Two scientists have already definitely found Atlantis! Atlantis has been found: a gigantic city rests at the bottom near Cuba! Has Atlantis been found?

Two scientists, Paul Weinzweig and Pauline Zalitzki, working off the coast of Cuba and using robotic submarines, confirmed that there is a giant ancient city. In the found part of the city, several sphinxes, 4 pyramids and other buildings were discovered, all of them are located deep in the Bermuda Triangle area.

According to some studies on the Cuban underwater pyramid complex, the city was destroyed simultaneously due to rising water levels and the sinking of land into the sea. This correlates specifically with the legend of Atlantis.

The disaster may have occurred at the end of the last ice age. The ice in the Arctic has melted catastrophically. This has caused sea levels to rise rapidly around the world, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Coastlines changed, huge tracts of land were lost, islands and even some continents disappeared forever.

During the Ice Age, sea levels were nearly 400 feet lower than they are today. Once the water began to rise, it brought about the end of Atlantis.

Presumably, neither modern technology nor those of that time could have saved Atlantis from its watery grave. Evidence that the land known today as Caribbean, sank into the sea, seem convincing.

According to journalist Luis Fernandez Marian, the city was discovered decades ago, but access to it was blocked due to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“The US government obtained evidence of the existence of an underwater city during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. The nuclear submarine was then moving along the Gulf Stream deep in the sea, where they discovered the structure of the pyramids. They immediately took control of the place to prevent it from falling into the hands of Soviet Union,” Fernandez said.

A scientific group of researchers, archaeologists, and oceanographers discovered the ruins of ancient buildings on the ocean floor, which were located at a depth of 600 meters. They say that this city is Atlantis.

Evidence that the island of Cuba could have been part of a once powerful culture is provided by scientist Paulina Zalitsky. She shows the engraved symbols and pictograms on the pyramid, and they resemble the oldest designs that have been discovered on the Cuban island. Using deep-sea equipment, scientists discovered pyramids similar in shape but larger in size than Giza in Egypt. They estimated that the underwater pyramid was also made of very heavy stones, weighing several hundred tons. Incredibly, the ancient city also has magnificent sphinxes and “stones that are arranged like Stonehenge” and writings in an unknown language engraved on the stones,” Fernandez reports.

In the works of some ancient Greek historians, geographers, mythographers, mathematicians, theologians and astronomers, there is mention of one state that has sunk into eternity: the legendary island of Atlantis. About two thousand years ago, Plato, Herodotus, Diodorus and other respected authors wrote about it in their works.

Ancient authors about the sunken island of Atlantis

Basic information about the lost Atlantis is contained in the writings of Plato. In the dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he talks about an island state that existed about 11,500 years ago.

According to Plato, the ancestor of the Atlanteans was the god Poseidon. He connected his life with a mortal girl, who bore him ten sons. When the children grew up, the father divided the island between them. The best part sushi went to Poseidon's eldest son: Atlan.

Atlantis was a powerful, rich and populous state. Its inhabitants erected a serious defense system against external enemies and built a network of circular canals leading to the sea, as well as an internal port.

Large cities were distinguished by amazing architectural structures and beautiful sculptures: temples made of gold and silver, golden statues and sculptures. The island was very fertile, with a variety of natural world; people mined copper and silver in the depths of the earth.

The Atlanteans were a warlike people: the army of the state included a navy of 1000 ships, the number of crews was 240 thousand people; The ground army numbered 700 thousand people. The descendants of Poseidon successfully fought for many years, conquering new territories and wealth; This was the case until Athens stood in their way.

To defeat the Atlanteans, the Athenians created a military alliance with the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. But on the day of the battle, the allies refused to fight, and the Athenians were left alone with the enemy. Fearless, courageous Greeks defeated the aggressor and liberated the peoples previously enslaved by him.

But early on, the Greek warriors rejoiced at their achievements: they decided to intervene in the affairs of people, who had been monitoring the inhabitants of Atlantis for the last centuries. Zeus considered that the Atlanteans had become greedy, greedy, depraved and decided to punish them to the fullest extent by flooding the island along with its inhabitants and the Athenians who did not have time to celebrate the victory.

This is what Plato writes about Atlantis in his two works. At first glance, this is just a beautiful legend, an interesting fairy tale. There is no direct evidence of the existence of Atlantis in ancient times, nor any references to authoritative sources.

But these two dialogues survived not only Plato himself, but also two more millennia - during which time many disputes and theories arose regarding the lost state.

Plato’s student Aristotle, who listened to the speeches of Platonist philosophers for about 20 years, eventually categorically rejected the existence of Atlantis, declaring that the dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias” were simply fiction, the ravings of an old man.

It was because of Aristotle that Atlantis was talked about reluctantly, in a low voice, until the end of the 18th century. After all, this venerable philosopher enjoyed unquestioned authority in Europe, especially in the Middle Ages. All of Aristotle's statements were perceived by Europeans as the ultimate truth.

So why was Aristotle so sure that Atlantis was a fiction, because he had no irrefutable evidence of this? Why was he so harsh in his judgments? Some sources claim that the philosopher simply did not like his mentor, so he decided in this way to spoil Plato’s authority in the eyes of his fans and admirers.

