Ancient and ArchaeologyΜύ permalink
Earliest civilisation below sea level
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by genex1 (U3127669) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
I remember a Channel 4 program in the late 90's ish. The presenter suggested the legend of Atlantis and various other civilisations may well of come and gone with the last ice age. Is there any new evidence for this or anything interesting to comment
on. Apologies if this has been covered. -
Message 2
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
Hi genex1,
I think you may have been thinking of TV programme maker Graham Hancock. But, even if not, a number of enthusiasts for Atlantis and ancient civilizations believe that these are derived from the holders of 'ancient wisdom' from a time before the last Ice-Age.
The conventional archaeological wisdom, with which I must say I concur, is that there is not a particle of evidence for such beliefs, there never has been a particle of evidence for such beliefs and there never will.....well you get my drift.
Homo sapiens did evolve before the last period of glaciation, and Palaeolithic studies are full of interest, but civilizations....no chance.
TP -
Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
... the legend of Atlantis is not of course the legend of Atlantis but the legend of Athens. Athens was older than Atlantis and in their intbetween intercontinental war they won over them. Destruction struck and both were affected while other areas of the world - then less develeped - like Egypt were much less affected.
That is the myth. -
Message 4
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 13th October 2007
You had better explain that you're giving a synopsis of the actual legend, and not claiming that Atlantis was Athens, was a real place near Athens, or vice versa, or a variation on that theme, E_Nik! Otherwise you'll have a plethora of Atlanteans down on you bleating about how Atlantis was actually in the Bermuda Rectangle, three miles south of Bognor Regis, or other examples of the usual stuff they come up with.
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Message 5
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Sunday, 14th October 2007
Genex
If we ignore the Atlantis legend, there is still plenty of evidence that the rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age caused major upheavals to the societies around the world.
Only in the last few years has research shown that areas now under the North Sea were populated, even though we cannot claim it to have been a civilisation in the true sense.
There are of course great flood stories in religion that may have some tangible link to events at the end of the last ice age. In particular the Black Sea may have been inundated in one sudden event as the sea broke through the last land barrier. The resulting calamity would have remained within the stories of the people who survived the event, and just maybe, I say maybe, could be the genesis behind the Noah and the great flood story that made it into the Bible.
Rising sea levels around the world in such a short time period must have displaced a large proportion of the humans at that time. Even today population density is highest at coastal areas, the rapidly rising sea must have left a major impact on the human societies of the time and probably made it into legend and religious fable’s.
But the rising sea level at the end of the last ice age came too early to attribute it to the demise of any European civilisation.
More recent volcanic events within the Mediterranean could have led to the legends of lost civilisations. -
Message 6
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 17th October 2007
Far more likely that Noah, like Utnapishtim, is derived from a riverine flood in Mesopotamia. Indeed, bearing in mind the chronology of the stories, with the earlier parts of the Bible having been formulated from a mixture of at least two older texts during the captivity in Babylon, it's even possible that the Noah story IS the Utnapishtim legend.
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Message 7
Posted by terakunene (U9761462) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
I always thought the the story of Atlantis was the first science fiction story.
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Message 8
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
Well, it's been the basis of enough Sci-Fi ever since. Most of it pretty bad, it has to be said.
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Message 9
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
wasnt there a documentary quite recently detailing the finds of an underwater alexandria (?) as the basis of the Atlantis legend ??
st -
Message 10
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
Are you thinking of Caesarea? If so, that's much later than the earliest stories of Atlantis.
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Message 11
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
Re: Message 9.
Stalteri,
Gil, made already some welcome to you somewhere here on the boards. But here is it again. Yes, the old board, those were the days. Sadly now since some months heavily involved in a French board I have less time for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ let alone the other boards that you know.
Warm regards to you both,
Paul. -
Message 12
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007
Paul :
Nice to hear from you again. If that's the programme, I'd say that wraps it up for any suggestion that it is linked to the Atlantis myth - far too late to be that. -
Message 13
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 31st October 2007
three miles south of Bognor RegisΜύ
A little known fact is that King George V was an avid believer in the myth of Atlantis and who also subscribed to this view.
He also believed that as a British royal he was actually descended from the Atlanteans and that when he died he would return there - to an underwater valhalla located just south of Selsey Bill.
The full irony of his final words on his deathbed, in reply to his phyisician who had suggested to him that he might recover from his illness at Bognor Regis, is, therefore, lost on many. -
Message 14
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 31st October 2007
A recent book raises the possibility that Atlantis was in what is now modern day USA. The author goes to fantastic lengths to bolster this theory with evidence and has come up with some amazing correlations between the alleged myth and what is undeniably fact. Here are some examples:
Nearly all the Atlantean legends (except for those who set Atlantis to the east, north or south) set Atlantis to the west. America is to the west (except when it is to the east, north or south).
In Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔr's legend "Atlantis, the City On The Edge of Forever, Part 4", Atlanteans "speak as if chewing potatoes, spitting tobacco and being stung by an accidentally inhaled bee all at once". The author points to New Yorkers.
Atlantis produced appallingly unconvincing swimmers who looked and sounded like Gerry Anderson puppets, claimed a family connection to Ireland, and went on to appear in other cultures' legends such as "Dah-Las" and "Mordar-shi-Rote". America produced Patrick Duffy.
