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The Atlantis Thread

blessmycottonsocks said:
See what you think about the video a few posts above, in which Professor Felix Rodrigues visits the cart-ruts and other archaeology on Terceira Island.
Click to expand...
I'm going to watch the video, but just from the start I'm a little concerned that we're talking about archaeology, and the professor is a physicist. It automatically raises questions about his conclusions when he's stepping well outside of his field.
From the rest of the video... I'm hearing a lot of indefinites. Maybe, possibly, we think.

The video leads with stating that officially the Azores was found uninhabited by the Portuguese. Which is true, but misleading.
Doing a quick check on Wikipedia I see that the carved out caves were dated by an actual archaeoligst to roughly 2000 years ago.
We also see there's some evidence that the Norse visited the island.

Interesting because the professor seems to be arguing against the Portuguese being the first there.
When he states that the Portuguese didn't use stone anchors, that's fine.
But doing some quick research the Norse were still using stone anchors until the 9th century. A pollen study from 2021 puts an earlier human occupation as late as the 700s.

There's a side issue that just because metal anchors available it doesn't mean that stone wasn't still used as well. Keep in mind there was a story some decades ago about stone Chinese anchors being found off the coast of California before it was noted the Chinese population living in California a century earlier still made use of stone anchors.
They're cheap.
Larger financed ships can have a quality metal anchor, but fishing boats would opt for the cheaper solution and use stone.
That's not to say they're not evidence of earlier habitation, we know people were there. But the professor only mentions them to state that the Portuguese were using metal anchors. However the fleet having metal anchors doesn't preclude stone anchors.
That makes me a bit more skeptical of his other claims.
When he mentions the cart ruts I'm a little less in awe of them than he is. There are many surviving ancient Roman roads with deeply cut ruts from carts. And those are on prepared roads not exposed and weathered limestone bedrock.
I did do a little digging on the dolmens. And I do find some papers written about them.
But it's mostly comparative. And includes the caveat that it's possible the structures were built either by Neolithic settlers or more modern inhabitants.
The issue here is how reliable is the dating provided? He's not an archaeoligst. How careful were they collecting samples, and how accurately are they interpreted?

The flipside of this is that the work done there so far is sparse. But when it comes to believing a physicist or an archaeoligst on matters of archaeology I'm leaning to the archaeoligst who have a more recent date for some of the structures mentioned in the video.

Now how does this tie into Atlantis? We have no Greek or egyptian artifacts. It doesn't resemble the description Plato gives.
 
Last edited:
With regard to the mid-atlantic theory for Atlantis, while the shape looks good and the Victorian map is quite remarkable, what must be bourne in mind is when it was last above water.

From here: NOAA.gov

"The mid-ocean ridge system is the most extensive chain of mountains on earth, but more than 90% of this mountain range lies in the deep ocean. The mid-ocean ridge wraps around the globe for more than 65,000 km like the seam of a baseball. The average depth to the crest (top) of the ridge is 2500 m, but it rises above sea-level in Iceland and is more than 4000 m deep in the Cayman Trough."
Ken MacDonald
Professor, Marine Geophysics
University of California, Santa Barbara

That area of the mid-atlantic ridge has not been above water during human history, as in the species, not the culture.
And while the area around the Azores was undoubtedly inhabited when sea levels were lower, the finds do indicate neolithic civilisation, not anything even as sophisticated as Bronze Age Greece.

So, while it is fun to see the similarities, evidence does not support.
 
Shadowsot said:
I'm going to watch the video, but just from the start I'm a little concerned that we're talking about archaeology, and the professor is a physicist. It automatically raises questions about his conclusions when he's stepping well outside of his field.
From the rest of the video... I'm hearing a lot of indefinites. Maybe, possibly, we think.

The video leads with stating that officially the Azores was found uninhabited by the Portuguese. Which is true, but misleading.
Doing a quick check on Wikipedia I see that the carved out caves were dated by an actual archaeoligst to roughly 2000 years ago.
We also see there's some evidence that the Norse visited the island.

Interesting because the professor seems to be arguing against the Portuguese being the first there.
When he states that the Portuguese didn't use stone anchors, that's fine.
But doing some quick research the Norse were still using stone anchors until the 9th century. A pollen study from 2021 puts an earlier human occupation as late as the 700s.

