Ancient and ArchaeologyΜύ permalink
Atlantis: in Hieroglyphic texts.
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Sunday, 8th January 2006
Plato did not mention in his dialogues (Critias and Timaeus) whether Solon did see the identity-rings of the men that he said they were Egyptian priests or not. Were they native Egyptians and real priests or they were only guests like Solon and they met by accident in Sais. If they were not Egyptian priests, and were pretending that; one could say that their elder priest might was speaking about the civilization that they belong to it and that its land is faraway from Egypt. But in case if they were real Egyptian priests; one might ask, why the elder priest did not mention any thing about Egypt to his guest? Why he preferred to talk about the civilization that Plato called it Atlantis, instead? It is too strange that he did not even mention any sentence about Giza pyramids, and preferred to speak about the Pillars of Heracles. That may imply that the Egyptian political regime, at the time when Solon visited Egypt, was anti-Cheopsism, i.e., it was prohibited to speak about the governance system and the political life of Cheops' s days; and therefore, the Egyptian priest had found another way to entertain and amaze his guest by saying narratives about the governance system of other ancient civilization like Atlantis, because nobody will be able to know if it is true or false, as there are no hard evidence and nobody will be able to dive in the deep water to see their remains.
As Solon formulated his famous poem about the story, it meant he probably believed it was true story; but that does not answer the following question. Did he observe any of the two cases: the priests' doctrine was anti-Cheopsism or they were not Egyptians? Or may be there was third case that Solon, Critias, Plato and the rest of the great Greek philosophers who participated in the two dialogues were completely agreeing about it. That is, the priests were Egyptians and were not anti-Cheopsism; the story was absolutely true, and the elder priest was talking about the glory of the Egyptian civilization at the time when Atala and his family was ruling the Atlantis' continent in Egypt, in 9000 Egyptian seasons before Plato's days, 3000 solar years.
Why I am saying that? It is because some researchers thought that they know the true-key for how to pronounce the Hieroglyphic writings of the ancient Egyptians. They created names of kings that never lived on earth. The names of people and the places that Plato mentioned them are written in many hieroglyphic texts, on walls, papyri, etc, e.g., the kings' list in Abydos. Those texts include stories about the Egyptian Atlanteans. When the Egyptian priest mentioned Heracles, he was not talking about a foreigner king but ancient Egyptian king that his name was, and still, written on the walls of many ancient Egyptian artifacts and he is the king who built many pillars in many places, inside and outside Egypt. -
Message 2
Posted by Artorious (U1941655) on Tuesday, 10th January 2006
Hi Hossam,
Your message reveals an interesting point. What if Solon never visited Egypt. We know that all far eastern countries called Egypt Muzri, Muzir, Mizri, Mizraim, Musuri, Musri and the like. The Egyptians thelmselves called it Kheme or some such. I have always thought that when Herodotus got to where _HE_ thought Egypt was, thats what _he_ called it as he thought that was where Oddyseus had got to.
I also think it strange that no mention was made of the Pyramids and other great monuments of 'Egypt'.
I have been trying to deduce what place it may have been. Something along the lines of aKyptos, Kyptos. The nearest I can find is Cyprus. What of Sais you may ask, well one the main cities of Cyprus at the time would have been Salamis.
The other posibility is Ugarit, known as Ikata, Arkite, Agade. Both are near to each other. -
Message 3
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Tuesday, 10th January 2006
What if Plato made up the tale for its allegorical impact on the nature of hubris within political society?
Wacky I know, but just a thought -
Message 4
Posted by mvarennes (U2373372) on Wednesday, 11th January 2006
I heard (long time ago) a theory explaining that Solon was an imaginary character created by Platon... Now , as I said, it was a long time ago...
W
Wacky I know, but just a thoughtΜύ -
Message 5
Posted by Artorious (U1941655) on Wednesday, 11th January 2006
Hi Mv
Solon is known to be real person as he is mentioned in other sources. The question is did Plato did just use his name(Solons) in putting forward his argument as a way of lending it more weight. Solon was kown as a great law maker and Judge and was revered by the Greeks. In using his name Plato could have been drawing on these associations in the mind of his readers or listeners. Will we ever know? -
Message 6
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Wednesday, 11th January 2006
Hi All,
First of all, thank you for participating in this discourse. Let me start by this, Herodotus did mention in his history "--- Solon set out upon his travels, in the course of which he went to Egypt to the court of Amasis---". The court of Amasis was in Sais, and that city was known too as Amasis or Amsos. Besides, Plato, Critias and the rest of the great Greek philosophers who participated in the two dialogues knew this fact; saying that they did not read Herodotus' history and they did not know the geographic location of Egypt or Sais is false. They were agreeing about the same information; Egypt is the country which everybody knows (till now) and Sais is one of its major cities. Therefore, the talk between Solon and the priests were in Egypt, in Sais and specifically in the court of Amasis, i.e., saying that the talk might was, or was, not in Egypt is a false assumption, and nobody did mention the term Mizr or the like.
What I have said in the first message is that the two dialogues of Plato give false indication that the priests were not native Egyptians, and the elder priest was speaking about a place outside Egypt, I mean the Atlantis's continent. I am using the term "continent" here in this text in a same way as the ancient civilizations were using it, which is completely different from its meaning today.
Moreover, saying the whole story is a sort of an imaginative fiction is false too. The second dialogue includes the precise physical description for the two places: the place of the ancient Athenian (which is not the Athens of today) and the place of Atlanteans. He gave the full description with the dimensions of the Atlantis's continent and its planning components; however, I noticed that many researchers in this field do not know the correct values (in meters) of the measurement unites that Plato used in his text: Stadia, Stadium and even the value of the ancient foot.
