The Atlantis Myth
It is possible, that in the legend that tells of the disappearance of the island empire of Atlantis, we have a record of the fall of the Minoan Empire. The idea that Atlantis lay in mid-Atlantic goes back only as far as the discovery of America. This discovery started speculation among the scholars of the day as to the improbability of so great a stretch of sea having existed from the begining of the world. It was felt that at one time there must have been some land mass between the two coasts. this speculation led, inevitably to the tradition that Atlantis must have been this mythical island in this sea. This tradition was completely unfounded.
Plato's Atlantis could not have existed in this ocean, as, at the time the disappearance of Atlantis occurred the Atlantic was unknown to the Greeks and Egyptians that Plato mentions as overpowing the inhabitants of Atlantis. they may have ventured along the sea board and the Minoans and Egyptians may have reached as far as northern Europe - but they in a certainty hugged the shore along the whole routeand would not have ventured into the blackness beyond.
No land exists today between Europe and America and therefore there is nowhere for us to place the lost civilisation.No submergance of land has occurred in this area since the time that man appeared on earth, at least not since the emergance of Palaeolithic man. There may have been a submergance of a might range of volcanic mountains, but this occurred during the fnal stage in the formation of the continents and before the arrival of life as we know it. that Atlantis was the land from which sprang the great civilisations of the early world is completely unfounded myth. Plato himself bases his whole story on the fact that both greece and Egypt, at the time of the destruction of Atlantis, were powers on an equal level with the island. Their civilisations were as advanced as Atlantis and their military power proved to be stronger. the idea of a sudden emerganceof any civilisation is archaelogically unfounded. All the great civilisations can be traced back to their beginnings through various stages of develiopment, to stone age cultures. Even these primitive beginnings have no common starting date and each culture developed at its own individual rate.
To see the myth of Atlantis as a story based upon a very real and factual happening we must go back and examine the myth as told by Plato in the Critias and Timeaus.
Plato gives and account of a conversation between Solon and an aged priest in the Egyptain cult center of Sais in about 600 BC. Solon, when a young man, had travelled to Egypt where he had met two priests of Nieth, Psenopis and Sonechis with whom he spoke and learnt.The priest with whom he spokeseem to have been intent on impressing the young man from greece and in proving to him that Egypt held records of events so ancient that other nations had lost them with not even evidence of their survival in storytelling. So he recounted the story of the lost island empire in the sea, west of Egypt, a nation that had ruled the sea, other islands, and even part of the continent which surround this ocean. It was said that its domination even reached through Europeas far as Tyerhenia and into north Africa to the very borders of Egypt. Then, at the height of its power, when it felt itself to be inconquorable, it turned to the objective of overpowering and dominatingits former allies, Egypt and Greece. They engaged in battle, but the Atlantians were defeated by the Athenians who, by this time, had gained tremendous power., greater power indeed than that held by them at the time of Solon. The Atlantians had overestimated their power over the nations of the 'true ocean', their luxury and decadencehad softened them and they were badly matched against the nations that they hoped to dominate. After a short period of time the gods, angry that this island should misuse the power and the high degree of civilisation that it had been granted, caused it to be overwhelmed by the sea. Attica also became a victim of the wrath of the Gods, most areas being swept clear of inhabitants and reduced in size. So the island empire was destroyed.
There appears a parallel in the destruction of Knossos and this story.