical to Plato's description," Cohn told the BBC.
Dr. Kuhn, from Wipertal University in Germany, believes that the rectangular structures may be the remains of a "silver" temple, erected in honor of the sea god Poseidon, and of a "golden" temple erected in honor of Poseidon and Cletos - both temples described in "Critias".
The dimensions of the "island" and the rings, which were discovered in the satellite image, are slightly larger than those described by Plato. According to Kuhn, there are two possible explanations for this. First, Plato may have underestimated the size of Atlantis. Second, it is possible that the unit of measure of the ancient world that was used by him - the stadia (185.2 meters) - was 20% larger than what has been assumed so far. If the second option is correct, one of the rectangular buildings on the "island" corresponds almost exactly to the dimensions of the temple to Poseidon described by Plato.
The first to locate the shapes was Werner Wieckboldt, a lecturer and avid fan of the story of Atlantis, who examined images of the Mediterranean Sea looking for signs of the city that Plato described. "This is the only place that seems to fit the description," he told the BBC. Wickboldt added that it is possible that in the various incarnations of the Atlantis story, the Greeks interpreted an Egyptian word meaning "coastline" as "island".
Plato described Atlantis as having a "plain". According to Cohn, this may be the plain that today stretches from the southern coast of Spain to the city of Seville. The high mountains described by Plato may be the Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada. "Plato also wrote that Atlantis was rich in copper and other metals. Copper is abundant in mines in the Sierra Morena," Cohn said.
Kuhn noticed the similarities between the war described by Plato, which was between Atlantis and the inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and the attacks of the so-called "sea heathens" on Egypt, Cyprus and the Levant in the 12th century BC. Therefore, he hypothesizes that the Atlanteans were actually sea heathens. According to this thesis, the city and society in Atlantis date back to the ancient Tartessian culture, which existed in the Andalusia region during the Iron Age, or to an unknown culture of the Bronze Age. The connection between Atlantis and Tarsus was first raised at the beginning of the 20th century.
Kuhn said he hopes to pique the curiosity of archaeologists who will come to dig at the site. However, this matter may be problematic - the details photographed by the satellite are inside the "Donana" National Park.
Tony Wilkinson, an archaeologist from the University of Edinburgh who specialized in remote sensing, commented on the satellite photographs showing the two "temples": "Many of the problems are the result of interpretation. I can see something there, and I guess it can be interpreted in several ways," he told the BBC. "However, there are gaps. We use imagery to identify certain types of marks on the ground, and then verify them (in the field). What we need here is an approximate date range - otherwise you're just dealing with morphology."
Explorers: We found Atlantis
The lost continent was found, according to the claim, between Cyprus and Syria, a kilometer and a half below the surface of the water. The search area was determined based on clues planted in Plato's dialogues * The statement is still highly criticized by experts
16.11.2004
"We found Atlantis," said the American researcher Robert Sarmast on Tuesday at a special press conference he convened in the port of Limassol. According to him, he and his colleagues found the lost continent in the deep waters of Cyprus.
For hundreds of years, researchers have been trying to find out what happened to the mysterious continent, where it disappeared to and if it even existed, or if it was just a figment of the imagination of the Greek philosopher Plato.
According to Sarmast, who headed the research, he and his colleagues found in the Mediterranean Sea, between Cyprus and Syria, about one and a half kilometers below sea level, a rectangular continent, which he says is Atlantis. Sarmast claims that the continent was flooded due to a flood about 9,000 years BC. "We definitely found it," said Sarmast, and it is located about 80 kilometers from the southeastern coast of Cyprus.
According to him, a sonar device that was inserted into the deep water photographed a slope with man-made structures on it, including a three-kilometer-long wall, a hill and a deep trench. At the same time, Sarmast said, that one must go deeper and investigate the place.
According to him, "We still cannot provide actual proof in the form of bricks or plaster because the man-made objects are still buried under several meters of sediment, but the circumstantial evidence cannot be refuted."
Did Atlantis exist and where was its exact location - this question captured the imagination of many for centuries. According to the Greek philosopher Plato, an advanced civilization lived in Atlantis about 11,500 years ago.
The various theories explaining the disappearance of the continent ranged from Greek mythology, according to which the continent was flooded due to a natural disaster, to theories according to which the civilization was so corrupted by greed and power that it was destroyed by God.
Sarmast said that he decided to search in the Cyprus area following clues, planted in Plato's dialogues. Plato refers to Atlantis as the "Pillars of Hercules", which many believed to be the steps of Gibraltar, which caused researchers to focus on the Atlantic Ocean or Ireland or the Azores in Portugal. According to him, "researchers who dismissed the possibility that it was other places, did not do their homework properly... to understand the Atlantis puzzle you must have a lot of knowledge about ancient history, biblical links, Samaritan culture and more".
