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

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  • 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 »
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Parthenon

Parthenon

The Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens is one of the best-known monuments in the world. In its glory days, it must have been even more impressive as it is now known that the edifice was painted in ‘dazzling’ colours(e). When it was first realised that the Greeks and Romans had made such an extensive use of colour on their statuary and buildings it must have come as a shock to many. However, the painting of statues may have a very ancient history as a recent discovery at Karahan Tepe, a life-size statue of a wild boar, dated to between 8700 BC and 8200 BC, has demonstrated, where “Archaeologists detected red, black and white pigments on its surface, indicating that the sculpture was once painted.” (i)Parthenon

It has been long claimed that the Parthenon incorporated the Golden Ratio (1:1.618) in its design(b). This is now strongly refuted by Chris Budd OBE, Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bath(c) and Samuel Arbesman a senior scholar at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation(d).

The Parthenon was claimed by David Pinnegar(a) to have been constructed to commemorate the victory of the Athenians over the Atlanteans. He further contends that the frieze that adorned the Parthenon holds a representation of the debate to which Plato referred at the end of the Critias text. If this interpretation is true, is it not likely that Plato or any other classical writer would have referred to it? The frieze also appears to depict the Athenian war with the Amazons.

>In 2004, Robert Bowie Johnson jr, published The Parthenon Code [2078], in which the author claims “that both the Book of Genesis and the artwork found on the Parthenon are telling the same story — but from a reversed perspective. He writes that Genesis tells the story of the submissive, “the line of Seth.” The Parthenon, meanwhile, tells the story of those who resist the God of the Bible, the “line of Cain,” (spelled “Kain” in some non-biblical material).

The author compares the art found on ancient Greek vases with the statuary found on the Parthenon, and discerns a detailed story of the Greek gods and their resistance to and struggle against the God of the Bible. A common, unambiguous story, opposite from that told in Scripture, is detected when that evaluation is made. It is a story in which the God of Noah — the God of Seth — is actually defeated by the Greek gods!”<

In 2008, Evan Hadingham wrote an article for Smithsonian Magazine reporting on behind-the-scenes discoveries at the Parthenon encountered during the current extensive restoration work there(g). A 2021 article in the same magazine has drawn attention to controversies that have arisen over details of the renovation work(h).

A full-scale copy of the Parthenon was constructed in 1897 in Nashville, Tennessee to celebrate the state’s centennial(f). Inside is the tallest (over 41ft)  indoor sculpture in the Western world, depicting a stunning gold-covered image of Athena.

(a) http://www.hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/elgin.htm

(b) In order to better understand the Golden Ratio, it is helpful to have an understanding of the mathematical term proportion (archive.org) 

(c) https://plus.maths.org/content/myths-maths-golden-ratio#:~:text=Another%20example%20of%20this%20myth,dates%20back%20to%20the%201850s. 

(d) Math as Myth – Nautilus | Science Connected (archive.org)

(e)  https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180119-when-the-parthenon-had-dazzling-colours

(f) https://www.nashvilleparthenon.com

(g) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unlocking-mysteries-of-the-parthenon-16621015/

(h) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-proposed-renovations-greeces-acropolis-are-so-controversial-180977620/

(i) 11,000-year-old statue of giant man clutching penis unearthed in Turkey | Live Science 

Acropolis

Acropolis is the name given to the central highest position in ancient Greek cities, occupied by the principal religious and civic buildings. The Athenian acropolis was crowned by the magnificent Parthenon, constructed between 447-432 BC. An interesting claim is that the Parthenon was once ‘a riot of colour’(d). Another remarkable feature of the building is that its breadth has been carefully measured at 101.34 feet, which is exactly a second of latitude at the equator(b). The acropolis of Athens is the best known and often erroneously referred to as ‘The’ Acropolis. It is worth noting that the general description of an acropolis is mirrored in Plato’s description of the central buildings of Atlantis acropolis-plan3that were also located on elevated ground. Writers such as Jürgen Spanuth[015], Rainer W. Kühne(a)  as well as Papamarinopoulos(c) have concluded that the acropolis of Athens provides convincing evidence that the war between Atlantis and Athens took place around 1200 BC. Papamarinopoulos comments further that the Athens of Critias, is proved a reality of the 12th century B.C., described only by Plato and not by historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides and others. Analysts of the past have mixed Plato’s fabricated Athens presented in his dialogue Republic with the non-fabricated Athens of his dialogue Critias. This serious error has deflected researchers from their target to interpret Plato’s text efficiently. (e)

Plato referred to dwellings for warriors (Crit. 112b) situated to the north of the Acropolis that were built in the 15th century BC and were not located again until the earlier part of our 20th century. He also refers to a spring (Critias 112d) that was destroyed during an earthquake. Kühne notes that this spring only existed for about 25 years but was found by the Swedish archaeologist, Oscar Broneer (1894-1992), who excavated there from 1959 to 1967. The destruction of the spring and barracks, by an earthquake, was confirmed as having occurring at the end of the 12th century BC. Plato describes how these catastrophes, of inundation and earthquake, that caused the destruction on the Acropolis, were only survived by those living inland, who were uneducated illiterate people, resulting in the knowledge of writing being lost.

>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 ancient 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, and in fact, he was somewhat vague regarding its actual location. Jason Colavito also took issue with Papamarinopoulos’ contention(f).<

J. Chadwick & Michael Ventris have shown that Linear B was written in an early Greek language and that in Greece it remained in use until around 1200 BC. Subsequently, the Greeks were without a script until the 8th century BC. This date of 1200 BC would appear to match the end of the war between Athens and Atlantis except for Plato’s reference to the earthquake being accompanied by a flood that was the third before the flood of Deucalion, usually dated to at least some centuries before 1200 BC, which implies an earlier date for the Atlantean war.

Collina-Girard in common with many others seems convinced that Atlantis was destroyed around 9500 BC but that Plato’s description of Atlantis is fictional. Collina-Girard’s theory of an Atlantis in the Gibraltar Strait inundated at the end of the Ice Age many thousands of years before the Acropolis existed, forced him to denounce Plato’s Bronze Age descriptions as fiction otherwise he could not justify the exploration of Spartel Island.

(a) Location and Dating of Atlantis (archive.org)

(b) https://www.dioi.org/kn/stade.pdf

(c) https://www.2009-q-conf-kandersteg.grazian-archive.com/platoandtheseism/papamarinopoulos-newversionof2009.pdf

(d) https://www.livescience.com/649-parthenon-riot-color.html

(e) https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/geosociety/article/view/11165

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