Saying that Plato's dialogue of Critias implies political objective is very possible. I think, when a great philosopher like Plato decides to write this particular dialogue, it means he thought it has multiple benefits and positive outcomes; the primitive federal and decentralized governance system of Atlantis could be one of the positive externalities that Plato was aiming at. -
Message 7
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 11th January 2006
Erm, Herodotus mentions the pyramids, although he considered they were constructed during the Armana heracy, so there seems little need for Plato to go over that ground. What herodotus does not mention is any major caastrophe like Alantis, which is odd given his reliance on the idea of the central diffusion of civilisation and culture from a single source in Egypt. It is afterall Herodotus that suggested the wisest of the wise were to be found in Heliopolis. The priests of Heliopolis are used to disprove the Greek genealogist Hecateus and Plato uses them to educate Solon about Greek prehistory.
Has anyone actually considered that the story was made up? I mean what evidence is there for the proposed meeting between Solon and the priests of Heliopolis? True there is a legendary ten year absence after Solon instituted his reforms, supposedly so that he would not have too great an influence over the running of Athens but I cannot help feeling that it is very similar the process of Ostracism used in later Democracy. Especially as he took pride in the impartiality of his lawcode neither favouring rich or poor. This cannot have helped his popularity in certain circles as I'd imagine the aristocrats of the coast, plains and highlands would have not been to happy with restrictions on their own role as local lawgivers. Again it is true that there was a considerable degree of contact between the Nile Delta and the Greek speaking world stretching back into the second millennium BC that suggests there may be some validity behind Plato's assertion that the Egyptians had preserved records of interaction with Greek speakers long before the Illiad and Odyssey were written down. There are late Mycenean frescoes unearthed in the Nile Delta but the Egyptians do not seem to mention any Atlanteans. -
Message 8
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Thursday, 12th January 2006
Hossam,
You are relying on a single literary source for the authencity of the Atlantis story. That is the greatest difficulty with it. To give 'precise' dimensions does not authenticate the tale at all, as any fictional narrative can include such details to better transport the individual. Tolkien goes such information in descriptions of halls in Middle-Earth, does that make them real?
The argument is not whether or an early civilisation was deatroyed by a natural disaster such as extreme flooding or a volcanic eruption, but whether or not the specifics of the narrative that Plato has left us is a factual retelling of such an event, or is the cultural memory of just such an event being used as an allegorical backdrop for the telling of his political parable.
Plato also said the people were decended from Atlas. Is that a fact? Plato also says the Gods destroyed atlantis, Is that a fact? We are willing to accept this aspects of the tale as an allegorical description for the beginning and ending of a civilisation, but accept the centre as gospel. This does not make sense. Especially not when we consider the value that tale has in the very field that Plato is most interested. If true, the gods have crafted the perfect parable for a philosopher of political science to utilise against cultural hubris and arrogance within the political arena. as I do not belief in the gods I find it hard that such a perfect example was passed unnoticed by all commentators between the event and plato without any other passing comment on this remarkable lesson from the past.
Surely Plato's family did not keep this tale a secret until day it just happened to pop up in conversation between Plato's Uncle and his mate, whilst Plato just happened to be there to eavesdrop and record? For that is the literal description of the tale. If we do not accept even the format (i.e. the actual event of the dialogue) of the information to be historically accurate, why do we hone in on this single piece in the middle and declare it true in every detail, yet all aroubd it is poetic licence?
Atlantis, to my mind, is a safe harbour for those amongst us who like to think that the Golden Age was in the past. I'm not knocking that view, but if we look to writers in ancient times who talked about that which came before they fall into two distinct camps. Those that feel the Golden Age is now and in the future, and those that think the Golden Age was in the past and all of human endeavour has been a slow decline ever since. Within this context Atlantis allows a safe, encapsulated palate upon which to craft that Golden Age, for all vestiges have been wiped, and one's imagination can be given free rein. For the former, there palate was all that lay beyond the borders of their world. Time flowed backwards away from the cultural epicentres of the mediterranean, and the further from the coast the more savage the inhabitants. Out there were the Sctyians, the antithesis of the Atlanteans.
It is within this context, that of the antropological view of both their own origins and of other proples, that the tale such be placed. It is instructive and informative, but you are ultimately very unlikely to find a hieroglyph that authenticates any part of Plato's representation, anymore than Pliny the Elder's tales of one-legged men who used their feet for shade are likely to be authenticated through an archaeological excavation in India, where he claimed they resided.
Elistan -
Message 9
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 12th January 2006
What no Sauropods? You'll be telling us there are no such things as Blemies next...
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Message 10
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Friday, 13th January 2006
Hi All,
First I would like to thank lolbeele and Elistan for enriching this discussion.
I wonder to know why the nowadays commentators like to accuse Herodotus and Plato with charges that they did not do at all. They accuse Herodotus by his limited knowledge about the correct sequence of the Egyptian kings, or the Egyptian priests did not mention to him the correct sequence; and they accused Plato that he wrote fictitious history in order to publish his thoughts. For the case of Herodotus, it is unlikely to conclude that he was wishing to add his name to the roster of the ancient and great historians before his days, or was wishing to be the master of the ancient historians, and wasted his money and years of his life in searching on the history of nations and end up with a text that includes mistakes about the history of such civilization that he does not belong to, but he admired it. Nobody did mention the process of editing the historic texts, before publication, in Herodotus's days. His history about Egypt reveals that his talk with the Egyptian priests was in Greek language; therefore, it is unlikely to say that he did not send a cope of his work to the Egyptian priests for review or as gift. It is unlikely to say too that the Egyptian priests (of his days or in latter period) did not read Herodotus's history, or there were no copies of Herodotus's history in the ancient bibliotheca Alexandrina, and nobody at that time noticed the mistakes that nowadays commentators said that Herodotus had done when he wrote the chapters about the history of Egypt.
