Lost Civilisations? Atlantis Staring Us in the Eye.

One day our civilisation may be a myth, like Atlantis. The remains may be as difficult and exciting to uncover as Roman Britain is today. Just as individuals with dementia may not even be aware of their demise, or the average Roman going about his day with visigoths and sundry barbarians in his midst, so we may be living through Western Civilisation disappearing before our eyes and many people remaining largely unaware of the impending doom. Will there be anything to show we were here?

The past few weeks have seen Europe in high fever with its vital organs being eaten away by corruption, viruses, bacteria in high places fighting Yellow Vests in the streets, and many a pock-marked black face staring down as a plague attacks the healthy. Frankly the old Tavern Keeper has been laid low for a while too, but amid the grumbles this week came some quite odd news. 

Some folk think that The End is Nigh. Western civilisation is being flooded with very unchristian hordes and my Supplier observes from on high. Just whether He will permit another world-wide destruction like the last time He sent a Flood, who knows? I am close to one of His messengers who has not whispered anything like that in my ear when he delivers the Good Ale. Little remains of what was before.

Greenies, of course, have been threatening a flood for a few decades now. The rising sea levels, they wish upon us, would swamp and destroy quite a bit of our civilisation. They want us to sink beneath the waves and become a myth. I don't know of greenies being around back in Atlantis' day and no slow rise was predicted back then as far as we are told. It was supposed to have happened overnight. There yesterday: gone the next day. Our greeny-wished flood is a tad slower. Glacial in fact.

I was hobbling around the bars  a week or two back when I came across the first hints. Graham Hancock is a British writer and journalist who specialises in theories involving ancient civilisations, stone monuments, megaliths and the like, and was settled in a quite corner speaking of the Lost City civilisation, Atlantis. He has little truk with the Wikipedia writer who barely conceals his disdain and dismissal of the notion of Atlantis altogether. 

Giving the positive a little preference, let us hear briefly from Graham before looking at the 'general' version.

His position is clear. As it that of the Wiki miserable who said: Atlantis (Ancient Greek:"island of Atlas") is a fictional island mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in The Republic. In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world, supposedly giving testament to the superiority of Plato's concept of a state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia. On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition, most notably in Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Plato's vague indications of the time of the events—more than 9,000 years before his time —and the alleged location of Atlantis—"beyond the Pillars of Hercules"—has led to much pseudoscientific speculation. 

As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.

While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story's fictional character, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. As for instance with the story of Gyges, Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions. This led a number of scholars to investigate possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of the Thera eruption, the Sea Peoples invasion, or the Trojan War. Others have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible and insist that Plato created an entirely fictional nation as his example, drawing loose inspiration from contemporary events such as the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC.

So then, into the bar comes young Jimmy. He has some 'pedigree' too.  Youthful and exuberant Jimmy is an  Independent researcher - Former Corporate Theft/Fraud Investigator - Army/Iraq war vet with an MBA, who has been around a bit.

I shall show you Jimmy in his engaging full flood. That word again !! But first his view is easily summarised.

Not only did the lost city of Atlantis actually exist, but its true location has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years, completely unnoticed, as we’ve been looking in all the wrong places...Since everyone assumes that it must be under the ocean somewhere, such as in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, which have long been considered to be the most likely places for its existence. 

And no, I am not about to suggest that Antarctica is the hidden location of Atlantis, either. 

Because here I am going to connect the dots on the exact words that Plato used to describe Atlantis, its location, and the geographical land features that surround it, which were recorded in Plato’s dialogues, the Critias and Timaeus. And the details that Plato shared of Atlantis, which I’m about to share with you in side by side comparison, will show you that the Richat Structure located in Mauritania, Africa, also commonly referred to as the Eye of the Sahara, or the Eye of Africa…is the most likely location for the lost city of Atlantis.

So, go for it Jimmy. Tell us about it.

He gives an entertaining and plausible account, in my opinion. (My opinion is open to question, of course, as long as you pay for a round).

Now, you might be thinking that he has not given you enough to be 'convincing': so he came back a few days later with more.

The Bible does not mention Atlantis. Neither did Assurbanipal from his Assyrian perspectives and tales. He mentioned the Flood, of course, an ancient myth even for his mob, but then he was very unlikely to have even known of Atlantis, which was well out of his way. But the timing is quite important. 

Perhaps one day soon some internet billionaire will do as the 19C explorers and arhaeologists did and go dig around a bit. It would be about time.

Meanwhile I think Jimmy deserves a few days free run of the bars to drink his fill. His account is fascinating stuff. Fair took my mind off my ailments.

I shall raise a tankard to his efforts to date.

Pax