S<\/b>tele<\/b> (pl. Stelai) <\/b>is defined in Wikipedia as a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living \u2014 inscribed, carved in relief or painted onto the slab. It can also be used as a territorial marker to delineate land ownership. Ireland is littered with solitary standing stones or menhirs that many consider to be boundary markers. They are to be found across Europe and North Africa as well as Asia.<\/p>\n
The words come into the Atlantis narrative when Plato refers to what is usually translated as \u2018the Pillars of Heracles\u2019. In fact, Plato does not use the Greek word \u2018stulos\u2019 which means pillar or supporting column. Commenting on this word, Riaan Booysen<\/a> wrote(a)<\/sup> \u201cThe Greek word for pillar is stulos, which is similar but not identical to either st\u00ealas or even stele. The latter two words are not to be found in any of Strong’s Concordance, the Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, the Oxford Greek Minidictionary or the Oxford Greek-English Learner’s Dictionary. That is however not to say that it does not exist, and I have indeed been able to find an interpretation of the word stele as:<\/i><\/p>\n “Greek: an inscribed stone slab; a block of stone, gravestone; a column, a pillar\u2026”<\/i><\/p>\n It therefore seems that st\u00ealas should be interpreted as an inscribed block of stone, possibly even a gravestone, rather than a pillar or pillars as it is understood today.><\/strong><\/span>Rhys Carpenter<\/a> [<\/sup>221<\/a>-156]<\/sup> has proposed that the term ‘Pillars of Hercules’ probably arose from a mistranslation of the Greek ‘stelai’ as ‘Columnae’ in Latin, which does mean columns or pillars, obscuring the original meaning of boundary marker. I find this more reasonable as it would seem to better suit the context.<<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n