Essay on Atlantis
The legend of the lost continent of Atlantis has long been regarded as a pure myth. This essay on Atlantis will show that not only did the continent exist, but also that it existed approximately 1200 kilometers west of Europe, in the vicinity of what is now the Azores Islands. After examining the writings of the ancient philosopher Plato, Otto Muck’s book, entitled The Secret Of Atlantis, and various writings on the Bimini Road in the Bahamas, this essay will prove that the lost colony of Atlantis is indeed more then a mere Hollywood myth.
Plato first mentions Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critas, which were written approximately 355 BCE. According to records, Plato heard the story of Atlantis from his grandfather who in turn heard it from Solon, the Athenian statesman of the 7th century BCE. Plato described Atlantis as, “a highly civilized society, one that could boast achievements well in advance of its age, that sank beneath the waves in a single catastrophic event.” According to legend, the first inhabitants of Atlantis were the offspring of a mortal woman and Poseidon, the god of the sea. More accurately, the first people were those that evolved from primates in the area.
Plato first mentions Atlantis in his dialogues Timaeus and Critas, which were written approximately 355 BCE. According to records, Plato heard the story of Atlantis from his grandfather who in turn heard it from Solon, the Athenian statesman of the 7th century BCE. Plato described Atlantis as, “a highly civilized society, one that could boast achievements well in advance of its age, that sank beneath the waves in a single catastrophic event.” According to legend, the first inhabitants of Atlantis were the offspring of a mortal woman and Poseidon, the god of the sea. More accurately, the first people were those that evolved from primates in the area.
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Plato writes, through his narrator, Critias, about the advancements and luxuries of Atlantis. He states that Atlantis was about 1200 kilometers west of Europe and that is was beyond the Straight Of Gibraltar, or the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, as it was known in ancient times. Many different historians and geologists in history have acknowledged the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ to be the Straight of Gibraltar. In fact, even today it is generally agreed upon that they are two in the same. Plato’s description of Atlantis could put it no where else but in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coasts of Portugal and Morocco.
Otto Muck was a historian who believed that Plato’s account of Atlantis was truthful. In his book, The Secret of Atlantis, he studies and examines the Azores Islands and how they provide further proof that Atlantis once existed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Crude pottery and weapons were discovered on the Azores and suggest that Neanderthal man, the precursor of Cro-Magnon, once inhabited the island. He concluded that the Azores has been inhabited by intelligent life for a very long time.
Muck also believes that the behavior of a certain type of eels that live in the waters of Central America help to prove that Atlantis existed in the middle of the Ocean. The eels will float for three years with the Gulf Stream until they reached Europe, where they will swim up freshwater streams and rivers. Ten to Fifteen years later, they mate and make the trip back to their origin. Muck states that the eels used to stop and mate in the freshwater of Atlantis, which wouldn’t of been that far away from their homes. When Atlantis disappeared, they instinctively continued until they found Europe. That is the only explanation for why they would travel so far when they could easily find freshwater to mate much closer then anywhere in Europe.
As further proof of the authenticity of Plato’s account, many of Earth’s civilizations at the time of Atlantis’s destruction have written about a great natural disaster that caused a great continent to disappear. The Egyptian and Aztec cultures both have accounts of this event, which also leads to the theory that the survivors of Atlantis spread to the east and west to take up habitats in Egypt and Mexico. Muck states that the striking similarities between the pyramids of Egypt and those of the Aztec are too great to be considered coincidence. He also defines his argument with the facts that the Basques of Spain and the Mayan Indians spoke the same language, had similar facial features, the same tools and even the same sports.
The Bimini Road is an underwater arrangement of rocks of the coast of Bimini, a small country in the Bahamas, which appears to be a sunken road that was once part of the ancient city. The ‘road’ starts about half a kilometer off the coast. Six meters below the surface lie the stones, some as big as boulders. Most are rectangular in shape and seem to be fitted together, linked, as if for some purpose. They form roughly two parallel lines, about fifty-five to sixty-five meters apart, facing southwest to northeast for a half kilometer in the shape of a giant letter ‘J’. Many of the reports about this structure by skeptics are of the ‘Atlantis is impossible’ variety. Most of these reports have never had any exploration of the area at all to base their arguments on.
Some argue that the stones are merely just beachrock, but the formations of the road are impossible to form by beachrock. In places where one stone is placed on top of another, or a series of stones are placed in circles, beachrock is an impossible argument. No matter how you look at it, the stones were obviously placed there by something other then nature. Add the fact that the direction of the road would more or less lead to the exact location of Atlantis according to Plato, and it becomes obvious that the Bimini Road was indeed a part of the ancient lost city.
After examining the above points, it is obvious that despite all of Hollywood’s attempts to make Atlantis into a fairy tale, this ancient civilization did exist. Plato wrote many, many things during his life, and many are still held in high regard amongst professionals as detailed accounts of history. There is no reason to take his account of Atlantis as written in Timaeus and Critas any differently. Otto Muck took already known facts and expanded on them. His explorations have led to further proof of Atlantis’s existence. The Bimini Road, under no circumstances, can be thought of as being man-made. Furthermore, the road would lead right to where Atlantis once was. The only conclusion of these facts is that Atlantis existed near what is now the Azores Islands, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just as Plato said it did.
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