The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-24-2020, 09:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Interesting discussion on antiquity... could be taken to some other thread, as it has little to do with the contemporary polarization on American politics. "Atlantis" has been applied in theory to

(1) the remarkable civilization of the Minoans that died off due to the effects of the eruption of the Santorini volcano

(2) South America, which such ancient seafarers as the Phoenicians  reached but later people forgot about

(3) Central America, which has pyramids somewhat similar to those of Egypt

(4) now-submerged lands in what is now the Persian-Arabian Gulf which might have been pleasant-enough places for advanced civilization by standards of the time, lands watered by the successor of the Tigris and Euphrates that got more melt-water from the Zagros Mountains of what is now western Iran and the highlands of eastern Turkey when winters in those areas were colder and snowier.

The Green Sahara is a new one to me. The irony is that the civilization that may have existed there had more connections to sub-Saharan Africa, which except for Ethiopia has been quite unimpressive for most of human history. The people of the Green Sahara were black -- not white. The styles of basket-weaving are typical of sub-Saharan Africa, and not of ancient Europe. The people depicted in the art are clearly Negroid.

I don’t doubt that many of the above listed times and places are real.  Thing is, Plato traveled to Egypt a long time ago, talked to some of the priests there, and wrote what seems to be the sole source of the Atlantis myth.  Plato being Plato, his writings survived.  There is a record of concentric canals complete with dimensions.  The Eye of the Sahara is the one location where there are remnants of such a structure, the one place you can go and examine the ancient structures built on the rings.

The problem is sea level.  The legends have Atlantis sinking beneath the sea, while the Eye is currently high and dry.  That part of Africa was known to be effected by sea level change, but it is a mild stretch.  

Also, the proponents of the other theories were academics with credentials and positions, while the guy who made the Eye connection was an amateur who put his theory on the Internet.  Followers of S&H might be familiar with the bias in academia against theories not proposed by academics.