Atlantic City (which shares all the same letters with Atlantis except for "c city" and "s") is in America (though most Americans like to point out that it's actually in New Jersey).
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔr is a character in The Simpsons.
Athens is a city in Georgia. Georgia is a state near the Caspian Sea (which figures in other Greek legends such as Jason Gets Fleeced, Jason and the Astronauts, and What Jason Did Next). Athens has therefore been moved a considerable distance (at least twice). So why not Atlantis?
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔr was very poor. So is the author. -
Message 15
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 31st October 2007
Nordmann :
Which cities permit you to beg for your bread? Can I suggest that you raise the bar prices & you won't be poor much longer? -
Message 16
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Wednesday, 31st October 2007
Well you've convinced me!
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Message 17
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Thursday, 1st November 2007
urnungal
Are you thinking of Caesarea? If so, that's much later than the earliest stories of Atlantis.
Μύ
nope - pauls link was the one i saw
i remember it as i was doing the ironing at the time lol
paul
lovely to hear from you again
dont desert us - !!
st -
Message 18
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 15th November 2007
You know why is the myth of Atlantis so interesting and has captivated the minds of many... ufologists and dubious personas like Hancock but also serious archaiologists open minded enough to overpass the anxiety for achieving academic results to be given coveted position here or there (cos you know how it moves around, at least in some countries not in yours!)?
Well because unlike any other myth it has been narrated in a sense that it is a real story narrated by real people to a real historic persona like Solon not so long ago than the age of Plato (200 years) so it is approaching more the stories of Herodotus for which himself funnily says "So they say, so I write but I cannot verify if true"!
The scene of my ancestor going to Egyptian priests and telling them "we are the oldest, we are the best" it is easy for most of you to imagine (deja-vu e? sorry genes talking). But then what is less easy to imagine is the outcome, that the Egyptian priests would come out to make the link between themselves and Greeks in a so far distant era, then talk about progressed cultures (that is easy to imagine - ALL mythologies and stories talked about more progressed ancient cultures and not in the close past but in the distant) and above all talk about an island in the Atlantic ocean. Because the description clearly depicts the Atlantic ocean, Hercules Columns was the Gibraltar for the ancient ones - there is little . Then the priests talk about the Carribean and the Americans behinnd it ("...and to the west of them there are various smaller islands and even more western lies a huge continent"). I mean what more obvious description can you expect from an ancient myth?
Ok, so do we have to jump and believe? Of course not. As many people here said, "bring us the evidence". And till now, there is no solid evidence other than some disagreements on the dating of certain artifacts like the Sphynx (the mistake about the hypothetic workers' villages that were not and the famous weather analysis and so on...) that for most of the scientific community seem for the time present resolved.
But then wait a minute. When the much more scientific field of geology arrives only as late as in 2000 A.D. to tell us that "hey, actually around 10,000-11,000 years back, the Gibraltar was a mudy place with three little islands just at the mouth of it" how can we in archaiology boast that we know everything and we have dug everywhere and we have found everything? And actually, surprise! The dates given by geologists again coincide with what the myth says. It said that the island was immersed in the sea and that the passage point to the ocean (i.e. the Hercules Columns) was filled with mud and became unavigable for hundreds of years after that and so people from within the Mediterranean just forgot routes and lost track of what lied outside... if the 10,000-11,000 years back that geologists give is correct then it is around 8,000-9,000 B.C. thus it is a millenia or two after the cataclysm that happened around 10,000-11,000... hence this amazing Atlantis myth again takes an interestingly accurate position.
First you have the description of the Atlantique, then the description of land near the mouth of Gibraltar and then the dates. All seem to fit. And I see seem. Nothing is proved but then none can just come and dismiss every possibility just because he does not like the idea. As it is like that it is more possibly that it happened that way than not.
Take it that way: From the most well known and best monitored civilisations on the earth, that is the Greek one we have found only the 1% of what it produced - guess how much we have found on others like the Egyptian or the Persian one... now guess what can we find for a hypothetic precataclysmic culture that got immersed in the ocean, an ocean where when they search for ships that sunk 50 years ago in a given location it takes them often years to find - guess how much lack one needs to find remains of human activity of those old times searching half the ocean up and down! It is nearly impossible.
And what could remain still under the depths of the ocean? The myth does not describe features like space rockets... it says about nice things made from bricks (yellow and brown bricks) and metals like copper and gold (i.e. the most soft ones). 12 millenia and under so much pressure and sand/volcanic deposits do not expect to find much.
Copper and gold are indeed known to be the first metals to be used by mankind and the now official 7th millenia B.C. is being pushed back every decade with a new finding. It would not surprise me if they used these metals the traditional "metal way" and not as a stone in ages prior to 12,000 B.C. Also do not forget that when we sent Gagarin and Armstrong to space and the moon we still discovered stone age people in the style of first-contacts (!!!) and thus there is no-one here to assure as that necessarily 100% of humanity was in paleolithic-neolithic conditions in 12,000 B.C.
What has to be done is to remain sceptical, to have an open mind but also to demand facts. Till now there are interesting hints but not proof. So we better keep up with the current theories till there is something that proves otherwise. -
Message 19
Posted by The Covenant (U8843775) on Tuesday, 27th November 2007
Atlantis could have been the modifiction of the Noah account, as recorded in the Bible. What evidence is there that such a place did once exist as Atlantis?
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