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What is your favorite historical mystery?


nbohr1more

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I may have hinted at this before but I will open a thread now.

 

I am an Atlantis speculation junkie.

 

Let me first post my number 1 candidate location:

 

http://mapper.acme.c...of%20El%20Hamma

 

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=33.96187,9.80800&z=17&t=S&marker0=33.70000%2C8.43000%2CChott%20el%20Djerid&marker1=33.96187%2C9.80800%2C6.9%20km%20N%20of%20El%20Hamma

 

The Chotts el Jerid of Tunisia.

 

Why?

 

1) Atlantis did not sink to "the bottom of the ocean" instead it became a "muddy shoal only several feet below the water surface"

2) It's to the West of Egypt and Greece

3) The Chotts used to be a large "mega-lake" and you can use a sea-level map to simulate how large this lake used-to be

4) That mega-lake is very likely to be the mythical "Lake Tritonis" that the Greeks ascribed to this area

5) Herodotus spoke of Tritonis in relation to peoples near mount Atlas who referred to themselves as Atlanteans

6) There are Carthaginian coins from this area with Elephants (and older petroglyphs with Elephants and diverse fauna)

7) One phase of the local art was highly similar to the Minoan\Sea Peoples influence

8) The local Deity is syncretically equal to Neith (who was deemed syncretically equal to Athena by Egypt in the tale)

9) Another local Deity is syncretically equal to Poseidon

10) The tale of the Amazons is corroborated genetically from Tuscany to Corfu to this Region (the Amazons fought the Atlanteans)

11) The Berbers often claim to have a heritage from Atlantis (not a big deal, so does half the Mediterranean and South America... etc)

12) Several ancient sources claim that this "mega-lake" emptied via a geological cataclysm. The event precedes the Sea Peoples epoch.

13) The "Gulf of Gabes" is more linguistically close to "Gades" than Cadiz (Spain).

14) Gafsa (Caspa) was legendarily the home of the Libyan Herakles and resides between two mountains

15) It's closer proximity to Egypt and Greece make it more plausible as a Bronze Age power than Gibraltar where it would be essentially

like living on the moon in that age

 

(In no order).

 

 

While it's fun to think about. All that circumstantial evidence is still a bit cold soup.

 

A true scientific investigation of this question would not be to scour the globe for sites then

match them up with attributes of the story. You would do two things.

 

1) Use a bit of exclusion. Eg: What is not possible. What cannot possibly have been an attribute of

Atlantis. What is not probable.

2) Trace the story to it's root in Egypt

 

 

The first one, I have settled on the following:

 

Atlantis is described as a Bronze Age chariot and trireme culture. That puts a limit on the antiquity of the battle

of about 2500 BC.

 

Atlantis was destroyed at or before the Deucelion Flood 1478 BC.

 

From 1,200 BC to 800BC the Greeks had no written script. (This coincides with the loss of Linear B which

is purported to have a relation to Minoans...) The loss of written language demarcates the latest possible

bounds for the end of Atlantis.

 

No native American DNA or Artifacts were ever found in relation to Mediterranean history. Atlantis was not

located in America (or it's people were not genetically or culturally aligned with America...).

 

 

Now the frustrating part.

 

Sais Egypt and Heliopolis are both primarily destroyed. There is a dispute about where Sais actually resides but

artifacts from that region exist in other parts of the world due to Roman occupation. In particular, there are

two Obelisks

 

http://en.wikipedia....ant_and_Obelisk

 

http://en.wikipedia....bino_01_005.JPG

 

...in Italy which have inscriptions from the era when Solon visited Egypt to hear the tale.

One is purported to mention Neith and "the isle of fire". Where can I find what is written on

these things?

 

Heliopolis may have more artifacts than Sais below it's modern city scape. Perhaps even an underground temple

where the real "tale of Atlantis" is written down...

 

The ruins of the old port of Alexandria are being dredged from the sea and there may be relevant details there too.

