Where is Atlantis. Atlantis - exact location established

Modern researchers have not yet been able to fully reveal all the hidden secrets of the existence of Atlantis. However, thanks to the many studies carried out in this area, there are still a number of assumptions and hypotheses regarding the existence of the described ancient civilization.

Official science, of course, does not recognize the existence of this mysterious - perhaps really only mythical - civilization in the past.

The achievements of the Atlantean civilization are impressive.

There is an opinion among scientists that the Atlanteans have reached a very high level of progress in all spheres of life. They could plan their life in completely different ways. For example, it was not alien to the people who once inhabited this sunken continent, telepathic communication with family and friends. They also liked to have long conversations about their role in the Universe.

According to the Theosophists, the Atlanteans were the fourth race on earth. They appeared after the death of the Lemurian civilization, having absorbed some of its achievements, and existed before the appearance of the fifth, Aryan race. The Atlanteans were much more god-like than the Lemurians. Beautiful, smart and ambitious.

They worshiped the sun and developed their technology rapidly, just as we do today.

Description of Atlantis by Plato

In the year 421 BC, Plato spoke in his writings about the vanished civilization of the Atlanteans.

According to him, it was a large island, located in the middle of the ocean, beyond Gibraltar. In the center of the city there was a hill with temples and the palace of the kings. The upper city was protected by two mounds of earth and three water ring canals. The outer ring was connected by a 500-meter canal to the sea. Ships sailed along the canal.

Copper and silver were mined in Atlantis. Sailing ships delivered ceramic dishes, spices, and rare ores.

The temple of Poseidon, the lord of the seas, was built of gold, silver, orchilak (an alloy of copper and zinc). His second temple was protected by a golden wall. There were also statues of Poseidon and his daughters.

After forty years, after the death of the philosopher, the Athenian resident Krantor went to Egypt to find Atlantis. In the temple of Neith, he found hieroglyphs with texts about the events that had taken place.

Scientific and technological progress in Atlantis

Due to their high level of mental and mental development, the inhabitants of Atlantis managed to establish contact with extraterrestrial beings. Some researchers give information that the Atlanteans were able to create ultra-fast and practical aircraft. Their very deep knowledge in the field of physics, mathematics and mechanics made it possible to produce equipment of the highest quality with unusual properties. And it was these devices that easily helped them travel through space!

The progress in technology was so stunning that today humanity has not yet been able to develop analogues to those flying devices, even taking into account the fact that science is constantly striding by leaps and bounds forward in all spheres of life without exception.

All this suggests that the inhabitants of Atlantis were outstanding people, possessed of great intellect and knowledge. At the same time, the Atlanteans willingly shared the acquired skills and experience with the younger generation. Therefore, progress in technical development was gradually improved and reached unprecedented heights.

The first pyramids were built just on the territory of Atlantis. This unusual phenomenon still causes bewilderment among researchers, due to what improvised means and equipment it was possible to build such unusual structures!

Also economically, their country was prosperous. The work of any person in it was paid at its true worth. According to legend, Atlantis was an ideal country, there were no beggars and rich people who boasted of their wealth.

In this regard, the social situation in this country was always stable, no one was worried about food.

The appearance and morality of the Atlanteans

Due to the fact that the body of the Atlantean had remarkable physical strength compared to modern man, they could do much more work than our contemporaries.

The body of the Atlanteans was staggering in size. According to the evidence, it reached 6 meters in height. Their shoulders were very wide, the torso was elongated. There were 6 fingers on the hands, and 7 on the feet!

The facial features of people who once lived on Atlantis are also unusual. Their lips were very wide, their nose had a slightly flattened shape, while they also had huge expressive eyes.

According to their physiological data, the average life span of an average Atlantean was about 1000 years. At the same time, each of them tried to look beautiful in the eyes of others. Often, a variety of jewelry made of silver or gold, as well as precious stones, were used as decorations.

The Atlanteans were highly moral people. Therefore, they were alien to bad habits and an immoral way of everyday life. In any situation, they tried to act honestly with others, no one tried to deceive and set anyone up. In family relationships, marriage once in a lifetime was the norm. And the relationship itself was built solely on mutual trust, support and love for each other.

The political system in Atlantis was built in a democratic field. In many ways, it is similar to the one that prevails in the modern successful states of Europe with freedom of speech and the right to choose. The ruler of the Atlanteans was chosen by voting. At the same time, he ruled for a very long period - from 200 to 400 years! But whoever rules Atlantis, each of its leaders has always sought to create such a social environment within the state, thanks to which any person could always feel protected and cared for.

Causes of the death of Atlantis

One of the assumptions why Atlantis disappeared is based on the fact that the kings and the population of this continent began to abuse knowledge, with the help of which they carried out their aggressive intentions.

For example, the pyramids they built created portals to other worlds. All this contributed to the fact that the energy coming from the parallel reality could be negative and at a certain moment could adversely affect the entire continent, completely destroying it in an instant.

In their daily lives, magic has increasingly been used exclusively with malicious intent.

Too much knowledge creates a temptation to use it for selfish interests. And no matter how morally pure the inhabitants of Atlantis were at first, in the end, negative tendencies began to grow in their society over time. The predatory attitude towards nature, the growth of social inequality, the abuse of power by the small elite that ruled the Atlanteans ultimately led to tragic consequences associated with the incitement of a long-term war. And it was she who became the main reason that one day the entire continent was swallowed up by the waters of the ocean.

Some scientists also assert with certainty that the death of Atlantis occurred approximately 10-15 thousand years ago. And this large-scale event provoked a huge meteorite that fell on our planet. The fall of a meteorite could change the earth's axis, which caused a tsunami of an unprecedented scale.

What did Helena Blavatsky say about the causes of the death of Atlantis

According to Helena Blavatsky, the fall of Atlantis happened because the Atlanteans played God. It turns out that from high morality the Atlanteans rolled down to indulgence of passions.

The technology of the Atlanteans, which surpassed their spiritual qualities, allowed them to create chimeras - a cross between man and animals, to use them as sex slaves and physical workers. The Atlanteans were masters of genetic modification and cloning technology at a high level. This is similar to what people are doing now, in the 21st century.

Being telepathically warned that the continent would sink, many of the inhabitants of Atlantis fled, having managed to board ships before the final sinking of the mainland in 9564 BC. by a series of earthquakes.

The American mystic Edgar Cayce, who looked into the so-called astral akashic records in a trance state, claimed that many of the souls who once lived in Atlantis now live as representatives of modern Western civilization in order to fulfill their destiny.

The search for a lost civilization

Over the past two thousand years, there have been multiple speculations about the location of Atlantis. Interpreters of the works of Plato pointed to the modern islands of the Atlantic. Some argue that Atlantis was located in present-day Brazil and even in Siberia.

Modern archaeologists consider the thinker's story about the Atlanteans a fiction. Circular networks of canals, hydraulic structures in those days were still beyond the strength of mankind. Researchers of Plato's philosophy and literature believe that he wanted to call for the creation of an ideal state. As for the period of disappearance, Plato names information that this happened eleven and a half thousand years ago. But during this period, man was only emerging from the Paleolithic, the Stone Age. Those people were not yet sufficiently developed mind. Perhaps these data of Plato about the time of the death of Atlantis are incorrectly interpreted.

