There exist a variety of speculative proposals that real-world events could have inspired Plato's fictional story of Atlantis, told in the Timaeus and Critias. While Plato's story was not part of the Greek mythic tradition and his dialogues use it solely as an allegory about hubris, speculation about real natural disasters that could have served as inspiration have been published in popular accounts and in a few academic contexts. Additionally, many works of pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology treat the story as fact, offering reinterpretations that tie to national mysticism or legends of ancient aliens. While Plato's story explicitly locates Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, other proposed locations for Atlantis include Helike, Thera, Troy, and the North Pole.
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Most proposals for the location of Atlantis center on the Mediterranean, influenced largely by the geographical location of Egypt from which the story has literary antecedents.
Thera eruption
The story of Atlantis has been argued since the early twentieth century to have preserved a cultural memory of the Thera eruption, which destroyed the town of Akrotiri and affected some Minoan settlements on Crete.Frost, K. T. (1913): "The Critias and Minoan Crete", in: Journal of Hellenic Studies 33 (1913) 189–206. Balch, E. S. (1917): "Atlantis or Minoan Crete", in: The Geographical Review 3 (1917) 388–392. Marinatos, Spyridon (1950): "Peri ton Thrulon tes Atlantidos", in: Kretica Chronica 4 (1950) 195–213. Andrews, P. B. S. (1967): "Larger than Africa and Asia?", in: Greece and Rome 14 (1967) 76–79, Galanopoulos, Angelos G. (1960): "On the Location and Size of Atlantis", in: Praktika Akademia Athenai 35 (1960) 401–418.
In mainland Greece The classicist Robert L. Scranton argued in an article published in Archaeology that Atlantis was the "Copaic drainage complex and its civilization" in Lake Copais, Boeotia. Modern archaeological discoveries have revealed a Mycenaean-era drainage complex and subterranean channels in the lake.
Near Cyprus An American architect, Robert Sarmast, claims that Atlantis lies at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean within the Cyprus Basin.Sarmast, R., 2006, Discovery of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus. Origin Press, San Rafael, California. 195 pp. In his book and on his web site, he argues that images prepared from sonar data of the sea bottom of the Cyprus Basin southeast of Cyprus show features resembling man-made structures on it at depths of 1,500 meters. He interprets these features as being artificial structures that are part of the lost city of Atlantis as described by Plato. According to his ideas, several characteristics of Cyprus, including the presence of copper and extinct Cyprus dwarf elephants and local place names and festivals (Kataklysmos), support his identification of Cyprus as once being part of Atlantis. As with many other proposals concerning the location of Atlantis, Sarmast speculates that its destruction by catastrophic flooding is reflected in the story of Noah's Flood in Genesis.
In part, Sarmast bases his claim that Atlantis can be found offshore of Cyprus beneath of water on an abundance of evidence that the Mediterranean Sea dried up during the Messinian Salinity Crisis when its level dropped by below the level of the Atlantic Ocean as the result of tectonic uplift blocking the inflow of water through the Strait of Gibraltar. Separated from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea either partly or completely dried up as the result of evaporation. As a result, its formerly submerged bottom turned into a desert with large saline and brackish lakes. This whole area was flooded when a ridge collapsed allowing the catastrophic flooding through the Straits of Gibraltar. However, Sarmast disagrees with mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologistsStanley, D.J., and F.-C. Wezel, 1985, "Geological Evolution of the Mediterranean Basin" Springer-Verlag, New York. 589 p. Hall, J.K., V.A. Krasheninnikov, F. Hirsch, C. Benjamini, and C. Flexer, eds., 2005, "Geological framework of the Levant, Volume II: the Levantine Basin and Israel", 107 MB PDF version, Historical Productions-Hall, Jerusalem, Israel. 826 p. Additional PDF files of a related book and maps can be downloaded from "CYBAES manuscript downloads" in arguing that the closing of the Straits of Gibraltar; the desiccation and subaerial exposure of the floor of the Mediterranean Sea; and its catastrophic flooding has occurred "forty times or more times in its long and turbulent existence" and that "the age of each of these events is unknown." In the same interview, he also contradicts what mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologists argue in claiming that "Scientists know that roughly 18,000 years ago, there was not just one Mediterranean Sea, but three." However, he does not specify who these scientists are; nor does he cite peer-reviewed scientific literature that supports this claim.
Marine and other geologists, who have also studied the bottom of the Cyprus basin, and professional archaeologists completely disagree with his interpretations.Britt, R.R., 2004, Claimed Discovery of Atlantis Called 'Completely Bogus, Live Science. Investigations by Dr. C. Hübscher of Geophysical Institute of University of Hamburg and others of the salt tectonics and mud volcanism within the Cyprus Basin, eastern Mediterranean Sea, demonstrated that the features which Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis consist only of a natural compressional fold caused by local salt tectonics and a slide scar with surficial compressional folds at the downslope end and sides of the slide. This research corroborates seismic data shown and discussed in the Atlantis: New Revelations 2-hour Special episode of Digging for the Truth, a History Channel documentary television series. Using reflection seismology, this documentary demonstrated techniques that what Sarmast interpreted to be artificial walls are natural tectonic landforms.
