Atlantis is South America (Theory)

We found another very interesting theory about the former existence of Atlantis in the Geographical Magazine from March 1997. Here, Jim Allen describes his research on Atlantis and some results of it:

In July 1995 Jim Allen travelled to the Bolivian altiplano, a plateau that sits between two ranges of the Andes. There, he drove out into the desert to look for possible remains of an ancient canal which might confirm the location as being the site of Plato’s Atlantis. He found remains of an enormous channel which reminded him of Plato’s description of an irrigation channel that he said existed at the site of Atlantis. According to Plato the width of the channel was 184 metres, the exact width of the altiplano channel.

A few years before, Jim Allan had made a study of the origins of ancient systems of measurement. Plato’s description of Atlantis’ extent, of its rectangular-shaped plain enclosed by mountains and of its fall took his attention. He was not keen on believing that an island as large as Libya and Asia combined should have sunk into the sea in just one night and day. According to him that was definitely impossible.

So he wondered if Atlantis might have been America and if the rectangular plain Plato was talking about lay somewhere in that continent. The shape of the altiplano almost fits the description if one takes South America to be an island which it almost is. He constructed a topographical model of the region, building up the levels. The 4000 metres contour encloses the whole rectangular-shaped altiplano, the largest level plain in the world. The altiplano corresponds to Plato’s description of a plain that borders on the sea and extends through the centre of the whole island. It is enclosed by mountains so that, according to Plato, the region rose sheerly out of the sea and only the part about the city was a smooth plain. Jim Allan imagines that it was not the whole island Atlantis that sank into the sea but only its city. "What if it was not the island continent of Atlantis that sank into the sea as Plato believed, but only the island city of Atlantis, built around the lava rings of an extinct or dormant volcano, which sank beneath an island sea, or what is now Lake Poopo?" (Geographical Magazine, March 1997, Vol. 69 Issue 3, page 44, 2 pages)

All the metals which the people of Atlantis needed for their buildings, according to Plato, are found around Lake Poopo. Numerous gold and copper mines still exist there. There is the possibility that orichalcum, a metal unknown to the modern world, may have occurred in the Andes. From December to March is the wet season when the altiplano gets flooded. Drought conditions for the rest of the year are in the south of the plain. To construct a perimeter canal, like the one Plato described, would have been feasible. The perimeter canal Plato thought about would drain water away during the wet season and store it for irrigation for the dry periods.

The altiplano is described to be an enclosed basin and therefore a period of torrential rain could produce within it an inland sea. If you re-examine Plato’s statement about the end of Atlantis, a period of torrential rain is described as a result of earthquakes and floods, in a single day and night of rain. And the altiplano is an area prone to earthquakes.

The suggested end of Atlantis, in Plato’s view, was around 9600 B. C. At that time, the altiplano was indeed flooded. But it may also be that the end took place at a time when the confederation of Atlantis was engaged in a war against Egypt. It is possible that the story of Atlantis came from one of these people who were taken prisoners after the war, and was handed on by temple priests to the visiting Greek statesman Solon.