Mentions of the Atlanteans in the works of other ancient authors

Other ancient authors wrote very little about Atlantis: Herodotus claimed that the Atlanteans had no names, did not see and were defeated by troglodytes - cavemen; According to the stories of Diodorus, the inhabitants of Atlantis fought with the Amazons. Posidonius, interested in the causes of land subsidence, believed that Plato’s story was plausible.

Proclus in his writings talks about one follower of the ancient thinker: a resident of Athens, Krantor.

Allegedly, he specially went to 47 years after the death of the philosopher to find evidence in favor of the existence island state; Having returned from his trip, Krantor said that in one of the ancient temples he saw columns with inscriptions retelling the historical events described by Plato.

Search for Atlantis

It is quite difficult to indicate the exact location of the lost Atlantis: there are many hypotheses about where the sunken state could be located.

Plato wrote that a huge island was once located in the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., beyond Gibraltar). But his search in the Canary, Balearic, Azores and British Isles came to nothing.

Some researchers propose to look for the remains of the material culture of the Atlanteans in the Black Sea, linking the flooding of the island with the “Black Sea flood” that occurred 7-8 thousand years ago - then the sea level rose in less than a year, according to various estimates, from 10 to 80 meters.

There is a hypothesis according to which Antarctica is the lost Atlantis. Scientists who adhere to this theory believe that Antarctica in ancient times was shifted to south pole due to lithospheric shift or a sharp displacement of the earth's axis as a result of the collision of our planet with a large cosmic body.

There is also an opinion that traces of Atlantis can be found in South America or Brazil. But most interpreters of Plato’s dialogues are sure: the lost island must be sought only in Atlantic Ocean.

In recent decades, the lost state has sought many expeditions, most of which returned empty-handed. True, from time to time the whole world is excited by news about the found traces of a submerged island.

Did the Russians find Atlantis?

In 1979, a Soviet expedition, while testing a diving bell, accidentally discovered some objects in the Atlantic Ocean that looked like the ruins of an ancient city.

The action took place just behind the “Pillars of Hercules” indicated by Plato, 500 km from Gibraltar, above the Ampere seamount, which many thousands of years ago protruded above the surface of the ocean, but then for some reason went under water.

Three years later, the Soviet ship "Rift" went to the same place to explore the ocean floor using underwater vehicle"Argus". The aquanauts were amazed by what they saw; from their words, they saw a panorama of city ruins: the remains of rooms, squares, streets.

But the expedition that took place in 1984 did not live up to the hopes of the researchers: an analysis of two stones raised from the ocean floor showed that it was just volcanic rock, frozen lava, and not the creation of human hands.

The opinion of modern scientists about Atlantis

Atlantis is a fiction

Most modern historians and philologists are convinced: Plato’s dialogues are just a beautiful legend, of which the philosopher has many. There are no traces of this state either in Greece, or in western Europe, or in Africa - this is confirmed by archaeological excavations.

The opinion of scientists that Atlantis is only a figment of the imagination is also based on the following: the philosopher writes about a network of canals built on the island, about an inland port, but such large-scale projects in ancient times were beyond the power of people.

Plato indicated the approximate date of the island's immersion in the ocean depths: 9000 years before he wrote his dialogues (i.e. approximately 9500 BC). But this contradicts the data of modern science: at that time humanity was just emerging from the Paleolithic era. It is not easy to believe that somewhere in those times there lived a people who were thousands of years ahead of the entire human race in their development.

Many scientists are convinced that Plato, when writing his works, took as a basis some events that occurred during his life: for example, the defeat of the Greeks during their attempt to conquer the island of Sicily and the flooding of the town of Gelica as a result of an earthquake followed by flooding.

Other researchers believe that the basis for the philosopher’s works was the eruption of a volcano on the island of Santorini, which subsequently hit the coast of Crete and other islands. Mediterranean Sea tsunami - this disaster led to the decline of developed Minoan civilization.

The version is supported by the following fact: the Minoans actually fought with the Archeans who inhabited Greece in ancient times and were even defeated by them (just as the Atlanteans were defeated by the Greeks in the dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias”).

In general, many researchers of the thinker’s works believe that Plato, being an idealistic utopian, with his writings only wanted to call on his contemporaries to build an ideal exemplary humane state in which there would be no place for dictatorship, violence and tyranny.

However, the philosopher himself constantly emphasizes in his dialogues that Atlantis is not just a legend, but a real island state that once existed.

Plato doesn't lie

Some researchers still admit: there is a grain of truth in the works of the ancient thinker. Excavations carried out in last years archaeologists, helped scientists obtain new information about the life and technical achievements of our ancestors living 5-10 thousand years ago.

Modern archaeologists find the remains of grandiose structures created by ancient people everywhere: in Egypt, Sumer, Babylon. Tunnels for collecting groundwater, many kilometers of adits, stone dams, man-made lakes - all these structures were in operation long before the birth of Plato.

Consequently, the philosopher’s dialogues cannot be attributed to fiction only on the grounds that humanity 11 thousand years ago was unable to build a network of canals and bridges: recent archaeological excavations prove the opposite.

In addition, since Plato’s works have come down to us, rewritten more than once, there is a possibility that over two millennia there has been confusion with the dates.

The fact is that in the system of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the number “9000” is indicated by lotus flowers, and the number “900” by rope knots; supporters of the existence of Atlantis believe that later copyists of dialogues could easily confuse symbols that were so similar to each other, thus pushing the historical event back several thousand years.