Herodotus mentioned the following sequence of the Egyptian kings: Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rhampsinitus, and Cheops. If we compare this sequence with what is mentioned in Abydos's list of the Egyptian kings, we will find no difference, taking into consideration that the king that the Egyptologists pronounced his name wrongly as "Khufu" is not the king that Herodotus wrote his name correctly as Cheops; they are completely two different kings; Cheops is much older than that called wrongly Khufu. Besides, the king Sesostris that Herodotus was speaking about is not the king that Egyptologists call Senusert of the twelve's dynasty and similarly Rhampsinitus is not the king that Egyptologists call Ramases of the nineteenth's dynasty. Although, Egyptologists have done great advances in understanding the Hieroglyphic system of writing during the last two centuries; there are still many things that are not understood; e.g.: (i) The rule of how to use and pronounce any figure, as a Hieroglyphic letter, i.e., assume that I would like to add to the ancient array of letters the symbols of the following things of our days: television, telephone, train, mobile, metro, computer, car, cable, bus, breech, etc, how to identify the letter that each indicates? (ii) The rule of how to identify the sequence of pronouncing the letters of each word, i.e., which letter has the priority for pronunciation before the other. (iii) The rule of the seven letters that by which one can transfer any name used by any tongue to its equivalent in any other tongue; the rule that Solon learned it from the Egyptian priests, in Sais. When one come across these kind of studies and understand these three basic rules, he will be able to identify the names of Atlas, Gades, and the rest of the Atlantean kings in the list of Abydos or the like and will be able too to know what Hieroglyphic texts that speak about them are. Besides, then and only then one could be able to give a fair criticism on the history of Herodotus.
Concerning the case of Plato, if we reviewed his dialogue that he titled "the Republic," we will notice that despite it is complete dialogue, he did not write about the planning and geographic components of any continent, he did not mention any dimension (stadia, stadium, cubit, or feet). The dialogue without these things still perfect; and any body can understand what he hints to. Why he did not follow the same way of writing "the Republic" when he decided to write the dialogue of Critias? Saying that Plato wrote three pages or so, out of eleven, for describing imaginary geographic region with dimensions that nobody will be able to imagine them, without mentioning real geographic references, is a false assumption. In fact he did mention many geographic references; e.g., names of real rivers, names of real mountains and the like. If one thinks that Plato did make this architectonic mistake, i.e., using real geographic references in an imaginary historic scenario, he accuses Plato that he was unaware about the geographic history of the Earth and its inhabited regions. -
Message 11
Posted by DougWeller (U2957287) on Saturday, 14th January 2006
Of all the books I've read on Atlantis, the most impressive (and the one with the most archaeological evidence) is Rodney Castleden's
Atlantis Destroyed, published in 1998 by Routledge. Castleden also wrote The Making of Stonehenge, The Knossos Labyrinth, The tonehenge
People, Neolithic Britain, and Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. (And Classic Landforms of the Sussex Coast for the Geographical Association, but that's not relevant here!).
On page 7 he discusses the Pillars of Hercules: "Before the sixth century BC several mountains on the edges of mainland Greece were
seen as supports for the sky. Amongst others, the two southward-pointing headlands on each side of the Gulf of Laconia were pillars of Heracles. Then, to the Greeks, a large island with one end just outside the pillars of Heracles could only have meant Crete. [This
isn't the sum of Castleden's thesis, wait for it]...Support for a Peloponnesian location for the pillars comes, unexpectedly, from Egypt. The Medinet Habu texts, dating from 1200 BC, describe the Sea Peoples invading from islands to the north (possibly the Aegean), 'from the pillars of heaven', by which the Egyptians probably meant that the invaders came from the end of the world as they knew it.'
He then goes on to say "The thesis of this book is that the story is not one piece of identifiable proto-history but several, and that
Plato drew them together because he wanted to weave them into a parable that commented on the state of the world in his own times ...
he wanted to entertain, improve and exalt his readers. A distant memory of the Minoan civilization was available, preserved for his
use, as he said, by the seventh century priests in the Nile delta.
The wealth, orderliness and strangeness of the Minoans are sketched in for us." Castleden then points out that Plato does not write about
Atlantis as a utopia, but about Athens -- "It is the Athenians who are described in utopian terms. It is they who have relinquished
private property... and have prolific fields and boundless pastures. It is Athens that is the excellent land with well-tempered seasons."
Castleden follows this with a very detailed discussion of the archaeology and geography of Minoan Crete and Thera and how that compares with Plato's tale. He goes into detail about how the story might have been transmitted to Plato and Plato's possible motives in writing the two essays. (He also mentions that there was a century older text by Hellanicus, of which only a small fragment survives, called 'Atlantis'!).
In the last chapter, he writes "There are several reasons why there have been so many misunderstandings about the nature of Atlantis and its location in time and space:
"1. Plato left the various elements in the story's visible and undigested. Although he altered it, he did not do so thoroughly and
the result is that Atlantis as described cannot have existed at all.
That has led some commentators to claim mistakenly that the story is fiction from start to finish, and thus to overlook the proto-
historical content.
"2. The Egyptians who acquired the story in 1520 BC or shortly afterwards had a very different geographical sense from he Greeks of
Plato's or Solon's time. To the 16th-century Egyptians, the Aegean was a long way to the west. When the story was passed to Solon, the
known world was expanding rapidly, and either Solon or the priest may have assumed that Atlantis was out in the newly visited Atlantic
Ocean.This mistake may actually have led to the ocean being named after the lost land, rather than the other way around as most people
have assumed.
"3. The geographical mistake was compounded by a misreading of Linear A or B numerals, or a misreading of hieratic or demotic copies of the
story made in Sais by Egyptian scribes, in the fifteenth century or later. This led to a tenfold exaggeration of many of the distance
measurements, and a hundredfold exaggeration of area, so that the Plain of Mesara, instead of being small enough to fit into central
Crete, was inflated to the size of the southern Aegean. The land areas involved became too big to fit into the Mediterranean: another
reason for removing Atlantis to the outer ocean.
"4. A similar mistranslation of numerals led to an exaggeration of the 900 years elapsing between Thera's destruction and Solon's
Egyptian visit to 9000 years. The idea of an advanced bronze age culture ...in 9600 BC has always been unacceptable to pre-historians,
and that has helped to push Atlantis to the outer fringes of academic study.
[Here I'd like to interject that I've always been puzzled by those who believe in a 9600 BC Atlantis and ignore the archaeological
evidence that there was no 9600 BC bronze age Athens. They seem to want to say that half the story is true, the other half false.]
