Atlantis is not a legend! "Atlantis and ancient Rus'"

Which sets out the famous legend of Atlantis. Critias has reached us in incomplete form. The version that is known today is very short. The story in it ends at the very end interesting place- at the moment when Plato, having given detailed description the country of the Atlanteans, moves on to the theme of divine punishment for this morally corrupted people. Now it is impossible to say whether the missing end of Critias was lost, or whether Plato never completed this dialogue.

According to the external outline of the story, “Critias” is a continuation of the same conversation between Socrates, the Pythagorean Timaeus, the commander Hermocrates and the Athenian Critias, the beginning of which is the dialogues “State” and “Timaeus”. These three works of Plato form something of a literary triptych. All of them, apparently, were written by the great philosopher near the end of his life, in the 360-350s BC.

Philosopher Plato

“Critias,” like “Timaeus,” is more reminiscent of a monologue rather than a dialogue. The verbal insertions in it by Socrates and Timaeus are small in volume and not very important in meaning. The main narrator of the story of ancient Athens and Atlantis is Critias, whose name gives the dialogue its title. Critias has long been identified with one of the Thirty Tyrants, who was a student of Socrates and ruled Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. However, from some hints in the Timaeus about the very venerable age of this character, another version then arose: we are not talking about the tyrant Critias, but about his grandfather, the great-nephew of the famous reformer Solon.

Critias on Atlantis

Critias, in the dialogue of the same name, retells the legend of Atlantis precisely from the words of Solon, who allegedly heard it from the Egyptian priests during his travels.

Critias begins with a tirade from Timaeus. He concludes with it his philosophical story to Socrates and his friends about the universe (see the dialogue “Timaeus”) and gives the floor to Critias, who had already mentioned Atlantis. Critias takes his turn to speak not without hesitation. According to him, it was not easy for Timaeus to describe divine objects, but to narrate human affairs is even more difficult. The first topic is poorly known to people, but the second is close and well known, so any mistake by the narrator can cause severe criticism against him. After encouragement from Socrates, Critias begins to tell the story.

He says that, according to ancient legends, 9,000 years before their conversation there was a war between the peoples who lived on this side of the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) and those who lived on the opposite side. The first were led by the Athenians, and the second by the inhabitants of Atlantis, a huge island that was located in the ocean west of Africa, and now partly sank from earthquakes, partly turned into impassable silt. After the gods divided the earth among themselves at the dawn of centuries, the region of Athens - Attica - went to Hephaestus and Athena. Unsuitable for agriculture in the time of Plato, it, according to Critias, was very fertile in hoary antiquity. But the destructive floods of subsequent times washed away a layer of rich, fertile soil from it, destroying the timber forests that had previously grown here, fertile pastures and numerous springs.

Critias tells his interlocutors that the Athenian Acropolis in ancient times covered a much larger area than in their times. Craftsmen and farmers lived around it. Separate from them settled a special class of warriors, which included women on an equal basis with men. Members of this class did not have personal property, but owned everything together. Following the rules of modesty and abstinence, keeping their numbers unchanged (20 thousand), these selfless people ruled Attica and all of Hellas. They had no equal in all of Europe. The ancient Athenian system in the description of Critias coincides with the one that Plato promotes in the famous “State”.

Next, Critias moves on to the story of Atlantis. During the division of the land, this island went to the sea god Poseidon, who populated it with his offspring from the mortal woman Cleito. The hill where Cleito lived stood in the middle of a beautiful and fertile plain. Poseidon separated it from the rest of Atlantis with two earthen and three water rings, drawn like circles drawn by a compass around the center hill. Cleito gave birth to five pairs of male twins from Poseidon - ten sons, from whom came a large nation of islanders. After the eldest of these sons, Atlanta, the entire rich land was called Atlantis. Its power soon extended to Egypt and Tyrrhenia (the land of the Etruscans in Italy). The Atlantic Ocean was also named after Atlantis.

The descendants of Atlas, says Plato through the mouth of Critias, became the kings of Atlantis, and from his nine brothers came the line of archons (elders) of the main regions of the island. Atlantis was unusually rich in minerals and agricultural products. Having enormous resources at their disposal, its kings built a huge palace on the Kleito hill and dug canals that connected the water rings around it with each other and with the sea. Critias talks in detail about the width and depth of these canals, about the decorations of the palace, about the splendor of the temple that the Atlanteans built in honor of Poseidon, whom they revered. Atlantis was abundantly supplied with water from clean and healing springs. On the rings of land built by Poseidon, there were many sanctuaries, gardens and gymnasiums. On the outer ring, along its entire circumference, a giant hippodrome for horse racing was built.

Nicholas Roerich. The Death of Atlantis, 1928

According to Critias, so many merchant ships arrived in Atlantis that “talking, noise and knocking were heard day and night.” The plain surrounding the capital of the Atlanteans was a flat expanse three thousand stadia long and two thousand wide (1 stadia = approximately 193 meters). Thanks to the fertility of the plain, a great variety of people and animals lived on it. The whole of it was dug in with a gigantic canal a stade wide and a pletra deep (one sixth stade, i.e. about 32 meters), so that “no one will believe that such a creation of human hands was possible.” Receiving mountain streams, this canal nourished the fertility of the plain. Connecting with the sea, it served to develop trade. During the war, Atlantis could field 60 thousand officers alone and an uncountable number of ordinary warriors. Its fleet reached 1200 ships.

The Atlantean state, according to Plato's Critias, was governed by laws bestowed by Poseidon himself. They were recorded on a large stele that stood inside the main temple of Atlantis. Once every few years, ten rulers of the country gathered in this temple, brought the best bull to the stele and sacrificed it there. The blood of the bull flowed onto the text of the laws, with this blood the kings swore not to deviate in any way from the regulations of Poseidon.

This book is dedicated to the catastrophe of the Flood and the search for Atlantis throughout the world and, above all, in the Black Sea. The secrets of the Atlanteans and Hyperboreans, Caucasian elves, as well as the mysterious builders of dolmens occupy the historian, translator of the “Book of Veles” and other ancient Slavic manuscripts, as well as marine geochronologist Alexander Asov. Why, after these studies about the Black Sea Atlanteans were published in millions of copies in Russia, are they repeated by the Americans, who made this topic a world sensation? What is the famous oceanographer Robert Ballard looking for at the bottom of the Black Sea? And will the discovery of the Black Sea Atlantis be made by Russian researchers? For more information about the research of Atlanis and the Vedas of Rus', see the AM live journal. Asova: http://alexandr-acov.livejournal.com.

A series: Great secrets of Rus'

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The given introductory fragment of the book Atlantis and Ancient Rus' (A. I. Asov, 2014) provided by our book partner - the company liters.

Plato's Atlantis

On this island called Atlantis,

a great and astonishing alliance of kings arose,

whose power extended over the entire island,

to many other islands and part of the mainland,

and moreover on this side of the strait

they conquered Libya all the way to Egypt

and Europe up to Tyrrhenia (Etruria).

Plato (V–IV centuries BC)

And they were taken away by Father Yar

to the Russian land, for, remaining,

would have suffered a lot from the early cold...

And so two darknesses passed (20,000 years)…

And after another darkness (10,000 years)

it was very cold and we set off

at noon (south).

"The Book of Veles". Rod 1.1

The origin of the legend of Atlantis

You need to start your search for Atlantis, of course, by studying the news about this legendary continent ancient Greek philosopher Plato (427–347 BC). According to his story, Atlantis is a continent that was once located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) and died “in one day and a disastrous night.” A description of Atlantis is given in the dialogue Timaeus and in the unfinished dialogue Critias.