Furthermore, the interpretation of the age and stratigraphy of sediments blanketing the bottom of the Cyprus Basin from sea bottom cores containing Pleistocene and older marine sediments and thousands of kilometers of seismic lines from the Cyprus and adjacent basins clearly demonstrates that the Mediterranean Sea last dried up during the Messinian Salinity Crisis between 5.59 and 5.33 million years ago.Emeis, K.-C., A.H.F. Robertson, C. Richter, and others, 1996, ODP Leg 160 (Mediterranean I) Sites 963-973 Proceedings Ocean Drilling Program Initial Reports no. 160. Ocean Drilling Program, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. For example, research conducted south of Cyprus as part of Leg 160 of the Ocean Drilling Project recovered from Sites 963, 965, and 966 cores of sediments underlying the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea at depths as shallow as 470, 1506, and 1044 meters (1540, 4940, and 3420 ft) below sea level. Thus, these cores came from parts of sea bottom of the eastern Mediterranean Sea that either lie above or at the depth of Sarmast's Atlantis, which lies at depths between below mean sea level. These cores provide a detailed and continuous record of sea level that demonstrates that for millions of years at least during the entire Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene epochs that the feature that Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis and its adjacent sea bottom were always submerged below sea level. Therefore, the entire Cyprus Basin, including the ridge where Sarmast claims that Atlantis is located, has been submerged beneath the Mediterranean Sea for millions of years. Since its formation, the sea bottom feature identified by Sarmast as "Atlantis" has always been submerged beneath over a kilometer of water.
Helike A number of classical scholars have proposed that Plato's inspiration for the story came from the earthquake and tsunami which destroyed Helike in 373 BC, just a few years before he wrote the relevant dialogues. The claim that Helike is the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis is also supported by Dora Katsonopoulou and Steven Soter.
Sardinia The concept of the identification of Atlantis with the island of Sardinia is the idea that the Italians were involved in the Sea Peoples movement (a similar story to Plato's account), that the name "Atlas" may have been derived from "Italos" via the Middle Egyptian language, and Plato's descriptions of the island and the city of Atlantis share several traits with Sardinia and its Bronze Age culture.Thorwald C. Franke: King Italos = King Atlas of Atlantis? A contribution to the Sea Peoples, in: Stavros P. Papamarinopoulos (editor), Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on "The Atlantis Hypothesis" (ATLANTIS 2008), 10–11 November 2008 Athens/Greece, Publisher: Heliotopos Conferences / Heliotopos Ltd., Athens 2010; pp. 169-180. Cf. Atlantis-scout.de Thorwald C. Franke: Mit Herodot auf den Spuren von Atlantis, Norderstedt 2006 (German)
Luigi Usai has claimed Atlantis could be beneath Sardinia and Corsica. Atlantis would be the bathymetrically submerged island whose plateaus form what we know as the islands of Sardinia and Corsica outside the surface of the water. The capital would have its center on a hill near the small town of Santadi, in the province of Cagliari. Starting from the hill next to Santadi, it's possible to see the perfectly circular development of all the town planning. He has also said there are also many toponymic references to the myth of Atlantis, including the two hot and cold water sources placed by Poseidon: the cold water source of Zinnigas, which still remains today also in the name of the "Castello d'Acquafredda" di Siliqua (Coldwater Castle), and the hot water source, present in the toponymy in three neighborhoods next to the small town of nuxis, still called "Acquacadda" (Hotwater), "S'Acqua Callenti de Susu" and "S'Acqua Callenti de Basciu" (Upper hotwater and Down hotwater), which are small villages next to Santadi.
Malta Malta, being situated in the dividing line between the western and eastern Mediterranean Sea, and being home to some of the oldest man-made structures in the world, is considered a possible location of Atlantis both by some current researchersTimes of Malta 2006-11-14: Is Malta really part of Atlantis? Retrieved 2011-05-08 and by Maltese amateur enthusiasts.Atlantis in Malta, Maltese website devoted to proving that Malta is Atlantis. Retrieved 2011-05-08
In the 19th century, the antiquarian Giorgio Grognet de Vassé published a short compendium arguing that Malta was the location of Atlantis. He was inspired by the discovery of the megalithic temples of Ġgantija and Ħaġar Qim during his lifetime.
In Malta fdal Atlantis (Maltese remains of Atlantis) (2002), Francis Galea writes about several older ideas, particularly that of Maltese architect Giorgio Grongnet, who in 1854 thought that the Maltese Islands are the remnants of Atlantis.Atlantipedia: The Maltese proponents Retrieved 2011-05-08 However, in 1828, the same Giorgo Grongnet was involved in a scandal concerning forged findings which were intended to provide a "proof" for the claim that Malta was Atlantis.Vgl. T. Franke: The Atlantis-Malta Hoax of Fortia d'Urban and Grognet from 1828 resp. August Boeckh, De Titulis Quibusdam Suppositis, in: The Philological Museum Vol. 2 / 1833; pp. 457-467
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