 

Chains of Transmission:

 

"Wikipedia notes that ‘the scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages did not have access to the works of Plato – nor the Greek to read them.’ Today there are only seven manuscripts of Plato’s work extant, the earliest of which dates to around 900 AD. It is unfortunate that the earliest versions of Plato’s work available to us are only Latin translations of the original Greek text.

 

Chalcidius undertook the first translation of Timaeus from Greek to Latin in the 3rd century AD. He translated the first 70% of the text from earlier Greek versions, now lost. The earliest translation of Plato’s complete works into Latin was by Marsilio Ficino in the late 15th century. Janus Cornarius provided us with a Latin translation from earlier Greek sources, apparently different from those used by Ficino. A comparison of the partial Chalcidius and complete Ficino translations shows considerable divergences. The Ficino Latin text was in turn translated back into Greek at the Aldina Academy in Venice in the 16th century."

 

Who's to say that some of the original Greek manuscripts are not hidden somewhere in the Vatican given the religious figures commisioned

many of the translations...

 

There are several ancient libraries in Timbuktu filled with Greek manuscripts copied from the library of Alexandria and other prominent

Greek sources. It is entirely possible that original Plato manuscripts are kept there. An ongoing preservation project is happening but

it is poorly promoted given the possible treasures they may uncover there:

 

Anaximander's Map (the first known "map of the world") this would help show what Solon's contemporaries knew about geography

 

Early steam driven machine descriptions

 

The true location of many other legendary places that have been lost since before the Dark Ages.

 

 

My final frustration.

 

 

The only evidence of any kind of "Empire" that precedes the Mycenaean or Greeks is the Minoan empire.

 

Further, a careful re-translation of the tale of Atlantis reveals that Egypt was captured and subjugated by

the Atlanteans. The only evidence of such a domination of Egypt is by the "Hyksos" who coincidentally

have Minoan style art in their capitol city Avaris.

 

Further still, there is evidence in Iklaina Greece of "Europe's oldest bureaucracy" where vast amounts

of Linear B tablets describe administrative activities. The art at the site is also Minoan in style. There is

evidence that some battle took place and measure were taken to bury and erase the memory of this

place. It's much more indicative of expelling an external occupying authority than what an invading force

would do...

 

Altogether, the case for the Minoans is also very compelling. But not as fun because there is no muddy

shoal to dig around in for treasure...

Edited by nbohr1more

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Well you have your own thread to knock yourself out now. I have to say I don't have a strong opinion about it, but I'm more than happy to let you run with it.

 

Being a philosophy major, I took a course on ancient Greek philosophy, so most of what I find interesting about the ancient world is going to be that. But I do like reading the history of different nations and their ebb and flow over maps and the clashes of cultures too.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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there was a geological cataclysim around 17000bc when the ice age finished, its in the geological records, something really nasty happened, the tectonic plates all shifted as one, they moved about 3000 miles in less than an hour, there's some islands north of russia that date from this time they're mainly made from pulverised bone. I read it in a geology book. Aparently history and geology dont mix scentifically, as the person who wrote the book was asking if there were any historic writtings from this period, mainly cave paintings, because some of the bones are human. Before 17000bc hudson bay used to be at the north pole. so basically this is a cut off point to how far back you can go, for any evidence of an ancient civilisation.

 

 

you could check out the pyramid text, written about 2000bc in a pyramid in egypt, lot of translations online. there's mention of an isle of flame, which might be a minoan reference.

Edited by stumpy
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It's unlikely that would survive in an oral tradition though, maybe contemporaneous artifacts though.