Plato learned about Atlantis from his grandfather Critias, who heard about it from Plato’s great-grandfather, Dropidas. The latter was a relative of the “wisest of the seven wise men” Solon, who informed Dropidas about the death of the Atlantean state and about the war between the Proto-Athenians and the Atlanteans. The great secret was told to Solon by Egyptian priests in the city of Sais (Nile Delta) in the 6th century. BC e.

This source of the legend about Atlantis is given by Plato himself. Is he reliable? Apparently yes. This is not just a family legend. Solon was an archon, that is, the ruler of Athens 200 years before Plato. He came to power on the wave of popular veneration for his wisdom. He reigned long and gloriously; subsequent generations of Greeks and not only in Athens lived according to the laws he approved. Changes, that is, the replacement of the power of priest-philosophers with the power of democracy, and then the transition from democracy to tyranny, began to occur during Plato’s lifetime.

But Plato could well have found the records of Solon himself in the family temple and royal library. They were obviously kept and revered.

It is also known, and not only from Plato, that Solon in his old age actually made a trip to Egypt. And at that time the Egyptian priests could well have accepted him, and he could have learned a lot from them, including the legend of Atlantis.

Then Plato himself made the same journey, but, apparently, he did not have the same trusting relationship with the Egyptian priests. The situation in the world has changed, and not everyone liked the strengthening of Greece, and especially Athens (especially since the time of the conquests of Pericles). In addition, Egypt was dependent on Persia, with whom the Greeks waged war. So Plato could well have been accepted not as a sage, but as an envoy of a hostile power. That’s why he returned from Egypt empty-handed and relied not on his own research of Egyptian documents, but only on Solon’s stories.

But the very fact that he made this journey confirms that he treated these records with great respect. And his journey itself was started for the reason that he wanted to learn more details about Atlantis first-hand. But it didn't work out.

So, the source of the legend about Atlantis: the Egyptian priestly tradition, continuous and most revered in the Ancient World.

Does this tradition have anything to do with us, Slavs? It turns out yes. After all, in the legend of Atlantis we are talking about the times of ancestral civilizations, about Sacred History. And its very source, tribal traditions, may well be correlated with the Slavic tradition.

Atlanto-Slavic “roots” of Solon and Plato

Let us pay attention to the genealogy of the sage Solon himself, for his family goes back directly to the god of the seas Poseidon, who, according to Greek legend, “founded Atlantis and populated it with his children.”

Plato

That is, the family of Solon himself went back to the Atlanteans. And it was no coincidence that he asked the Egyptian priests about Atlantis; he was essentially interested in his own genealogy and the deeds of his ancestors. And he received information about those times.

We know the names of these gods and ancestors of humanity not only in Greek, but also in the Slavic-Vedic version.

This is how the Slavs called the god Poseidon in a similar way: the Pallet Tsar, or the Pallet Tsar. And it is quite possible that this was originally his ancient name. It is known from Slavic legends that he was previously called the god Don, and he was the incarnation (face) of the god Veles and the son of the heavenly cow Danu. But after the great Wars of Three childbirth and defeat in the battle with Dennitsa, he went to sea and became the ruler of the sea waters.

And, by the way, in the Caucasus to this day the god of the Don River is called Donbettyr by Ossetians. One of the names of the Caucasian Cossacks “Donets” also goes back to this name ancient god. And this name is related to the names of ancient peoples known in ancient times: “Danavas”, “Danaans” and the like.

So we have every reason to believe that the name Pallet King (Don) is no less ancient than the name Poseidon, or, for example, the Asia Minor name of the Lord Adonai.

The Slavs also called this progenitor god the Black Sea Serpent, Chernomorets.

Cossacks to this day sing songs about the Cossack Chernomorets, who rode to the sea on black horses: “Chernomorets is coming... leading seven horses.” And by the way, in Belarus the text of this song has been preserved (first published in the last century), in which the same melody, almost the same words, but in which this Chernomorets is no longer a Cossack, but the Sea King, and he comes out of the Black Sea and wooes a certain queen, who rejects him.

And in fact, this Chernomorets wooed Queen Pleiana (among the Greeks she is the nymph Pleion). And this sorceress Pleyana was the queen of the Altyn (Atlantis) island. These legends later also turned into epics and legends about Svyatogor and the queen of the Pomeranian-Altyn kingdom.

From them, from Svyatogor, whom we identify with the titan Atlas (we will tell you more about this later), and from Queen Pleiana-Pleione comes the southern “Atlantic” root of the Europeans.

And by the way, the Greek tradition of presenting the genealogies of ancient families (including those of Plato and Solon) has intersections with the corresponding Slavic-Vedic legends about family members.

Let us note that the genealogy of Solon (and therefore Plato) in ancient Greek sources is presented as follows. The god of the seas, Poseidon, seduced a certain Tyro, the adopted daughter of the queen of the Greek province of Thessaly named Sidero.

Well, how can we not remember the Slavic goddess Sida, the wife of Veles? And also the most famous from the epics, Sadko, a descendant of Atlas-Svyatogor, who was patronized by Veles? That is, this Sidero is clearly a relative of the Slavic-Vedic goddess Sida, and she is also the ancestor of the Solon family.

Further. According to legend, Tyro gave birth to a certain Neleus. The great-grandson of this Neleus was the Athenian king Codrus. Solon was a descendant of Codrus, and Plato was the great-great-great-grandson of Codrus. Note that Tyro was the wife of King Salmoneus, but she gave birth to sons not from him, but first from King Sisyphus, who seduced her, and then from Poseidon. Sisyphus was the husband of Merope Atlantis (precisely!), that is, the daughter of the Titan Atlas.

Solon

Plato reflecting on immortality in front of a bust of Socrates. English engraving of the 19th century.

Now let’s compare this Greek genealogy with the Slavic one. In Slavic legends, the place of the hero Sisyphus is taken by the relative Van (or Janos). Sei Van is the son of the goddess Devan and Veles (whom we have already identified with Poseidon).

Then from this Van came the clans of the Wends (for example, the Vyatichi), and from Mary also the Finno-Ugric clans (for example, the Mari, Merya, Muroma). And by the way, the Mari, who have preserved the ancient faith and priesthood, still revere Mary and her son Mari, the ancestor of the Mari. And we also note that the clans of the Vyatichi and Mari lived in neighboring lands from time immemorial.

So, essentially these are variations of the same bloodline. We see similar legends, similar names in Slavic and Greek sources, and all these legends about Plato’s ancestors lead us to the era of Atlantis. We can even say that the roots of the royal family of the first kings of Athens are in some sense “proto-Slavic”. This is a very respected family in our lands.

Of course, this genealogy of Plato is shortened, only 12 ancestors are given, and the twelfth is the god Veles-Poseidon himself. So many generations could have passed in six centuries, not 10,000 years. But, nevertheless, the transmission of some legends in this priestly and royal family is quite probable, especially since Solon then learned the most important information about Atlantis from the Egyptian priests.

Is Plato's story reliable?

We will consider the Slavic roots of this legend in detail and more than once below, and now let’s return to Plato’s story about Atlantis.

Of course, the very genre of dialogues in which this story is given allows for free use of ancient sources. Plato's Dialogues are not a work of history. In them, the author himself speaks through the mouths of historical figures, legendary heroes, and gods. He expresses his thoughts on politics, religion, philosophy, etc.

Plato's political idea is clear. It was important for him to give an example of an ideal theocratic society and contrast this society with the Athenian democratic state, in the political structure of which Plato found significant flaws.

How familiar this is to us who have experienced the transition to democracy! We are also not entirely happy with what we received. And Plato’s thoughts are not outdated even today, despite the fact that he defended the theocratic and monarchical system (being himself of a royal, aristocratic family).

Plato spoke about the ancient war between the Athenians and the Atlanteans, but was referring to the recent Greco-Persian wars. Despite his political preferences, Plato was a patriot of Athens and therefore glorified the victory of the ancient Hellenes. Plato described in detail Atlantis, its inhabitants, descended from Atlas and Poseidon, their way of life and beliefs, the capital of the state and the island itself, located behind the Pillars of Hercules and measuring “larger than Libya and Asia taken together.”

But aren’t these descriptions just the author’s invention, reinforcing his main political and philosophical ideas?

Disputes about this have been going on for two and a half thousand years. Plato's works have been studied from early antiquity to the present day. In the Middle Ages, Plato was revered almost on an equal footing with the church fathers. This explains the incredible popularity of his story, as well as the fact that less artistic, but more historically reliable, ancient sources reporting on Atlantis (the land of the titan Atlas) remained and remain in the shadows. I'm not even talking about Slavic legends, about which so little was known until our time.

Today the Atlantology library contains 25,000 books, containing approximately 2.5 million pages. This is more than 100,000 times what Plato wrote. Plato's plot inspired many science fiction writers, such as Jules Verne and A. Conan Doyle. And at all times, along with people who believed Plato, there were also people who revered Plato’s Atlantis as existing only in dreams.

The reality of Atlantis has become especially often rejected in our time, when the authority of the sacred tradition has been shaken, when people who have earned a “scientific” name for themselves with a skeptical attitude towards any tradition that cannot be verified immediately began to lay claim to the possession of the ultimate truth. And in the ancient history covered with legends, a lot of things have to be taken at their word.

Plato and Aristotle. Fragment from Raphael's painting "Ancient School"

Skepticism, of course, is good as one of the methods of knowledge, but as long as it does not become an end in itself. Until it becomes a cover for ignorance.

Skeptical people consider almost the main argument against Atlantis to be the impossibility of the existence of a vast land mass in the Atlantic Ocean, a continent that could suddenly sink. At the same time, skeptics, who usually have nothing to do with geological science, refer specifically to paleogeology.

Land boundaries before and after the Flood

It is clear to me, as a former geophysicist-ecologist (who graduated from the geophysical department of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, and then from graduate school and prepared a dissertation on ecology, although never defended, since I was carried away by other things) how unsteady such a statement is. In geological and geophysical science, many statements that seemed indisputable yesterday are today refuted by new data.

But even today, the most extreme skeptics cannot deny that the water level in the Atlantic Ocean in the historically foreseeable period fluctuated by many tens of meters and vast areas of land were flooded, sometimes catastrophically. It is believed that the entire vast continental shelf was once dry land. Here it is, the true Atlantis!

So it cannot be ruled out that they could have died in the ocean itself. large islands as a result of geological disasters.

However, only underwater archeology can give a final answer to the question of whether there was a highly developed state similar to Plato’s Atlantis on the site of the flooded land.

The reality of Atlantis was disputed already in ancient times. Even Aristotle, a contemporary of Plato, said: “Plato is my friend, but truth is dearer.”

The famous geographer Strabo can be considered an opponent of this hypothesis, who did not agree with the opinion of the philosopher Posidonius, who believed that “the story of the island of Atlantis may not be a fiction” (“Geography” II, 3, 6). However, one can ignore Strabo’s opinion, because he, like modern scientists, believed that a skeptical attitude towards everything, especially legends, gives his judgments greater weight. So, Strabo, for example, did not believe the traveler Pytheas, who spoke about Iceland (the island of Thule), and did not believe in the reality of China, despite the fact that caravans had been traveling along the “Silk Road” for hundreds of years. Marvelous! Roman matrons flaunt in Chinese silks, and Strabo, drawing a map of the world, cuts off Eurasia just beyond India. And at the same time, when describing lands that are not part of the Roman Empire, he relies on information from ancient geographical works and from the poems of the “divine” Homer, which were considered sacred and served as the Bible for the ancient Greeks and Romans. However, in everything that concerns the lands developed by the Romans, he is accurate, here he is not inferior to modern geographers.

Among the supporters of the existence of Atlantis one can name the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote about its death as historical event. Pliny the Elder in Natural History mentions, among other sunken lands, the “vast expanse” of Atlantis, “if Plato is to be believed” (II, 92).

Platonists and Neoplatonists believed that the story told by Plato, the founder of the Academy, was reliable. Plato's student and commentator on the Timaeus, Cantor, believed that the death of Atlantis was undeniable historical fact, he claimed that the Egyptian priests showed him the history of the Atlantean war in the form of bas-reliefs on the columns of temples (Procl In. Tim. 75, 30–76, 2D). The Platonist Proclus referred to the story of the geographer Marcellus (or Marian of Heraclea Pontica), who in his essay “Ethiopia” spoke about a huge island that once perished in the Atlantic.

But the opinion of the school, the founder of which was Plato, was also not considered indisputable. Many did not take into account the testimony of Cantor, an admirer and student of Plato. What bas-reliefs did he see on the columns of Egyptian temples? Perhaps he mistook the reliefs showing the “peoples of the sea” that collapsed in the 12th century as an image of the warring Atlanteans. BC e. on the coast of Asia Minor and Palestine? Such images have survived to this day, and today scientists make assumptions about who is depicted there. Atlantologists are sure that these are definitely Atlanteans. Perhaps the last landing of the Atlanteans, who escaped from the sinking island and were therefore forced to leave their former habitats and move to conquer new lands.

This version was put forward in the recent past by the famous atlantologist N.F. Zhirov. But the invasion of the “peoples of the sea” occurred in the 12th century. BC e. And this is historical time. Who were these “Sea Peoples”? Many believe that they were Mycenaeans. It is noted that the armor depicted on Egyptian bas-reliefs, in particular the knobs on helmets, resembles the weapons of Mycenaean warriors.

To people who completely rejected Plato's story about Atlantis, it seemed incredible that legends, and especially detailed descriptions of Atlantis and its government structure, were preserved for ten thousand years. And one can understand their distrust.

Of course, a detailed story about the state of the Atlanteans is, in fact, a utopia, an ideal model that Plato carried into antiquity. But the other part of his story is based on a more reliable source. Namely, Greek and Egyptian legends, Sacred History. That is, on the legends about Atlas and his daughters Atlantis and Hesperides (i.e. Vespers).

And by the way, not only Egyptian, but also, quite likely... Slavic, for in ancient times Scythian-Slavic legends were also retold by ancient authors and they could also have been known to Plato.

Slavic-Hyperborean source of legends about Atlantis

We have already mentioned Slavic legends related to the Greek ones about Atlas-Svyatogor, Plenka-Pleion and the like.

It is already obvious that we can compare the Greek legends about Atlantis with not only Egyptian, but Slavic-Vedic legends (the ancient Greeks called these legends Hyperborean). These Slavic legends about the Altyn-Pomeranian kingdom, as well as the northern legends about Vechernitsy, have been preserved to this day (and by the way, not all of them have been published to this day). In these Slavic Vechernitsa one cannot help but recognize the Hesperides-Atlantis. And these legends largely complement other well-known legends about that lost land.

As you know, the daughters of Atlas are called Atlantis in Greek. And we can remember that in a number of legends about that land (including in Slavic legends) it is stated that in that ancient Atlantis women ruled, there was initially a matriarchy there. And the patriarchy was in the land of Atlas himself (among the Slavs of Svyatogor), who was their father, but he himself ruled in another, in Eastern Atlantis, in the so-called Holy Mountains.

It should be noted here that the Slavic legends about Vechernitsy-Atlantis relate to the Russian North, to Pomerania. In these legends, Vechernitsy are the rulers (or sorceresses) who live near the shore of the White Sea. And, by the way, nearby (behind the White Lake) are the Andoga River and the Andoga Mountains, the name of which reminds us... of the Andes mountains in America!

1. Labyrinth, or “Babylon” in the Russian North.

2. Labyrinth of Roman origin in North Africa.

3. Labyrinth on an Etruscan tablet

And in fact, according to legend, connections between these lands and America existed in ancient times. Not only the Normans went to North America before Columbus, but also the Russian Pomors! And the connections of the Russian North, Novgorod region with the Mediterranean and Egypt are also known. From here furs and amber were delivered in ancient times. And here they find the same “babylons” and “labyrinths” made of stones as in the Mediterranean. An excellent study of the connections between the symbolism of our northern “labyrinths” and labyrinths not only of the Mediterranean, but also, for example, the Indian labyrinths of North America, as well as the labyrinths of Oceania (again leading us to the secrets of Atlantis) was published by E.S. Lazarev (see his article “The Gate of Hyperborean Initiation”, Science and Religion, No. 1, 1996).

And, by the way, the image of the heirs of that Atlantis and their culture was also given by me in the “Chronicles of the Svyatorov” (“The Wizard from Asgrad”) in the chapters dedicated to the priestesses of the Evenings of the city of Andogar, which is on the Andoga River in Belozerie in the North of Rus'.

True, this Eastern Atlantis most likely was only connected by trade and cultural ties with the original Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean, of course, before its destruction, no matter what we understand by this.

However, one cannot help but notice that the Greeks sometimes said that Atlas lived in Hyperborea (we will dwell on this evidence in detail later). In addition, the lands of the Far North were also subject to flooding. The entire shelf of the Arctic Ocean went under water within the memory of people after the last Glaciation, and this time coincides with the time of the death of Plato’s Atlantis. But, of course, this land is not Atlantis itself. This is Hyperborea-Arctida, a land that also went under water according to European secret traditions and legends.

Until the time of the Enlightenment, geographers placed the legendary Arctida on maps as a very real land, almost contemporary with them, while Atlantis was revered as lost (only modern atlantologists began to compile its maps based on Plato’s descriptions).

Surprisingly, the story of the death of Atlantis, as if following an ancient mystery, has been repeated in our time. The Andoga River (we just talked about the American-Atlantean “root” of the name of this river) now flows into the Rybinsk Reservoir. But at the bottom of this reservoir in the middle of the 20th century there were ancient Russian villages and even cities, for example, Mologa...

Underwater inhabitants. Miniature from the 18th century.

And, by the way, nearby on the Mologa River, lovers of antiquity recently discovered the impressive ruins of some kind of city... which is not on any ancient map, which already dates its existence to pre-chronicle times. And there are enthusiasts who have already begun to call this mysterious city Kitezh-grad, which, of course, is incorrect, because not everyone ancient city You can call it that, there were also great missing cities, even the capitals of ancient principalities, which remained nameless for us.

In addition, the location of Lake Svetloyar, where the real Kitezh city perished, is well known.

Indeed, a little further south in the Nizhny Novgorod region there are similar legends about the holy city, which also went under water. These are well-known Russian legends about the Holy Kitezh City, which, like Atlantis, sank to the bottom of Lake Svetloyar. And, I note, there are many similar legends about cities and monasteries that went under water in Rus'.

Mermaid and merman. Volga carving, XIX century.

For example, I also know the legend about a monastery that sank to the bottom of Lake Bolshoye Svyato, near the village of Dedovo near Murom. Doesn't this legend also have “Atlantic” roots?

And these legends also deserve careful study. However, this Russian tradition, that is, the legends about the holy land that went under water, as well as the northern legends about Vechernitsy-Atlantis, are not very well known even in Russia, not to mention the world.

And here it should be noted that in the Slavic, especially Northern Russian, lands, the legends about Arctida and Atlantis are mixed.

And another powerful layer of related legends clearly relates to the lands of Southern Rus', to North Caucasus and the Black Sea region. We will dwell on these legends in more detail.

We will also explore legends related to Atlantis and preserved in the lands of the South Slavs bordering Greece.

It was here, in the lands covered by Greek culture in ancient times, that legends about Eastern Atlantis were preserved, which we can with good reason correlate with the very Atlantis that Plato had in mind.

Ancient legends about a land located somewhere in the far west (and sometimes in the north and east), about the garden of the Hesperides and Atlantis, about the giant Atlas or Atlanta, the first king of Atlantis, were best preserved by the Greeks themselves. They have been known widely and for a long time.

We will begin to study these Greek legends first.

Greek sources of legends about Atlantis

First of all, it is necessary to separate the evidence about Atlantis from ancient authors who referred to Plato, and evidence based on sources independent of Plato.

Such a division can clarify a lot. For example, Plato considers Atlas to be the son of Poseidon, and not a Titan, a deity more ancient than Poseidon himself. But we find such an interpretation only in Plato. Other ancient authors do not distinguish between Atlas, the king of Atlantis, and the titan Atlas.

The reason that forced Plato to change the genealogy of Atlas is also clear: for Plato, Atlas is first of all a king (and also his direct ancestor), and a king can be the son of a god, like other kings, but cannot be a titanic god himself. According to the interpretations of other ancient authors, for example Euhemer, the gods and titans are ancient kings, whose life and activities are distorted by myth.

In addition to the legends about Atlanta, about the Garden of the Hesperides, there was also a legend about the death of the country of the Atlanteans. It is described in detail by the historian of the 1st century. BC e. Diodorus Siculus. Moreover, he does not rely on Plato’s story, but on a legend that he heard from the inhabitants of the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. His story, which differs significantly from Plato's, is more plausible. It was preserved not in a work of art, but in a historical work, which makes it possible to rationally explain the myth, but not to remake it arbitrarily. We will return to the testimony of Diodorus shortly.

Garden of the Hesperides. Antique drawing

So, did Atlanis perish in the Atlantic?

Plato placed Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean and gave its exact coordinates: opposite the mouth, behind the “Pillars of Hercules”, in a certain “Atlantic Sea”. He also mentioned the mysterious continent beyond Atlantis, “to which that true Pontus is limited.” Many atlantologists believe that this mysterious continent is America.

Probably, in Plato's time, vague information about America was already available. However, Plato was familiar with the teachings of Pythagoras and Parmenides about the sphericity of the Earth. This means that Plato, like Columbus later, had to believe that beyond the ocean were the eastern shores of the “ecumene” of the world known at that time, i.e. India. In the 4th century. BC e. The Greeks thoroughly explored the surroundings of Gibraltar, so there is no doubt about Plato’s knowledge. Of course, he might have misconceptions about distances, but not about the existence of the Atlantic itself.

Atlantis by H. F. Zhirov

It is worth talking about the very name of the ocean: Atlantic. It can be found already in the works of Herodotus (5th century BC). It is believed that this name is associated with the myths about the Titan Atlas or Atlanta (as well as the Atlas Range in Africa), which supported the firmament. Since Plato calls Atlanta the first king of the Atlanteans, it is not surprising that he also places Atlantis somewhere in the far west, in the Atlantic.

Therefore, Atlantis has always been sought beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. They searched in the area of ​​the Canary Plateau, believing that the islands of the Canary archipelago are the peaks of the mountains of the sunken Atlantis.

According to another hypothesis, which was considered by atlantologist N.F. Zhirov, it was proposed to look for Atlantis in the area of ​​the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which supposedly sank to the bottom of the ocean after the end of the last Great Glaciation. Zhirov provides a map of this land, reconstructed by him from the topography of the Atlantic floor.

And some scientists associated the very end of the Ice Age with the sinking of Atlantis, which, according to their assumptions, cleared the way for the warm waters of the Gulf Stream to the Arctic Ocean, which led to a warming of the planet’s climate.

This point of view was expressed by Academician V. A. Obruchev. However, this hypothesis has not stood the test of time and today must be discarded. There are currently many theories that otherwise explain the end of the Ice Age and the dynamics of all recent glaciations. It is known that there were several ice ages - it is absurd to say that each time the end of the ice age required the sinking of Atlantis, and therefore its subsequent rise to begin a new glaciation.

