Was the Lost City of Atlantis Real?

Atlantis

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher that lived in the early 400BC, and his discoveries and creations were crucial in the future of academics, physics, philosophy, and geometry. In fact, when he had built the first academy—which is also where the noun, 'academy,' originates—he had a dictum upon the doorway of his academy, that stated, 'Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry.'

He had asked brilliant and important questions that had created the future of the study of stars when he had firstly theorised their existence by stating that the universe was made of the elements of earth, water, air and fire. Different from his student and academic rival, Aristotle's more accurate theories, Plato believed in his own words and had created his theories to be only studied. Aristotle, however, believed that his theory of the universe, where his theories were abstract, but he wanted to make sense of observations about the world, where his discoveries could not only be studied, but improved, and believed that there was more to the world that he was yet to understand. Aristotle believed that everything in our world had a soul; a plant would have one vegetative soul so they could reproduce and grow, animals had two souls, a vegetative and a sensitive soul so they could move and have senses. Humans, he believed, had all three.

Plato's ideas of the cosmos, though incorrect, inspired centuries of scholars to think about the universe as having underlying laws, ones that hold regardless of what our senses show us. He had produced many essays and dialogues of philosophical reasons for what he believed, however, one in particular, the Atlantis Dialogues, is by far the most intriguing for historians. The Lost City of Atlantis was used as an example in his work—there are only two existing dialogues, however, the third is gone and unfinished, and there are many theories on why Plato may have left his most famous work unfinished—the two dialogues are named Timaeus and Critias.

Writing these dialogues, Plato's philosophical approach to the reader was that life was not only about the knowledge you have, and he explains his morals and how everything must be built upon underlying laws and rules. He believed that life was systematic, and so this could be evidence for and against the existence of Atlantis thousands of years ago. When he states his descriptions of Atlantis, he describes it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles, the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together," and "surrounded by a true ocean—within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent."

Firstly from these quotations, it is to be inferred that there is a description of a 'true' ocean, that is believed to be located in an ocean that connects the Southern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, by the Pillars of Hercules. Because of the repetition of the noun, 'ocean,' this could potentially be used metaphorically for an example to meet Plato's philosophical approach, using Atlantis as a fictional world to illustrate his ideas. Biblically, the ocean symbolises truth, and as spoken in the bible, 'If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me,' it can be believed that this could have a heavenly meaning. The adverb, 'farthest,' could represent an endless ocean, and this could be an interpretation of heaven, which is significant because this is supported by the adjective 'boundless.' Boundless is infinite and is found only in three instances in the bible. Using the noun, 'wings,' these words all have the semantic field of heaven and Christianity.

When Plato mentions Libya, this is also mentioned in the bible, in the line from, it says, 'Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers.' This mentions both Libya and the world boundless once again, and, again, brings across the point that Atlantis is possibly only a metaphorical, fictional place. Plato did believe in parts of Christianity, and he could have used these words to bring his point across.

However, the majority may disagree with this hypothetical idea because there is still withstanding evidence of Atlantis's existence. For example, a Minoan city dating back to 1400BC was proven to have been destroyed by a volcanic eruption that mirrors Atlantis's description in Plato's dialogues. This could have been the downfall of Atlantis also because of the quotation, 'and the mere skeleton of the land being left,' which could be evidence of a volcanic eruption, especially within the words, 'skeleton' and 'mere.'

Moreover, it can also be believed that Atlantis is real because of the constant, great detail that Plato goes into when creating his description of the City of Athens throughout both of his dialogues. He describes the land as 'noble nature' 'high trees' 'abundant fountains and rivers,' and hundreds of more quotations to support its existence. And though the way he goes into great detail and describes it realistically, it could be argued it possibly sounds unrealistic because of the lack of imperfections and inconsistency to the lands, that it almost sounds too good to be true. This potentially sounds like the description of a perfect 'heaven,' which could hypothetically be correct because of other ways that Plato created this idea in other extracts from his dialogues that link biblically.

However, in my own opinion, I do believe that Atlantis has a lot of evidence on either side of this argument, but on the other hand, it is to be believed there is a lot more evidence that Atlantis is a fictional place, potentially used to bring across Plato's philosophical approach by using metaphors and examples to support his point. Though there is to be more evidence, it does not cancel out the evidence that Atlantis is a real place, and there are still hundreds of unanswered questions of what happened thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece.