Minoan Thera and the Greek Helike: Atlantis of the Aegean
The Popular Thread of Atlantis
Ever since Ignatius L. Donnelly's book Atlantis: the Antediluvian World was initially published in America in 1882, the allure and popularity of the myth of Plato's Atlantis has remained etched in the imagination of millions around the world. Echoes of the great legend are scattered throughout literature of the 20th century.
Ignatius Donnelly
J.R.R. Tolkien's descriptions in The Lord of the Rings are eerily reminiscent of Atlantis, where Tolkien writes of the island Empire of Numenor that dominated the known world of Middle Earth with a great navy, but becoming greedy and power hungry, angered the gods and was consumed by a great deluge, forever hidden beneath the ocean.
However, in Plato's dialogues, attention is paid to the historicity and accuracy of the myth, where several passages identify it with fact, by both the Greeks and an Egyptian priest named Sonchis of Sais.
Sais is a historically verified city in the Egyptian delta. Solon, the great grandfather of Plato also describes in his writings the layout of the temples in the city of Sais at the time, where he met the priest and learned the myth of Atlantis, known as Kheiftu by the Egyptians, line by line.
So, hundreds of thousands have begun the search for a real Atlantis, based on the writings of Plato, much in the same way Heinreich Schielmann did with Homer's Illiad while searching for Troy in modern Turkey. But a whole number of issues make the location a rather difficult task.
Plato
Historical Basis of Atlantis
To what degree can we take Plato's writings seriously? Did he intend the dialogues of Timaeus and Critias to be a stage for taunting his Athenian pride and espousing political propaganda, linking his great city of antiquity with the strength capable of fending off even the legendary military swarms of the Atlanteans.
Several places within the Aegean Sea are strikingly similar to the legend of Atlantis, and yet do not fit entirely within the descriptions of Plato's writings. The biggest detail which rules out the two best candidates is the fact that both do not exist beyond the Pillars of Hercules (The Modern Straits of Gibraltar).
According to Herotodus, a famous Greek historian, the identification with the Straits of Gibraltar is confirmed; Herotodus wrote in 430 BC that a Phoenician expedition sent by the Pharaoh Necho, circumnavigated Africa; he clearly states that the voyagers of the expedition upon reentering the Mediterranean, label the straits as the "Pillars of Hercules".
Other Atlantis theorists propose that the Pillars may have been associated with the Strait of Sicily, perhaps earlier or later than Herotodus' own account.
Despite this slight flaw, a large number of connections exists between two sites in the Aegean with the Legend: Santorini: Island of the Minoans, and the city of Helike on the Greek Corinthian coast.
Thera: Advanced Island City of the Aegean
The Greek island of Santorini (Thera in ancient times) is a caldera rim filled with water and a central volcanic island. In ancient times it must have been a marvelous sight to behold. The Minoans were a highly advanced civilization for ancient times. Dual ceramic pipes ran both hot and cold water through houses, and flushable toilets, equivalent to our own today, provided easy disposal of waste. For the time, c.2500BC-1500BC), it was the cutting edge of the ancient World.
Santorini Island Caldera
Descriptions in Plato's dialogues bear many similarities with the Minoan's displays of sophisticated art and infrastructure. The famous bull scenes in Minoan frescoes both at the site of Akrotiri on the island of Santorini, and the capital island of Crete, are described similarly by Plato; the Atlanteans engage in gruesome and bloody sacrifices of bulls in the center of the city. Among the Minoans of Crete and Santorini island, bull fighting and leaping was a frequent and sacred ritual sport.
Within the dialogues, Plato depicts the island of Atlantis as a concentric city full of circular canals that had a single opening that ran to the center temple, where many ships came into harbor and traded from far off lands. The island of Thera, in ancient times, may have appeared much differently preceding the gigantic volcanic eruption that shattered the city around 1430 BC.
A Mirror Image of Atlantis?