One of the arguments in favor of the Atlantean “registration” of Atlantis was considered to be the presence of some parallels in the ancient Egyptian culture and the culture of the American Indians.

There are common features in the Mayan and Egyptian calendars - in particular, they took as a starting point a date coinciding with Plato’s date of the submersion of Atlantis.

It may seem that the principles of pyramid construction in America and Egypt came from the same source. It is believed that ancient civilizations received these achievements thanks to the disappeared Atlantis, which was the “bridge” between Ancient Egypt and America.

It was assumed that the word "Atlantis" is translated from the Nahuatl language - Mexican Indians - as "land lying in the middle of water", since in this language atl means "water". Atlantis was also compared with the legendary ancestral home of the Aztecs, the country of Aztlan (“Country of Herons”), which was located on an island in the middle of a sacred lake.

Above - the pyramid of Djoser (Egypt), below - the temple of Quetzalcoatl (Mexico)

Legends of the American Indians also told about “red-bearded and light-skinned” newcomers from overseas, who were the creators and guardians of the achievements of Indian culture. The Aztec, Mayan, and Chichba tribes also represented their gods as “fair-skinned and red-bearded,” similar to Europeans. Indian legends and ancient monuments speak about this. visual arts. These mysterious aliens were also seen as Atlanteans.

Ancient history keeps many unsolved secrets; to explain them it seems tempting to turn to the legends of Atlantis. For example, amazing fact: before pictorial hieroglyphic writing arose in Ancient Egypt, in the 3rd millennium BC. e., there already existed a more advanced cursive, continuous writing. Today no one can decipher the characters of this mysterious letter. But from this it follows that writing was invented even before the beginning of Egyptian history! Perhaps these mysterious scribes were Atlanteans?

In Mexico, under lava flows estimated to be 8,000 years old, a pyramid was discovered. This means that in ancient America, civilizations arose almost two thousand years earlier than the civilizations known to us in the Western Hemisphere. Do they not owe their appearance to the “fair-skinned and red-bearded” Atlanteans?

And what about the giant Sun Sanctuary in Baalbek? All that was left of it was the foundation, made up of three slabs, each weighing 2,000 tons (!). Each of them is 20 meters long and almost five meters wide and four meters high. It takes the efforts of 40 thousand people to move them! According to legend, this sanctuary was built before the Flood by Adam's son Cain. What civilization that disappeared without a trace left this monument?

But let's not rush to conclusions. Each of the listed facts, interesting in itself, does not yet serve as proof of the reality of Atlantis, the legendary island in the Atlantic. The history of mankind keeps many secrets. Use Atlantis as universal key To reveal any secret, it is at least naive, with no less justification, one can involve both aliens from outer space and ancient gods in solving these problems.

Is it necessary to use the Atlantis hypothesis to explain some common features in the cultures of peoples separated by the Atlantic Ocean? Voyages across the ocean could have been carried out in ancient times. In our time, the possibility of such travel was experimentally confirmed by Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed across the Atlantic on the boats Ra and Ra II, which were structurally similar to the ancient Egyptian ships. And then Tim Severin, who traveled along the route of the ancient Irish on the leather-made ship Brandan (he also later traveled along the route of the Argonauts). Our compatriots are now making similar journeys (one of these journeys along the path of the Argonauts will be described at the end of this book).

Reconstruction of the sanctuary in Baalbek. Roman temples of the 2nd century. AD freely placed on three giant slabs of the prehistoric Temple of the Sun

The decoding of the word Atlantis, coming from the Aztec dictionary, is also doubtful. There are other interpretations. Plato himself, the only one who gave such a name to this ancient land, understood it as “the land of Atlanta.” The Greeks interpreted the name of titan as “irresistible, unshakable.”

There is also a Slavic-Vedic (as well as Turkic) interpretation of this name: “Golden”. Slavic legends and Turkic peoples they know Altyn the hero, who is very reminiscent of Atlas, and “Altyn” means “golden”, “Altyn Mountains” means “Golden Mountains” (we identified Altai with them, for example).

And in this case, Plato’s Atlantis, located in the Atlantic Ocean, turns out to be the “Golden Country”. And this interpretation seems to me the most convincing.

Did Atlantis perish in the Great Flood?

Yes, in ancient times there were great civilizations that disappeared almost without a trace; vast areas of land and islands perished in the waters of floods. And it would be tempting to classify all the monuments listed above as the heritage of Atlantis or the heritage of related cultures.

But were the civilizations that left these traces the same Atlantis that Plato wrote about? Did the people who lived in these lands then call themselves Atlanteans? And is it correct to identify Plato’s Atlantis with the great civilizations of the Earth that existed before the Flood, described in the legends of many nations? This is the question we need to resolve.

For this purpose, we will study the myths about the Flood. Records of this myth, or similar ones, can be found in religious texts left over from many ancient civilizations.

There is no doubt that the biblical story of the Flood is based on memories of ancient catastrophes. Which ones? The answer to this question is extremely difficult. The actual events that gave rise to a myth are sometimes so obscured by the memories left over from subsequent centuries that it seems unrealistic to free them from fantastic clothing.

The study of legends and fairy tales inevitably forces us to build hypotheses. There is a certain danger in this, since the reasons for choosing hypotheses are often subjective. But there is no other way out. In order to choose the most plausible ones, you need to “get used to the image” of a person from the distant past, you need to learn to think as he thought, you need to try to understand what guided him when creating the myth.

You need to feel like that person who escaped from the flood, who told his children about the antediluvian life, about drowned lands and villages, about formidable gods who punished people for their sins...

And yet, the only criterion for the correctness of the chosen path, the chosen hypothesis, remains the data of the exact sciences. Archaeological data, or (if you need to find geological evidence of the reality of paleocatastrophes) data from geology and geophysics, geochronology.

And here we set ourselves the task of tracing also real events, which served as the prototype for this legend. Knowing about the floods of antiquity, for example, about the floods that occurred after the end of the last Great Glaciation - 12 thousand years ago, and about the flood in the Black Sea - 6 thousand years ago, as well as about the floods caused by natural disasters- earthquakes, underwater volcanic eruptions, etc., we will try to identify from them those that are related to the legend of the Flood and Atlantis.

But in order to conduct research on these myths, we will have to travel back thousands of years, visit different countries, and plunge into the life of different historical eras.

Since antiquity, there has been ongoing debate about the legendary Atlantis and its ancient civilization. More than 6 thousand volumes of books have been written about Atlantis. Dozens of academicians and hundreds of Russian doctors of science took part in research on the topic, writing more than 215,000 articles. But did this mysterious civilization even exist? If yes, when and where? How to interpret the evidence of the ancients? And - most importantly - what practical significance, if any, does it have now - the fact of the existence of this country in ancient times?

My plans do not include attempting to conduct my own research and write an essay on the epoch-making mystery of Atlantis. I will just try to introduce curious readers to some of the scientific hypotheses existing in the world. And only on some of them I will express my personal opinion. The legend of Atlantis - a sunken island on which there once existed highly developed civilization, there lived a strong, enlightened and happy people - the Atlanteans - that have been worrying humanity for more than two thousand years. The primary source of information about Atlantis is the writings of the ancient Greek scientist Plato.

He lived in the 4th century BC and told us about Atlantis in the form of conversation-dialogues (“Plato’s Dialogues”). The thinker’s two books, Timaeus and Critias, contain a story about Atlantis by Plato’s contemporary, the writer and political figure Critias, which he heard in childhood from his grandfather, and he, in turn, from “the wisest of the seven wise men.” " - the Athenian legislator Solon. Solon learned about this from the Egyptian priests.

The dialogue “Timaeus” begins with the reasoning of Socrates and Timaeus about the best state structure. Having briefly described the ideal state, Socrates complains about the abstractness and sketchiness of the resulting picture and expresses a desire to “listen to a description of how this state behaves in the fight against other states, how it enters into war in a manner worthy of it, how during the war its citizens do what what befits them, in accordance with their training and upbringing, whether on the battlefield or in negotiations with each of the other states.” Responding to this wish, the third participant in the dialogue, the Athenian politician Critias, sets out the story of the war between Athens and Atlantis, allegedly from the words of his grandfather Critias the Elder, who, in turn, retold him the story of Solon, who the latter heard from the priests in Egypt.

The meaning of the story is this: once upon a time, Athens was the most glorious, powerful and virtuous state in the world. Their main rival was Atlantis. “This island was larger than Libya and Asia combined.” A “kingdom of amazing size and power” arose on it, ruling all of Libya to Egypt and Europe to Tyrrhenia (western Italy). All the forces of this kingdom were thrown into the enslavement of Athens. The Athenians stood up to defend their freedom at the head of the Hellenes (ancient Greeks); and although all their allies betrayed them, they alone, thanks to their valor and virtue, repelled the invasion.

The Atlanteans were crushed, and the peoples they enslaved were freed. Following this, however, a great natural disaster, as a result of which the entire army of the Athenians died in one day, and Atlantis sank to the bottom of the sea.

The dialogue “Critias”, with the same participants, serves as a direct continuation of “Timaeus” and is entirely devoted to Critias’ story about ancient Athens and Atlantis. Athens then (before the earthquake and flood) was the center of a large and unusually fertile country; they were inhabited by virtuous people who established an ideal (from Plato’s point of view) government system. Namely, everything was managed by the rulers and warriors who lived separately from the main agricultural and craft mass - on the Acropolis - by the community (Acropolis is a hill in Athens on which the main temple of the ancient Greeks, the Parthenon, was built and is still located). Modest and virtuous Athens is contrasted with the arrogant and powerful Atlantis.

The ancestor of the Atlanteans, according to Plato, was the god of the seas Poseidon, who met with the mortal girl Cleito, who gave birth to ten divine sons from him. The eldest of them was called Atlas, after his name the island was named Atlantis, and the sea was named Atlantic.

From Atlas came a particularly numerous and revered family, in which the eldest was always king and passed on the royal rank to the eldest of his sons, maintaining power in the family from generation to generation, and they accumulated such wealth that no royal dynasty had ever had in the past. and it is unlikely that they will ever be again, for they had at their disposal everything necessary, prepared both in the city and throughout the country... There was also a temple dedicated to Poseidon; there was something barbaric in the appearance of the building. They lined the entire outer surface of the temple, except for the acroteria, with silver, and the acroteria with gold; Inside, one could see an ivory ceiling, all decorated with gold, silver and orichalcum, and the walls, pillars and floors were entirely lined with orichalcum (aurichalcum, literally “golden copper” - author’s note). They also placed golden statues there: the god himself on a chariot, driving six winged horses and his head reaching to the ceiling, around him were one hundred Nereids on dolphins (for people in those days imagined their number to be like that)... Outside around the temple there were golden images of wives. and all those who descended from the ten kings, as well as many other expensive offerings from the kings and from private individuals of this city and those cities that were subject to it. The altar was commensurate with this wealth in size and decoration; in the same way, the royal palace was in proper proportion, both with the greatness of the state and with the decoration of the sanctuaries.

From Plato's Dialogues

According to Plato, Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean beyond Gibraltar and died approximately 12 thousand years ago (between 9750 and 8570 BC). The dialogue “Critius” gives a detailed description of Atlantis, its topography, cities, and social system. And before that there follows an equally detailed story about the ancient homeland of the Athenians (present-day Attica - or even Greece - in the words of Critias, “is only the skeleton of a body exhausted by illness, when all the soft and rich earth was washed away and only one skeleton is still before us”), about its capital with the Acropolis, which was much superior to the current one, about its inhabitants - “the leaders of all other Hellenes by the good will of the latter” (testimony of Critias). The code of laws that Poseidon himself gave to the Atlanteans was inscribed on a high orichalcum pillar installed in the middle of the island. Atlantis was ruled by ten kings, each with their own part of the island. Once every five or six years they gathered behind this pillar. Here they “conferred about common affairs or examined whether anyone had committed any offense, and held court.”

The Atlanteans were distinguished by their nobility and exalted way of thinking, “looking at everything except virtue with disdain, they valued little the fact that they had a lot of gold and other acquisitions, they were indifferent to wealth as a burden, and did not fall to the ground in the intoxication of luxury, losing power over oneself.

But the “nature inherited from God” was exhausted, “repeatedly dissolved in mortal admixture, and human disposition prevailed” - and then the Atlanteans “were unable to bear their wealth any longer and lost their decency,” having lost the most beautiful of their values, although they “seemed most beautiful and happiest just when unbridled greed and power were seething in them.”

Time passed - and the Atlanteans changed, they were filled with “the wrong spirit of self-interest and power.” They began to use their knowledge and achievements of their culture for evil.

Atlantis had a strong army and navy, consisting of one thousand two hundred warships. And so all this united power was thrown at one blow to plunge both your and our lands and all the countries on this side of the strait into slavery. It was then, Solon, that your state showed the whole world a brilliant proof of its valor and strength; Surpassing everyone in strength of spirit and experience in military affairs, it first stood at the head of the Hellenes, but due to the betrayal of its allies it found itself left to its own devices, faced extreme dangers alone and still defeated the conquerors and erected victorious trophies. It saved those who were not yet enslaved from the threat of slavery; but all the rest, no matter how many of us lived on this side of the Pillars of Hercules, it generously made free.

Testimony of Timaeus

Eventually, Zeus became angry with the Atlanteans, and “in one day and one disastrous night, the island of Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the sea.” According to Plato, this happened in the 10th millennium BC.

And the debate about whether Atlantis really existed or was invented by Plato began in ancient times.

Afterword

It is natural to assume that after reading the article the reader will have a reasonable question: What is the purpose of the proposed series of publications on the portal. As mentioned in the annotation to the article, more than 6 thousand volumes of books have been published about Atlantis, and hundreds of thousands of articles have been written. Not only venerable scientists, but also science fiction writers, journalists, and poets took part in writing articles and books. So is it still necessary to produce more articles, especially not for a professional researcher, not a geocachingist or a columnist?

The fact is that when selecting materials for publications, I came across a great variety of sources (books, reviews, abstracts, portals), each of which sometimes contains up to several hundred pages. Often the texts are repeated to a large extent. Reading and analyzing these materials is labor-intensive and tedious. Therefore, I wanted to write a small series of articles that would, in an extremely condensed form, give the most general ideas about the legendary Atlantis (about hypotheses of its location on the planet, the causes and time of its death, about earthly civilizations and cataclysms, etc.). This is not an easy task, and therefore I am not sure whether I can cope with it. However, I will try if I see readers’ interest in continuing the story. In each article, I intend to provide links to sources of information that, if desired, inquisitive readers can find and obtain more complete and in-depth knowledge about Atlantis.

The article uses sources from the Internet:

1. Plato on Atlantis (original from the dialogues Timaeus and Critias)
2. Atlantis. Wikipedia
3. A.M. Kondratov. "Atlantis of the Tethys Sea"
4. Historical portal
5. Article "Renaissance Titans"
6. Ancient Greece. Wikipedia
7. Encyclopedia "Around the World". Atlantis (Alexander Gorodnitsky)

To be continued

World Travel Encyclopedia Help

Pythagoreans They led a special way of life, they had their own special daily routine. The Pythagoreans had to start their day with poetry: “Before getting up from the sweet dreams evoked at night, think, think about what the day has in store for you.”

Strange, but in the section “Ancient Greece” (in the same Wikipedia) the historical periods of Greece are given somewhat (!) later:

This is completely inconsistent in time with Plato's dialogues.