 

On a related note to that, I do like reading about the evolution of language. That's a cool ancient mystery for me and I've been reading books on it. You've got some artifacts (cave art, shaped stone tools, ritual objects, jewelery & makeup), fossil remains (bones fit for talking & left-hemisphere brain size), and DNA as evidence (statistically dating the age of language genes)... You've got a rough date of not later than 100K years ago (at least for genetic reasons; humans separated after that period). And then just having a good theory about what selection pressures pushed it along, the anatomical redesigns & the cultural evolution. Apparently the first proto-languages had a lot more to do with women & gossip (regulating social relations in the group) than men & jobs (hunting & tools)... One thing key to needing a proto-language... You need to refer to something by name that can't be right in front of you to just point at (or you'd just walk over to one & screech, or have a characteristic "type" screech), and you need to get predication... You need to attribute a property to the named thing that, again, just pointing to it can't do the job. Then that means you & the listener have to share a world representation & know you're sharing it -- which goes to how children learn language from their mothers (another thing unique about humans, the long dependency on parents. Chimps have no upbringing & parents don't teach them squat. They only pick up things by observation based on pure utility. Acting based just on an elder's authority alone is pretty unique to humans.)

 

Another reason BTW other primates aren't good at predication is a difference in our working memory. Most primates memory is broad but not deep... They can look at an image and memorize like 20 items on sight, e.g., if you flashed the image in 1 second (seriously watch the experiments; it's jaw-dropping how fast they memorize a big field), but not anything about them. Whereas humans it'd take a few minutes to memorize all 20 items, but we could say dozens of things about each one, and nest it to any arbitrary depth, as much as we could keep in memory. (In other words, they spend brain realestate on capture, we spend it on nesting at the cost of capture.)

 

Maybe we should just make this a general "What's your favorite theory for your favorite mystery?" thread. Then I can talk more about these language books I've been reading.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I'll rename the thread when I can get to a PC. The cellphone is not good for that. As for an ice age Atlantis, my favorite location for that would be "the eye of the sahara" a ringed structure that is actually larger than the mythical size and has evidence of fossilized aquatic life around it. Though its very unlikely that mankind would preserve memories from when that area was submerged...

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there was a geological cataclysim around 17000bc when the ice age finished, its in the geological records, something really nasty happened, the tectonic plates all shifted as one, they moved about 3000 miles in less than an hour, there's some islands north of russia that date from this time they're mainly made from pulverised bone. I read it in a geology book. Aparently history and geology dont mix scentifically, as the person who wrote the book was asking if there were any historic writtings from this period, mainly cave paintings, because some of the bones are human. Before 17000bc hudson bay used to be at the north pole. so basically this is a cut off point to how far back you can go, for any evidence of an ancient civilisation.

 

 

you could check out the pyramid text, written about 2000bc in a pyramid in egypt, lot of translations online. there's mention of an isle of flame, which might be a minoan reference.

 

My googling only revealed this.

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there was a geological cataclysim around 17000bc when the ice age finished, its in the geological records, something really nasty happened, the tectonic plates all shifted as one, they moved about 3000 miles in less than an hour

 

Uh, you realize that's significantly faster than the speed of sound, right?

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The plates move an average of like a thumbnail's length a year and that's including massive earthquakes ... and if you go to Iceland you can literally see the gash of the two Atlantic plates pulling part and date it ... I could imagine something big but not quite that big.

 

The only geological cataclysm I recall was the deluge hypothesis for the Black Sea, where the Mediterranean Sea suddenly breached the Bosporus and spilled over and filled the whole modern Black Sea very quickly -- like 200 Niagara Falls worth a day through about the same area (edit: according to that wiki page though it was apparently a much milder spill over a much longer period).

 

Of course if you go really far back, there are things like the heavy bombardment period of the earth, or a period when apparently the entire planet was covered with about a 1km thick glacier even over the equator. And even though it wasn't exactly catastrophic, the Cambrian Explosion always fascinated me, that line when life went from being simple single celled stuff to boom, complex animals roaming around everywhere with all the anatomical features we still have today. I read it had something to do with the oxygen content in the atmosphere reaching a critical level, but I'm sure there's more to it. If you had to pick the most special moment in geological history, I think I'd pick that one.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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or a period when apparently the entire planet was covered with about a 1km thick glacier even over the equator.