"5. The hypothesis revived repeatedly in the 20th century - that Minoan Crete was Atlantis - has proved inadequate ... The parallel
hypothesis, based on more recent archaeological evidence, that Cycladic Thera was Atlantis is also in itself inadequate. Because
these hypotheses can be rejected separately, many have rejected the idea that Atlantis might have existed in the southern Aegean,
understandably overlooking the possibility that if the two hypotheses are combined they do meet the needs of Plato's description.
6. -- omitted, about the Pillars of Heracles and dealt with above.
"7. It is possible that contemporary allegorical readings of the tale were intended to be implicitly ironic, and that in relation to Sparta and Syracuse Plato intended Athens to be Atlantis. From the execution of Socrates, Plato learned the value of cricumspection and
may have chosen, for safety's sake, not to say directly what he meant.
"
What I find so impressive in this book, as I've said, is the wealth of archaeological evidence.
One final point. Castleden is holding to the later date for the Thera eruption, and includes an appendix justifying this.
Castleden goes into a lot of detail about where Plato got inspiration for various aspects of his story.
A nuch older book, Atlantis: Fact or Fiction, ed. Edwin Ramage, is also interesting, especially the section on the literary perspective.
Doug -
Message 12
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Saturday, 14th January 2006
Not to put to fine a point on it the Republic, Timeus and Critias are dialogues and the stories you highlight are from different characters, hence the apparent difference in style between Socrates' proposed ideal polis in the Republic and Critias' taking what should have been and making it into what has been. It is for this reason that Critias is made to go to all that effort to suggest there was some credibility behind the myth.
As for historians before Herodotus, well there don't appear to be any save the odd genealogist. There is a reason why he is known as the father of history. As such I'm inclined to believe that Herodotus never went further than the Aegean and relied on travellers tales and his own mind to create his narrative. We are looking at a text that was originally a series of lectures delivered to the Athenians rather than for the benefit of non Greeks. -
Message 13
Posted by Artorious (U1941655) on Saturday, 14th January 2006
Hi Doug,
Nice to see you here, the famous or should I say infamous Doug Weller
There was a more interesting thread on the Atlantis problem but I cant find it now. I think
Castledens premiss is questionable and I would propose that the pillars were most likeley located somewhere in northern Anatolia, suggestions included the Hellespont or possibly Islands near by. Recent studies have found that most ancient Greek Gods as well as heroes have their origins in Anatolia and Asia Minor including the myth of Atlas. At the time of Solon the Anatolian Greeks under various Lydian Rulers ruled the roost in the Greek world. Same at time of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔr so I believe it is to this region rather than mainland Greece that we should look.
Other studies have shown that the Sea peoples were also from the Anatolian and Asia minor Islands regions. From my own studies I find this is correct. I am currently trying to sort out the Hittite references to Arzawa and that the current assumptions about where Arzawa was may be incorrect. In doing this I have found references to some of the early sea peoples mentioned at the time of RamsesII in battle of Kadesh. Muwatallis and Hatusili used these allies in that battle.
In the other thread we discussed the theory that the Egyptian 9000 years was moon years and so was vastly reduced to but 300 years. Also discussed were theories of Zanggar(sp)suggesting the tale of Atlantis was similar to that of Troy and so are related in time and recently Peter James' book on the possibility of Atlantis being related to the sunken land on Tantalus in Anatolia.
My view is that Atlantis was probably in or around the Anatolic region and that an important Island sank that gave rise to the myth, possibly in the Sea of Marmara where earthquake activity is heavy. A lot of Islands around the Anatolian coast have myths concering having sunk and risen again, and some were even joined to the mainland at some point.
I see here an earthquake causing a tsunami that flooded not only islands but coastal regions of Anatolia as well as Greece mainland.
I put Gediz mentioned in the texts not as Cadiz in spain but the Gediz region in north western Anatolia near Lydia and as the pillars are supposed to be located very near by then they may refer to Islands near by. Certainly there are alot of Islands around there which must have made navigation difficult.
I think the Thera explosian was much earlier, at traditional date of around 1600BC causing weakness in the Minoan empire enough for it to be overwelmed.
The cause of the decline of later empires or dynasties that gave rise to the influx of peoples called Sea peoples and peoples of the Islands was most likely due to plague. This was prevalent not only in Egypt(Amarna period), but in Hatti (Suppiliuma and Mursili),Assyria(Addad-Nirari to Sennacherib)and Biblical - (Zecharia etc) weakening them all enough for the Phrygians, Achaeans, Cimmerians and scythians to invade. -
Message 14
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Saturday, 14th January 2006
I appreciate very much the contribution of Doug, and thank lolbeeble and Artorious for the new comments.
Wait for my reply, I have to go for a short trip of one day, I will come back soon.
Hossam -
Message 15
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Monday, 16th January 2006
Doug,
I have not read Castleden's work myself, so I bow to your superior awareness of its internal arguments, but let me raise a couple of points that become apparent to me from your post.
"The thesis of this book is that the story is not one piece of identifiable proto-history but several, and that Plato drew them together because he wanted to weave them into a parable that commented on the state of the world in his own times"
This, for me, sums up the reason why I would argue against the actuality of 'Atlantis', and the futility of searching for its physical remains based on anything that Plato utilises in his dialogue. Tha fact that an earlier civilisation was destroyed by natural disaster is generally not disputed, and one see Minaon, Anatolian, Mycenaean, or whoever, as the basis of the myth but myth it remains. Plato does require Atlantis to have been real for his dialogue to have the required impact, but merely for audience to accept the possibility of its reality. A possibility based on the general acceptance within Greek culture that a, if not several, civilisation had flourished before being destroyed. Generally speaking, this culture is looked upon as being more thecnologically advanced than the host culture in which the tale is being related.