To be continued

Atlantis in Plato's description

The mysterious ancient Egyptian city of Sais has been mentioned in written sources since 3000 BC. e., and scientists find it difficult to name exact time its foundations. The city had a very modest fate, until in the 7th century BC. e. did not become the capital of the 26th dynasty of pharaohs for a short time.

Sais was full of temples, and one was especially revered. It is in it, on the huge stone columns, hieroglyphs were carved that told the story of Atlantis.

The priests explained: “Nine thousand years ago... there was still an island that lay in front of that strait, which in your language is called the Pillars of Hercules. This island was larger in size than Libya and Asia combined... On this island, called Atlantis, arose a kingdom of amazing size and power, whose power extended over the entire island, many other islands and part of the mainland, and beyond that on this side Through the strait they captured Libya all the way to Egypt and Europe all the way to Tyrrhenia (presumably, the capital of Tyrrhenia was located in the area of ​​​​the modern city of Grenoble, southeast France).”

That is, in terms of its size, Atlantis, according to the deciphered hieroglyphs, resembled present-day Spain.

The most detailed description of Atlantis was left by Plato in two of his dialogues: “Timaeus” (briefly) and “Critius” (where it is narrated in more detail).

Our compatriot writer Valery Bryusov said: “If we assume that Plato’s description is a fiction, we will have to recognize Plato as a superhuman genius who was able to predict the development of science for thousands of years to come... Needless to say, with all our respect for the genius of the great Greek philosopher, such insight It seems impossible to us, and we consider another explanation simpler and more plausible: Plato had at his disposal (Egyptian) materials dating back to ancient times.”

Plato's friend Critias in the Timaeus recounts a story about the war between Athens and Atlantis, allegedly heard from the words of the grandfather of Critias the Elder, who, in turn, retold him the story of Solon, heard from the priests in Egypt. The general meaning of the story is this: 9 thousand years ago, Athens was the most glorious, powerful and virtuous state. Their main rival was the aforementioned Atlantis, and all its forces were thrown into the enslavement of Athens. The Athenians stood up to defend their freedom and managed to repel the invasion, crushed the Atlanteans and freed the peoples they had enslaved. A huge natural disaster soon followed, as a result of which the entire army of the Athenians died in one day, and Atlantis sank to the bottom of the sea.

The dialogue “Critias” with the same participants serves as a direct continuation of “Timaeus” and is entirely devoted to the story of Critias about ancient Athens and Atlantis.

According to Plato, the center of Atlantis was a hill located 50 stadia (8–9 kilometers) from the sea. For protection, Poseidon surrounded it with three water and two land rings, and the Atlanteans threw bridges over these rings and dug canals, so that ships could sail along them to the city itself, or, more precisely, to the central island, which had 5 stages (somewhat less than a kilometer) in diameter

Perhaps Atlantis looked like this

On the island there were temples lined with silver and gold, surrounded by golden statues and sparkling in the sun so that it hurt the eyes, there was a luxurious royal palace, there were shipyards filled with ships, etc., etc. “The island on which there was a palace... as well as earthen rings and a bridge the width of a pletra (30 m) the kings surrounded with circular stone walls and installed towers and gates everywhere on the bridges at the passages to the sea. They mined white, black and red stone in the depths of the middle island and in the depths of the outer and inner earthen rings, and in the quarries, where there were recesses on both sides, covered with the same stone, they arranged anchorages for ships. If they made some of their buildings simple, then in others they skillfully combined stones for fun. different color, giving them natural charm; They also covered the entire circumference of the walls around the outer earthen ring in copper, applying the metal in molten form, the wall of the inner shaft was covered with tin casting, and the wall of the acropolis itself was covered with orichalcum, which gave off a fiery shine.”

In a luxurious temple dedicated to Poseidon, bulls were sacrificed. The temple was surrounded by a sacred grove in which wild bulls grazed freely. According to established tradition, every five or six years the king and his relatives, appanage rulers, gathered here to renew their agreement with Poseidon. First they had to catch the bull, and it was forbidden to use iron weapons, and they took with them wooden sticks and rope loops. The captured bull was then led to metal columnar, which stood inside the temple and on which the most ancient legends and laws of the country were imprinted. Before her, a bull was sacrificed, its blood flowed down the inscriptions, and the rulers swore that they would remain faithful to their law, and in order to seal the agreement, everyone drank from the cup in which this blood was mixed with wine. At the end of the ceremony, the rulers held a council and made decisions.

According to legend, as long as the divine nature remained in the Atlanteans, they disdained wealth, putting virtue above it. But when the divine nature degenerated, mixing with the human, they became mired in luxury, greed and pride. Zeus, outraged by this, planned to destroy the Atlanteans and convened a meeting of the gods...

At this point the dialogue - at least the text that has reached us - ends.

Scientists have suggested that Atlantis could be here

Other ancient Greeks also repeatedly mention Atlantis: Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder.

In the 5th century, the Neoplatonist Proclus, in his comments to the Timaeus, talks about Plato's follower Crantor, who around 260 BC. e. specially visited Egypt in order to learn about Atlantis and allegedly saw columns with inscriptions telling the history of this state in the temple of the goddess Neith in Sais. Moreover, he writes: “That an island of this character and size once existed is evident from the accounts of certain writers who have explored the environs of the Outer Sea. For, according to them, in that sea in their time there were seven islands dedicated to Persephone, and also three other islands of enormous size, one of which was dedicated to Pluto, the other to Ammon, and then to Poseidon, the dimensions of which were a thousand stadia (180 km) ; and their inhabitants, he adds, preserved the traditions coming from their ancestors about the immeasurably larger island of Atlantis, which actually existed there and which for many generations ruled all the islands and was likewise dedicated to Poseidon. Now Marcellus has described this in Aethiopica.” Marcellus is not mentioned in other sources, and, apparently, his “Ethiopica” is simply a novel.

Actually, there are three problems with this whole story. Firstly, in Plato’s dialogues there are a lot of different philosophical myths. He, unlike Aristotle and even more so historians, never set as his goal the communication of any real facts to the reader; he was only interested in ideas illustrated by philosophical myths.

But if the story is true, then, firstly, the question arises why it was not widely known or depicted on other monuments of Ancient Egypt. However, for the sake of fairness, it is worth noting that most of the Egyptian monuments were lost, and many were “secret”, and the priests hid them from the uninitiated.

Secondly, it turns out that around 9565 BC. e. there was a culture that used metal tools, processed stones in construction and agriculture. This is characteristic of the Bronze Age, which dates back to approximately 3200 BC. e.

Thirdly, if a huge island was destroyed by the Atlantic Ocean within a day and a half, then a global catastrophe must occur. But no more mentions of her have been found.

If you think about it, in fact, with the exception of the production of metal utensils, in such high level The island's culture is nothing unusual. Only a little later, a complex trading culture existed at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. Stone city walls and towers were in Jericho possibly as early as 7000 BC. e. And metal processing began, according to historians, only 2 thousand years later.

So there is nothing particularly fantastic about the existence of such a culture in 9000 BC. e. No. Many researchers believe that Atlantis, as described by Plato, is a late Bronze Age civilization. Without delving into dates, let's try to find out whether there were any major cultural centers of the Bronze Age that disappeared?

Yes, it turns out they were.