There is one assumption why the figure of the death of Atlantis by Plato appears 9 thousand years ago. The fact is that in Egyptian reckoning "nine thousand" was depicted by nine lotus flowers, and "nine hundred" - by nine knots of rope. Outwardly, in writing, they were similar, and therefore there was confusion.

Modern research

In one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine, all European newspapers were full of headlines "The Russians found an island." Photographs were presented in which vertical ridges, similar to walls, peeked out of the sand. Search operations unfolded exactly where Plato indicated - behind the Pillars of Hercules, above the underwater volcano Ampere. It was reliably established that it stood out from the water, was an island.

In 1982, another Russian ship, having sank under water, discovered the ruins of the city: walls, squares, rooms. These findings were refuted by another expedition, which found nothing. In addition to frozen volcanic rocks.

There are suggestions that the disaster occurred due to a sudden shift in the African tectonic plate. Its collision with the European caused the eruption of Santorin - and the western islands sank.

Of course, it is now impossible to say with accuracy what exactly happened once to Atlantis and what contributed to its death. And many of the hypotheses set forth by the researchers can only come close to the truth.

Whether Atlantis was simply a figment of the imagination of Plato and other thinkers, or a reality reflected in ancient legends, miraculously preserved to this day, remains a mystery ...

Perhaps our civilization is moving towards the same finale, when we will become for our distant descendants the same mythical event that Atlantis is for us. And our continents will also unsuccessfully search for days of deep oceans.

The "fatal" mistake of Plato (Critias or Solon) is revealed, which led to confusion with the location of Atlantis.

Atlantis has not disappeared, it exists and lies in the depths of the sea. A lot has been said about Atlantis, thousands of research materials have been written. Historians, archaeologists, searchers have proposed fifty versions of a possible location around the world (in Scandinavia, in the Baltic Sea, in Greenland, North and South America, in Africa, the Black, Aegean, Caspian Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and so on), but the exact location is not named. Why such confusion?

Starting to understand, you discover one pattern that all assumptions are initially tied to some kind of similarity, a find of antiquity, a single description, under which (which) the materials were subsequently “fitted”. As a result, nothing worked. There is a similarity, but Atlantis cannot be found.

We'll go the other way

Let's look for Atlantis in a different way, which in this case (judging by the well-known proposals), has not been used by anyone before. First, let's take the method of elimination, where Atlantis could not be. As the circle narrows, we will use all the "benchmarks" that were proposed by the ancient Greek scientist, the sage (428-347 BC) Plato (Aristocles) in his works - Timaeus and Critias. In these documents, the only and rather detailed description of Atlantis, its inhabitants and historical events related to the life of the legendary island is given.

“Aristotle taught me to satisfy my mind only with what reasoning convinces me, and not just the authority of teachers. Such is the power of truth: you are trying to refute it, but your attacks themselves elevate it and give it great value, ”said the Italian philosopher, physicist, mathematician Galileo Galilei in the 16th century.

Below is a map of the world, as it was presented in Greece during the time of Plato, Herodotus (IV - V century BC).

Mediterranean Sea

So, let's start "cutting the ends." Atlantis could not be in any far corner of the world, and even it was not in the Atlantic Ocean. You will ask why? Because the war (according to the history of the story) between Athens and Atlantis could not be anywhere except in the Mediterranean Sea on this “patch of civilization” due to the limited development of mankind. The world is big - but the developed one is small. Close neighbors fight among themselves more often and constantly than distant ones. Athens simply could not, with her army and navy, reach the limits of Atlantis if she were somewhere far away. Water and vast distances were an insurmountable obstacle.

“This barrier was insurmountable for people, because ships and shipping did not yet exist,” Plato narrates in his work Critias.

In ancient Greek mythology, which arose many thousands of years later than the time of the death of Atlantis, the only (!) hero Hercules (according to Homer in the XII century BC) performed a feat, traveling to the farthest western point of the world - to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.

“When the Atlas Mountains arose on the path of Hercules, he did not climb them, but made his way through, thus paving the Strait of Gibraltar and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic. This point also served as a border for navigators in the ancient era, therefore, in a figurative sense, “Hercules (Hercules) pillars” is the end of the world, the limit of the world. And the expression to reach the pillars of Hercules "means" to reach the limit.

See picture The Strait of Gibraltar today is the place reached by the historical hero Hercules.

In the foreground is the Rock of Gibraltar on the edge of mainland Europe, and in the background on the coast of Africa is Mount Jebel Musa in Morocco.

What western limit of the earth reached Hercules (“end of the world”) was unattainable by other mortals. Thus, Atlantis was closer to the center of the ancient civilization - it was in the Mediterranean Sea. But where exactly?

Pillars of Hercules (according to Plato's story, behind which lay the island of Atlantis) in the Mediterranean Sea at that time there were seven pairs (Gibraltar, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, Kerch Strait, Nile Mouth, etc.). The pillars were located at the entrances to the straits, and all had the same name - Heracles (later Latin name - Hercules). The pillars served as landmarks and beacons for ancient sailors.

“First of all, let us briefly recall that, according to legend, nine thousand years ago there was a war between those peoples who lived on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules, and all those who lived on this side: we will have to tell about this war ... How we have already mentioned that it was once an island larger than Libya and Asia (not their entire geographical territory, but rather areas inhabited in antiquity), but now it has failed due to earthquakes and has turned into impenetrable silt, blocking the way for sailors who would try to swim from us to the open sea, and making navigation unthinkable. (Plato, Critias).

This information about Atlantis, which dates back to the 6th century BC. came from the Egyptian priest Timaeus from the city of Sais, located on the coast of Africa, in the western delta of the Nile. The current name of this village is Sa el-Hagar (see below the picture of the Nile River Delta).

When Timaeus said that the barrier from the remains of the sunken Atlantis blocked the way "from us to the open sea", then speaking about us (about himself and about Egypt), this clearly testified to the location of Atlantis. That is, it lies in the direction of travel from the Egyptian mouth of the Nile to the wide waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

In ancient times, the Pillars of Hercules were also called the entrance to the main navigable (western) mouth of the Nile, nicknamed the mouth of Heracles, that is, Hercules, where the city of Heracleum was located and there was a temple in honor of Hercules. Over time, the silt and floating material from the sunken Atlantis was blown across the sea, and the island itself went even deeper into the abyss.

“Since in nine thousand years there have been many great floods (namely, so many years have passed from those times to Plato), the earth did not accumulate in the form of any significant shoal, as in other places, but was washed away by waves and then disappeared into the abyss.” (Plato, Critias).

The island of Crete

Next, we exclude other, impossible locations. Atlantis could not be located in the Mediterranean Sea north of the island of Crete. Today in that area there are countless small islands scattered over the water area, which does not correspond to the story of flooding (!), and by this very fact excludes the entire territory. But even this is not the main thing. There would not have been enough space for Atlantis (according to the description of its size) in the sea north of Crete.

The expedition of the well-known explorer of the sea depths of the French oceanographer to the area north of Crete on the periphery of the islands of Thira (Strongele), Fera discovered the remains of an ancient sunken city, but from the above it follows that it belongs to another civilization rather than Atlantis.