As to Plato's discription of ancient Ayhens as a utopis it is significant that the utopian paradise he ascribes to it is a pastoral world, the first cycle in the anthropolical development of man. The other two being agriculture and urbanity. A Golden Age which involves such motifs (for literary motifs is what they are) exposes the author as one who sees the Golden Age in the past, and all of human endeavour as a progression away from such idyllic origins. In this context Atlantis is the antithesis of such an Age, and is utilised as an illustrative lesson for the negative path that Athens is undertaking.
Such imagery and motifs were very prevalent in the late Republic/early Imperial period of Rome (of whose literature I would have to admit to being more au fait with), especially in the three works of Vergil, but also in didacticism of Lucretius. They did not lick such imagery up off the stones, but inherited them from the Greeks. Even Hesiod, some three centuries before Plato, deals with similar themes and motifs in his 'works and days'. It astounds me that people chose to look at Plato outside of this philosophical/literary tradition. The message is lost amongst the search for the actuality of events that were constructed against a thematic backdrop. Yes, there probably is several proto-histories behind the tale, but no more so than in Vergil's Aeneid.
Hossam,
As to Herodutus, he was a collector of tales who set about trying to understand the roots of the animosity between the Greeks and the Persians. Authenticity was not really his concern, and he includes several wholly fantastical tales as verbatim history, because the people of that region believed them (especially in realtion to foundation myths of peoples). In a way, Herodutus was more interested in how peoples saw their history than how it actually was. The impact that our image of the past has upon our self-identity, and therefore future actions, is as important, if not more so, than the actuality of what happened. Especially when orality was the medium through which such tales survived.
History, as we know it today, is more identifiable in the writings of Thucydides than Herodutus, even if we can still pick enormous holes in his methodolgy and presenation as well. He self-consciously declared to only deal with rationality aqnd actuality, without gods and/or embellishment. The fact his history turns out a real neat literary construct of two halves pivotting around crucial debate and turning points does this claim a disservice, but that is a debate for another thread. Plato was a comtemporary of this latter development. He was writting around the same time, and it is therefore naive to expect him to incorporate such new departures in his own literary style simultaneously, especially when he is not attempting to write a history. He is attributing an oral legend to a character within a dialogue aimed towards a specific intellectual end.
Plato does not require his audience to 'believe' in the actuality of the Republic's polis, for it is recognised as an intellectual construct for the purpose of developing certain ideas and thoughts of the teller of the tale, namely Socrates. It is sufficient that the audience recognises that it si suspending disbelief for the duration of the talk. The Atlantis tale takes on a greater impact if the audience are left with a niggling doubt of 'could that be real'. To my mind Plato more than succeeded in that endeavour, because there seems to be plenty of people who are still willing to chase after the wispish whisperings of an island kingdom damned by the gods.
Elistan -
Message 16
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Wednesday, 18th January 2006
Greetings to all,
There are many key-points concerning Atlantis in the message of Doug Weller, among them are the pillars/columns of Heracles, the numerical mistakes, and the utopia of Atlantis itself. The latter point coincides too with what Elistan talks about. There is also the case of Herodotus that lolbeeble assumes. In this message, I will talk about Atlantis's utopia and the numerical mistakes. I will respond to the rest in a seconded message. I will give the priority here to the utopia, i.e., does the dialogue of Critics concerns Atlantis's utopia or something else?
In Timaeus, Plato mentioned the prelude of the story of Atlantis as part of Timaeus's introduction. If one read Timaeus, from A to Z, he may observe that, and this will be a false observation, the part about the story of Atlantis could be omitted without weakening the architectonic quality of this particular dialogue; i.e., what is the relation between God's scenario of creation and the story of Atlantis that upon which Plato was obliged to put its prelude in Timaeus? Why he did not include it with the dialogue of Critias, instead of adding it to a dialogue about something else?
Let me answer these questions in a naΓ―ve way that may reveal the architectonic illiteracy of the mind who may think for a moment that the scenario proceeded as follows. Imagine that the dialogues of Timaeus and Critias are the scripts of two live seminars in philosophical TV program, and Plato may was either the gifted director who organized and directed them or was the highly professional cameraman who recorded them. Socrates was their moderator, seating with the guest speakers before Plato's mental camera. If the two scenarios proceeded as we read them, and according to the regulations, Plato cannot make any changes on the script of the talk, the decision of including the prelude of the Atlantis story with the dialogue of Timaeus was not of him; it was spontaneous and unexpected talk by one of the guest speakers, or due to that the guest that was planned to speak first was absent and Socrates used his time for continuing other talk, and thus Plato was obliged to record it. As I said, this might be one of the naive assumptions. Plato as a philosopher, has the power of decision making on every word and every sentence that he mentioned in his publications; when he decide to make this strange architectonic division of the Atlantis story, either was it true or only a myth, he must had in mind very reasonable answer that was clearly understood by the commentators of his days and the fellows of his school of thought. Taking into consideration that this specific division implies that the dialogue of Critias, I mean the story of Atlantis, was in his mind while he was writing Timaeus, and the opposite case is valid too.
Related to the above, to which dialogue-message the story of Atlantis is strongly correlated: the Republic or Timaeus? In the Republic, Plato did not mention any thing about Atlantis; he preferred to link its scenario with what Timaeus had said. He thought that its story is more related to the God-made perpetual laws of nature more than the man-made utopian laws. Atlantis's utopia was a man-made model; I mean a kind of ideology that was formulated by a gifted-mind of an ancient scientist/philosopher that was called the children of God because he was the best of the bests in his days to understand the laws of god in nature. One of these laws, that any Egyptian priest know, is the one that the ancient Egyptians called the law of the letter "N" and that Plato, Pythagoras, and the many other ancient philosophers, including Herodotus too did understand it by heart. That law simply says that the path of the man-made but perfect utopia goes side by side with the path of the God-made celestial cycles; any utopia reaches its climax of application at the point of time when such specific cycle reverses its direction of motion. At these particular points (knots) in the path of time and the history of mankind, unexpected events occur either natural or human; at that time the perfect utopia that every body did admire it reaches its end and decline by two simultaneous catastrophes: one of them is natural and the other is man-made. Those who did not hear about the law of "N" may dedicate the decline of this type to man or societal-made causes and others may say it was due to a natural disaster. In any religious doctrine the law of N is termed as: because people had deviated from the correct path, God punished them. When and where on earth the people of any civilization deviate from the correct path of their perfect utopia and how to calculate the time interval between major and minor knots of their civilization is the whole idea of the law of the letter "N" that was coherent part of the ideology of ancient Egyptian priests. How many minor knots between two major knots? E.g., for any waterfront region, how many inundations will occur between two great deluges like that of the Deucalion? In Timaeus, the elder priest said: "---There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes---." In short, the lesson of the story of Atlantis, if it was true or fiction is not its utopia, the lesson is giving an example on how the God-Law of the letter N works, not only in the past but in all times and in all places on Earth. The Ancient Egyptians did study this law and recorded it in detail, including its full sets of mathematical equations, using different means of presentations. For now, where is Atlantis? and does it true or false story? is not as important as understanding the link between God's scenario for creation and man's ambition for a long-lasting utopian seat in any place on our mother Earth.
