Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias. In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was discussed throughout classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied by later authors. As Alan Cameron states: "It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". While little known during the Middle Ages, the story of Atlantis was rediscovered by Humanists in the Early Modern period. Plato's description inspired the utopian works of several Renaissance writers, like Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis". Atlantis inspires today's literature, from science fiction to comic books to films, its name having become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations.
Location hypotheses
Since Donnelly's day, there have been dozens of locations proposed for Atlantis, to the point where the name has become a generic concept, divorced from the specifics of Plato's account. This is reflected in the fact that many proposed sites are not within the Atlantic at all. Few today are scholarly or archaeological hypotheses, while others have been made by psychic or other pseudoscientific means. Many of the proposed sites share some of the characteristics of the Atlantis story (water, catastrophic end, relevant time period), but none has been demonstrated to be a true historical Atlantis.
In or near the Mediterranean Sea
Satellite image of the islands of Santorini. This location is one of many sites purported to have been the location of Atlantis.Most of the historically proposed locations are in or near the Mediterranean Sea: islands such as Sardinia, Crete and Santorini, Sicily, Cyprus, and Malta; land-based cities or states such as Troy, Tartessos, and Tantalus (in the province of Manisa), Turkey; Israel-Sinai or Canaan;[citation needed] and northwestern Africa. The Thera eruption, dated to the 17th or 16th century BC, caused a large tsunami that experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan civilization on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the story. A. G. Galanopoulos argued that the time scale has been distorted by an error in translation, probably from Egyptian into Greek, which produced "thousands" instead of "hundreds"; this same error would rescale Plato's Kingdom of Atlantis to the size of Crete, while leaving the city the size of the crater on Thera; 900 years before Solon would be the 15th century BC. In the area of the Black Sea the following locations have been proposed: Bosporus and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon). The Sea of Azov was proposed in 2003.
In the Atlantic Ocean
The location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean has certain appeal given the closely related names. Popular culture often places Atlantis there, perpetuating the original Platonic setting. Several hypotheses place the sunken island in northern Europe, including Sweden (by Olof Rudbeck in Atland, 1672–1702), or in the North Sea. Some have proposed the Celtic Shelf and Andalusia as possible locations, and that there is a link to Ireland. The Canary Islands have also been identified as a possible location, west of the Straits of Gibraltar but in proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Various islands or island groups in the Atlantic were also identified as possible locations, notably the Azores. However detailed geological studies of the Canary Islands, the Azores, and the ocean bottom surrounding them found a complete lack of any evidence for the catastrophic subsidence of these islands at any time during their existence and a complete lack of any evidence that the ocean bottom surrounding them was ever dry land at any time in the past. The submerged island of Spartel near the Strait of Gibraltar has also been suggested.
Other locations
Caribbean locations such as Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Bermuda Triangle have been proposed as sites of Atlantis. Areas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have also been proposed including Indonesia (i.e. Sundaland). The stories of a lost continent off India named "Kumari Kandam" have inspired some to draw parallels to Atlantis, as has the Yonaguni Monument of Japan. Antarctica has also been suggested.
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