On top of that, Plato, who belongs to one of the highly revered Ancient Greece family, in his dialogues he refers to his ancestor: the wisest of the “seven wise men”, the legislator Solon. And the ancient Greeks were very sensitive to their roots and tried to preserve the sacred memory of their relatives. Would Plato, given his moral qualities, have referred to Solon in his works, because if this whole story with Atlantis was just a fiction, he would have tarnished the name of the wisest representative of the family?

Afterword

Atlantis has been shrouded in an aura of mystery for many centuries. People have been trying to find the suddenly disappeared state for almost two thousand years: some wanting to take possession of the treasures described by Plato, others out of scientific interest, others simply out of curiosity.

In the 50s of the last century, a doctrine called “Atlantology” even appeared; its main task is to identify true information about Atlantis in historical sources and mythical legends.

The debate about whether the mysterious land once existed or whether the ancient Greek thinker simply made it up continues to this day. Various theories are born and die, guesses appear and disappear. Some of them are supported by science, while others are more like a beautiful fairy tale.

Perhaps our children or grandchildren will solve the riddle of Atlantis. But it may happen that another two thousand years will pass, and the mystery lost island it will remain unsolved, and our descendants, just like us today, will be tormented by guesses and assumptions.

ARTICLE IN VIDEO FORMAT

The “fatal” mistake of Plato (Critias or Solon), which led to confusion with the location of Atlantis, is revealed.

Atlantis has not disappeared, it exists and lies in the depths of the sea. Much has been said about Atlantis, thousands of research materials have been written. Historians, archaeologists, and searchers have proposed fifty versions of possible locations around the world (in Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, Greenland, North and South America, Africa, the Black, Aegean, Caspian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and so on), But exact location not named. Why so much confusion?

Starting to understand, you discover one pattern: all assumptions are initially tied to one similarity, an ancient find, a single description, to which the materials were subsequently “adjusted.” As a result, nothing worked. There is a similarity, but Atlantis cannot be found.

We'll go a different way

Let's look for Atlantis in a different way, which in this case (judging by the known proposals) has not been used by anyone before. First, let's take the method of exclusion, where Atlantis could not exist. As we narrow the circle, we will use all the “reference points” that were proposed by the ancient Greek scientist, sage (428-347 BC) Plato (Aristocles) in his works – “Timaeus” and “Critius”. These documents provide the only and fairly detailed description of Atlantis, its inhabitants and historical events related to the life of the legendary island.

“Aristotle taught me to satisfy my mind only with what reasoning convinces me of, and not just with the authority of teachers. Such is the power of truth: you try to refute it, but your very attacks elevate it and give it great value,” said the Italian philosopher, physicist, and mathematician Galileo Galilei in the 16th century.

Below is a map of the world as it was represented in Greece during the times of Plato and Herodotus (IV - V centuries BC).

Mediterranean Sea

So, let's start cutting off the ends. Atlantis could not be located in any far corner of the world and it was not even in the Atlantic Ocean. You will ask why? Because the war (according to the history of the narrative) between Athens and Atlantis could not take place anywhere except in the Mediterranean Sea on this “patch of civilization” due to the limited development of mankind. The world is big, but the developed world is small. Near neighbors fight more often and constantly among themselves than distant neighbors. Athens simply would not have been able to reach the borders of Atlantis with its army and fleet if it was located somewhere far away. Water and vast distances were an insurmountable obstacle.

“This barrier was insurmountable for people, because ships and navigation did not yet exist,” says Plato in his work Critias.

In ancient Greek mythology, which arose many thousands of years after the death of Atlantis, the only (!) hero Hercules (according to Homer in the 12th century BC) accomplished a feat, according to legend, traveling to the farthest western point of the world - to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.

“When on the way Hercules encountered Atlas Mountains, then he did not climb them, but made his way through, thus creating the Strait of Gibraltar and connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic. This point served as the border for sailors in ancient times, therefore, in a figurative sense, the “Pillars of Hercules” are the end of the world, the limit of the world. And the expression “to reach the pillars of Hercules” means “to reach the limit.”

See the picture The Strait of Gibraltar today is the place where the historical hero Hercules reached.

In the foreground is the Rock of Gibraltar on the edge of continental Europe, and in the background on the coast of Africa is Mount Jebel Musa in Morocco.

What western limit of the earth Hercules reached (“the edge of the world”) was unattainable for other mortals. Thus, Atlantis was closer to the center ancient civilization– she was in the Mediterranean Sea. But where exactly?

The Pillars of Hercules (according to Plato’s narrative, behind which lay the island of Atlantis) in the Mediterranean Sea at that time there were seven pairs (Gibraltar, Dardanelles, Bosporus, Kerch Strait, Mouth of the Nile, etc.). The pillars were located at the entrances to the straits, and all had the same names - Hercules (later the Latin name - Hercules). The pillars served as landmarks and beacons for ancient sailors.

“First of all, let us briefly recall that, according to legend, nine thousand years ago there was a war between those peoples who lived on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules and all those who lived on this side: we have to tell about this war... How we have already mentioned, it was once an island larger than Libya and Asia (not all of them) geographical area, but rather areas inhabited in ancient times), but now it has collapsed due to earthquakes and has turned into impassable silt, blocking the path of sailors who would try to sail from us to the open sea, and making navigation unthinkable.” (Plato, Critias).