Concerning the numerical mistakes, it's unlikely to say it may be happen while using a numerical system that doesn't include zero, i.e., the Ancient Egyptian architectonicians did not use zero, according to their canon of numbers zero represents the state of nothing; it has no geometrical representation in the architectonic space. Therefore, contrary to the case of such error that may occur while writing any four or three digits number by using the decimal system of today, by reducing its value to its one tenth or increasing it to ten times. This error will never happen if we used the Egyptian system for writing numbers. The only error that may occur in the latter system, if it truly happed in the story of Atlantis, is either increasing or reducing the number by 1, 10, 100, or 1000, based on the value of the number. The error might be one for the numbers below 10, and 10 for the numbers below 100, and 100 for the numbers below 1000, and 1000 for the numbers below 10,000.
Hossam -
Message 17
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Wednesday, 18th January 2006
Hossam,
I concur with your point. The actuality of Atlantis is largely irrelevant in to relation to the lesson we learn from the tale.
As you have also illustrated one cannot look to the text for proof or otherwise of thetale, because either (a) it's true and Plato was merely faithfully transcribing the conversation as it happen, or (b) Plato constructed the dialogue to give that impression and 'invented'/'embellished' the tale to his own ends. Both conclusions, as you have shown, can be drawn from the manner in which the information is presented.
I would argue that your inclusion of the Republic in your proof is a bit of a red herring, for not mentioning Atlantis in that work has no real bearing to the role of Atlantis in the Timeaus dialogue, and Plato choosing not to use the same parable twice proves nothing conclusively.
Elistan
PS Interesting Thread, though -
Message 18
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Thursday, 19th January 2006
Greetings Doug and Elistan,
This is the second part of my reply to Doug Weller and Elistan. Before discussing where was the pillars of Heracles, and who was Heracles, and what is the meaning of his name in the ancient Egyptian language? Let us first find a logical answer for the following question: was Plato speaking about Solon and Critias story as fact or as fiction?
In Timaeus, in the prelude of the story we read the following as part of the talk of Critias.
"---- The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction,
we will now transfer to the world of reality. ---"
Then Socratus replied to Critias and said:
Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? How or where shall we find another if we abandon this?
What can we understand from the above?
Hossam -
Message 19
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Friday, 20th January 2006
Greetings,
This is my reply to lolbeeble. Saying that Herodotus did not visit Egypt is a false assumption. In his history, he mentioned many sentences that we understand from them that he did visit Egypt, e.g, in Herodotus history we read the following,
"--I observed that there were shells upon the hills, and that salt exuded from the soil to such an extent as even to injure the pyramids; and I noticed also that there is but a single hill in all Egypt where sand is found, namely, the hill above Memphis; --"
And we read too:
"-- Chephren imitated the conduct of his predecessor, and, like him, built a pyramid, which did not, however, equal the dimensions of his brother's. Of this I am certain, for I measured them both myself. ---"
Hossam. -
Message 20
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 23rd January 2006
I can say that I personally went to the moon and measured key features, in fact the Latin writer Lucien did just that although nobody suggests he was speaking the truth. As it stands that is not proof that he visited Egypt. I'd put it down to rhetorical style from the Egyptian narratives origin as public lectures in Athens. Even if he did visit Egypt, he never got as far as Karnac and his account of Siwa is highly dubious.
-
Message 21
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Monday, 23rd January 2006
When I read any historic text about any place in Egypt that is supported by measurements, which did not include any single mistake, I then say that this text is written by very keen historian. It made me think too that this historian properly was engineer or mathematician who never do any mistake while calculating or mentioning measurements. All the geographic and site-plan measurements that Herodotus mentioned about Egypt are very accurate as far as the historic text needs. Herodotus, did not mention fictitious names for the Egyptian Kings; he did not say Ramsis, Ekhn-Aton, Tut-Ankh-Amon, Hatshepsot or the other fictitious names that implies the inability to read Hieroglyphs. In fact, the nowadays science of Egyptology is full of many fictitious narratives. Besides, Plato, did not do any numerical mistakes too when he wrote the dialogue of Critias.
-
Message 22
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Tuesday, 24th January 2006
Hossam,
As long as all the evidence for the actuality of Atlantis remains internal to a single literary source one cannot take it as 'truth', no matter wht athe characters within the work 'say'. It is necessary with the structure of the dialogue for the comparison to be one from history, that in no way confirms that it actually is. This does not preclude trying to find some secondary evidence to corroborate the tale, but in the 2,300 years of its existence no one has ever found that corrobory, nor as any other commentator of the ancient world (to my knowledge) discussed atlantis in a like frame. Without a second voice, without source verification, it cannot be accepted as anything but hearsay at best and pure fiction at worse. In the end, I fail to see the necessity for the reality of Atlantis, and it ranks with the search for the garden of eden for me.
Elistan -
Message 23
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Tuesday, 24th January 2006
Elistan,
Who said that there is only one source for the story of Atlantis? In fact, there are many other sources; it seems that because researchers did not know about the other historic texts they say it is not real. Plato mentioned few parts of the story concerning its utopian model. The other texts speak about the works of each of the Atlantean kings until the time of the great inundation and earthquake: what did he do? What are the places/countries he visited? What are the buildings he erected; and, about his conquests, etc.