The rim is thought to have completely encircled the central caldera pit before the major eruption, and a second island partially encircled the central volcanic summit in the middle. If this is true, the Minoan island of Thera would be almost indistinguishable from the Atlantean layout of Plato's dialogues, which depict a city of concentric circles within circles.
Santorini Island before Eruption
A marine festival painted on a fresco in the Akrotiri site, seems to show an island city lying amidst the mountainous sides of the caldera rim, where many ships leave the bustling harbor in the center, to a far off land. Some scholars take this to be the military invasion of nearby Greek cities, which for many Atlantis theorists, would provide undeniable proof of Plato's Atlantean invasions of the Greek city states encircling the Mediterranean. But, nothing in the ships or people rowing them seem to suggest any militant regalia or uniform or weapons. Upon reaching the shore of the other city depicted within the decaying fresco, nothing suggests a violent invasion or siege either.
Marine Festival Fresco (Akrotiri)
The eruption which consumed Thera also points to a connection with the Atlantis legend. A volcanic eruption is not mentioned by Plato, but the tsunamis that arose from the explosion, a force scientists speculate would have been the equivalent of several hundred hydrogen bombs, would subsequently push up a tidal wave over 150 feet high throughout the Mediterranean, ricocheting across the ocean, flooding most of the low lying coastal cities of the Minoans. This in turn could have provided the literary inspiration for Plato's relatively short time frame of the empire's fall, where he states...,"in one night and one day, Atlantis vanished beneath the sea."
Sonchis of Sais, the original source of the myth by Plato, recalled that after the cities fall into the sea, the surrounding waters became unnavigable, where mud filled the spot where Atlantis once stood. The volcanic ash and pumice that spilled from the calderaand that fell from the sky into the waters about, surely would have turned the site into a muddy cauldron, and bring considerable credibility to Sonchis' account.
Akrotiri Fresco (Central Island City)
The similarities stop there however.
Many architectural and religious characteristics of the Minoans don't seem to coincide with the lavish descriptions of great temples to Poseidon at the central island of the Atlanteans, the supposed patron god and founder of Atlantis. The Minoans did not worship a male sea god. The most abundant deities in Minoan art show a snake goddess and many other fertility goddesses. Atlantis it is said, had a huge bronze statue of Poseidon upon many horses, in the central Palace. Hardly any male god statues are known from Minoan sites.
Helike (The Patron City of Poseidon)
Recent finds at the Greek city of Helike, on the Corinthian coast of the Peloponnesian archipelago, more resembles these religious icons. The chief god of the Bronze Age city was Poseidon, where 150 years after its demise, Eratosthenes, a Greek philosopher, reported seeing a submerged statue of Poseidon in the water which caused many fishermen's nets to get caught.
In 373BC, it is recorded that the city fell into the ocean one winter night, due to a catastrophic earthquake. Evidence uncovered recently by the Helike Foundation proves that the city existed.
Numerous extractions of drill cores revealed pieces of bronze age ceramics. Just some 3 to 4 meters below the Helike delta's surface, rows of houses and cobble stone streets of the Late Bronze, contemporaneous with Plato's times, were dug out of trenches. The rich alluvial silts that covered the site proves that a great inundation or flood destroyed the city.
Minoan Connection to Akrotiri and Crete
Even more surprising, archaeologists uncovered even older horizons of the city's life, back into the early bronze age, c.2500BC, around the time of the Minoans, about 1 km from the modern shoreline in the delta 3 to 5 meters under the ground, which also shows evidence of a great deluge.
The cities connections with the Pelopennesian war fought between Sparta and Athens, lends some credence to Helike's historical link to mythical Atlantis.
The city of Helike was part of a league with Sparta that dared to usurp Athens in the Pelopennesian wars. Atlantis also dared to threaten Athens with a great league of armies channeled from all across the far flung Atlantean Empire, (very symbolic of the vast Pelopennesian League of Sparta, Athen's mortal enemy).
Wrath of Poseidon and the Fall of AtlantisDispleased with Helike, Poseidon is said to have unleashed his wrath on the patron city, upset over the lack of statues of his likeness, summoning a great earthquake that flooded the city.
