A new explanation of Atlantis, did Plato use Atlantis as a metaphor to hide the name of Greek enemies?

1. Poseidon, Atlantis and the
Phoenicians
An adventure into the unknown

2. Method
1. Eradicate all previous concepts about Atlantis
2. Don’t follow any sort of dogma whether to
believe or not about it
3. Start all over again and do the research
methodically, scientifically

3. The origins
• Plato
• Greek philosopher
of the times of
Classical Greece
(between the 6th
and the 4th century
BC)
• Father of Western
philosophy

4. The death of knowledge
• Death steals secrets.
• It gives us a reason to live.

5. Socrates in prison

6. Socrates drinking poison

7. Plato’s early life
• Learning the teachings of Socrates
• Plato was shocked by the execution of
Socrates

8. Plato’s
life
Travelled to Sicily several times to teach philosophical
concepts to the Dyonisus’ family – the ruler of Sicily

9. Plato’s life
• Went back to Athens,
he opened the
Academy where he
taught Aristotle, who
later was the tutor of
Alexander the Great

10. Plato’s life
• At the end of his life, Platos
wrote his famous
“dialogues”
• Timaeus and Critias, were
written in 360BC
• The story takes places
theoritically 60 years
before
• It is said but not confirmed
that the story takes place
in 422BC during the Peace
of Nicias

11. The
characters
Socrates
Critias
Hermocrates
Timaeus

12. “Listen then, Socrates,
to a tale of Solon, who,
being the friend of
Dropidas my great-
grandfather, told it to
my grandfather Critias,
and he told me”

13. The characters
• Timaeus of Locri (Who gave the name to the 1st
dialogue) is a philosopher of the Pythagorean
school.
• However, nothing proved that Timaeus existed
• We may assume Timaeus is a fictional mash-up of
Plato’s friends, colleagues at the academy or other
people Plato met in his life.

14. The characters
• Hermocrates, a Syracusan general who
faught with Sparta against the Athenians
during the Sicilian expedition between 415
and 413BC, a battle that Athens lost.
• Critias, Plato’s mother’s uncle, Plato’s great
uncle – he’s a very old man
• Socrates

15. The story told by Critias
• It is a story that Solon, an Athenian lawmaker,
was told when he was out of Athens, when he
was visiting Egypt, and there in Egypt, an old
priest, the old man of Sais, told him the story
• Critias’ great-grandfather, after a 10 year
period

16. 1. The old
man of Sais
told the
story to...
2. Solon
who told it
to...
3. Dropides , the
great-grandfather
of Critias who then,
at 90 years old,
told...
4. Critias when
he was 10, who
then told the
story when he
was an old man
to...
6. Socrates
7. Timaeus
5. Hermocrates
Plato

17. “This story is a
strange tale, but
certainly true, as
declared by Solon,
one of the seven
wisest sage”

18. School of Athens, 1510, Raphael, Vatican

19. DISSECTION OF PLATO’S TEXT
1 The island of Atlantis, this island, as we have already
said, was bigger than Lybia and Asia.
-> the dimensions
2 Many great deluges have taken place during the nine
thousand years, for that is the number of years which
have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking;
-> The time it
happened
3 Only left unnavigable muddy sea, that prevented the
numerous barbarians and Greek tribes to cross that
area and prevented peoples to fight. Gods divided the
planet between each of them, region after right,
without dispute.
-> the context

20. DISSECTION OF PLATO’S TEXT
4 The oldest king, received the island and gave its
name to it. And the sea that we now call Atlantic.
Because the first King of the country was called
Atlas.
-> The name
5 Each of the ten kings, in his own division and in his
own city, had the absolute control of the citizens,
and in many cases of the laws, punishing
and slaying whomsoever he would.
-> its social structure
6 Being swallowed up by earthquakes, in comparison
of what then was, the only remains are the bones
of the wasted body, as they may be called, as all the
richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen
away, the mere skeleton of the land was left.
What is left now, compared to what existed then,
looks like a body discarnated by disease.
-> its appearance

21. 1. the
dimensions “as big as Lybia and Asia”

22. 1. the
dimensions

23. -> IT’S A CONTINENT THAT WOULD SEEM
OUT OF PROPORTIONS
1. the
dimensions

24. The Genesis Factor: Myths and Realities
February 29, 2008
by Ron J. Bigalke Jr.
“9000 years ago”
2. The
“era”

25. The times identified about the deluge differs depending
on the sources. We have many sources about the deluge
that emanate from different places.
CREATION: BETWEEN 4000 AND 5000 BC
FLOODS: BETWEEN 2000 AND 3000 BC
“9000 years ago”
2. The
“era”