Who said that there were no other texts about the story of Atlantis in the ancient Bibliotheca Alexandrina? Who said that there is no hieroglyphic texts about the story, which still exist till this moment?
Before speaking about these other texts, let me squeeze out other sentences from Plato's source that may make things look different. In Timaeus, the Elder Priest said to Solon:
"--If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time."
He said too:
"-- and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits ---"
Hossam -
Message 24
Posted by Elistan (U1872011) on Thursday, 26th January 2006
Hossam,
Which other sources can utilised in conjunction with Plato? There seems to be a split as to whether or not Plato's description is stand alone. Variant sources of some catastrophe is not really the issue, as I think we all agree that some previous civilsation was destroyed. I was googling around this and looking at a number of sites and everywher from Thera to Indonesia were expounded. Every place on the planet that suffered an inundation of some description has been postulated as Atlantis. With such a surplus of variant evidence, how can isolate a corrobory piece of evidence over a contaminated one. Personally, I am off the opinion that Plato had no specific knowledge of Atlantis, but that such a legend of an ancient culture existed within the Athenian myth cycle. If you could point me to evodence that proves otherwise I would be grateful.
Also, on the Solon/Elder Priest I would turn again to ancient anthroplogical views, as expoused by my lecturer in the subject at uni. Egypt was seen by the Greeks as the antithesis of their way of life. In fact, apparently they imagined an axis running through the centre of the Med and culture ran in opposite directions on either side of that line. Some of the claims of Herodutus for Egyptian culture were actually just the antithesis of Greek practices rather than any actual Egyptian practices. This is from memory, but that was the jist of his argument. I will try to find out whether this train of thought has made its way into an article yet.
Elistan -
Message 25
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Thursday, 26th January 2006
Elistan,
Can you read the hieroglyphic texts?
Hossam. -
Message 26
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Friday, 27th January 2006
Elistan, I do recall that theory. Herodotus' text places that axis roughly between the mouth of the Nile and Danube which he believed were directly opposite each other on a true North South axis. The other society that was in antithesis to the Greeks were the Scythians, whom the author of airs waters places cites were generally flabby and ill formed unlike the beautiful and good of Greece, lay on the other side of this axis as well. With reference to Egypt his assertions aabout Hieroglyphs being written right to left not left to right is another side effect of this belief. In any case Herodotus did not rely on written evidence and could not read hieroglyphs in any case.
-
Message 27
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Saturday, 28th January 2006
The direction of any Hieroglyphic text is from right to left. The only case that left-to-right direction was used is within the domain of designing symmetrical portraits (on wall, or in papyri) wherein the core subject/figure lies in the center of the portrait. therefore artists broke the norms only in this case, allowing the direction of the texts at the left side of the portrait to go from left to right, while the texts at the right side of the portrait remain as normal, creating by this such design case that accenting the importance of the figures in the center of the portraits.
-
Message 28
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Thursday, 2nd February 2006
Here below is the translation of the first paragraph from the papyrus of "Petah and Nada."
"Nagar, the geometer of goddess, the god of light, the pole, and the god of Atlantis, said to Petah: you are the abler, the son of the city of Thephen, the teacher of N, Pheron the stronger, the eternal will give you the knowledgeable Mecarein, the companion of the sun, who will maintain your existence with the light of your god, the creator of the sun of Mer-Ra. We give you the award that you deserve and with his coming, which your eye will accept, we award your lady Nada.---- "
Hossam Aboulfotouh -
Message 29
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Friday, 3rd February 2006
Elistan,
You asked about the other sources for the story of Atlantis. The other sources are not English texts; most of them are in Hieroglyphs and few sources are in other Egyptian tongues as translation from other sources from the ancient bibliotheca Alexandrina. I asked you: do you prefer the Hieroglyphs source, which I give you a sample of it? It seems that you are not interested in the Hieroglyphic sources.
You said: "Personally, I am off the opinion that Plato had no specific knowledge of Atlantis."
This sentence implies that, based on your opinion, Plato was only recording the dialogues of Socrates, and he was not a philosopher at all. You opinion may imply too that, when Plato wrote the word Egypt in Timaeus, it was the first time for him to hear this word and he was afraid to ask Socrates where is Egypt and where Atlantis.
Hossam. -
Message 30
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Tuesday, 4th April 2006
I have presented a paper on Atlantis as the Nile Delta of Egypt, during the recent conference of my faculty, and that published in its proceedings. It is also published online at my web site, its direct link is:
Hossam -
Message 31
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Wednesday, 5th April 2006
atlantis is not in egypt or even close,at all stages of the search for atlantis you are told that it was rich in gold and copper egypt is not rich in gold or copper and that atlantis was swamped by the sea egypt was not swamped it fell because of famine,the people of atlantis are different from egyptians,there is no tobaco or cocaine in egypt although both have been found there,the sooner the better my learned friends accept that it was not egypt then the sooner you will find its true location in boliva.the posters on this board are stuck in egypt like it is the answer to all your prayers even though there is not one report of egypt being atlantis,even egyptians do not belive a word of it although they accept that trade with atlantis was conducted,the only people who belive it was egypt are the posters on this board.
yours anthony I have presented a paper on Atlantis as the Nile Delta of Egypt, during the recent conference of my faculty, and that published in its proceedings. It is also published online at my web site, its direct link is:
Hossam
Μύ -
Message 32
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Wednesday, 5th April 2006
Anthony,
It seems that you did not read my paper at all. There are some rules for commenting on academic researches; first, you must be specialized or at least interested in the field of the research, i.e., at least you must have read quite some books about it, and about its allied knowledge. Second, read the research under consideration, and try to find any illogical, confusing, nonsense, or mistaken arguments and/or analysis. Your, message shows that this is not your area at all; you did not even read the dialogues of Plato. We are not talking here about the stories that are written for kids and for the amateurs to entertain them. I suggest that, if you like to enter this architectonic domain you must spent at least ten years in reading about the subject under consideration and about all its allied sciences.