This information is about Atlantis, which dates back to the 6th century BC. came from the Egyptian priest Timaeus from the city of Sais, located on the coast of Africa, in the western Nile Delta. The current name of this village is Sa el-Hagar (see below picture of the Nile River delta).

When Timaeus said that the barrier from the remains of the sunken Atlantis blocked the path “from us to the open sea,” then speaking about us (about himself and about Egypt), this clearly testified to the location of Atlantis. That is, it lies in the direction of travel from the Egyptian mouth of the Nile to the wide waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

In ancient times, the entrance to the main navigable (western) mouth of the Nile, nicknamed the mouth of Hercules, that is, Hercules, where the city of Irakleum was located and there was a temple in honor of Hercules, was also called the pillars of Hercules. Over time, the silt and floating material from the sunken Atlantis were carried across the sea, and the island itself sank even deeper into the abyss.

“Since many great floods occurred in nine thousand years (and that is how many years passed from those times before Plato), the earth did not accumulate in the form of any significant shallows, as in other places, but was washed away by the waves and then disappeared into the abyss.” (Plato, Critias).

Crete

Next, we exclude other, impossible locations. Atlantis could not be in the Mediterranean Sea north of the island Crete. Today in that area there are countless small islands scattered throughout the waters, which does not correspond to the story of the flooding (!), and by this very fact excludes this entire territory. But that's not even the main thing. There would not be enough area to accommodate Atlantis (according to the description of its size) in the sea north of Crete.

The expedition of the famous explorer of the deep sea, a French oceanographer, to the area north of Crete on the periphery of the islands of Thira (Strongele), Fera, discovered the remains of an ancient sunken city, but from the above it follows that it most likely belongs to another civilization than Atlantis.

In the archipelago of islands Aegean Sea earthquakes and disasters associated with volcanic activity are known, leading to local subsidence of the earth, and according to new evidence, they are occurring in our time. For example, a recently sunken medieval fortress in the Aegean Sea near the city of Marmaris in a bay on the coast of Turkey.

Between Cyprus, Crete and Africa

Narrowing the search, we come to the conclusion that only one thing remains - Atlantis could only be in one place opposite the mouth of the Nile - between the islands of Crete, Cyprus and north coast Africa. She is there today at a depth and lies, having fallen into a deep basin of the sea.

The collapse of an almost oval water area with influxes from the shores, horizontal wrinkling (from sliding) of sedimentary rocks towards the center of the “funnel” is clearly visible from an online review of the seabed from space. The bottom in this place resembles a pit, sprinkled with soft sedimentary rock on top; there is no hard “crust of the continental mantle” underneath it. Only visible on the body of the Earth is a hollow inward that is not overgrown with the firmament.

The Egyptian priest Timaeus, in his story about the location of the silt from the flooded Atlantis, gives a link to the Pillars of Hercules (it was logical for him to say - those closest to him), located at the mouth of the Western Nile.

In another case (later, already in Greece), when Plato describes the power of Atlantis, we are already talking about other pillars, as mentioned above, in the Mediterranean there were then seven of them. When Plato presented the text of the work (based on the retelling of Solon and Critias), the Egyptian priest Timaeus (the primary source of the narrative) had been dead for 200 years by that time, and there was no one to clarify the information about which pillars the conversation was going on. Therefore, subsequent confusion arose with the location of Atlantis.

“After all, according to our records, your state (Athens) put a limit on the insolence of countless military forces that set off to conquer all of Europe and Asia, and kept their path from the Atlantic Sea. […] On this island, called Atlantis, a kingdom of amazing size and power arose, whose power extended over the entire island, many other islands and part of the mainland, and moreover, on this side of the strait they took possession of Libya (northern Africa ) up to Egypt and Europe up to Tyrrhenia ( West Coast Italy). (Plato, Timaeus).

The sea that washed the island of Atlantis (between Crete, Cyprus and Egypt) was called the Atlantic in ancient times; it was located in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the modern seas: the Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Ionian.

Subsequently, due to an error in linking Atlantis not to the Nile, but to the Gibraltar pillars, the name “Atlantic” sea automatically spread to the ocean beyond the strait. The once inland Atlantic Sea, due to the inaccuracy of interpretation of Timaeus’ story and description (by Plato, Critias or Solon), became the Atlantic Ocean. As the Russian proverb says: “We got lost in three pines” (more precisely, in seven pairs of pillars). When Atlantis sank into the abyss of the sea, the Atlantic Sea disappeared with it.

Timaeus, narrating the history of Atlantis, noted that the victory of Athens brought freedom from slavery to all other peoples (including the Egyptians) who had not yet been enslaved by the Atlanteans - “on this side of the Pillars of Hercules,” speaking about themselves - about Egypt.

“It was then, Solon, that your state showed the whole world a brilliant proof of its valor and strength: surpassing everyone in its strength of spirit and experience in military affairs, it first stood at the head of the Hellenes, but due to the betrayal of its allies it found itself left to its own devices, and met alone with extreme dangers and yet defeated the conquerors and erected the trophies of victory. It saved those who were not yet enslaved from the threat of slavery; but all the rest, no matter how many of us lived on this side of the Pillars of Hercules, it generously made free. But later, when the time came for unprecedented earthquakes and floods, in one terrible day all your military strength was swallowed up by the opening of the earth; likewise, Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the abyss. After this, the sea in those places became, to this day, unnavigable and inaccessible due to shallowing caused by a huge amount silt, which left behind a settled island.” (Plato, Timaeus).