In Plato's writings, Poseidon, also the patron and founder of Atlantis, becomes angry of the arrogant Atlanteans, and buried it beneath the deluge with many earthquakes. The grandeur of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Helike was known throughout the Classical world, and second only to the Oracle of Delphi in Greece, which also appears very similar to the one in the legend of Atlantis, which had a "magnificent temple to Poseidon" at the cities center.
Atlantis: A Synthesis of Myths
It is likely, given the cities contemporary time with Plato, that the philosopher based or embellished some of his writings of the Egyptian priest with the fall of Helike. And drew upon some of the legendary imagery of the Minoan island city state of Akrotiri as well, to create the overall myth in the dialogues.
To Take Plato Seriously or Not to take Plato Seriously
Is Atlantis really Minoan Thera and Helike though? The list of evidence is convincing.
One of the sons of Poseidon that ruled the Kingdoms, "Mneseus" is a name very similar sounding to Minos, the King that ruled Minoan Knossos, incidentally also the source name that modern scholars use to designate the Minoans as a culture. The detailed bull cult iconography in Plato's dialogues appears to mirror the same fascination that the Minoan's held for the creature; the bull leaping sport the Minoans prolifically engaged in feature all throughout fresco walls at the Crete Island palace of Knossos. There is of course, the legend of Theseus and the King of Crete, Minos.
In the myth, King Minos demanded annual sacrifices from the Greek mainland to be devoured by the King's pet Minotaur (a beast half-man half bull), in a vast subterranean labyrinth beneath the palace. Many scholars eagerly suggest that the oppression of King Minos over the Greeks, and the Minotaur are indicative of the oppression of Plato's Atlanteans over the Greeks of Athens. In addition, the eventual defeat of the minotaur by Theseus (the savior of Athens), is an event scholars like to think symbolically echoes the defeat of Atlantis by Athens in Plato's dialogues. There may be, of course, some truth behind those comparisons.
Essentially, Plato wrote a parable in Socratic dialogues, but simultaneously emphasizes that what is written is based in fact. The words used by Sonchis of Sais, the priest that told the tale in the Timaeus dialogues to Solon says himself..."for these histories tell of a mighty power [author's emphasis]..." Plato does not seem to be implying that the story is myth, but history. Taking Plato's Atlantis as literal history is not warranted. Bear in mind that even Plato warns us in the dialogues through the voice of Critias, admitting the descriptions only to be mere imitations of the real thing:
"All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation. For if we consider the likenesses which painters make of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them forth.
But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things. Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the reverse of easy. This is what I want to suggest to you, and at the same time to beg, Socrates, that I may have not less, but more indulgence conceded to me in what I am about to say. Which favour, if I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant."
There is a possibility that much of the visual descriptions of Plato do indeed reflect a certain reality. However, the Aegean theory's legitimacy rests primarily upon these outward comparisons; in other words, the Minoan argument is completely cosmetic. The civilization did not exist outside the Pillars of Hercules or 9000 years before Plato's time. The visual correlates appear quite convincing on the surface, and that is probably why the theory remains so popular among academics, but the hypothesis thoroughly ignores so many other important factors that I do not think the argument can be taken seriously.
The ivory towers of academia are so perplexed by Plato's very ancient sea culture, according to the experts nothing that Plato describes could ever have existed so far back, or be so advanced; the only "answers" it seems, the professors are willing to accept are ones that lie firmly within the comfortable parameters of known recorded history. As a result, a hypothesis restricted to a predetermined outcome does not so much attempt to truly understand Plato's Atlantic culture as much as try to explain away the problem. Heinrich Schliemann took Homer seriously, page for page, and the 19th century explorer found the poet's epic city. Why should Plato not be taken any less seriously? See my page on In Search of Plato's Real Atlantis for my own analyses based on the wider scope of Greek mythology and ancient geographic sources, which seem to point to Plato's paleolithic empire in the Atlantic.
.jpg)