26. 3. Poseidon Atlantis was given to the god Poseidon

27. Poseidon’s description
“Poseidon travels on a chariot pulled by
horses wearing shoes of bronze.
On his way, dolphins would joyfully jump out
of the sea.”
3. Poseidon

28. Meeting to vote for Athena or
Poseidon over the control of Attica
3. Poseidon

29. Attica3. Poseidon

30. Poseidon’s origins3. Poseidon

31. • Gods are a metaphor of stars, rivers,
cities, people, civilizations
• The Greek god Athena gave her name
to the city
• After Poseidon was defeated, he
went hiding in the ocean!
• Who has been “hiding in the ocean”
for centuries?
4. Atlas

32. Its appearance now
5. How it
looks like

33. an earthquake and floods3. The
disaster
“There have been, and there will be
again, many destructions of mankind
arising out of many causes.”

34. an earthquake and floods3. The
disaster
“But afterward there occurred violent
earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and
night of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk
into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like
manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the
sea.”

35. A peace and a world
wide war
4. The
context
“a mighty power which was aggressing the whole of
Europe and Asia”
“This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean for in
those days the Atlantic was navigable;”

36. A peace and a world
wide war
4. The
context
“Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a great and
wonderful empire, which had rule over the whole island
and several others, as well as over parts of the continent;
and, besides these, they subjected the parts of Libya
within the Columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of
Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.”

37. A world wide war
4. The
context
“The vast power thus gathered
into one,
endeavored to subdue
at one blow our country and
yours, and the whole of the land
which was within the straits.”

38. Plato’s description
5. How it
looked
like

39. 5. How it
looked
like Plato’s description

40. 5. The
Atlantis
island

41. 5. The
Atlantis
island

42. The War

43. 6. History When the gods decided
which lands would belong to
which gods, Atlantis was
given to the god Poseidon
• ATLANTIS = THE ISLAND OF ATLAS
• Poseidon appointed his son, Atlas, as the
King of Atlantis
• Atlas was a titan in Greek myhtology
• It lead to the Atlantic ocean

44. Poseidon and Clito’s kids
• Atlas: Moutain range in current Marocco and
Tunisia
• Atlas: the first king of Atlantis
• Carthage (located in presend Tunis)
6. Atlas

45. 6. History • Atlas, King of Atlantis

46. 6. History
Atlas, King of
Atlantis
Atlantis = the
island of Atlas

47. Atlas The titan carrying the globe

48. Gods as symbols
• Atlas gave his name to the mountain range in
North Africa.
• Hesiod, a Greek poet of around 600 to 700BC
(around the same time as Homer) said Atlas
lived at the western limits of the known world
Symbols

49. Gods as symbols
• Gods are a metaphor of stars, rivers, cities,
people, civilizations
• The Greek god Athena gave her name to the
city - or it’s the city who took her name
because the city was given to her in a
competition in which Poseidon also wanted
that city but Poseidon lost to Athena. After he
was defeated, he went hiding in the ocean!
Symbols

50. The enigmatic Phoenicians
• An important aspect of this presentation
is of the most enygmatic civilization of
our planet: the Phoenicians.
• Why? We don’t much about them, but
they were a thalassocracy that took care
of most of the maritime trade of the
Mediterranean sea between 1200 until
common era when they were defeated by
the Roman empire
The Sea
Peoples?

51. Atlas The name of the mountain range in Northern Africa

52. Why are they enigmatic?
• They are known for having invented the
first phonetic alphabet for which we still
use a descendant form
• The Phoenician alphabet led to the Greek
alphabet which led to the Roman alphabet
• Also said to have originated Sanskrit
• They are the “forgotten” civilization of the
Mediterranean
Phoenicia?8. Phoenicia

53. ORIGINS OF PHOENICIA
According to the writer Philo of Byblos (quoting Sanchuniathon,
and quoted in Eusebius), Byblos had the reputation of being the
oldest city in the world, founded by Cronus.
8. Phoenicia8. Phoenicia
- Phoenicians didn’t call themselves “Phoenicians”
- It’s the Greeks who called them the Phoenicians
- In fact, we don’t know what the Phoenicians called
themselves
- The Greeks called them Phoenicians because they sold a
unique purple dye. Phoene means “red” in Greek.

54. 7. The
Phoenicians Sicily, the inspiration for Atlantis?