In the archipelago of the islands of the Aegean Sea, earthquakes, catastrophes associated with volcanic activity, which led to local subsidence of the earth, are known, and according to new evidence, they occur in our time. For example, a recently sunken medieval fortress in the Aegean Sea near the city of Marmaris in a bay on the coast of Turkey.

Between Cyprus, Crete and Africa

Narrowing the search circle, we come to the conclusion that only one thing remains - Atlantis could only be in one place opposite the mouth of the Nile - between the islands of Crete, Cyprus and the northern coast of Africa. She is there today at a depth and lies, having fallen into a deep basin of the sea.

The failure of an almost oval water area with influx from the coast, horizontal wrinkling (from sliding) of sedimentary rocks to the center of the "funnel" is clearly visible from the Internet survey of the seabed from space. The bottom in this place resembles a pit, sprinkled with soft sedimentary rock on top, there is no solid "crust of the continental mantle" under it. Only visible on the body of the Earth is a hollow inside that is not overgrown with firmament.

The Egyptian priest Timaeus, in his story about the location of the silt from the flooded Atlantis, gives a link to the Pillars of Hercules (it was logical for him to say - closest to him), located at the mouth of the western Nile.

In another case (later already in Greece), when Plato described the power of Atlantis, we are already talking about other pillars, as mentioned above, there were seven of them in the Mediterranean at that time. When Plato expounded the text of the work (according to the retelling of Solon and Critias), the Egyptian priest Timaeus (the primary source of the story) had not been there for 200 years by that time, and there was no one to clarify the information about which pillars the conversation was about. Therefore, the subsequent confusion arose with the location of Atlantis.

“After all, according to our records, your state (Athens) put an end to the insolence of countless military forces that set off to conquer all of Europe and Asia, and kept their way from the Atlantic Sea. […] On this island, called Atlantis, there arose a kingdom amazing in size and power, whose power extended over the whole island, to many other islands and to part of the mainland, and moreover, on this side of the strait they took possession of Libya (northern Africa ) as far as Egypt and Europe as far as Tirrenia (west coast of Italy). (Plato, Timaeus).

The sea that washed the island of Atlantis (between Crete, Cyprus and Egypt) was called the Atlantic in ancient times, it was located in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the modern seas: the Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Ionian.

Subsequently, due to an error in tying Atlantis not to the Nile, but to the Pillars of Gibraltar, the name "Atlantic" Sea automatically spread to the ocean beyond the strait. The once inland Atlantic Sea, due to the inaccuracy of the interpretation of the story of Timaeus and the description (Plato, Critias or Solon), became the Atlantic Ocean. As the Russian proverb says: “We got lost in three pines” (more precisely, in seven pairs of pillars). When Atlantis went into the abyss of the sea, the Atlantic Sea disappeared with it.

Timaeus, narrating the history of Atlantis, noted that the victory of Athens brought freedom from slavery to all other peoples (including the Egyptians), who had not yet been enslaved by the Atlanteans - "on this side of the Pillars of Hercules", speaking about himself - about Egypt.

“It was then, Solon, that your state showed the whole world a brilliant proof of its valor and strength: all, surpassing all in fortitude and experience in military affairs, it first stood at the head of the Hellenes, but because of the betrayal of the allies, it turned out to be left to itself, met alone with extreme dangers and yet defeated the conquerors and erected victorious trophies. Those who were not yet enslaved, it saved from the threat of slavery; all the rest, no matter how much we lived on this side of the Pillars of Hercules, it generously made free. But later, when the time came for unprecedented earthquakes and floods, in one terrible day, all your military strength was swallowed up by the cracked earth; likewise, Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the abyss. After that, the sea in those places has become unnavigable and inaccessible to this day due to the shallowing caused by the huge amount of silt that the settled island left behind. (Plato, Timaeus).

Description of the island

You can even more clarify the place of Atlantis from the description of the island itself.

“Poseidon, having received the island of Atlantis as his inheritance ..., approximately in this place: from the sea to the middle of the island, a plain stretched, according to legend, more beautiful than all other plains and very fertile.” (Plato, Timaeus).

“This whole region lay very high and steeply cut off to the sea, but the whole plain that surrounded the city (capital) and itself surrounded by mountains that stretched to the sea itself, was a flat surface, three thousand stadia long (580 km.), And in the direction from the sea to the middle - two thousand (390 km.). All this part of the island was turned to the south wind, and from the north it was closed by mountains. These mountains are praised by legend because they surpassed all the present ones in their multitude, size and beauty. The plain ... was an oblong quadrangle, mostly rectilinear. (Plato, Critias).

So, following the description - approximately to the middle of the island of Atlantis stretched a rectangular plain measuring 580 by 390 kilometers, open to the south and closed from the north by large and high mountains. Fitting these dimensions into a geographical map north of the mouth of the Nile, we get that the southern part of Atlantis could completely adjoin Africa (near the Libyan cities of Tobruk, Derna and Egyptian cities on the coast west of Alexandria), and its northern mountainous part could be (but not a fact) - the island of Crete (in the west), and Cyprus (in the east).

In favor of the fact that Atlantis in earlier times (than its mention in the ancient Egyptian papyri), namely tens of thousands of years ago, was connected with Africa - says the story of the animal world of the island.

“Even elephants were found on the island in great numbers, for there was enough food not only for all other living creatures that inhabit the swamps, lakes and rivers, mountains or plains, but also for this beast, of all the animals, the largest and voracious.” (Plato, Critias).

It should also be taken into account that with the end of the ice age, with the beginning of the melting of the northern glaciers, the level of the world's oceans rose by 100-150 meters and, probably, the part of the land that once connected Atlantis and the mainland was gradually flooded. Elephants and the inhabitants of the island of Atlantis (named after their king Atlanta), who came here earlier from the depths of Africa, remained on a large island surrounded by the sea.

The Atlanteans were ordinary people of a modern look, and not four-meter giants, otherwise the Hellenes from Athens would not have been able to defeat them. The insular, isolated position of the inhabitants prompted civilization to a separate active, ahead of external warring barbarians, development (fortunately, everything needed was on the island).

On Atlantis (in its capital, similar to the hill of an extinct volcano), hot springs of mineral water flowed from the ground. This indicates a high seismic activity of the territory located on the "thin" mantle of the earth's crust... "a spring of cold and a spring of hot water, which gave water in abundance, and, moreover, amazing both in taste and in healing power." (Plato, Critias).

Immersion under water

I will not now assume what caused the internal "hiccups" of the Earth, as a result of which Atlantis sank into the basin of the Mediterranean Sea in a day, and then even deeper. But it should be noted that exactly in that place along the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there is a fault boundary between the African and European continental tectonic plates.

The depth of the sea there is very large - about 3000-4000 meters. It is possible that a powerful impact of a giant meteorite in North America in Mexico, which, according to the US National Academy of Sciences, occurred 13 thousand years ago (at about the same time) and caused an inertial wave and plate movement in the Mediterranean.

Just like continental plates, crawling on top of each other, breaking edges, uplift mountains - the same process, but in the opposite direction, when diverging, it forms subsidence and deep depressions. The African plate slightly moved away from the European one, and this was quite enough to lower Atlantis into the abyss of the sea.

The fact that Africa in the history of the Earth has already moved away from Europe and Asia is clearly evidenced by the huge intercontinental fault that runs through the Mediterranean Sea. The fault is clearly visible on the geographical map along the lines (seas) of the split in the earth's crust, which go in the directions - the Dead Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Persian and Oman.

