An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

Latest News

  • NEWS September 2023

    NEWS September 2023

    September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
  • Joining The Dots

    Joining The Dots

    I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Search

Recent Updates

Mycenaean

Athens

Athens, according to tradition, was founded by the goddess Athene. It has been inhabited since around 5000 BC but it was not until the 2nd millennium that it became an important Mycenaean centre. This conflicts with the idea that Athens engaged in a war with Atlantis around 9600 BC. It simply did not exist at that time.

>Readers may be interested in an article by Stephanos Mytilinaos entitled Athens Before the Deluge according to Plato(b).<

A number of maps of Athens at the time of Plato is available online(a).

(a) https://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athensim.htm

(b) Archive 4466 | (atlantipedia.ie) *

Mycenaeans

Mycenaean is the name given to the culture of ancient Greece (excluding Crete) during the Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 BC). They were also called Achaeans. The controversial writer Felice Vinci maintains that a Northern European tribe was referred to as Achaeans by Homer and that they migrated south and founded the Mycenaean civilisation.

Among the many geographical identifications of Homeric locations in the Baltic by Vinci is his claim that Mycenae was probably located on the same site as Copenhagen and associated Thebes with Stockholm [019.218]. Compare this with Iman Wilkens‘s claim that Mycenae had been situated in northern France [610.121] !

However, it was Martin Persson Nilsson (1874-1967), a Swedish historian, who was an earlier proponent of a Nordic origin for the Mycenaeans. A Northern European location for Mycenae (and Sparta) has also been proposed by John Esse Larsen, who has specified Hareskov in northeast Denmark(d).

However, recent genetic studies suggest that the mainland Mycenaeans and the Cretan Minoans share a common ancestry with Neolithic populations of what are today Turkey and Greece(c).

Stavros Papamarinopoulos claims[750.73] that the Athens described by Plato in the Critias is an accurate description of Mycenaean Athens>and then leaps to the conclusion that because the details of Athens provided by Plato are correct then it must follow that his depiction of Atlantis is equally reliable! For me, this is an unacceptable non sequitur, as Plato lived ln Athens and would have been fully aware of the city’s landmarks and tradition. On the other hand, he had not been to Atlantis, in fact, he was somewhat vague regarding its actual location. Jason Colavito also took issue with Papamarinopoulos’ contention(f).

There is evidence of Mycenaean warriors fighting alongside Egyptian soldiers of the 18th Dynasty(e)!<

Austen Atkinson in his Impact Earth[109] suggested the possibility that the unexplained ending of the Mycenaean civilisation could be explained as a consequence of Earth’s encounter with Phaëton referred to by Plato (Tim.22c-d).

However, there are current studies(a) being made into the possibility that earthquakes were responsible for the demise of the Mycenaeans and the start of the Greek ‘Dark Ages’.

However, the earthquake theory is also under attack(b), with the proposal that either an uprising or invasion was responsible for the demise of Mycenaean Greece.

A recent outline[226] of the Mycenaean culture has been produced by Rodney Castleden, who has also written about Atlantis.

(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20170702144950/https://www.seeker.com/did-an-earthquake-destroy-ancient-greece-1767465731.html

(b) https://www.tornosnews.gr/en/greek-news/culture/30911-new-study-mycenaean-civilization-might-have-collapsed-due-to-uprising-or-invasion.html

(c) https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-mystery-of-where-the-minoans-came-from-solved-1.5439462

(d) http://odisse.me.uk/the-danaan-islands-seeland-and-arcadia.html 

(e) https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/x4z1qi7hp27q8mjvo74cbzz9uc8irm?rq=abydos *

(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-minor-atlantis-mystery-did-plato-correctly-describe-mycenaean-athens-in-the-critias *