Description of the island

The location of Atlantis can be further clarified from the description of the island itself.

“Poseidon, having received the island of Atlantis as his inheritance..., approximately in this place: from the sea to the middle of the island a plain stretched, according to legend, more beautiful than all other plains and very fertile.” (Plato, Timaeus).

“This entire region lay very high and fell steeply to the sea, but the entire plain surrounding the city (capital) and itself surrounded by mountains that stretched all the way to the sea, was a smooth surface, three thousand stadia in length (580 km), and in the direction from the sea to the middle - two thousand (390 km.). This entire part of the island was facing the south wind, and was closed from the north by mountains. These mountains are praised by legend because they were superior in number, size and beauty to all those present today. The plain... was an oblong quadrangle, mostly rectilinear.” (Plato, Critias).

So, following the description, a rectangular plain measuring 580 by 390 kilometers stretched approximately to the middle of the island of Atlantis, open to the south and closed to the north by large and high mountains. Fitting these dimensions into a geographical map north of the mouth of the Nile, we find that the southern part of Atlantis could very well be adjacent to Africa (near the Libyan cities of Tobruk, Derna and Egyptian cities on the coast west of Alexandria), and its northern mountainous part could be (but not a fact) - the island of Crete (in the west), and Cyprus (in the east).

The story about the fauna of the island speaks in favor of the fact that Atlantis was connected to Africa in earlier times (than its mention in ancient Egyptian papyri), namely tens of thousands of years ago.

“There were even a great many elephants on the island, for there was enough food not only for all other living creatures inhabiting swamps, lakes and rivers, mountains or plains, but also for this beast, the largest and most voracious of all animals.” (Plato, Critias).

It should also be taken into account that with the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the melting of the northern glaciers, the level of the world's oceans rose by 100-150 meters and probably the part of the land that once connected Atlantis and the mainland was gradually flooded. Elephants and the inhabitants of the island of Atlantis (named after their king Atlas), who came here earlier from the depths of Africa, remained on big island surrounded by the sea.

The Atlanteans were ordinary modern people, and not four-meter giants, otherwise the Hellenes from Athens would not have been able to defeat them. The island, isolated position of the inhabitants prompted civilization to develop separately and actively, ahead of the external warring barbarians (fortunately, everything necessary was on the island).

On Atlantis (in its capital, which looks like a hill extinct volcano) hot springs flowed from underground mineral water. This indicates high seismic activity in the territory located on the “thin” mantle of the earth’s crust... “a spring of cold and a spring of hot water, which provided water in abundance, and, moreover, amazing both in taste and in healing power.” (Plato, Critias).

Diving underwater

I will not speculate now what caused the internal “hiccups” of the Earth, as a result of which Atlantis sank into the basin of the Mediterranean Sea within a day, and then even deeper. But we must pay attention that exactly in that place along the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there is a fault boundary between the African and European continental tectonic plates.

The depth of the sea there is very large - about 3000-4000 meters. It is possible that a powerful impact from a giant meteorite North America in Mexico, which, according to the US National Academy of Sciences, occurred 13 thousand years ago (around the same time) and caused an inertial wave and plate movement in the Mediterranean.

Just as continental plates, creeping over each other, breaking the edges, rear up mountains - the same process, but in the opposite direction, when diverging, forms subsidence and deep depressions. The African plate moved slightly away from the European plate, and this was quite enough to lower Atlantis into the abyss of the sea.

The fact that Africa has previously moved away from Europe and Asia in the history of the Earth is clearly evidenced by the huge intercontinental rift running through the Mediterranean Sea. The fault is clearly visible on geographical map along the lines (seas) of rift in the earth's crust, which go in the directions of the Dead Sea, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea, Aden, Persian and Oman gulfs.

See the picture below of how the continent of Africa moves away from Asia, forming the above-mentioned seas and bays at the break points.

Crete - Atlantis

It is possible that the present island of Crete was previously that very northern, high mountainous part of Atlantis, which did not fall into the abyss of the sea, but, having broken away, remained on the “European continental cornice”. On the other hand, if you look at Crete on a geographical map, it does not stand on the very cliff of the mantle of the European continent, but about 100 kilometers from the basin of the Mediterranean (Atlantic) Sea. This means that the catastrophic rift of Atlantis according to the current coastline there was no island of Crete.

But here we must take into account the fact that since those times the sea level has risen by 100-150 meters (or more) due to the melting of glaciers. It is possible that Crete and Cyprus, as independent units, were part of the archipelago of the island Atlantis.

Historians and archaeologists write: “Excavations on Crete show that even four to five millennia after the supposed destruction of Atlantis, the inhabitants of this Mediterranean island sought to settle further from the coast. (Memory of ancestors?). An unknown fear drove them to the mountains. The first centers of agriculture and culture are also located at some distance from the sea."

The former proximity of Atlantis to Africa and the mouth of the Nile is indirectly evidenced by the extensive Qattara depression in North Africa in the Libyan desert 50 km from the Mediterranean coast, west of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. The Qattara Depression is minus 133 meters deep below sea level.

See the picture above - the huge Qattara Depression near the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

There is also another lowland on the tectonic fault line - this is the Dead Sea (minus 395 meters) in Israel. They testify to a once-common territorial catastrophe associated with the subsidence of large areas of land due to divergence in different sides European and African continental plates.