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Chapter 1. Atlantis in the works of Plato I am obliged to convey what they say, but I am not obliged to believe it. Herodotus, History, VII, 152 The origins of the myth of Atlantis should be sought in Plato, in his two dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias”. It is assumed that Plato was born in Athens in 427 and died there

From the book The Secrets of the Flood and Apocalypse author Balandin Rudolf Konstantinovich

Plato's Atlantis The problem of Atlantis occupies a special place in the theory of catastrophes. It is known to one degree or another, perhaps to all readers. This is how one of the “atlantologists” Ludwig Seidler writes about it: “At first, the subject of dispute was only the reliability of the story itself

From the book Atlantis and Ancient Rus' [with more illustrations] author Asov Alexander Igorevich

Plato's Atlantis On this island, called Atlantis, arose a great and amazing alliance of kings, whose power extended over the entire island, over many other islands and over part of the mainland, and in addition, on this side of the strait they took possession of Libya up to

G. ALEXANDROVSKY.

In the dialogues of the ancient thinker Plato there is still a grain that speaks of the reality of the legendary island. The legend of Atlantis has lived for more than two thousand years. But only a few decades ago, people, despairing of finding traces of a once prosperous state, classified Plato’s works as utopias. And here's a sensational twist: in our days, some historians and archaeologists have recognized that Plato's dialogues still contain a grain of real fact. We present three new hypotheses suggesting where and when Atlantis perished.

Science and life // Illustrations

Science and life // Illustrations

Science and life // Illustrations

Science and life // Illustrations

Science and life // Illustrations

The legend of the Egyptian priests

In 421 BC. e. The Greek philosopher Plato, in two of his works - Timaeus and Critias - outlined the history and sad end of the island state of Atlantis. The story is told in the form of a dialogue by Plato's great-grandfather, Critias: he conveys the content of the conversation with his grandfather, who heard the story of Atlantis from his contemporary, Solon, an Athenian legislator and poet, who, in turn, learned about Atlantis from an Egyptian priest. And Plato more than once emphasizes in his texts that this is not a myth, but a true story about historical events.

Atlantis, according to Plato, is a huge island that lay in the ocean behind the Pillars of Hercules, that is, behind Gibraltar. In the center of the island there was a hill on which stood temples and a royal palace. The Acropolis - the upper city - was protected by two rows of earthen embankments and three water ring canals. The outer ring was connected to the sea by a 500-meter canal through which ships entered the inner port. The life of Atlantis appears full of prosperity.

The temple of the main deity of the islanders - Poseidon, ruler of the seas, was, says Plato, lined with gold, silver and orchilak (a recently unraveled word meaning an alloy of copper and zinc). Another temple, dedicated to Poseidon and his wife Cleito, the ancestor of all Atlanteans, is surrounded by a golden wall. There was also a golden statue of Poseidon and golden sculptures of the Nereids - the numerous daughters of the sea deity. The Atlanteans had bronze weapons and thousands of war chariots. The mineral resources provided copper and silver.

The people entertained themselves with horse racing; they had thermal baths at their service: there were two springs on the island - cold and hot water. The ships hurried to the harbor of Atlantis with ceramic dishes, spices, and rare ores. To supply the port with fresh water, the river bed was turned.

The island belonged to a powerful alliance of kings. And then the moment came when he decided to subjugate other countries, including Greece. However, Athens, showing valor and strength in the war, won. But, as Plato says, the Olympian gods, dissatisfied with the warring peoples, decided to punish them for greed and violence. A monstrous earthquake and flood “in one terrible day and one night” destroyed the Athenian army and all of Atlantis. The ocean waters swallowed the island.

47 years after Plato’s death, Krantor, a resident of Athens, went to Egypt to make sure whether the sources of the information used by the philosopher were really there. And he found, according to him, in the temple of Neith hieroglyphs with text about the events described.

Search

The search for Atlantis began at the very beginning of the new era - in the 50th year of Christ. Almost two thousand years since that time, many hypotheses have appeared about the location of Atlantis. Many were attracted by the wealth mentioned by Plato. Just think: take possession of golden walls and statues! Most interpreters of Critias and Timaeus pointed to the existing islands Atlantic Ocean. But there were other landmarks. Among the 50 points on Earth identified by enthusiasts for the search for Atlantis, there are some absolutely fantastic ones, for example Brazil or Siberia, the existence of which ancient philosopher I didn't even suspect it.

A new surge of interest in the search for the legendary island arose after the First World War. Underwater technology improved during wartime prompted adventurous businessmen to organize companies in several countries to search for the mysterious Atlantis. For example, the following note appeared in the French newspaper Le Figaro: “A society for the study and exploitation of Atlantis has been created in Paris.” The companies, of course, collapsed one after another, but the Russian writer Alexander Belyaev found in a newspaper publication the plot for his fantastic story “The Last Man from Atlantis.”

More than 50 thousand publications are devoted to the problem of the sunken island. Cinema and television also contributed to this story. More than 20 expeditions explored places where, according to their organizers, the people of Atlantis once prospered. But they all returned empty-handed.

To the two main questions - where? and when? - already in our century, objections from archaeologists were added, who considered the story of the abundance of gold and silver on the island to be fantasy. They also included a network of canals - circular and leading to the sea, an inland port and other hydraulic structures - among Plato's inventions: it was beyond their capabilities, supposedly, such large-scale projects were possible in those days. Researchers of Plato's philosophical and literary heritage believed that, by telling the story of the prosperous Atlantis, the ancient idealist thinker called on his contemporaries to build an exemplary state without dictatorship and tyranny. And in this sense, Plato is called the creator of the utopian genre. (Plato, in fact, in some of his writings called for the construction of an ideal state based on goodness and justice. He traveled from Athens to Syracuse three times, the last time as a very old man, in vain hoping to instill humane ideas in the tyrants there.) As for the time of the death of the island in ocean depths, then Plato named a date that contradicts all the data of modern science: according to his information, the catastrophe occurred 11,500 years ago to the present day, or 9,000 years, counting until the time of Plato himself. 12-10 thousand years ago, humanity was just emerging from the Paleolithic, the ancient Stone Age, and it is difficult to imagine that somewhere there lived a people whose development was many thousands of years ahead of the human race. The primary source of such an error could be incorrect determinations of the age of the Egyptian state carried out in ancient times. For example, Herodotus counted Egypt to be 11,340 years old.

Is it Atlantis?

"The Russians found Atlantis!" - with such sensational full houses many newspapers Western Europe accompanied in 1979 by photographs of the seabed. In the photographs, vertical ridges were clearly visible under the layer of sand, reminiscent of the walls of a destroyed city. The impression of ancient city ruins was enhanced by the fact that other ridges ran along the bottom at right angles to the first.

The underwater images were taken by the Moscow University research vessel Akademik Petrovsky. The actions took place where Plato indicated - “behind the pillars of Hercules.” Once out into the Atlantic Ocean, the ship stopped over a sandbar to test its underwater equipment. Pure chance helped us choose a parking spot just above the underwater volcano Ampere. It was possible to establish that the Amper volcano once protruded from the water and was an island.

In 1982, the Soviet ship Rift lowered the Argus submersible into the ocean here. “We were presented with a panorama of the ruins of the city, since the walls very much imitated the remains of rooms, streets, squares,” the commander of the Argus, V. Bulyga, reported to the Institute of Oceanology of the Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately, the next expedition of the Vityaz, which took place in the summer of 1984, did not confirm such encouraging impressions of the aquanaut. Two pretty stones were lifted up from one of the walls correct form, but their analysis showed that this is not the creation of human hands, but volcanic rock. The commander of the Argus crew, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences A. Gorodnitsky, writes: “Most likely, the stone is solidified lava that once poured out through the cracks of the volcano.” Another seamount, Josephine, also an ancient volcano and formerly an island, was also examined.

A. Gorodnitsky proposed his model of a grandiose geological disaster of the distant past. It arose due to a sharp shift in the northern direction of the African tectonic plate. Its collision with the European plate caused the eruption of the Santorini volcano in the east, and in the west - the immersion of the mentioned volcanic islands into the ocean. This hypothesis does not contradict the geological and geophysical data of modern science. However, once again Atlantis turned out to be not a fascinating hypothesis, but just a myth: scientists have not found any traces of the remains of the material culture of the Atlanteans.