Word: atlantises
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There can be no controversy about the beauty of such fabulous finds, but arguments do rage over the question of whether or not they point to Plato's legendary Atlantis. Some scholars still insist that Plato was "resting his mind" and writing a moral fable when he described Atlantis...
The philosopher may have been doing a bit of both. His story placed Atlantis out beyond the "pillars of Hercules" (the Strait of Gibraltar). The mighty island kingdom, he related, sank beneath the sea 9,000 years before his time. But the specific details and descriptions that Plato gives indicate...
Among the many points cited in support of that contention are ones that Plato cannot have known, but that present-day archaeology confirms. For example, Plato puts sacred bulls at the center of the Atlantean religion; the so-called bull dances of the Minoans are familiar enough to all prehistory...
What about Plato's insistence that ancient Atlantis sank from sight "in a day and a night"? Minoan Crete did nothing of the kind, of course, but Santorini did sink. Moreover, its sudden destruction brought down Crete, and with Crete went the whole Minoan civilization.
Plato capped his story of Atlantis with a stern moral. For generation after generation, he related, the people "easily bore the burden, as it were, of the vast volume of their gold and other goods; and thus their wealth did not make them drunk with pride so that they lost...