What does it mean to establish the exact location of Atlantis?

The Mediterranean basin where Atlantis once stood is too deep. At first, the silt that rose and then settled to the bottom and subsequent sedimentary deposits somewhat covered Atlantis. The golden capital with its countless treasures in the temple of Poseidon turned out to be at great depth.

The search for the capital of Atlantis in the southern part of the Mediterranean Sea in the “triangle” between the islands of Crete, Cyprus, and the mouth of the Nile will bring useful results to the world history of mankind, but this requires research by deep-sea vehicles.

To find the capital, the attentive reader has guidelines... In Russia there are two Mir underwater stations that could survey and study the bottom.

For example, Italian oceanographers in the summer of 2015, on the shelf of the island of Pantelleria, located approximately in the middle between Sicily and Africa, at a depth of 40 meters on the seabed, discovered a giant man-made column 12 meters long, weighing 15 tons, broken in half. The column shows traces of drilling holes. Its age is estimated to be about 10 thousand years (comparable to the Atlantean era). The divers also found the remains of a pier - a ridge of stones half a meter in size, laid out in a straight line, protecting the entrance to the ancient ship harbor.
These finds indicate that the search for the capital of Atlantis is not hopeless.

Another encouraging thing is that the confusion with the “Pillars of Hercules” has been successfully resolved, and the location of Atlantis has finally been established.

Already today, for the sake of historical truth, the Mediterranean basin, at the bottom of which lies the legendary island in memory of Atlantis and its inhabitants, can and must return it ancient name- Atlantic Sea. This will be the first important world event in the search and discovery of Atlantis.

Atlantis sea Tethys Kondratov Alexander Mikhailovich

Has Atlantis been found?

The first who tried to identify Plato's Atlantis with the island of Santorini was the French explorer L. Figier. His work was published in 1872. But almost a century passed before convincing evidence was found in favor of the identity of Santorini and Atlantis

The power of Crete was a rival of the Achaean Greeks - just as Plato's Atlantis was the enemy of the Athenians. Both Crete and Atlantis had a theocratic system, their power was based on a powerful fleet. The Minoan Cretans and Plato's Atlanteans revered the sacred bull. The kings of Atlantis wore dark blue robes. “Judging by the frescoes of Knossos, blue was the color of royal robes,” says Professor J. Bennett. The list of similar parallels could be continued, but from the above it is clear how much “Cretan” Plato introduced into his description of Atlantis, located, like Crete, on an island.

But was it Crete that was the metropolis of the island power of the Minoans? Before the excavations on Santorini, no one doubted the conclusion made at the beginning of the century by Arthur Evans: in the struggle of the city-states of Minoan Crete, the city of Knossos prevailed, it was the residence of the supreme ruler, the priest-king. However, after research carried out on Tyre - both on land and under water - it became clear that the island-volcano Strongyle had a population of many thousands and its capital could compete with the largest city-states of Crete.

“The Minoan state of the 3rd–2nd millennium BC. e. occupied the entire basin of the Aegean Sea, writes Avo Tiits in the article “In the wake of the Santorini disaster”, published in the 21st issue of the almanac “On Land and Sea”. - Where the capital of the Minoan state was located is still unknown. The city found on Tire is not inferior in size and splendor to Knossos, the center of the island of Crete. The Santorini volcanic massif was surprisingly well adapted for creating an impregnable military fortress there, therefore it was on Tire that it was most advisable to keep a military fleet in case of an attack by enemies and in order to extend its power to remote territories of the Mediterranean, for example, in Italy, Sicily and the Aeolian Mountains islands, which, apparently, were only partially and briefly subjugated by the Minoans."

One of the frescoes unveiled in the port of Knossos depicts a symbolic “sea” in the form of two flat cylinders. The smaller cylinder rests on the larger one. According to Spyridon Marinatos, who devoted his life to the study of the Minoan civilization, this is a symbolic image of the “kingdom of two islands”: the large one, Crete, and the small one, Santorini. And this “kingdom of two islands” corresponds to the Royal City and the Ancient Metropolis of Plato’s Atlantis.

Polish astronomer Ludwig Seidler, noting in his book “Atlantis” (Russian translation of which was published in 1966), that the god of the seas Poseidon is invariably depicted with his attribute - a trident, gave the following interpretation of this attribute: the trident was a symbol of the three-headed peak of the island, rising above the water . “This trident was visible from afar and was a landmark for ships in the ocean. It was he who became the symbol of Atlantis.”

If we turn to the most ancient hieroglyphic writing systems, then among the symbols-drawings one can see the symbol of a “mountain”. In ancient Chinese, Hittite, and Sumerian hieroglyphic writing, the mountain is depicted in the form of a trident. “Seidler’s opinion that from a distance the relief of Atlantis resembled a trident sticking out of the sea deserves attention,” noted I. A. Rezanov in his book dedicated to the “Santorini address” of Atlantis. - After all, Atlantis was located within a volcanic caldera. From Plato we know that the island was surrounded high mountains with steep cliffs facing the sea. From a distance, for example, from Crete, the contours of this “ulcanic building” could be represented in the form of three towers, their peaks above the water. The island looked similar from the opposite side, if you sailed to it from the north from Attica or from Cyclades Islands. The appearance of a three-headed island above the horizon told the sailors that they were approaching the capital of the rulers of the sea.”