See the picture below, how the continent of Africa moves away from Asia, forming the above seas and bays at the break points.

Crete - Atlantis

It is possible that the current island of Crete was earlier that very northern, high mountainous part of Atlantis, which did not fall into the abyss of the sea, but, breaking away, stayed on the "European continental cornice". On the other hand, if you look at Crete on a geographical map, then it does not stand on the very cliff of the mantle of the European mainland, but about 100 kilometers from the basin of the Mediterranean (Atlantic) Sea. This means that there was no catastrophic break of Atlantis along the current coastline of the island of Crete.

But here we must also take into account the fact that since then the sea level has risen by 100-150 meters (or more) due to the melting of glaciers. It is possible that Crete and Cyprus, as independent units, were part of the archipelago of the island Atlantis.

Historians and archaeologists write: “Excavations in Crete show that even four or five millennia after the alleged death of Atlantis, the inhabitants of this Mediterranean island sought to settle away from the coast. (Memory of ancestors?). Unknown fear drove them to the mountains. The first centers of agriculture and culture are also located at some distance from the sea”…

The former proximity of the location of Atlantis to Africa and to the mouth of the Nile is indirectly evidenced by the extensive Kattara depression in North Africa in the Libyan Desert, 50 km from the Mediterranean coast, west of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. The Qattara depression is minus 133 meters below sea level.

See the picture above - the huge Qattara depression near the Mediterranean coast in Egypt.

There is also another lowland on the tectonic fault line - this is the Dead Sea (minus 395 meters) in Israel. They testify to a once-completed territorial catastrophe, common to all, associated with the subsidence of large tracts of land from the divergence in different directions of the European and African continental plates.

What gives the establishment of the exact location of Atlantis

The depression of the Mediterranean at the site of the former Atlantis is too deep. At first, the silt that rose and then settled to the bottom and subsequent sedimentary deposits somewhat covered Atlantis. The golden capital with its countless treasures in the temple of Poseidon turned out to be at great depths.

The search for the capital of Atlantis in the southern part of the Mediterranean Sea in the "triangle" between the islands of Crete, Cyprus, the mouth of the Nile will bring a useful result to the "treasury" of the world history of mankind, but this requires research by deep-sea vehicles.

There are guidelines for the attentive reader to search for the capital... There are two Mir underwater stations in Russia that could survey and study the bottom.

For example, Italian explorers-oceanographers in the summer of 2015 on the shelf of the island of Pantelleria, located approximately in the middle between Sicily and Africa, at a depth of 40 meters at the bottom of the sea found a giant man-made column 12 meters long, weighing 15 tons, broken in half. Traces of drilling holes are visible on the column. Its age is estimated at about 10 thousand years (comparable to the era of the Atlanteans). Divers also found the remains of a pier - a ridge of stones half a meter in size, laid out in a straight line, protecting the entrance to the ancient ship harbor.
These findings suggest that the search for the capital of Atlantis is not hopeless.

It is also encouraging that the confusion with the "Pillars of Hercules" has been successfully resolved and the location of Atlantis has finally been established.

Already today, for the sake of historical truth, the Mediterranean basin, at the bottom of which lies the legendary island in memory of Atlantis and its inhabitants, can and should be returned to its ancient name - the Atlantic Sea. This will be the first important world event in the search and discovery of Atlantis.

Atlantic Ocean

From the text of Plato's dialogues it is absolutely clear that Atlantis was located in the Atlantic Ocean. According to the priest, the Atlantean army "led its way from the Atlantic Sea." The priest says that opposite the Pillars of Hercules lay a large island, larger than Libya and Asia put together, from which it was easy to cross the other islands "to the entire opposite continent", in which America is easily guessed.

Therefore, many of the atlantologists, especially those who believe the date of 9500 BC, believe that Atlantis was once located in the Atlantic Ocean, and traces of it should be sought either at the bottom of the ocean or near the existing islands, which were 11500 years ago high mountain peaks. The main hypotheses related to the Atlantic Ocean will be considered in more detail below.

Mediterranean Sea

About two and a half thousand years ago, the worst catastrophe in the history of mankind occurred in the Mediterranean Sea. The explosion of the Strongile volcano was three times stronger than the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano. This explosion generated a tsunami wave several tens or even a hundred meters high, which hit the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Scientists believe that this catastrophe was the cause of the death of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture that existed 3000 years ago. It is not surprising that such a grandiose natural cataclysm attracted many researchers, some of whom came to the seemingly strange idea that when describing Atlantis, Plato described Thira (where the Strongile volcano was located) or Crete.

This second version, one of the two most popular, I will also consider in more detail.

The Iberian Peninsula

The name of one of the first ten kings of Atlantis - Gadir - has come down to our time in the name of the Gadir region. Gadir is a Phoenician village, the current Cadiz. This name gave reason to individual atlantologists to believe that all of Atlantis was located on the Iberian Peninsula near the mouth of the Quadalquivir River.

Near Gadir lay another famous city, Tartessus. Its inhabitants were Etruscans and claimed that their state was 5,000 years old. The German H. Schulten (1922) believed that Tartessus is Atlantis. In 1973, near Cadiz, at a depth of 30 meters, the remains of an ancient city were discovered.

About a million Basques now live in northern Spain. Their language is unlike any of the known languages of the world. There is a certain similarity between it and the languages of the American Indians. This suggests that the Basques are direct descendants of the Atlanteans.

Brazil

In 1638, the English scientist and politician Francis Bacon of Verulam in his book "Nova Atlantis" identified Brazil with Atlantis. Soon a new atlas with a map of America was published, compiled by the French geographer Sanson, in which the provinces of the sons of Poseidon in Brazil were even indicated. The same atlas was published in 1762 by Robert Vaugudi. It is said that at the sight of these cards, Voltaire was shaking with laughter.

Scandinavia

In 1675, the Swedish atlantologist Olaus Rudbeck argued that Atlantis was located in Sweden, and Uppsala was its capital. According to him, this was evident from the Bible.

Herodotus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder and some other ancient historians write about the Atlantean tribe living in North Africa near the Atlas Mountains. Atlanteans, they say, don't dream, don't use names, don't eat anything alive, and curse the rising and setting sun.

Based on these reports, P. Borchardt claims that Atlantis was located on the territory of modern Tunisia, in the depths of the Sahara Desert. In its southern part there are two lakes, which, according to modern data, are the remains of an ancient sea. In this sea was supposed to be the island of Atlantis.

At the end of the 19th century, the French geographer Etienne Berlu placed Atlantis in Morocco, in the region of the Atlas Mountains.

In 1930, A. Hermann stated that Atlantis was in the Shatt-el-Jerid lowland, between the city of Nefta and the Gulf of Gabes. True, this territory does not fall, but rises ...

German ethnographer Leo Frobenius found Atlantis in the Kingdom of Benin.

Other options

In 1952, German pastor Jurgen Spanut discovered Atlantis on the island of Helgoland in the Baltic Sea.

