Missing the Nonexistent

Missing the Nonexistent

The story of Atlantis first appears in Plato's two dialogues the "Timaeus" and the "Critias". Plato's story centers on Solon, a great Greek legislator and poet who journeyed to Egypt 150 years before Plato's text was written. Egyptian priests tell Solon the story of Atlantis during his occupation in the city of Sias. Ancient Egyptian temple records describe a destructive war fought between the Athenians and the rulers of Atlantis approximately 9000 years before Solon's journey. The powerful rulers of Atlantis embarked on a war from their homeland in the Atlantic Ocean and sent troops to Europe and Asia. The army of Atlantis met opposition from a coalition of soldiers from Athens and the rest of Greece; however, when the coalition faced complications, the armies from the rest of Greece deserted the Athenians. Nevertheless, the Athenians kept fighting and eventually overcame the empire of Atlantis. After the Athenian army defeated Atlantis, the island nation suffered disastrous earthquakes, floods, and was inevitably lost to the sea (William 1920: 17).

Solon's notes state that Atlantis existed since the beginning of time. In the beginning, the gods separated the world and claimed their own portions. Poseidon, god of the sea, received Atlantis, a massive island larger then Libya and Asia combined. For his wife, he chose a mortal named Cleito and founded the royal family of Atlantis. Poseidon set forth laws for Atlantis's rulers to follow. The ruling body consisted of ten rulers who met regularly in the temple of Poseidon. At the temple, the rulers exchanged pledges, slaughtered a sacred bull, and burned its body as a sacrifice to the gods (Hefner 2004: 207).

The legend of Atlantis is one of the most interesting stories ever told. Many have debated its legitimacy, and the question still remains, did Atlantis ever exist? Many people argue that Atlantis did exist and even manage to link it to certain ancient cultures; however, more relative evidence suggests that Atlantis is little more than Plato's elaborate myth- devised merely to advance his political agenda. Yet the evidence that suggests that Atlantis may have existed requires a presumptuous reading of Plato's works. Nevertheless, most people still consider Atlantis to be more than a myth and hypothesize that the ancient civilization of Minoan Crete is the lost civilization of Atlantis. However, this hypothesis is highly improbable due to a surplus of evidence that indicates that the resemblance in landscape and culture between that of Minoan Crete and Plato's Atlantis is limited. It is also hard to fathom how Plato would have uncovered the history of Atlantis. Plato says he is drawing from Egyptian Priests; however, it is much more plausible that he drew information from his own imagination and mythology from poets such as Homer. One may also conclude from Plato's writings and his life that he wanted the story to be known as a myth; consequently, although many people of Plato's time construed myths as history, Plato believed that myths were fictional. Yet if Plato did intend for Atlantis to be unreal, what was his purpose for writing such an elaborate legend? The answer lies in Plato's conservative political agenda, what he alludes to in the story of Atlantis, and the true identities of the participants in his story.

Christopher Gill, an expert in the works of Plato, explains how the resemblance between the landscape of Minoan Crete and Atlantis requires "much special pleading" (Gill 1980: 11). He gives examples of key differences between the description in Plato's texts of Atlantis and that of Minoan Crete: "Knossos (in northern Crete) has to be [relocated] in the plain of Messara (in southern Crete) before its topography is even roughly similar to that of Atlantis" (Gill 1980: 11). It is hard for even the most avid Atlantis believer to overlook such a glaring issue when trying to find similarities between Minoan Crete and Atlantis. If Plato were basing Atlantis on Minoan Crete, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to misplace such an important landmark. Gill continues, proclaiming that "Plato's measurements of the capital city of Atlantis need to be slightly retained (to fit Knossos), but his measurements of the plain of Atlantis need to be divided by 10 (to fit the plain of Messara)." Plato misses the size of Atlantis by a large margin if indeed he did mean to use Knossos and Messara. Visualizing the picture of Atlantis, it is difficult to believe that Minoan Crete was the rubric from which Atlantis was created. Yet many skeptics of Gill's work think that the cultural similarities between Atlantis and Minoan Crete are striking enough to prove that Minoan Crete is Atlantis; however, a deeper analysis reveals a fundamental cultural difference that cannot be ignored.

The cultural similarities between Minoan Crete and Atlantis have given those who believe in the myth hope. However, one of the main premises these enthusiasts have used to support their contention that the Minoan culture is that of Atlantis is largely misrepresented. The bull-motif, the piece in question, appears to illustrate the bull's importance in both cultures. Andreea Haktanir, an Atlantian researcher, clarifies that the uniqueness in the Minoan's portrayal of the bull was "the acrobatic bull-leaping which was found so often represented in Cretan art" and she continues by saying that "there is no hint of this in Plato's text" (Haktanir 2007). Even though the two representations of the bull share a few similarities, the similarities they share are not compelling enough to connect the two cultures. Plato describes the bull as a mere sacrificial object that the rulers of Atlantis used to please the gods, but Cretan culture used the bull in an elaborate ritual and considered it to be a manifestation of a god. Thus, upon more thorough analysis, the hypothesized link between Minoan culture and Atlantis seems less compelling. Furthermore, even if Plato actually uncovered data on Atlantis, how much can the reader trust his sources?

Hypothetically, if Plato discovered the history of an ancient island civilization, his primary source, the Egyptian priests, would have lacked credibility. Historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet's research in Egyptian records from Solon's era show that the "records have little to say about Atlantis at all, and contain nothing which would suggest it was a threatening maritime power" (Vidal-Naquet 1992: 305). His research makes it exceedingly difficult to propose that the Egyptians were Plato's sources. Consequently, if Plato, or one of his informants, did not receive information