Fréret, Nicolas

NICOLAS FRERET French antiquary and chronologist. Date: 1688 – 1749

Nicolas Fréret (1688-1749) was a French scholar with a particular interest in history and mythology, which inevitably led to his study of the Atlantis question.>He was unhappy with accepting that Plato’s 9,000 ‘years’ was a reference to solar years, but preferred instead to consider that units of three or four months were used.<As a consequence, he concluded that the Atlantean War took place in 3380 BC.

>To make Plato’s 9,000 years more credible, commentators such as Giovanni Carli, also in the 18th century and Rafinesque in the 19th have suggested that Plato’s years were in fact ‘seasons’. The idea has gained further traction in more recent years with support from Radek Brychta and the late Axel Hausmann and most recently Rosario Vieni.<

Fréret was one of the first to suggest Syrtis Major as the location of Atlantis.