John Horton, age 11, of Charlottesville, Va., for his question:
COULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT ATLANTIS?
Atlantis has been the subject of scholarly debate for more than 2,000 years. Did a large island in the Atlantic Ocean really exist, or was it mythical as most people believed? Based on recent evidence, many scientists agree that Atlantis almost certainly was a reality, and that it was far more important to the history of civilization than anyone imagined.
Plato, the renowned Greek philosopher, told the story of Atlantis in great detail. He described it as an ideal society that declined into a corrupt military state and tried to enslave the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. Then suddenly the ocean island of Atlantis sank into the sea. This all happened, according to Plato, around 11POOO years ago. The island of Atlantis was somewhere beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which would have been out in the Atlantic Ocean.
Many people searched for evidence to support Plato's story--and found nothing. Meantime, other scholars were searching the ruins of early peoples that flourished around the eastern Mediterranean between 5,000 and 2,000 years ago. They traced the civilizations of Greece and ancient Egypt back to still earlier cultures. One of these, the mysterious Minoan peoples, left evidence of a once-splendid civilization on Crete, in Greece and on a few Aegean islands. Until very recently, nobody had found any reason to associate the Minoans with the lost island of Atlantis.
Then certain scholars suggested that the Atlantis myth makes more sense when a zero is dropped from all the figures given by Plato. In this case, the disaster would have occurred in about 1500 B.C. What's more, it seemed more likely that Atlantis had been in the eastern Mediterranean. Meantime, oceanographers had found proof that a catastrophic volcanic eruption took place in this region in 1450 B.C.
If the revised estimates are correct, the place to search for Atlantis is among a group of small volcanic islands between Crete and Greece. Certainly the evidence substantiates that this region was swamped by a disaster three times greater than the devastating explosion of Krakatoa, which happened in 1883. If Atlantis once thrived in these parts, evidence would be left in other ancient Aegean cities--just where we find traces of the mysterious Minoan civilization that also disappeared suddenly.
Certain scholars now believe that the Minoan and Atlantis civilizations were one and the same. The story, they claim, is of great importance because our civilization sprang from that of ancient Greece--which arose from the Minoans, who may have originated in Atlantis.
Geologists point to the small island of Thira as near the center of the eruption of 1450 B.C. There, buried below volcanic debris, archeologists have found artistic murals and other evidence of the brilliant civilization that could possibly have been Atlantis. Meantime, oceanographers had found proof that a catastrophic volcanic eruption took place in this region in 1450 B.C.
If the revised estimates are correct, the place to search for Atlantis is among a group of small volcanic islands between Crete and Greece. Certainly the evidence substantiates that this region was swamped by a disaster three times greater than the devastating explosion of Krakatoa, which happened in 1883. If Atlantis once thrived in these parts, evidence would be left in other ancient Aegean cities--just where we find traces of the mysterious Minoan civilization that also disappeared suddenly.
Certain scholars now believe that the Minoan and Atlantis civilizations were one and the same. The story, they claim, is of great importance because our civilization sprang from that of ancient Greece--which arose from the Minoans, who may have originated in Atlantis.
Geologists point to the small island of Thira as near the center of the eruption of 1450 B.C. There, buried below volcanic debris, archeologists have found artistic murals and other evidence of the brilliant civilization that could possibly have been Atlantis.