Hossam -
Message 33
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 6th April 2006
Hossam, we have talked quite often on that issue and in the past I had raised it also myself. We had strong disagreements with Elistan and Lolbeeble who are the same sceptical as me but on the opposite side that supports that it is more possible that the whole Atlantis myth is more probably Plato's creation (please correct me if this statement is wrong!).
Why am I sceptical? First I do not believe that this story is Plato's fantasies or that he invented it to serve within his descriptions of the ideal society. I think that is an easy escape of the problem. I welcome everyone ro read the texts 'Timaios' and 'Critias' where you can see that the story not only serves in nothing but also Socrates dismisses it with the same disbelief that many modern readers do by replying to Timaios "...indeed you told us an interesting story and it serves as a nice paradigm (bouuuuu!) ...now lets talk about something else..."... ehehehe!
My view is that the story came into the discussion of Plato's circle as Plato describes it: as a story told by Solon to Dropidis 'greatgrandfathter of Critias). I see no reason for Plato or anyone else saying lies in the name of Solon, a historical person that existed only 150 years before them, certainly the most well known and reverred of Athenians.
Now my approach on the myth is 'step' by 'step'. First do not dismiss anything because it is shocking or not in accordance with what we know. Not the 9000 years nor the lack of reference to later Egyptian history should be strange.
Lets keep to the facts:
Solon was paying an official visit to the country were he was informed by people that in a city called Sais, there lived Egyptians that actually claimed to be descandants from the same ancestors of Greeks. Thus keep that in mind! Strange as it may be the myth does not talk about normal Egyptian priests but about Egyptian priests that claimed to be... cousins of Greeks. Now what happened in the meeting? Solon like a proper Greek started boasting about himself, Athenians and Greeks and how Greeks were the most ancient nation in the world and started telling them myths.
The priests heard him patiently (like people listen to me here!) and in the end they laughed. They told Solon that Greeks are always kids since they have seen many destructions thus they kept forgetting who they were once, thus their mythologies were only for children, but themselves in Sais they were also descendants of Greeks but since they lived in Egypt and Egypt did not see much destructin they kept records dating to nearly 9000 years back. Thus Solon got interested in reading the records.
Now the text says that Solon was permitted to enter the temple and read the archives along with the aid of the priests and was allowed to take notes and make the translation of the names. Thus what he read was in another language, he translated it but not only the story; with the aid of priests he also translated the names.
What can we deduce? Little. First that there was a city in Egypt claiming to be descendants of very very ancient Greeks who had records that dated up to nearly 9000 years back (11.000 B.C.!!!) and that Solon got to read some of them and translate them and bring the story back to Athens obviously as a curious story
Now, who were those ancestors "Greeks" of 11.000, of course do not expect to make the link with historic Greeks at times when no known nation existed (well up to proof of the opposite). Did priests in Sais had indeed archives of 9000 or they just wanted to play the 'smart' guys to Solon?
Having read the description they make of the Atlantis being situated in the Atlantic ocean it makes some sense: they clearly describe Gibraltar, then the Atlantic Ocean where Atlantis theoretically was and behind it the Carribean islands and behind them America. The description of Gibraltar, Caribbean and America is most explicit and is difficult to imagine any other place.
Having found only as recently as in 2001 that there was actually an island in the mouth of Gibraltar in around 9000 B.C. and that around it thre was shallows (which is 100% accordance with the myth in its after-atlantis description of the ocean), I would not be suprised if in 10,20,30 years they find that actually there was a relatively big island in this ocean that could be Atlantis. Of course even if they locate the place they will not be able to find anything cos if we are to believe the myth to the end, Atlantians were completely destroyed then afterall they used relatively soft materials that would have by now dissolved.
I think it will remain a true mystery. -
Message 34
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 6th April 2006
Why everybody is searching Atlantis and nobody gives a second thought on who was Athens of those prehistoric times? Athens was supposed to be an even bigger civilisation than Atlantis according always to Sais priests, afterall it beat it in the end.
Could it be that Athens was a center of a whole Eastern Mediterranean civilisation of around 10,000 years ago which was destoryed and from which several other cultures jumped out millenia later (egyptian, middle eastern and minoan-mycenean) ? -
Message 35
Posted by thegoodbadugly (U2942713) on Thursday, 6th April 2006
the place you call atlantis is really called altapelico in bolive it was discovered by a british archoligist in the 90s,it fits everything that plato wrote about and the nine cities yes nine cities that he found in boliva are the same mesurements as given by plato and the gold and copper are there and boliva was the only place in the world where both coco and tobaco can be found and the bolivins praticed the same type of farming that plato wrote of. i think that you should read up on the sites in boliva and concider all the info from boliva before you try to put yourself up as an expert on the subject.
yours anthony Anthony,
It seems that you did not read my paper at all. There are some rules for commenting on academic researches; first, you must be specialized or at least interested in the field of the research, i.e., at least you must have read quite some books about it, and about its allied knowledge. Second, read the research under consideration, and try to find any illogical, confusing, nonsense, or mistaken arguments and/or analysis. Your, message shows that this is not your area at all; you did not even read the dialogues of Plato. We are not talking here about the stories that are written for kids and for the amateurs to entertain them. I suggest that, if you like to enter this architectonic domain you must spent at least ten years in reading about the subject under consideration and about all its allied sciences.
Hossam
Μύ -
Message 36
Posted by Hossam-Aboulfotouh (U2914961) on Thursday, 6th April 2006
E. Nikolaos, thanks for the good comment, you mentioned something very interesting, concerning why the Egyptian priest of the city of Sais and the settlers of that city were descendent of the ancient Athenians but they were native Egyptians? The answer of this question is in the first page of Plato's dialogue of Critias. The rest of what you have mentioned is answered in my paper that its link is:
After you read the paper we can continue the talk about where the ancient Athenians lived.
Anthony, thanks for the information.
Hossam.
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