There's a side issue that just because metal anchors available it doesn't mean that stone wasn't still used as well. Keep in mind there was a story some decades ago about stone Chinese anchors being found off the coast of California before it was noted the Chinese population living in California a century earlier still made use of stone anchors.
They're cheap.
Larger financed ships can have a quality metal anchor, but fishing boats would opt for the cheaper solution and use stone.
That's not to say they're not evidence of earlier habitation, we know people were there. But the professor only mentions them to state that the Portuguese were using metal anchors. However the fleet having metal anchors doesn't preclude stone anchors.
That makes me a bit more skeptical of his other claims.
When he mentions the cart ruts I'm a little less in awe of them than he is. There are many surviving ancient Roman roads with deeply cut ruts from carts. And those are on prepared roads not exposed and weathered limestone bedrock.
I did do a little digging on the dolmens. And I do find some papers written about them.
But it's mostly comparative. And includes the caveat that it's possible the structures were built either by Neolithic settlers or more modern inhabitants.
The issue here is how reliable is the dating provided? He's not an archaeoligst. How careful were they collecting samples, and how accurately are they interpreted?

The flipside of this is that the work done there so far is sparse. But when it comes to believing a physicist or an archaeoligst on matters of archaeology I'm leaning to the archaeoligst who have a more recent date for some of the structures mentioned in the video.

Now how does this tie into Atlantis? We have no Greek or egyptian artifacts. It doesn't resemble the description Plato gives.
Click to expand...

I agree with much of that and I also found the stone anchors interesting but less impressive than the other material.
I've visited the cart-ruts on Malta, thought to be caused by use of oxen-drawn sleds and dated to around 6,000 years. These on Terceira appeared almost identical. The age of the carved out chambers is still contentious and may be as recent as 2,000 years, but the megalithic structures certainly appear significantly older.
As for no Greek or Egyptian artifacts, that doesn't conflict with Plato's account at all. He referred to the Atlanteans as being an advanced and utopian civilisation, but a unique one and not the pre-cursors of Greece or Egypt. It's the location given by Plato that primarily evokes Atlantis, along with the fact that The Azores were part of a larger land mass at the time that Plato mentioned. And the series of catastrophic volcanic eruptions over the millennia ticks another of the Atlantis boxes.
You're absolutely right to advise caution, but my opinion is that the coincidences do seem to be stacking in favour of a folk memory of ancient occupation of The Azores being the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis.
I really would love to know if any man-made structures exist below the sea around The Azores!
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I agree with much of that and I also found the stone anchors interesting but less impressive than the other material.
I've visited the cart-ruts on Malta, thought to be caused by use of oxen-drawn sleds and dated to around 6,000 years. These on Terceira appeared almost identical. The age of the carved out chambers is still contentious and may be as recent as 2,000 years, but the megalithic structures certainly appear significantly older.
As for no Greek or Egyptian artifacts, that doesn't conflict with Plato's account at all. He referred to the Atlanteans as being an advanced and utopian civilisation, but a unique one and not the pre-cursors of Greece or Egypt. It's the location given by Plato that primarily evokes Atlantis, along with the fact that The Azores were part of a larger land mass at the time that Plato mentioned. And the series of catastrophic volcanic eruptions over the millennia ticks another of the Atlantis boxes.
You're absolutely right to advise caution, but my opinion is that the coincidences do seem to be stacking in favour of a folk memory of ancient occupation of The Azores being the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis.
I really would love to know if any man-made structures exist below the sea around The Azores!
Click to expand...
Atlantis was supposed to be a warlike civilization that conquered most of the then known world that was defeated by ancient Athenians before turning into an unnavigateable mudflat. It was flooded, not destroyed by erupting volcanoes.
To say nothing of the extensive wildlife that was supposed to exist there.
At the very least that means trade and artifacts flowing into the region. So yes, that is a mark against it that there's not that sort of material around.

Putting aside that, you're discounting most of the Atlantis legend and focusing on one element that fits, which is the same as what others do when trying to key in on an inspiration for Atlantis. Part of the issue is that there are no other legends from Greece that deal with Atlantis. If Plato was relating a folk memory, instead of spinning a tale to push his philosophy why does the only tale come from a philosopher through one of his characters?
There's no Egyptian account, certainly. The people who traded with Greece don't have a similar tale.
And if we want to look at strict inspirations there were plenty of civilizations in the mediteranean that were known to the people of Greece that would have served as inspiration.
 
