Plato's original Atlantis is rather far from the popular image of the lost city, island and empire, promulgated through Hollywood and Disney now latest. What are the different views of Atlantis, and how have they come about?

The scholarly Atlantis - brief book summary
Defining Atlantis - Atlantis vs. Atlanticism
Science and Atlantis - clearing some misunderstandings

The scholarly Atlantis

As a point of reference, one has to consider what the dominating mainstream opinion is. A widely accepted scholarly hypothesis is that Plato had a specific purpose with the dialogues, and that he invented Atlantis to benefit his purpose. However, since he could have made the exact same point even if Atlantis had been based in reality, this argument proves nothing. Now some may object that science knows of no such place. That, however, is an argument based on ignorance, and as such inadmissible.

Atlantis from a (Paleo-)Geographer's Perspective

As this book and website shows, the more we learn about the past, the more plausible the tale seems to become - if we scale off the misunderstandings of later generations who did not have independent knowledge of the events. The author has studied the paleogeography of the end of the ice age for over a quarter century. Perhaps it was this background knowledge that promoted a different understanding of the tale? The feeling obtained at the first reading was that it reflected real-world events garbled by being transmitted by people who had no idea what it referred to; when they tried to clarify things, they instead mystified them. However, knowing what happened when and where in the paleogeography of Europe and the world, the core of the tale seems quite plausible.

Plato's Atlantis

Atlantis was a powerful island and empire based in the Atlantic Ocean, described by the Greek philosopher Plato who died 347 BC. There is no other original source. My study only concerns Plato's Atlantis, but since the dominating view of Atlantis today is far removed from that of Plato, I have to put it into perspective. The most important error to point out is that Atlantis was not a paradise; they were a rich and powerful empire that enslaved other people and subdued them with military force. Hardly an appropriate role model in the age of Universal Human Rights, is it?

Atlantis as an advanced civilization

The American author Ignatius Donnelly in 1882 radically reinterpreted and added to the tale. While Plato said that the Atlanteans were the richest ever, and the strongest military power ever, it was Donnelly who added that they had an advanced civilization, that theirs was the source of all other civilizations, and that their inhabitants were the Gods and Goddesses of later mythology.

Atlantis as an occult myth

Due to influence from the 1888 book by Ukrainian author Madame Helene B. Blavatsky, Donnelly's lost civilization of Atlantis became associated with occult ideas, with the Aryan race considered identical to the Atlanteans. Hitler's Third Reich was under influence of these ideas, which may have contributed the ¸bermensch ideal, and to motivate the Holocaust and German imperialism (cf. Goodrick-Clarke, 1985).

Modern Atlanticism

"Atlanticism" (Ashworth, 1980) is the belief in an ancient and hugely advanced human civilization that was destroyed (Danekenism, after Erich von D‰niken, is similar but considers the civilization of extra-terrestrial origin). In the last decades Atlanticism has spread in the Anglo-Saxon world, surely helped by the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE), which has methodically promoted the clairvoyant Atlantis accounts of Edgar Cayce, active 1923 to 1944.

Atlantis as cult archaeology

Walliss & Spencer (2003) recently examined Atlanticism as a spiritual movement, focusing on the best-selling author Graham Hancock. They point to a lack of scientific method in the presentation, and ambivalence towards science, leaving only an infotainment product in the "spiritual supermarket". The appeal this may have, they conclude, is in hinting that the alleged Atlanteans were some sort of superheroes, and that their achievements might be attainable again in the future. On a deeper level, though, they find that Hancock's Atlanticism draws on ideas of the imperialistic notion of the "White Man's Burden", and that it represents a Western appropriation of history from the peoples who really built those magnificent monuments (e.g. the Mayan and the Egyptian pyramids).

Science and Atlantis

As the title Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective suggests, the topic of the book is a scientific analysis of Plato's Atlantis. The result of the study is that Atlantis was nothing else than a glorified version of our very own Western Stone Age. Ironically, it means that the Nazis had the "Atlantean" monuments right under their noses the whole time, as northern Germany is full of megalithic tombs.

Why some Atlanticist objections are wrong

Atlanticists may object that the Irish were no übermensch, that they had no advanced technology, no psychic powers, no flying machines, no magic crystals, and so on.

On the spiritual level that critique would be wrong. Irish folklore does present the Tuatha de Danann as some kind of übermensch that came flying through the air to Ireland, who mastered magic, and later made themselves invisible and live on as fairies in the megalithic tombs (which is why the book's subtitle is Mapping the Fairy Land).

Plato's Atlantis on the other hand, does not fit this description. Only the modern "cult Atlantis" does. One may wonder, how come the Atlanticist ideas fit Ireland but not Atlantis?

Nor is the lost homeland under the sea an alien idea for Ireland. In my book I suggest that it may be an Irish legend of the sinking of Dogger Bank, which has inspired the myth of Atlantis' sinking in Plato's tale. Consider also the Cornish myth of Lyonesse, the city that sank in the sea but that will one day rise again.

Ignatius Donnelly was of Irish blood, and most Atlanticist authors are of British heritage, two islands replete with Celtic and pre-Celtic mythology. Would it be too bold to propose that they have interpreted the Atlantis tale from the point of view of their own Irish/British traditions? Is Atlanticism a 21st century reincarnation of Irish folklore with roots in the Stone Age? If so, the tale has indeed travelled full circle.

Why some "scientific" objections are un-scientific

Non-experts eager to defend science may object that Stone Age Ireland was too primitive to have been the model for Plato's Atlantis. This is far from the truth. Just as we tend to overestimate Atlantis, we tend to underestimate the Stone Age, specifically the Megalithic Culture, and most of all the one on Ireland.

Even though monuments such as Newgrange and Knowth do stand there in the landscape as a witness to their own existence, I get the impression that the Irish authorities try to limit the number of visitors. Newgrange is deliberately made inaccessible, allowing only a few hundred visitors per day. Furthermore, Irish archaeologists - like those of many other countries burned by the tendency to exploit archaeology in the service of nationalism - are unwilling to admit to the uniqueness of the island's archaeology. For instance, some Irish archaeologists have been reluctant to accept sixth millennium ¹⁴C ages obtained by Swedish archaeologists.

This has led to Newgrange being the surely least known monument on the planet in relation to its age and magnificence (it is contemporary with the Sumerian culture in present Iraq, the world's oldest civilization). The megalithic period was not primitive, and the same can be said of the Kongemose Culture, which vanished at about the same time as Dogger Bank sank. They were much more advanced than the common image of cave men, but far from the übermensch of the Atlanticists. They were probably very similar to you, dear reader.

Megalith enthusiasts embracing the theory

Several amateur megalith enthusiasts have expressed that the theory makes a lot of sense to them. Official guides and archaeologists have said the same thing off record. Based on what they know, they realize just how unique Ireland is in that time of human history.

The bottom line is that the study of Atlantis must be based only on original sources, and only on strict science. The potential benefit of doing so is immense, though. Having identified Ireland is only the beginning.

REFERENCES
Ashworth, C.E., 1980. Flying Saucers, Spoon-Bending and Atlantis: A Structural Analysis of New Mythologies. Sociological Review, 28(2):353-76.
Blavatsky, Helene B., 1888. The Secret Doctrine: Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy.
Donnelly, Ignatius, 1882. Atlantis: The Antidiluvian World.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, 1985. The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935.
Plato, ca 347 BC. Timaios and Kritias.
Walliss, John, & Spencer, Wayne, 2003. The Lost Aisle: Selling Atlantis in the "Spiritual Supermarket". Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 3.