{"id":4031,"date":"2010-06-12T08:36:13","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T08:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=4031"},"modified":"2025-07-31T08:49:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T07:49:27","slug":"tantalis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/tantalis\/","title":{"rendered":"Tantalis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>T<\/strong><strong>antalis<\/strong> is referred to, by <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/pliny-the-elder\/\">Pliny<\/a>, as the capital of ancient Lydia in western <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/turkey\/\">Turkey<\/a>. It was later known as Magnesium ad Sipylum. Tantalis was apparently named after the legendary King Tantalus, who had remarkable similarities with <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/atlas\/\">Atlas<\/a>; they were both Titans, supported the heavens and had mountains named after them<sup>(a)<\/sup>. \u00a0This powerful city was flooded following an <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/earthquake\/\">earthquake<\/a> and is now reputed to be located beneath the now dried-up Lake Saloe. Also note that Atlantis is an anagram of Tantalis \u2013 coincidence?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>British archaeologist <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/james-peter\/\">Peter James<\/a> has identified<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&gt;&gt;<\/span><\/strong>the destruction of\u00a0 Tantalis the capital of Lydia, as the inspiration for the Atlantis story<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&lt;&lt;<\/span><\/strong>and that it was located just north east of modern Izmir (Smyrna). James reached this conclusion<sup>[<\/sup><a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/main-bibliography\/h-j\/\"><sup>047<\/sup><\/a><sup>]<\/sup> after a study of classical writers, comparative mythology and local place-names. Unfortunately, there has, as yet, been no archaeological expedition to confirm James\u2019 contention.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Objections to James\u2019 theory are that Tantalis was:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>not on an island.<\/li>\n<li>Did not create a maritime hazard<\/li>\n<li>not outside any suggested location for the Pillars of Hercules.<\/li>\n<li>too close to Greece (James raises this objection against the <a href=\"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/santorini\/\">Santorini<\/a> theory).<\/li>\n<li>not known as a circular city (?).<\/li>\n<li>had no large adjacent plain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>N.B. Sardis was also known as the capital of Lydia by the early 7<sup>th<\/sup> century BC.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><sup>(a)<\/sup> <a href=\"#page_scan_tab_contents\">&#8220;https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/262536?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tantalis is referred to, by Pliny, as the capital of ancient Lydia in western Turkey. It was later known as Magnesium ad Sipylum. Tantalis was apparently named after the legendary King Tantalus, who had remarkable similarities with Atlas; they were both Titans, supported the heavens and had mountains named after them(a). \u00a0This powerful city was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1061,3470,147,3566,700,669],"class_list":["post-4031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atlas","tag-earthquake","tag-peter-james","tag-tantalis","tag-titans","tag-turkey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64239,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions\/64239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}