In general, Atlantis was found in all parts of the Earth. We will not dwell on these theories in detail, but it was found in Central America, in the English Channel (F. Gidon), in the Pacific Ocean, in Cuba, in Peru, in Great Britain, in the Great Lakes region in the USA, in Greenland, in Iceland, Svalbard, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Persia (Pierre-André Latreille, France, 19th century), Bermuda, Bahamas, Canaries, Antilles (John McCulloch, Scotland), Azores, Azov , Cherno, the Caspian Seas, in Palestine and in many other places.

Evidence for the existence of Atlantis in the Atlantic

An advanced civilization once existed on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. The inhabitants of this country taught the ancient Egyptians and Mayans how to measure time, build pyramids and much more. It was the Atlanteans who put many different numbers into the Egyptian pyramids, as if addressing this message to their descendants.

But 11,500 years ago, a meteorite (or comet) fell to Earth, causing the death of Atlantis. The fall of the meteorite awakened dormant volcanoes. Eruptions and earthquakes began. The fall of the meteorite and the sinking of Atlantis caused a giant wave that temporarily flooded Europe, Egypt, Asia Minor, America, South and East Asia. This wave killed mammoths in distant Siberia, laying them in "cemeteries". Due to the fall of the meteorite, the earth's axis shifted, which caused strong climatic changes. The surviving Atlanteans scattered around the world, spreading the story of the death of Atlantis.

This is the version of the death of Atlantis, which can be considered canonical for the supporters of Atlantis in the Atlantic.

In 1665, in his book "Mundus subterraneus" ("Underworld"), the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher showed that Atlantis existed in the Atlantic Ocean and provided a map with its outlines. It is very interesting that these outlines exactly correspond to the lines of the depths of the ocean, unknown at that time.

In the 19th century, I. Donelly wrote the book "Atlantis, the antediluvian world", which was considered the "bible" of atlantologists. He places his Atlantis in the same place as Kircher, but reduced in size. For him, Atlantis was a biblical paradise, the seat of the Greek gods and the land of the cult of the Sun!

Donelly considers mythology to be one of the main pillars of the version of the existence of Atlantis. Fairly objectively the mythological aspect of Atlantis is described in the book by L. Stegeni.

Mythological evidence for the existence of Atlantis

Flood legends

They are found in almost all mankind, with the exception of Africa, except for Egypt, Australia and the northern part of Eurasia. In almost all these myths, the gods (God) once flooded the whole earth with water (beer) (usually for sins), a fire starts (the sky falls, the earth cracks, a mountain appears, spewing flames) and all people drowned (turned into fish, turned into stones ), except for one (two) people whom the gods (God) usually warned about the flood, because they led a righteous life. These people (or one person), usually a husband and wife (or brother and sister, or Noah and family), get into a boat (box, ark) and swim. Then they (not always) sail to the mountain, release the birds for reconnaissance (this is in many cases a skillful introduction of biblical motifs by Christian missionaries into pagan myths).

Legends about aliens from the West (Old World)

They are found among some peoples of the Old World, in particular, among the Egyptians and Babylonians.

An unknown person arrives from the West, speaking in an incomprehensible language. He taught people how to make tools (build cities, use the calendar, make wine, brew beer).

Legends about coming from the East (New World)

Found in some peoples of America.

They say that this people once came from the East (from the island), perhaps some cataclysms occurred at that time (the gods punished humanity), but someone from humanity escaped and came to the West, where he founded this country (city , people).

Legends of space disasters

Found in some nations.

A stone fell from the sky (Moon, Sun, Serpent, Dragon, something else), after which a fire started (flood, the earth shook, something else). Then it all ended and people dispersed around the world.

Encountering such a legend, atlantologists begin to look for (and find) in it proof of the existence of Atlantis. For example, having learned that the Kalevala mentions an earthquake and high tides (usually the height of the tides in the Baltic is several centimeters), atlantologists concluded that a long time ago the Earth captured the Moon, which caused high tides, which people remember. Myths often give atlantologists the opportunity to "prove" any, even the most insane, statements, adjusting ancient myths to suit them.

Similarity of cultures on both sides of the Atlantic

Atlantologists pay attention to the fact that in Egypt and Mexico they build pyramids, make stone sarcophagi, mummify the dead, use a similar hieroglyphic script, in Egypt and Mexico there is a separate caste of priests, the cult of the Sun, a similar time number system and quite developed astronomy.

Some Atlantologists have decided that the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans and Egyptians were students of the Atlanteans who flew (or sailed) to them after the disaster. (Osiris in Egypt, Quetzalcoatl in America)

The eel mystery

Even Aristotle drew attention to the fact that only female eels can be found in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. There have been many theories about the origin of eels, "fatherless fish". Even at the end of the 19th century, it was believed that eels are born alive, and females of one of the fish species produce them. (!?) Only in 1904, the Danish ichthyologist I. Schmidt solved the riddle of eels. Eels hatch from eggs in the Sargasso Sea. In the second year of life, they set sail for the shores of Europe. There, the females go up the rivers, spend about two years in the rivers, return to the sea and swim into the Sargasso Sea. There is a mating season and the females lay their eggs. This behavior of eels can be easily explained if we assume that thousands of years ago, on the site of the Sargasso Sea, there were the shores of Atlantis, where they spent their childhood. The warm current of the Gulf Stream carried them to the shores of Europe, and then the countercurrent brought them back.

There is hardly a person who has never heard the story of the mysterious island-state Atlantis. Did she exist or not? And if so, where was it located, who inhabited it, and what happened to it?! These are all questions that have yet to be definitively answered...

Once described by Plato, Atlantis has occupied the minds of historians, archaeologists, philosophers and esotericists for many centuries. Moreover, the lack of scientifically confirmed evidence of the existence of this civilization does not stop its seekers and researchers at all.

Plato's narrative

For the first time, the ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato of Athens (427-347 BC), told mankind about the island-state of Atlantis.

In his writings "Timaeus" and "Critias", presented in the form of dialogues between Socrates and the Pythagorean Timaeus, Plato talked about the best state structure. During the dispute, a third participant, the Athenian politician Critias, joined the conversation. He spoke about the war between Athens and the state of Atlantis. Critias learned this story from his grandfather Critias Sr., and he, in turn, heard it in the retelling of the poet and politician Solon, who heard about it from the priests in Egypt.

According to Plato, 9,000 years ago Athens went to war with the island nation of Atlantis. “This island was larger than Libya (Africa. - Note, author) and Asia combined.” And Atlantis fell with its might on Athens. Frightened, the allies left the Athenians, but the brave men repulsed the onslaught of the Atlanteans and defeated them. After that, the enslaved peoples were freed, and Atlantis itself was overtaken by a grandiose natural disaster, which not only killed all the Atlanteans, but also the army of the Athenians. And also forever immersed this state on the seabed.

The philosopher describes Atlantis as a plain 3,000 stadia (540 kilometers) long and 2,000 stadia (360 kilometers) wide. The capital of Atlantis was located on a hill island located 50 stades (8-9 kilometers) from the sea. To protect against the elements, Poseidon, the ancestor of the Atlanteans, fenced off the hill with the city with three water and two land rings. And the Atlanteans themselves threw bridges over these rings and dug channels, so that ships could sail directly to the capital.

