Another discovery of the lost continent of Atlantis shows why science and myth are not mutually beneficial to a generation
Myths are stories that express meaning, morality, or motivation. It doesn't matter if they are real or not. But since we live in an age of science, we are busy looking for proof of our myths.
Think, for example, of the place known as the lost continent of Atlantis, a legendary place that has already been "found" in so many places on Earth, that one would think there was no place left to look for it. So think again. On June XNUMX, the BBC published an article about satellite images that place the Atlantis in southern Spain actually.. The article quoted Rainer Kuhn from the University of Dortmund in Germany, who said that "Plato wrote about an island that was five stadia in diameter (925 m) and surrounded by circular buildings, concentric rings of land and water. We have concentric rings in the photographs just like in Plato's description."
Kuehne reported his findings in the online edition of the journal Antiquity, claiming to have identified two rectangular structures surrounded by concentric rings near the city of Cadiz in Spain. According to him, the buildings correspond to the description of the silver and gold temples in honor of the Greek god Poseidon and his mortal lover Cleito, which appears in Plato's "Critias" dialogue, and the high mountains of Atlantis are none other than the Sierra Morena and Sierra Nevada mountains. "Plato also wrote that Atlantis was rich in copper and other metals," he adds. "The mines of the Sierra Morena are steeped in copper."
Atlantis was also "found" in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, the Azores, the Caribbean, Tunisia, West Africa, Sweden, Iceland, and even South America. But what if there is nothing to find? What if Plato invented the story for mythical purposes? And that's what he did. Atlantis is a drama about what happens to a culture that has become warlike and corrupt. Plato's purpose was to warn his fellow Athenians away from the steep slope of wars and a life of luxury.
In another of Plato's dialogues, "Timaeus", Critias explains that Egyptian priests told the Greek sage Solon that his ancestors had once subdued a mighty empire that lay just beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" (which Atlantologists usually identify with the Egyptians of Gibraltar), after which "there were violent earthquakes and day and night One, they all sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis similarly sank into the depths of the sea." Critias describes the city as a system of circular canals along which are scattered colorful temples adorned with gold. Poseidon lived in a silver temple with an ivory roof, and a racetrack was built between the canals. The great wealth of the people of Atlantis allowed them to build an elaborate army that included 10,000 chariots, 24,000 ships, 60,000 officers, 120,000 armored spearmen, 240,000 cavalry and 600,000 archers and javelin throwers. (This is about where the warning bells of your myth detection system should start ringing.) Zeus, full of bellicosity and greed, called the other gods into his house, "and putting them there he said...". This is where the sentence ends. Plato had his say.
Plato's imagination was fueled by his experiences growing up at the end of Greece's golden age, which was coming to an end partly due to the costly wars against Sparta and Carthage. He visited cities such as Syracuse, where mostly Atlantean temples stood, and Carthage, whose circular ant was dominated by a central island. Earthquakes occurred intermittently: when he was 55 years old, a earthquake shook the city of Helis, only 60 km from Athens. And the thickest hint of all: a year before he was born, an earthquake destroyed a military post on the small island of Atlantis.
Plato woven historical facts into a literary myth. As he wrote in his proverbs: "We are allowed to pretend that fiction is true for the sake of moral guidance." The myth is the message.
Footnote
Michael Shermer is the man behind the website Skeptic.com and the author of the book The Science of Good and Evil.