For now, we can only roughly restore the former appearance of the capital of the volcano island Strongile, and even the configuration of the island itself, which was destroyed by a catastrophic explosion. However, this reconstruction, according to its author, Angelos Galanopoulos, gives a picture similar to the one painted by Plato, describing the Ancient Metropolis of the Atlanteans.

Although Plato never says that the Atlantean metropolis was located on a volcano, Galanopoulos believes that, according to his description, it is a small volcanic island during a period of long inactivity of its volcanoes. “He claims that the acropolis stood on a low hill in the center of the island, next to a fertile valley, the best in the world, according to him, and it is common knowledge that the most fertile soils are volcanic, eroded during a period of long inactivity of the volcano. In addition, when describing the houses of the Atlanteans, he talks about the white, red and black stones from which they were made. Red and especially black rocks are very characteristic of areas of volcanic activity, and in Thira, the largest island of the Santorini group and the largest surviving part of Santorini-Strongyle, red, black and white rocks are typical, the latter being the white limestone found at Mount Prophet Elijah , originally a pre-volcanic island around which the entire volcanic complex formed."

Plator speaks of the cold and hot springs of Atlantis. Warm springs exist only in areas where volcanic activity occurs (just remember the geysers of Iceland or our Kamchatka with its hot springs). This is further evidence in favor of the fact that Plato's Atlantis was located in a volcanic area.

“More than forty years ago, Professor Ion Trikkalinos (until recently the president of the Academy of Athens, but at that time an assistant at the Geological Laboratory) created a relief model of the Santorini caldera,” write Galanopoulos and Bacon in the book “Atlantis. Behind the legend is the truth." - On this model you can easily discern traces of the harbors of the Ancient Metropolis and the canal that connected them with open sea. The remains of the harbors are clearly visible between Nea Kaimeni and the town of Thera, and especially between Palea Kaimeni and Nea Kaimeni, where the circular shape of the central harbor clearly stands out. If an imaginary drawing of the metropolis of Atlantis, as described by Plato, is superimposed on a graphic map of Santorini at the same scale and compares this drawing with the relief model, it immediately becomes obvious that the traces of channels on the bottom of the caldera are the same width as the water rings described by Plato. and they are located exactly at the same distance from the central building at which these water rings were from the hill where the temple of Poseidon stood... In addition, the underwater valleys located between Thira and Tirassia, in their length, exactly correspond to the length of the canals that once connected the inner harbor of the Ancient Metropolis with the sea."

If the Ancient Metropolis is Santorini-Strongile, then the Royal City, according to Galanopoulos, was undoubtedly located on the island of Crete. “According to the description of the features and shape of the plain surrounding the Royal City, it had all the geological characteristics of the massif that formed the central part of Crete in the Tertiary period. This massif is located in the middle of the island and is surrounded by mountains descending to the sea, mountains, according to all descriptions of Plato, similar to those that surrounded the plain of the Royal City... If you take the plain of Messara, it is very similar to the plain of the Royal City: the same elongated and level, located on the southern tip of the island and is protected from northern winds. In short, in all its characteristics, “it corresponds, as far as possible, to the plain of the Royal City.”

The catastrophic eruption of Santorini-Strongyle destroyed the Ancient Metropolis and dealt a mortal blow to the Royal City on the island of Crete. The power of the great sea power, which was at enmity with the Achaean Greeks, was undermined, the Minoan fleet was destroyed by a tsunami. And although, Galanopoulos notes, we cannot yet completely identify the disaster on Santorini-Strongyle with the dive into the sea of Atlantis, the analogies are very great, especially between the Ancient Metropolis of the Atlanteans and Santorini. “And since it has been finally established that Santorini was a Minoan island, that the Minoan state suffered from a terrible catastrophe just at the time of the death of Santorini, the identity of Atlantis with Minoan Crete becomes so obvious that it does not require further evidence,” A.G. sums up the results of his research. Galanopoulos and E. Bacon. - From now on, Atlantis and Minoan Crete merge together, and a picture emerges of a rich and powerful state: theoretically - an ancient theocracy under the rule of a priest-king, and in practice - a state of a prosperous high bourgeoisie; its representatives entertained themselves with sports and spectacles that tickled their nerves, wore luxurious and elegant clothes, used beautiful vessels of the most fantastic shapes and colors, and enjoyed apparently unlimited freedom of relations with equality of the sexes, so rare in those ancient times; an amazing, already “tired” civilization, bewitching, sophisticated, joyfully delightful and... doomed.”

In recent years, the ranks of supporters of the “Santorini-Cretan” address of Atlantis have been replenished with such authority as the world famous explorer World Ocean Jacques-Yves Cousteau. In the book “In Search of Atlantis,” co-written with I. Pakkale, he says that the sea power of Crete, “the brainchild of Poseidon, is the ruler of the entire Eastern Mediterranean. It founded colonies on the Greek peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt and even in more remote areas. Athens gave the signal for a rebellion against him: Athena challenged Poseidon and won. A gigantic geological cataclysm completed the devastation of Crete. The Santorini volcano began to erupt, and when it exploded, it generated a gigantic tidal wave several tens of meters high that swept across the entire Eastern Mediterranean. The ash that fell in a thick layer destroyed agricultural crops. The Minoan civilization was finished."