“The island on which the palace stood ... as well as earthen rings and a bridge wide (30 meters. - Approx. Aut.) The kings circled the circular stone walls and placed towers and gates everywhere on the bridges near the passages to the sea ... "

Plato described in such detail the wealth, beauty and fertility of an island he had never seen before that the reader got the feeling that the author saw it all with his own eyes. At the same time, the philosopher reproached the Atlanteans for the fact that in them the divine nature gave way to human greed, avarice and pride. Outraged by this, Zeus decided to exterminate the Atlanteans and convened a meeting of the gods. This is where Plato's dialogue ends.

Islands in the ocean

Since the Renaissance, when the works of Plato again found their readers, the search for the mysterious Atlantis has occupied the minds of mankind. Since then, dozens of versions of its presence, as well as its death, have been put forward. And in the 50s of the XX century, even a doctrine appeared - atlantology.

One of the leading hypotheses for the location of Atlantis comes down to its search in the Atlantic Ocean, west of the Pillars of Hercules. That is how the Greeks, including Plato, called the rocks of Gibraltar and Ceuta, between which the Strait of Gibraltar was located. Plato wrote that Atlantis was located to the west of the Pillars of Hercules, opposite the mountains of Atlanta. Therefore, Atlantis must be located near Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco.

By the way, among the Greeks, Morocco was the abode of the titan Atlanta, from whose name the names of the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas ridge originated. The very name of Atlantis, “the country of Atlanta,” was also formed from it.

A number of researchers claim that the Canary Islands are the remnants of the once mighty island. So, according to the theory of atlantologists, the Canaries are the remains of a bridge "thrown" from Africa to Atlantis. However, the connection with Atlantis via the "Canaries Bridge" broke off even earlier than with Africa, which can be traced from the topography of the ocean floor.

In 2009, English seabed aerial surveyor Bernie Bamford claimed to have seen Atlantis in one of the images of the Atlantic Ocean, five hundred kilometers from the Canary Islands.

At a depth of 5 kilometers, Bamford saw a rectangle consisting of a grid of intersecting lines. They seemed to him the streets of a flooded city.

Moreover, the city, according to Bamford, surpassed modern megacities and was equal in area to about half the Moscow region! However, in the picture with lines and rectangles, the annular channels described by Plato were not visible. In addition, skeptics believed that these were not real lines, but the virtual directions of sonars (devices used to detect and study underwater objects). Although there should be no breaks in the sonar lines, they were in the picture.

In the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantis was also searched for by Soviet oceanographers. In the 70-80s of the last century, five hundred kilometers west of the Strait of Gibraltar, in the Azores, near the Amper seamount, scientific expeditions on the ships Akademik Petrovsky and Akademik Kurchatov discovered strange vertical structures similar to the walls of an ancient city .

They protruded from a layer of light sand and were also located at right angles; moreover, scientists noticed blocks separated by seams. But most importantly, the study of a piece of basalt from the top of the mountain showed that such a rock could only form on land about 12 thousand years ago. Which fits perfectly with Plato's story.

Ruined Minoans

It is no secret that scientists consider written monuments with a fair amount of skepticism and admit that ancient authors have a variety of hyperbole and allegories.

Therefore, it seems quite reasonable to assume that Atlantis had the prototype of the island of Crete with the highly developed Minoan civilization that existed on it and the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea, partially destroyed by a volcanic explosion.

Here are just a volcanic eruption on the island of Strongila (Santorini - part of this giant island), which killed the Minoans, occurred in the 17th century BC. That is, not 9000, but a maximum of 1000 years before Plato. The eruption and earthquake first destroyed the base of the island, and the resulting giant tsunami covered the northern coast of Crete (the largest part of the island metropolis) with a giant wave.

The fields that provided the Minoans with food resources were covered with volcanic ash, which made it impossible to cultivate them. And hunger completed the tragedy. At the same time, the wind rose with volcanic ash bypassed Greece and Egypt, the rivals of the Minoans.

Given the unexpected advantage that appeared, the Achaeans (the population of mainland Greece) landed on Crete and enslaved opponents who no longer had the same power.

Describing the capital of Atlantis, Plato mentioned a concentric canal through which ships sailed and went out to sea from there. Such a description is quite consistent with an insular volcanic caldera with an annular swell and a central island.

Another version boils down to the fact that Atlantis was located in the Black Sea region, and the Black Sea itself was then still an inland lake. Presumably, in the 6th millennium BC, the level of the Black Sea rose catastrophically - by 60 meters within a year.

This happened as a result of a volcanic eruption, the subsequent tsunami and the breakthrough of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Scientists explain the biblical legend about the Flood with the same version. Moreover, the flooding of vast territories drove the local population to Europe and Asia, where information about the lost state came with them.

It is interesting that the Romanian researcher Nikolai Densushyanu, without denying the Black Sea location of Atlantis, believes that it was on the territory of modern Romania. He believes that the Lower Danubian Plain corresponds to the description of the central plain of Atlantis. It has a rectangular shape measuring 534 by 356 kilometers (3000 by 2000 stadia). The Atlas Mountains in this case are the Southern Carpathians, and the problem with the Romanians' island is solved by the fact that Plato could easily mix the terms "river" - "sea" - "ocean" and "island" - "country".

Antarctica, Andes and Tibet

A fairly large number of atlantologists are inclined to the version that Atlantis was located on the territory of Antarctica.

As arguments, supporters of this version cite the Piri Reis map, created in Turkey in 1513 on the basis of ancient maps. According to her, Antarctica was located near the equator, but as a result of a lithospheric shift, it was moved to the South Pole. True, this version does not withstand criticism from the point of view of geology.

Other supporters of finding Atlantis in the ice refer to the fact that the island, although not located near the equator, had a quite comfortable climate. And the collision of the Earth with a huge meteorite 10-15 thousand years ago caused a displacement of the earth's axis. As a result, Atlantis moved to the South Pole.

But modern science has proven that it is impossible to move the earth's axis very quickly, and scientific data on the icing of Antarctica say that this happened in other periods of time.

As already mentioned, humanity began to look for Atlantis in the Renaissance. In this regard, the book "The History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Province of Peru", created in 1555 by the secretary of the Royal Council of Castile, Agustín da Zarate, is of interest. The author writes that Plato's 9,000 years from the flood is 750 ordinary years, since according to the chronology of the Egyptians, the modern month was taken into account for the year.

In favor of the search for Atlantis in the Andes is the fact that the civilization of the South American Indians had high achievements, which they inherited from another, more ancient civilization. However, hypotheses about the transfer of knowledge to the Indians regularly pop up in other pseudoscientific theories.

William Scott-Elliot, in The History of Atlantis (1896), writes that Atlantis eventually broke up into two large islands. One of them was called Daitya, the other Ruta, which was later reduced to the last remnant known as Poseidonis.

The well-known Russian ophthalmologist and researcher of the anomalous Ernst Muldashev, who has been to Tibet many times, claims that Atlantis existed in the Himalayas and Tibet at a time when the entire earth was covered with water. The climate of the island was mild, and the Atlanteans had access to high technologies, with the help of which they produced the necessary energy. They died, according to Muldashev, as a result of Typhon's comet hitting the Earth.

Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer

Despite the abundance of versions and even some artifacts, most serious scientists are inclined to the version that, having written the story of Atlantis, Plato created only a philosophical myth and nothing more. Unlike Aristotle, Plato never burdened his reader with real facts, but threw up many reasons that could awaken the imagination.

