I don’t see it as particularly a problem that the flooding of the Black Sea, and remaining legendary tales may disagree in some particulars. That is the nature of legends.
My point was that a slow-acting cataclysm was more likely to engender fables than an event that occurs in a single day.
With the Black Sea flooding, which has left geological evidence, villagers and fishermen in the area would have had time to salvage their possessions and relocate as best they could. I wrote of this in the poem on my about page.
What I find exciting is the newly revealed and yet to be revealed information about these formerly hidden lands. Our history keeps getting pushed back further and further.
To me, that’s a good thing. We are, as a species, like an amnesiac awakening in a strange city, knowing nothing of his previous life and former relations with others.
Following through on these discoveries is like restoring memories, and making us feel more a part of a wondrous continuum of growth and benevolent opportunities.
The rarity of an event is what makes it last in legend, but I take your point — the longer it took, the more survivors would be around to pass down the legend.
Ditto on the underwater archaeology.
As the Earth has been glaciated much of the past two million years, most of our ancestors probably were born and bred on lands now long submerged (and submerged multiple times). There’s no telling what may someday be found, y’know, assuming the World Caliphate doesn’t come to pass.
Reading Plato’s details about currently impassable mud and the harbor that is encountered before the city, I tend to think the main area of Atlantis may have been in the Black Sea area, a pretty good match for the Dardanelles. If they were a great empire then maybe they had colonies around Spain and the Americas.