When one mentions the lost continent of Atlantis, one thinks of Plato's "Dialogues".
However, Plato's work was not the only one to point to a 'lost continent'. There are legends of other old civilizations that mention lost worlds which disappeared into the waters, as a result of volcanic eruptions, floods, and earthquakes. Some did not even mention the story, but drew a map with an island lying in the Atlantic Ocean.
Today people fight over the existence of Atlantis, but they all take into account one story, that is Plato's. We are not doing this though. While we do expose the theories and the ongoing research on this sunk land, we try to bind together everything we have to create The Atlantis, the base for "Dialogues", the base for Kircher's and Piri Reis's map, the course of the ancient legends. The result might not be called "Atlantis", but a variation of it. There are so many researchers that claim to have discovered "the lost continent", that any new found land can be a possible Atlantis. So the name becomes irrelevant to me.
We need to make a distinction between a pure story and reality.
Many scientists chose to seek Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea, others, along the shores of Africa and Europe, and America, and other decided that, since we have no actual prove of its existence underwater, we have to chase it on land, in Antarctica or South America. Some even claim that Atlantis has already been found in the Aegean Sea, on the Island of Santorini. We will cover these theories, but our purpose is to search for a bridge between the new world and the old world. In other words, even if Santorini was declared as Atlantis, we would still dig for something bigger, because Atlantis does not equal only Plato. His work is a source, but one of many.
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March 9, 2005 - Today I am puzzled. My search for Atlantis seems to bring back unexpected results and it is going the way I did not want it to go. Maybe Atlantis is some kind of faerie tale, but there must be something lost out there, even if its name is not Atlantis, even if it is not in the Atlantic Ocean.
What is Atlantis after all?
The more I read, the more confused I get. Plato's work is not enough; one has to go much more deeper. My journey took me to the Egyptians, to Herodotus, and the old Greek texts. The old Greek scholars cast a completely different light on the story. After years and years of believing just because funny evidence claims the existence of Plato's Atlantis, I reached a point where I ask myself: But did it really exist, as Plato said?
I pointed my finger to the Azores, I pointed it to Santorini, and now I am pointing to nothing, because I don't know what to say. I might as well reach the conclusion that Atlantis is, after all, Plato's story, based on some real events, but adapted.
If there was something else out there? Most probably. And this is what we need to find. I think that after Atlantis comes to a full stop, I need to go into the Pacific and the Indian Ocean and look for Mu and Lemuria. That might help.