Ascalon said:
With regard to the mid-atlantic theory for Atlantis, while the shape looks good and the Victorian map is quite remarkable, what must be bourne in mind is when it was last above water.

From here: NOAA.gov

"The mid-ocean ridge system is the most extensive chain of mountains on earth, but more than 90% of this mountain range lies in the deep ocean. The mid-ocean ridge wraps around the globe for more than 65,000 km like the seam of a baseball. The average depth to the crest (top) of the ridge is 2500 m, but it rises above sea-level in Iceland and is more than 4000 m deep in the Cayman Trough."
Ken MacDonald
Professor, Marine Geophysics
University of California, Santa Barbara

That area of the mid-atlantic ridge has not been above water during human history, as in the species, not the culture.
And while the area around the Azores was undoubtedly inhabited when sea levels were lower, the finds do indicate neolithic civilisation, not anything even as sophisticated as Bronze Age Greece.

So, while it is fun to see the similarities, evidence does not support.
Click to expand...

Not the entire mid-Atlantic ridge, but substantially more of the Azores plateau was above sea-level 10,000 years ago.
 
Unfortunately some earlier links on this thread, explaining the science, no longer work.
Basically though, the massive weight of glaciers over North America caused the Azores Plateau to rise above sea-level. When the glaciers melted, the plateau sank again, compounded by rapidly rising sea-level and catastrophic volcanic activity. There's an image of what The Azores was likely to look like around 10,000 BC back on page 8 of this thread. Whilst the land mass was unlikely to have sunk beneath the waves in Plato's "day and a night", its destruction would still have been comparatively rapid.
If there were some sort of mesolithic culture there to witness the catastrophe, presumably a few hardy souls managed to flee eastwards towards the Iberian Peninsula or Africa, bringing their remarkable story with them.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Unfortunately some earlier links on this thread, explaining the science, no longer work.
Basically though, the massive weight of glaciers over North America caused the Azores Plateau to rise above sea-level. When the glaciers melted, the plateau sank again, compounded by rapidly rising sea-level and catastrophic volcanic activity. There's an image of what The Azores was likely to look like around 10,000 BC back on page 8 of this thread. Whilst the land mass was unlikely to have sunk beneath the waves in Plato's "day and a night", its destruction would still have been comparatively rapid.
Click to expand...
Over centuries. Geologically it's rapid, over a human experience not so much.
If there were some sort of mesolithic culture there to witness the catastrophe, presumably a few hardy souls managed to flee eastwards towards the Iberian Peninsula or Africa, bringing their remarkable story with them.
Click to expand...
And the only person who wrote down this story comes from a single Greek philosopher thousands of years later?
If were going to take it as inspiration we're lacking most of the elements of the Atlantis story.
Meanwhile you have events like the Santorini eruption that would be much closer in time and proximity and interacted with the Aegeans who became the Greeks.
 
The Schliemanns and Atlantis.

From Jason Colavito's email Newsletter • Vol. 24 • Issue 13 • March 24, 2024 •
Recently, Sidestone Press made available to read for free online an edited academic volume of papers, Alternative Egyptology,* which examines various aspects of fringe Egyptology, from the Orion Correlation to the use of Egyptian gods in comics, and from the occult to Victorian pyramidology. In that volume is a rather off-topic and somewhat insincere piece by Jean-Pierre Pätznick about the life and times of Paul Schliemann, the alleged grandson of Heinrich Schliemann who claimed in 1912 to have found Atlantis. Atlantis skeptics and believers have long debated whether “Schliemann” even existed, let alone was a relative of the famous discoverer of Troy. Pätznick, a French Egyptologist who has spent many years discussing (badly) the supposed Egyptian source for the Atlantis story, which he believes to record real history, claims Paul Schliemann was real. He purports to use newspaper reports to trace his movements. However, most of the stories he cites as evidence of Schliemann’s globe-trotting were simply reprints in various papers as they borrowed copy from one another. Despite this basic error Pätznick did inform me of the existence of a second piece ** under Schliemann’s name that ran in 1924 and which claimed Schliemann visited Atlantis and documented its art and architecture. This piece, an obvious hoax, had long been hidden away because of U.S. copyright law, but now that it is in the public domain, I have republished the piece on my website to make it available online for the first time.

* https://www.sidestone.com/books/alternative-egyptology

** https://www.jasoncolavito.com/amazing-new-light-hoax.html
 
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