However, to date, all the facts indicated in Plato's narrative are refuted by archaeological data. Neither in Greece, nor in the west of Europe and Africa, nor at the end of the ice and post-glacial periods, nor in the following millennia, archaeologists have been able to find traces of a highly developed civilization.

Tartessian necklace: some researchers believe that the disappeared people, the Tartessians, who lived in Spain, were descendants of the Atlanteans.

At the same time, atlantologists often do not want to accept testable arguments and focus on the "untestable" part of Plato's narrative. In particular, the emphasis is on the secret knowledge of the Egyptian priests. At the same time, nothing was found in the texts of the ancient Egyptian papyri themselves, even remotely coinciding with Plato's story. The philosopher also uses Greek names of characters and titles in his story, while the Greeks, describing real events, always wrote identical names.

The most plausible version of the origin of the myth of Atlantis is the assumption that Plato used two real cases from history. The first is the defeat and death of the Athenian army and navy while trying to conquer Sicily in 413 BC. The second is the destruction of the city of Geliki in the Peloponnese by a tsunami in 373 BC.

For several centuries, the ruins of Gelika were visible from under the water column. The myth of Atlantis was needed by Plato to illustrate his political ideas and philosophical views.

And in order to avoid unnecessary questions about where this island was located, Plato himself “destroyed” it many thousands of years ago. That's just the descendants do not want to come to terms with the fact that Atlantis existed only in the imagination.

Alexey MARTOV

Atlantis has not disappeared, it exists and lies in the depths of the sea. A lot has been said about Atlantis, thousands of research materials have been written. Historians, archaeologists, searchers have proposed fifty versions of a possible location around the world (in Scandinavia, in the Baltic Sea, in Greenland, North and South America, in Africa, the Black, Aegean, Caspian Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, etc. ), but the exact location is not named. Why such confusion?

Starting to figure it out, you discover one pattern that all sentences initially have a binding from some kind of similarity, a find of antiquity, a single description under which (which) subsequently “materials were adjusted”. As a result, nothing worked. There is a similarity, but Atlantis cannot be found.

"We'll go the other way"!

Let's look for Atlantis in a different way, which in this case (judging by the well-known proposals), has not been used by anyone before. - First, let's take the method of elimination, where Atlantis could not be. As the circle narrows, we will use all the “benchmarks” that were proposed by the ancient Greek scientist, the sage (428-347 BC) Plato (Aristocles) in his writings - Timaeus and Critias. In these documents, the only and rather detailed description of Atlantis, its inhabitants and historical events related to the life of the legendary island is given.

“Aristotle taught me to satisfy my mind only with what reasoning convinces me, and not just the authority of teachers. Such is the power of truth: you try to refute it, but your very attacks elevate it and give it great value. (XVI century, Italian philosopher, physicist, mathematician Galileo Galilei).

So, let's start "cutting the ends." - Atlantis could not be in any far corner of the world and even in the Atlantic Ocean. The war (according to the history of the story) between Athens and Atlantis - could not be anywhere except in the Mediterranean Sea on this "patch of civilization" due to the limitations of human development. The world is great - but developed is narrow. Athens simply would not have been able to reach the limits of Atlantis with her army and navy. Water and vast distances were an insurmountable obstacle. - "This barrier was insurmountable for people, because ships and shipping did not exist then." (Plato, Critias).

In ancient Greek mythology, which arose many thousands of years later than the time of the death of Atlantis, the only (!) hero Hercules (according to Homer - XII century BC) performed a feat, traveling to the farthest western point of the world - to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. “When the Atlas Mountains arose on the path of Hercules, he did not climb them, but made his way through, thus paving the Strait of Gibraltar and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic. This point served as a border for navigators in the ancient era, therefore, in a figurative sense, “Hercules (Hercules) pillars”, this is the end of the world, the limit of the world and the expression to reach the pillars of Hercules” means “to reach the limit”. What western limit Hercules reached (“end of the world”) was unattainable by other mortals.

Thus, Atlantis was closer to the center of the ancient civilization - it was in the Mediterranean Sea. But where exactly?

The Pillars of Hercules (according to Plato's story, behind which lay the island of Atlantis) in the Mediterranean Sea, there were seven pairs! (Gibraltar, Dardanelles, Bosporus, Kerch Strait, Nile Mouth, etc.). The pillars were located at the entrances to the straits and had the same names - Hercules (later the Latin name - Hercules). The pillars served as landmarks and beacons for ancient sailors.

“First of all, let us briefly recall that, according to legend, nine thousand years ago there was a war between those peoples who lived on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules, and all those who lived on this side: we will have to tell about this war ... How we have already mentioned that it was once an island that exceeded the size of Libya and Asia (not their entire geographical territory, but rather areas inhabited in antiquity), but now it has failed due to earthquakes and has turned into impenetrable silt, blocking the way for sailors who would try to sail from us to the open sea, and making navigation unthinkable. (Plato, Critias).

This information about Atlantis, dating back to the 6th century BC. came from the Egyptian priest Timaeus from the city of Sais (on the coast of Africa, the western Nile Delta, the current name of the village of Sa el-Hagar). When Timaeus said that the barrier from the remains of the sunken Atlantis blocked the way - "from us to the open sea", this clearly testified to the presence of Atlantis on the route from the Egyptian mouth of the Nile to the wide waters of the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times, the Pillars of Hercules also called the entrance to the main (western) mouth of the Nile, nicknamed the mouth of Heracles, that is, Hercules, where the city of Heracleum and the temple in honor of Hercules were located.

Over time, the silt and floating material from the sunken Atlantis was blown across the sea, and the island itself went even deeper into the abyss. “Since in nine thousand years there have been many great floods (namely, so many years have passed from those times to this day), the earth did not accumulate in the form of any significant shallow, as in other places, but was washed away by waves and then disappeared into the abyss. (Plato, Critias).

We exclude impossible locations further.

Atlantis could not be located in the Mediterranean Sea north of the island of Crete. Today in that area there are countless small islands scattered over the water area, which does not correspond to the story of flooding (!) and by this very fact excludes the entire territory. Moreover, there would not have been enough space for Atlantis (according to the description of its size) in the sea north of Crete.

The expedition of the famous explorer of the sea depths of the French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to the area north of Crete on the periphery of the islands of Thira (Strongele), Fera discovered the remains of an ancient sunken city, but from the above it follows that it belongs to another civilization rather than Atlantis.

Earthquakes are known in the archipelago of the islands of the Aegean Sea, disasters associated with volcanic activity, which led to local subsidence of the earth, and according to new evidence, they occur in our time (for example, a sunken medieval fortress in the Aegean Sea near the city of Marmaris in a bay on the coast of Turkey).

Narrowing the search circle, we come to the conclusion that Atlantis could only be in one place opposite the mouth of the Nile - south and east of the island of Crete. She, there, today at a depth and lies, having fallen into a deep basin of the sea. The failure of an almost oval water area with influx from the coast, horizontal wrinkling (from sliding) of sedimentary rocks to the center of the "funnel" is clearly visible from the Internet survey of the seabed from space. The bottom of the sea in this place resembles a pit, sprinkled with soft sedimentary rock on top, there is no solid “crust-mantle” below. A hole not overgrown with a “bone” inside - on the body of the Earth, “poke your finger and you will fail.”

