THE LOST CITY
OF
 ATLANTIS

Editorial note; This article was posted on the website: http://unxplained-factor.com/atlantis.htm with no author being listed. All due diligence was performed to discover the author of The Lost City of Atlantis. If you are the author, please contact us so that proper credit can be given.

Over 2,300 years ago, Plato wrote an account of an ancient City long forgotten; a thriving, wealthy, peaceful civilization known as Atlantis. The entire island was said to have disappeared into the Atlantic ocean after a day and night of fierce earthquakes and floods.

Ever since this first account was written, people of all ages and from all walks of life have been fascinated by the Legend. The world’s scholars and scientists have searched for evidence to suggest that Atlantis was once a real city. Many have staked their careers and reputations on their strong beliefs, yet the majority consider it to be a fairytale written by Plato to express his own aversion to war and corruption. However, recent discoveries are giving hope to the believers.

Why is it that after thousands of years, so many of us still search for the answer to this mystery? Did it exist or didn’t it? We can’t seem to let go of it, as if deep down we know it existed. Perhaps we possess some collective memory of it within our subconscious which doesn’t let us accept it as myth? Like the ghost of someone long gone that lingers on until the mystery of their death has been resolved; they can finally be at peace … their story having been told.

Ever since the first recorded history of Atlantis, written by the Greek philosopher Plato over 2,360 years ago, debate has raged as to whether or not Atlantis ever really existed. Plato described it as an extraordinary Utopian society, thriving around 9,600 BC, which valued peace, art and wisdom, possessed advanced technological knowledge for the time, and enjoyed riches beyond that of any subsequent civilization. The land was said to have been very fertile, with abundant food, water, animals, wood, and flowers. But, as the story goes, after several generations of ruling the leaders became increasingly greedy and corrupt, and started to wage war on their neighboring countries. They conquered parts of North Africa and Europe and were about to attack Egypt and Athens, when the Athenian army valiantly drove them back and defeated them. It is shortly after this victory by the Athenians that violent and devastating earthquakes, and the resulting tidal waves and floods, destroyed the Athenian army, as well as the entire Island continent of Atlantis, submerging it beneath the sea “in a single day and night”. The question is : Did Plato write this as a moralistic story, or as a true historical account?

Plato’s two writings pertaining to Atlantis are the “Timaeus”, and the “Critias”, written in 360BC, at which time Plato would have been aged about 67 or 68. These are the earliest known written records about the Lost Continent of Atlantis, all other written references to Atlantis have been written since, and have been based on these writings by Plato

The Timaeus and the Critias are actually written in the form of dialogues between four main characters: Socrates (Greek philosopher, and Plato’s teacher), Critias (poet and historian), Timaeus (Italian astronomer.), and Hermocrates (a general from Syracuse). All were real people. The Timaeus includes only a passing reference to Atlantis, but the second writing, the Critias, has a much more in depth description of Atlantis leading up to its downfall.

The story is told by the character Critias, who was possibly Plato’s maternal great-grandfather. Critias had heard the story as a child from his own Grandfather, Critias the Elder, who had heard it from his father Dropides, who had heard it from his friend Solon, a great Athenian Law-giver reputed to have been an honest and true man. Solon had been told the story of Atlantis during his stay in Sais, Egypt, by an elderly Egyptian priest who claimed to have acquired the knowledge directly from ancient records in his keeping.

After hearing of the account, Solon had intended to record it himself, for posterity’s sake, but for one reason or another he never did. Just for the record, Solon really did visit Sais, Egypt, although the date Plato gives for this is about 20 years off. This at least is an indisputable fact.

The Egyptian records that the priest was referencing have, to this day, never been found. But there are theories that hidden in a hall underneath the sphinx, or in the top of the great pyramid, is a secret chamber containing ancient records of invaluable historical, and perhaps future, importance. Several excavations have been attempted to find this secret room, but all have lead to dead ends. It is unknown exactly where this rumor originated, it may have been Edgar Cayce, an American psychic and clairvoyant of the early 1900’s, who predicted (sometime before his death in 1945) that in 1998 a “Hall of Records” would be found. According to Cayce, the contents of the hall and the location are as follows: