Négris, Phocion

Phocion Négris (1846-1928) was born in Athens but was educated in Paris, where he spent 21 years. He qualified as a mining engineer and obtained a degree in mathematical science. On his return to Greece, he became involved in politics and eventually served two terms as Minister for Finance.^(b)

Négris propounded the idea that Atlantis had been destroyed by glacial ice^[486][487]. In 1904, he published, in French, a volume on ancient underwater ruins^[686], which was republished in 1980.

In a communication to the 1905 International Congress of Archeology in Athens on ‘the question of Plato’s Atlantis’. He noted in particular: “So the agreement between Plato’s story and geological phenomena continues down to the smallest details. All doubt must cease; Atlantis existed. “^(a)

Négris’s 1905 French translation of Critias was combined by Lewis Spence with that of Jolibois to provide a composite translation in The History of Atlantis.

Négris is credited as the first person to discover the sunken city of Pavlopetri in 1904, which lay unexplored until 1967 when it was rediscovered by Nicholas Flemming.

What I find interesting about Pavlopetri is, that apparently, it is never referred to in any classical Greek literature. Sceptics often claim that the reality of Plato’s Atlantis is undermined by the fact that Plato is the only ancient author to mention it, and yet, Pavlopetri, unknown until the last century, does exist, without any known reference to it!

^(a) https://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/3425?lang=en

^(b)  Phocion Négris  (1846-1928) (annales.org)