The Story
By: Justin
The Lost City of Atlantis was said to be a great and wealthy city full of people. There was a great shrine built for the gods in the heart of Atlantis. The greatest temple of all was the temple built for Poseidon, the great God of Water. It was thought to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or in the Gulf of Mexico. Some people believe one theory is that Atlantis is part of the alien contact phenomenon. It was an advanced city with high-tech equipment that we would even today envy. It is said that the aliens gave the technology to their favorite humans (who they bonded with while on earth) so they could live a better life. Then, the humans could not figure out how to work the technology and it caused a massive fire that burned down the whole city of Atlantis. Plato described Atlantis in 'Timaeus' and 'Critias'. Another, more believable theory, is that Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization that lived on Crete. A volcanic eruption could have destroyed the city. This would put it in the right place that Plato described. It is said the Atlantis was around its peak years in about 9,000 BCE. It supposedly either sunk, burned down, was hit by a meteor, or is one of the ancient cities we still see ruins of today. No one knows if it is a real city or just a fairy tale told by Plato to teach the Greeks a lesson.
|
Evidence For
One of the biggest pieces of evidence supporting the fact that there was an Atlantis was Plato’s description of the city.
Below is Plato’s description of Atlantis, which he wrote about in 'Timaeus' and 'Critias'
'At the centre of the island, near the sea, was a plain, said to be the most beautiful and fertile of all plains, and near the middle of this plain about fifty stades inland a hill of no great size... There were two rings of land and three of sea, like cartwheels, with the island at their centre and equidistant from each other... in the centre was a shrine sacred to Poseidon and Cleito, surrounded by a golden wall through which entry was forbidden...
There was a temple to Poseidon himself, a stade in length, three hundred feet wide, and proportionate in height, though somewhat outlandish in appearance. The outside of it was covered all over in silver, except for the figures on the pediment which were covered with gold... Round the temple were statues of all the original ten kings and their wives, and many others dedicated by kings and private persons belonging to the city and its dominions...'
'Two springs, hot and cold, provided an unlimited supply of water for appropriate purposes, remarkable for its agreeable quality and excellence; and this they made available by surrounding it with suitable buildings and plantations, leading some of it into basins in the open air and some of it into covered hot baths for winter use.
Here separate accommodation was provided for royalty and commoners, and, again, for women, for horses, and for other beasts of burden... The outflow they led into the grove of Poseidon, which (because of the goodness of the soil) was full of trees of marvelous beauty and height, and also channeled it to the outer ring-islands by aqueducts at the bridges.
On each of these ring islands they had built many temples for different gods, and many gardens and areas for exercise, some for men and some for horses... Finally, there were dockyards full of triremes and their equipment, all in good shape...'
Another thing that could suggest that Atlantis could be real are the grass-beds in the ocean. They could be remains of an island.
|
Evidence Against
Atlantis could just have been a story made up by Plato that he just invented to entertain people. Also, it could have been an ancient civilization that is not lost at all, such as the ancient Minoan civilization on Crete.
|
