Atlantis found in Spain? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Poehlman]

I recently saw a program on Discovery HD where this guy had been looking for Atlantis on land. He believed that the basin that Atlantis sat in was filled by a cataclysmic tidal wave and eventually filled in with silt explaining the story that it had been swallowed by the ocean. So, Atlantis would actually be underground. So, he began digging in a basin (I believe in Spain) that was close to the Atlantic ocean and found some ruins that seemed to date back to the time of Atlantis. But, as with all of those archaelogy shows, they never give you a definitive answer at the end of the program.

Now, I see THIS ARTICLE that says a structure fitting Plato's description of Atlantis has been found in Spain and can be seen from satellite photos. Although.. I don't see it, personally, I do find this stuff fascinating. I mean, Homer's Troy was never thought to exist until it was unearthed in 1873.

 

[Jack Briggs]

So now The Discovery Channel is doing stories about "Atlantis." Well, let's hear it for PBS's NOVA.

 

[Seth--L]

When someone actually has proof to back up such a claim, I'm sure there won't be a news service that isn't carrying the story.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I thought it was widely accepted that the Minoan civilization on Crete was the historical basis for the Atlantis legends.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

I've heard everything from the Minoan city-state, to Greenland, Phonecians, Vikings, Russians, Persians, Egyptians etc etc...

Assuming "Atlantis" was ever a real military threat, my best guess is that it was a case of mistaken identity involving an early asian/persian pirates.

However, if Atlantis actually ends up being a "lost" city-state I don't think that my world will be turned upside-down or anything. At most DC comics will have to fix the origins of Aquaman.

 

[John Watson]

I don't think Atlantis is lost? It's sitting on a shelf now, between Fantasia, and Lilo & Stitch.

 

[David Williams]

Close. A supposed Minoan outpost on the island of Thera, now modern-day Santorini. A massive volcanic eruption/explosion, the largest in known history, virtually wiped the island out in one gigantic blast that blew so much ash into the air that it blotted out the sun as far away as Egypt and sent massive tidal waves hurtling off in all directions.

The Thera theory matches a lot more of Plato's description (i.e. it disappearing in one night, etc) than this Spanish site's measurements.

Time-Life had a great documentary on the subject in their Lost Civilizations series called Aegean: Legacy of Atlantis. Narrated by Sam Waterston, I found it to be spellbinding.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I just read a book on Krakatu (one versioni of the spelling) that said that the eruption of Mt. Tambora in (Indonesia) was the largest in the last 10,000 or so years, Krakatoa coming in second.

According to the same source, one of the largest known was Mt. Toba about 75,000 years ago.

The year after the Tambora explosion (1815) was known as the ‘year without a summer’. The Mt. Toba explosion began a six-year period of cooling.

Mt. Toba has a large crater lake (with an island in the middle slightly bigger than Singapore)—my wife and I have stayed at a hotel on the lake. I’ve also sailed through where Krakatau used to be (you can see a new, young crater rising from the caldera).

 

[Tony Whalen]

That's fascinating! I'll wait to hear more..but very very interesting!

 

[Grant B]

I'd put my $$$ on that one.
The only other theory which sounds interesting but probably is more likely behind that Ark story is linked with the towns & cities that they have found completely submerged, over 20 ft, around the Black Sea.
This happened when the Black Lake turned into the Black Sea many moons ago

 

[David Williams]

My best guess is that *was* true until the last decade or less. I looked this up online and found several sources listing Thera as the most powerful volcanic explosion in recorded history (so Mt. Toba might still have the lead):

"The volcano at Santorini was geologically similar to the 19th century Pacific volcano Krakatoa, and quite different from (for example) the volcanoes on Hawaii. Krakatoa exploded violently in 1883, spreading unparalleled tidal waves (tsunamis) throughout the southwest pacific, and filling the atmosphere with ash that spread through the entire world.

Santorini was about 4 times larger than Krakatoa, and probably at least twice as violent. The fury of Santorini's final explosion is inferred from geologic core samples, from comparison to the detailed observations made on Krakotoa in 1883, and from the simultaneous obliteration of almost all Minoan settlements. The geologic record dates the final explosion of Santorini with remarkable accuracy. The likely picture then, is this.

In summer, circa 1470 BC, Santorini exploded. Volcanic ash filled the sky, blotted out the sun, and triggered hail and lightning. A heavy layer of volcanic ash rained down over the Aegean, covering islands and crops. Earthquakes shook the land, and stone structures fell from the motion. When the enormous magma chamber at Santorini finally collapsed to form the existing caldera, enormous tsunamis (tidal waves) spread outward in all directions.

The coastal villages of Crete were flooded and destroyed. The only major Minoan structure surviving the waves and earthquakes was the palace at Knossos, far enough inland to escape the tidal waves. But in the days that followed, volcanic ash covered some settlements, and defoliated the island."

and this:

"To understand the effect of such an explosion, scientists have compared it with the most powerful volcanic explosion in historic times. This occurred on the Island of Krakatoa in 1883. There a giant wave, or tsunami, 120 feet high raced across the sea and hit neighboring islands killing 36,000 people. Ash thrown up into the air blackened the skies for three days. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as 3,000 miles.

The explosion at Santorinas was four times as powerful as Krakatoa.

The tsunami that hit Crete must have traveled inland for over half a mile destroying any coastal towns or cities. The great Minoan fleet of ships were all sunk in a few seconds. Overnight the powerful Minoan Empire was crushed and Crete changed to a political backwater. One can hardly imagine a catastrophe more like Plato's description of Atlantis' fate than the destruction of Crete. "

It sounds like all hell broke loose. From the Time-Life video, they say that volcanic ash from the Theran explosion has been found as far away as Alaska and Greenland, buried in glacier layers from the time period. They also found some ash in the rings of giant Sequoia trees in Redwood National Forest.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I vaguely recall that piece of trivia, that Lake Toba has an island in it bigger than Singapore -- came to mind when visiting NZ last year, when I was told Lake Taupo is about 606 sq km, making it slightly smaller than Singapore.
And driving to Mt Cook, IIRC the lake which the approach road runs alongside is longer than Singapore.

Once again reminding me how pathetically tiny my country is

We actually feel tremors of Indonesian earthquakes, and for some reason or other, certain areas seem to feel them more than others. For instance, I once felt tremors when standing on the ground floor of the General Hospital one night, sure enough next morning's reports confirmed that an earthquake had happened in Java around the time I felt the tremors.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I miswrote when I placed Krakatoa second..

I’ll have to go back and do some research myself—I’m guessing that there may be several different measures of ‘largest’. The book on Krakatu used cubic feet (or cubic miles) of material expelled, but I’m sure that there are a lot of other ways to measure ‘largest’.

And that is not to say that book was correct—though it did seem to have been fairly thoroughly researched.

 

[Greg_R]

Here's a link to the volcanic explosivity index. Tambora has been the largest in the past 4000 years. Only four eruptions have been assigned a VEI of 7 (in the past 10,000 years): Tambora in 1815, Baitoushan ca. 1050, Kikai ca. 4,350 BC, and Crater Lake ca. 4,895 BC. The last Yellowstone erruption is an example of an 8. Taupo (elsewhere in the site) was listed as a 6+. However, on another site I found the eruption list by the amount of material ejected here. This lists Taupo near the top...

 

[Seth Paxton]

Well, its not hard to understand how those civs would belive so strongly in the dieties they did and how active they felt they were in the lives of man.

Some shit like that happens in the pre-Enlightenment period and you start praying to anything you can think of or imagine.