The Egyptian priest Timaeus, in a story about the location of the silt from the flooded Atlantis, gives a link to the Pillars of Hercules (nearest to him at the mouth of the western Nile). In another case (later), already when Plato described the power of Atlantis, we are talking about other pillars (as already mentioned above, there were seven of them in the Mediterranean). Later, when Plato expounded the text of his essay on the retelling, Timaeus had not been around for 200 years by that time, and there was no one to clarify information about which pillars the conversation was about. From this arose all the subsequent confusion with the location of Atlantis.

“After all, according to our records, your state (Athens) put an end to the insolence of countless military forces that set off to conquer all of Europe and Asia, and kept their way from the Atlantic Sea. [...] On this island, called Atlantis, there arose a kingdom of amazing size and power, whose power extended over the whole island, to many other islands and to part of the mainland, and moreover, on this side of the strait they took possession of Libya right up to to Egypt and Europe up to Tirrenia (west coast of Italy). (Plato, Timaeus).

The sea that washed the island of Atlantis (between Crete and Egypt) was called the Atlantic in ancient times, it was located in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the modern Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Ionian seas. Subsequently, due to an error in tying Atlantis not to the Nile, but to the Gibraltar pillars, the name "Atlantic" also spread to the ocean beyond the strait. The once inland Atlantic Sea, due to inaccurate interpretation and description (of Plato, Critias or Solon), became the Atlantic Ocean. As the Russian proverb says: - “We got lost in three pines” (in seven pairs of pillars). When Atlantis went into the abyss of the sea, the Atlantic Sea disappeared with it.

“It was then, Solon, that your state showed the whole world a brilliant proof of its valor and strength: all, surpassing all in fortitude and experience in military affairs, it first stood at the head of the Hellenes, but because of the allies it turned out to be left to itself, alone met with extreme dangers and yet defeated the conquerors and erected victorious trophies. Those who were not yet enslaved, it saved from the threat of slavery; all the rest, no matter how much we lived on this side of the Pillars of Hercules, it generously made free. But later, when the time came for unprecedented earthquakes and floods, in one terrible day, all your military strength was swallowed up by the cracked earth; likewise, Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the abyss. After that, the sea in those places has become unnavigable and inaccessible to this day due to the shallowing caused by the huge amount of silt that the settled island left behind. (Plato, Timaeus).

You can even more clarify the place of Atlantis from the description of the island itself.

“Firstly, it was said that this whole region lay very high and steeply cut off to the sea, but the whole plain that surrounded the city (capital) and itself surrounded by mountains that stretched to the sea itself, was a flat surface, three thousand in length. stages (580 km.), and in the direction from the sea to the middle - two thousand (390 km.). All this part of the island was turned to the south wind, and from the north it was closed by mountains. These mountains are praised by legend because they surpassed all the present ones in their multitude, size and beauty. The plain ... was an oblong quadrangle, mostly rectilinear. (Plato, Critias).

So, following the description - approximately to the middle of the island stretched a rectangular plain 580 by 390 kilometers, open to the south and closed from the north by large and high mountains. Fitting these dimensions into the geographical map of the "Atlantic" Sea north of the mouth of the Nile, we get that the southern part of Atlantis could adjoin Africa (in the area of \u200b\u200bthe current Libyan cities of Tobruk, Derna, Egyptian cities on the coast west of Alexandria), and its northern mountainous part could be ( but, not a fact) - the island of Crete.

It should also be taken into account that with the end of the ice age, with the beginning of the melting of the northern glaciers, the level of the world's oceans rose by 50-70 meters and the part of the land that once connected Atlantis and Africa was gradually flooded. Elephants and, by the way, people - the inhabitants of the island (by the name of their king Atlanta - the Atlanteans) who came here earlier from the depths of Africa remained surrounded by the sea. The Atlanteans were ordinary people of a modern look, and not four-meter giants, otherwise Athens would not have been able to defeat them. The island, isolated position of the inhabitants prompted civilization to separate (without wars and external enemies), active, ahead of external warring barbarians - development (fortunately, everything needed was on the island).

On Atlantis (in its capital, similar to the hill of an extinct volcano) there were hot springs of mineral water, this indicates the high seismic activity of the territory and the “thin” mantle of the earth's crust ... amazing both in taste and healing power. (Plato, Critias).

I will not now assume what caused the “internal hiccups of the Earth”, as a result of which Atlantis sank into the basin of the Mediterranean Sea in a day, and later even deeper. Exactly in that place along the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there is a border between the African and European continental tectonic plates. The depth of the sea there is very large - about 3000-4000 meters. It is possible that a powerful impact of a giant meteorite in North America in Mexico, which, according to the US National Academy of Sciences, occurred 13 thousand years ago (about that time) caused an inertial movement of plates in the Mediterranean.

Just like the continents, crawling on top of each other, breaking the edges, uplift the mountains - the same process, but in the opposite direction, when diverging, it forms depressions. The African plate slightly moved away from Europe, and this was quite enough to lower Atlantis into the abyss of the sea. The fact that Africa earlier in the history of the Earth moved away from Europe and Asia is clearly evidenced by the visible huge intercontinental fault from the Mediterranean Sea in two directions - the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Aden, Oman and Persian Gulfs.

It is possible (but not a fact) that the current island of Crete - previously the northern highest mountainous part of Atlantis, did not fall into the abyss of the sea, but, breaking away, stayed on the "European continental cornice". On the other hand, if you look at Crete on a geographical map, then it does not stand on the very cliff of the mantle of the European mainland, but about 100 kilometers from the basin of the Mediterranean (Atlantic) Sea. This means that there was no catastrophic landslide fault of Atlantis along the current coastline of the island of Crete, it was only, as an independent unit, part of the archipelago of island Atlantis.

Historians, archaeologists write: - “Excavations in Crete show that even four or five millennia after the alleged death of Atlantis, the inhabitants of this Mediterranean island sought to settle away from the coast. (Memory of ancestors). Unknown fear drove them to the mountains. The first centers of agriculture and culture are also located at some distance from the sea”…

The former proximity of the location of Atlantis to Africa and to the mouth of the Nile is indirectly evidenced by the extensive Kattara depression (minus 133 meters below sea level), in the Libyan Desert in Egypt, 50 km away. from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, also a lowland west of Alexandria. In addition, along the line of a tectonic fault - the lowland of the Dead Sea (minus 395 meters) in Israel. All of them speak of a territorial catastrophe that once occurred near the earth, connected with subsidence.

What gives the establishment of the exact location of Atlantis?

Perhaps not much. The Mediterranean basin is too deep. At first, silt, earth, subsequent sedimentary deposits and landslide rocks, which first rose and then settled to the bottom, densely covered Atlantis. The golden capital, with its countless treasures in the temple of Poseidon, was located closest to Africa and turned out to be at the very depths (in the center of the depression). It is possible that searches in the southern part of the coast of Crete will bring something, but this is unlikely, since the South Cretan European mainland "ledge-cornice" for millennia has literally been "licked by the sea to bare stone", and everything that was from the Atlanteans - long washed away into the basin. Who will dig in the depths of the sea, who will look for the fallen “necklace in the mouth of a volcano”? “Because nothing from Atlantis has been found so far.

But the only inspiring thing is that the confusion with the "Pillars of Hercules" has been successfully resolved, and the location of Atlantis has finally been established.