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To: spycatcher
Looks like I have to throw in my US$0.02 on this subject. :-)

Let's consider the issue of Plato's works. There is potential proof what Plato may have been referring to was the Minoan civilization that suffered a catastrophic setback when the island of Thera was destroyed in a spectacular volcanic eruption circa 1200 B.C. that destroyed the volcano in the center of the island and caused it to collapse into the sea (that's why Thera today is three islands, not a single one).

When Thera was destroyed, it set up a massive tsunami that travelled all over the Aegean Sea. We do know that the northern coast of Crete suffered massive damage from a tsunami about the same time as the Thera eruption, so what happened was that the major Minoan outposts all over the Aegean Sea were destroyed. Once the Minoan civilization suffered that disaster, they were easy pickings for the Myceneans (the people described in Homer's works) and the later Dorians.

When Plato talked about Solon's story, he said the civilization was destroyed some 9,000 years ago as described by Egyptian scholars. However, there are some scholars who said that Solon may have mistranslated what the Egyptians said, so what Solon may have described happened in reality only 900 years earlier, which closely matches the fall of the Minoan civilization as result of the Thera disaster.

85 posted on 12/07/2001 8:13:32 AM PST by RayChuang88
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To: RayChuang88
Personally, I don't think the Minoan theory is very credible. It's based on wishful thinking. I suppose 9,000 years could possibly have been mistranslated as 900 years, but not likely. I find it curious that that would be the only mistranslation. Minoan civilization also does not match any of the physical descriptions of Atlantis. Have all of these descriptions been poorly translated? That's a pretty thin reed. I don't know for certain, but I'm willing to bet that Minoan culture was known to Plato. Certanly Plato knew exactly what he was talking about when he references Atlantis being beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
93 posted on 12/07/2001 9:10:43 AM PST by mvscal
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