We will not present Cousteau’s arguments in favor of the “Santorini-Cretan hypothesis” - they are quite well and fully presented by the author himself in the above-mentioned book, the Russian translation of which is published by the Mysl publishing house.

Thus, Galanopoulos, Bacon, Rezanov and a number of other researchers, following them, believe that Plato’s story about Atlantis is not a figment of the author’s imagination and not a transmission of an oral legend, but historical evidence, a document speaking about a catastrophe in the Aegean Sea, which led to death Santorina-Strongyle and led to the decline of the Minoan civilization of the island of Crete. However, there are strong doubts about considering Plato’s “Dialogues” to be as reliable a source as, for example, Herodotus’ “History” or Strabo’s “Geography”. Most likely something else: the story about Atlantis contains genuine historical information, although it is impossible to interpret “one to one” every statement in “Critias” and “Timaeus” and give it an explanation supported by the facts of geology, volcanology, and archeology. Apparently, Plato’s Atlantis must be placed in the broader context of events that took place in the 2nd millennium BC. e. in the Mediterranean, and not just in the Aegean region. But this will be discussed in the next part, dedicated to the “Atlantis of the Mediterranean Sea”.

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Two scientists, Paul Weinzweig and Pauline Zalitzki, working off the coast of Cuba and using robotic submarines, confirmed that a giant ancient city exists on the ocean floor. In the part of the city that was found, several sphinxes, four pyramids and other structures were discovered, all of them located deep in the Bermuda Triangle area.

During the Ice Age, sea levels were nearly 400 feet lower than they are today. Once the water began to rise, it brought about the end of Atlantis.

Presumably, neither modern technology nor those of that time could have saved Atlantis from its watery grave. The evidence that the land known today as the Caribbean sank into the sea is compelling.

According to journalist Luis Fernandez Marian, the city was discovered decades ago, but access to it was blocked due to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"The US government received evidence of the existence of an underwater city during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60s of the last century. A nuclear submarine was then moving along the Gulf Stream deep in the sea, where they discovered the structure of the pyramids. They immediately took control of the place so that it would not turn out to be in the hands of the Soviet Union," Fernandez said.

Evidence that the island of Cuba could have been part of a once powerful culture is provided by scientist Paulina Zalitsky. She shows engraved symbols and pictograms on the pyramid, and they resemble the oldest designs that were discovered on the Cuban island itself. Using deep-sea equipment, scientists discovered pyramids similar in shape but larger in size than Giza in Egypt. They estimated that the underwater pyramid was also made of very heavy stones, weighing several hundred tons. Incredibly, the ancient city also has magnificent sphinxes and "stones that are arranged like Stonehenge, with writing in an unknown language engraved on the stones," Fernandez reports.

Another huge pyramid that looks like crystal was photographed and found in Bermuda Triangle, and is believed to have originally been discovered in 1960 by a French doctor who led an expedition of divers from France and America. This pyramid is larger than Great Pyramid Cheops in Egypt.

"This new evidence for the discovery of the lost sunken Atlantis could change the entire human history," says Fernandez.

Fernandez writes: "It is confirmed that the stones were hewn, cut and polished to fit together to form huge structures. The strange writings, some of them similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, are poorly understood, except that they are very are numerous and are found in almost all parts of the buildings. Symbols and drawings have also been discovered, the meaning of which is unknown."

Research into Atlantis, called Project Exploramar, will continue to better understand the secrets of the ancient mega-city located in the Bermuda Triangle.

While talking with a scientist about the possibility that the found ruins really belong to Atlantis, Fernandez received the following response from the expert:

"...In the cultures of Yucatan, among the aborigines of these places, perhaps the Olmecs or very primitive civilizations in Yucatan, in the northern part of Central America, to this day you can find stories according to which there was an island that sank from a cataclysm. And this The island is called Atlanticu."

This also fits into the stories about the sudden death of the wonderful Atlantis. Atlanticu. Atlantis. Local Aboriginal people still call it that in their history.

Chatting about the exploration of the lost civilization's mega-city with leading scientist Paulina Zalitsky, Fernandez asked: "Who built it?"

“When we published the first news about this discovery,” she said, “the University of Veracusa was interested in our work, and we recorded images of these structures on the seabed. In particular, the Institute of Anthropology of the Archaeological University invited me. They carried out research on parts and ruins of the Olmec civilization. When they saw these underwater images, they found similarities and parallels with the ruins found during archaeological excavations carried out by the institute."

The Olmecs and other indigenous peoples possess morphological markers that indicate the primacy of their arrival on this continent. This means that they came from Cuba. And a very large earthquake was about to occur, causing their land to sink. Morphology shows that the local peoples belong to three families that were saved. One of these families came to the Veracruz coast and became the Olmecs. Others came to Central America and went to the shores Pacific Ocean, and these families created the civilization of the Northern and South America, as we know it today, because they spread all their knowledge.

When these anthropologists saw images of an underwater city, and several stone monoliths bearing symbols and inscriptions, they identified them with Olmec motifs. And they were very surprised by this circumstance.

The Olmecs are descended from Atlantean survivors, and the much more advanced culture of the ancient civilization was destroyed by a flood at the end of the Ice Age. The world was transformed and the supercivilization disappeared. Memories of her were preserved for thousands of years only in legends and remained in the message of the ancient philosopher Plato.

But Atlantis was a reality: scientists Paul Weinzweig and Paulina Zalitsky found it.