55. 7. The
Phoenicians

56. Political structure of Phoenicians
• Settled on islands in front of the mainland (Tyre,
the capital city)
• Existence relied on trade, shipbuilding, wood
transporting, and Tyrian purple – a dye made of
sea snail secretions
• Politics relied on the establishment of city-state
trading posts controlled by an authoritarian
ruler that had all the power (even though a few
city states of the Phoenician empire tried to set
democracy-like systems)
7. The
Phoenicians

57. Phoenicia
• Posts on
islands
• Never on the
mainland

58. The Trireme was invented by Phoenicians
-> the date recorded for the first adoption of the
Trireme on mainland Greece was by the Corinthians in
700BC
7. The
Phoenicians

59. 7. The
Phoenicians

60. 7. The
Phoenicians

61. 8. The
alphabet

62. Here are letters from the
Phoenician alphabet:
8. The
alphabet
= T
This is what they mean:
= A
= L
= S
= N

63. 8. The
alphabet
Clue: they have to be read from right to left
Here’s what they’d look like from left to right:
And by twisting them:

64. 8. The
alphabet
The word “Atlantis” in
Phoenician:

65. 8. The
Atlantis
island

66. 8. Carthage

67. 8. Carthage

68. 8. Carthage

69. 8. Carthage

70. CARTHAGE
8. The
Atlantis
island

71. Similarities between PLATO’S decriptions
and the Phoenician civilization
9. conclusion
“as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed
out double docks, having roofs formed out of the
native rock”
-> Carthage was famous for its water network, aqueducts ,
absins and cisterns. Above is Zaghouan aqueduct in Carthage.

72. 9. conclusion
“The canal and the largest of the harbours were full
of vessels and merchants coming from all parts”
the port of Carthage
Similarities between Plato’s descriptions
and the Phoenician civilization

73. 9. conclusion
-> The Phoenicians were originally based in
a series of city-states that extended from
southeast Turkey to modern-day Israel.
Owen Jarus,
Live Science
“Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own
city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most
cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he
would.”
Similarities between Plato’s descriptions
and the Phoenician civilization

74. 9. conclusion
-> The Phoenicians and the Greeks were
fighting for the supremacy over the
Mediterrranean sea.
Similarities between Plato’s descriptions
and the Phoenician civilization
“This vast power, gathered into
one, endeavoured to subdue at a
blow our country and yours and
the whole of the region within the
straits.”

75. Similarities between Plato’s descriptions
and the Phoenician civilization9. conclusion
“They subjected the parts of Libya within the Columns of
Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The
vast power thus gathered into one.”
-> If you look of Carthagianian colonies, they are at
the same places described in Plato’s text

76. “the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts
of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far
as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.”
9. conclusion

77. Examples where Poseidon
could have been a metaphor
for Atlantis
Poseidon -> Poseidon lived in a palace of gold under the ocean
(Homer, the Iliad, 750BC)
Atlantis -> a paradise island submerged under the sea
Sidon -> an important Phoenician port
Phoenicians -> an empire of the sea
9. Conclusion

78. 10. The end
How did the Phoenicians’ story end?
The city port of Tyre

79. 8. Carthage
The city port of Tyre
10. The end

80. The city port of Tyre
-> The siege of Tyre by
Alexander the Great in
322BC
10. The end

81. 10. The end

82. The city port of Tyre
10. The end

83. The city port of Tyre

84. The city port of Tyre

85. The Romans gave it the last shot in
the battle of Carthage in 149BC
The city port of Tyre
“Carthage must be destroyed!” Cato the elder
10. The end

86. Mosaic floor in the “house of
dolphins” in Delos island
11. Minoans

87. 11. Dolphins
Mosaic floor in the “house
of dolphins” in Delos island

88. 11. Minoans
Knossos: Palace of the
Minoans

89. What’s all the fuss
about?
12. The Fuss

90. Ignatius Donnelly
(1831-1901),
politician and
author, "Atlantis
the Antediluvian
World“. Published
in 1882.
12. The Fuss

91. Hercules,
a hero from the North?
According to Jean-Sylvain Bailly, a French
philosopher from the enlightenment era
suggested and tried to prove that the Heroic
figure was from the North
12.
Hercules

92. Explorers
• Heinrich Schliemann: discovery of Troy
• Arthur Evans: discovery of Minoan
temples in Crete
• Otto Ranh: Grail seeker, employed by the
Nazis to find the grail
12.
Explorers