Here's part of my take on the subject:
We see in the beginning of the story where Plato says the Atlas he's talking about, that Atlantis is named after and the ocean as well, is the son of Poseidon not Iapetos. If a story is going to be memorized as history, this one is already at odds with what the Greeks believed was the Theogony of their gods. As I've said, anyone in the room listening would immediately know this was a story for entertainment.
The time frame - the biggest bugaboo in the whole story. Had Plato not given a number of years at all, we would really be scrambling for the lost city. But he did give a date and even though it's contested, the contention doesn't stand up. It is said that the decimal was moved and that it was not 9 thousand years, but 900 years in the past. I've said that at 900 years in the past, it would still have been a well remembered place in Solon's time due to all the wonderful attributes Plato gave it. A magnificent city such as this and a power such as this, would not soon be forgotten. 900 years passing would not have erased the "world" memory of such a magnificent city of the original gods. All we have is a passing mention of Atlanteans by Siculus and Herodotus, talking about some peoples who lived on the north coast of Africa, but they do not describe these people in any way as Plato puts it. Herodotus is quite serious about the way he writes what he's told, and he certainly wasn't told the Atlanteans were a mighty power in the past. The Egyptians would have been quick I think, to brag to Herodotus that they had defeated such a power, had that been the case; and if there had been records in the temples when Solon had visited, surely the story would have persevered in other places and been known. In other words, 900 years would have been in the too recent past for Atlantis to have been gone and forgotten considering how mighty and powerful she was supposed to have been.
Back to the decimal. As I said previously, the ancient Greeks did not write the numbers as numerals. They wrote them as words and I'm sure the word for thousand could not be mistaken for the word hundred. (It's little things like this that really throw a person off when they're researching, because a little detail like this can debunk a whole theory). Therefore, there is no such thing as the decimal being moved - ESPECIALLY since the ancient Greeks didn't use the decimal system. Whether or not the measurements were in Greek stadia or Egyptian Stadia, isn't going to matter much unless a sunken circular city is actually found and measured, and then of course the resulting measurements will be qualified as either/or after the fact so the supposed found city will fit the bill like it's supposed to. I mean, here's us in our modern times thinking wow, how is it that Plato knew all these dimensions (or whoever told the story to the priest in the first place) of an enemy city, but didn't know who the warlords were! Maybe Plato made those measurements up as well Maybe that was his idea of the perfect allotment of land and the ideal setting for a city. One can definitely see where if there were rings of water around your city, you wouldn't be readily attacked, especially if those walls were hard to climb because they were covered with slippery metal, and if you happened to want to climb them when a storm struck, you'd be fried meat!!
Now I know we've mentioned this hundreds of times concerning the Triremes in the harbour. I'm sure we understand that Plato was describing the ships he was familiar with, because even if there were ships the size of Triremes 9000 years before Solon, how would Plato know what they were called or the Egyptians either unless of course a verbal story was handed down regarding these large ships. But, since science has so far proven that the oldest ships are 5000 years old, and that although they COULD sail in the ocean for short voyages, they wouldn't have been suitable for constant ocean travelling as would be needed for the Atlanteans if they were out in the Atlantic Ocean. Yes we have depictions on cave walls of boats from the far distant past, but we do not see depictions of Triremes from 9000 years before Solon.
Regarding the shoals of mud, it is my opinion using a bit of logic, that Plato is describing the sinking of a piece of land that is surrounded by shallow water and other land, not a piece of land out in the middle of the deep. Compare his description to Thera, where it is out in the deep. There would be no shoals of mud. There would be a deep cauldron. Therefore, this city of Atlantis, must be somewhere that the surrounding area is not deep enough to leave a cauldron, but instead, only deep enough to leave shoals of mud on the surface, disallowing passage. Most cities were built near rivers for access to the water for travelling as well as sustenance. We read about cities that are built on the shores near the ocean that are later destroyed and washed away, but man being a stubborn creature, rebuilds right next to the water again, and over and over his cities are taken by nature, and they blame it on the gods being angry!!! You say well, the city itself was maybe in the mouth of a river on this huge island. Ok, I'll buy that, but where's the big island? As I've said before, Spain was originally thought to BE an island, however, not by Solon's time, and definitely by Plato's time it was known that Spain was not an island. However, if Plato is using the "once upon a time, in a land far far away" tactic, then he could be relating to Spain when she was known as an island. First there was an island then there was no island then there was. (Words of an obsolete song - change island for mountain in the song!) (Also it would fit with the sailors' stories of a sunken city beyond the straits).
Edited by Qoais, 15 November 2009 - 10:11 PM.
An open-minded view of the past allows for an unprejudiced glimpse into the future.
Intuitive knowledge is knowledge beyond intellectual reasoning.
"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."