 

Yes, that period has always fascinated me. It's a bit disconcerting how rarely earth has been suitable for human life, and how it may become so again.

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i got it from a printed book about geology, the stuff about the tectonic plates not online material that can be altered by anyone.

 

Thats the major problem of trying to find out anything about atlantis online is the information is likly to get changed by any online troll, as long as its not from a protected source, and most archeologists and historians are likly to dismiss atlantis as an actual place or say it was based on the minoan culture.

And as plato isn't around to prove that his story of atlantis was based on an actual place or whether its a work of fiction then we wont truely know. Plato's original maniscripts were supposed to have been kept at the library of alexandria, only that library either got burnt down or fell into the sea in an earthquake that distroyed the lighthouse at alexandria and some temples, and cleopatras palace which were all in the same relative location.

 

Although in some translations atlantis was an island and the circular city of canals and buildings had a different name.

Edited by stumpy
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i got it from a printed book about geology, the stuff about the tectonic plates not online material that can be altered by anyone.

 

Any book that says that the tectonic plates moved faster than the speed of sound could use a bit of altering.

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Yes, just because it's a printed book doesn't mean the legitimacy of the source is unquestionable. I won't claim to understand all the physics but as the earth's surface is essentially thin as pudding skin compared to the molten material beneath I am having a hard time imagining a scenario where vast swaths of the crust wouldn't be submerged in lava at that speed...

 

The atlantis fringe theories are littered with "unorthodox geological phenomenon" to explain many of the improbable locales.

 

Another path of frustration.

 

Homer made reference to the isle of Scheria which is practially the same as atlantis in many ways. While nobody has positively identified that island as a real world location the king was said to have moved to Drepane which we know as Tripani Sicily. As a tantalizing circumstance, the only bronze age civilization that has substantial artifacts about the pegasus are the Etruscans who had a significant presence on Sicily. Allegedly, the Etruscans also had a periodic meeting of kings in Italy very similar to the meeting of the kings of atlantis.

 

Italy would not be a surprising place to originate an empire though the Etruscans seemed to more limited to Italy, Sicily and Corfu.

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That is heartbreaking.

 

It's too bad that the loss of ancient manuscripts doesn't carry the importance

of something like "securing oil trade" (etc).

 

(Actually, with Iraq being one of the cradles of civilization, the disregard for history

and inquiry could not be painted more clearly.)

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Yeah really a tragedy. And too bad they were Sufi sites. Sufism is IMO the best branch of Islam ... like all the mystical branches of all religions. I think mysticism is ironically the most palatable religious view for the modern world because they care most about what happens in their experience; you find God within, not "out there" in the world, which only just tangles religion with things already better explained by scientific descriptions. People used to think the opposite because "consciousness" itself seemed too magical to believe, but now we know better and most people are on board that consciousness is a real thing (jury is still out if it's scientifically explicable or not, though, for one because it's "data" isn't publicly available, although it is intersubjectively verifiable). Also mystics will be the first ones to agree with some atheists that looking for God in DNA or geology is a fool's errand, and they'll go on to say it's also bad theology. (Mysticism hasn't fared as well in Christianity, though, unfortunately.)

 

By the way, on the evolution of language, I like how well this little table sums up so much... I also take a little perverse pleasure in how it knocks down whatever pride we had that human language and reason were evolved to serve all these noble human things like reason or understanding... The evidence points more in the direction of the talking & thinking being first at the service of venial gossip, and it seems the rest of it is just along for the ride. Natural selection it seems could have cared less about our noble self-image. Ecco homo.

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I wonder if anyone has tried to make more accurate proto-languages using that insight?

 

As for Atlantis as the "founder of all written language", well... that has been pretty clearly

debunked via Egyptian records that show their proto-hieroglyphs (not to mention other

earlier inscriptions on eggshells in Africa...).

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