the myth of Atlantis in context

[Leonardo]

There are other similarities. Kelaino from the fragment by Hellanicus translates as “one who is dark” (from kelainos, meaning ‘dark’) while the Atlantean king Azaes and son of Poseidon (Ti. 114c) means “dark skinned” (Gill, C. [1980] Plato, the Atlantis Story: Timaeus 17-27, Critias. Bristol Classical Press, p. 61).

How is the meaning of the names of two differently named characters, in completely different contexts, meant to suggest a 'similarity'?

Atlantis or Atlantias is the title of the ancient work itself.

Most classicists translate the title as Atlantis. The "Atlantias" is a fringe translation.

The fragment has no title. The title it is given was assigned to in it modern times and is not known to be the title Hellanicus used for the work the fragment is from. i.e it is an assumed title only and so cannot support the supposed link to Plato's narrative.

Skeptics have never managed to prove Plato invented Atlantis as a false history or fiction.

That there is no "Atlantis-sized" land mass just beneath the surface of the Atlantic in the location Plato states it to be, is sufficient proof of the works fictional/falsely historical status.

Do you except the fact that Plato's dialogues on Atlantis contain genuine historical references?

In the same manner I accept many works of fiction can incorporate real-world places, people or events in them.

Someone posted the fragment. If you translate, it actually places Poseidon on the island.

The only reason a person could have for not placing a comma where the translation I linked to has one, is that they consider Hellanicus grammatically ignorant.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Leonardo

[Harte]

And you might want to try reading...

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You Might want to try reading...

Critias 109d-109e:

And of these citizens the names are preserved, but their works have vanished owing to the repeated destruction of their successors and the length of the intervening periods. For, as was said before,¹ the stock that survived on each occasion was a remnant of unlettered mountaineers which had heard the names only of the rulers, and but little besides of their works. So though they gladly passed on these names to their descendants, concerning the mighty deeds and the laws of their predecessors they had no knowledge, save for some invariably obscure reports; and since, moreover, they and their children for many generations were themselves in want of the necessaries of life, their attention was given to their own needs.

Yeah. "Hazy reports."

Actually, simply a fabricated aside, created as a means to explain why this Egyptian priest knew so much more about Athens than the Athenians did.

Harte

[Harte]

There are other similarities. Kelaino from the fragment by Hellanicus translates as “one who is dark” (from kelainos, meaning ‘dark’) while the Atlantean king Azaes and son of Poseidon (Ti. 114c) means “dark skinned” (Gill, C. [1980] Plato, the Atlantis Story: Timaeus 17-27, Critias. Bristol Classical Press, p. 61).

You should make at least a tiny effort to track that one down.

Dark-skinned in Ancient Greek:

Link

Link

Link

Link

Odd that nothing resembling Azaes can be found under "swarthy."

So, there's the search. Find it for us under "olive skinned" or "dark skinned" or "tanned" or whatever

I guess this is par for the course when dealing with someone that believes everything they read - including 2300 year old philosophical treatises wrapped in hypotheticals.

Harte

Edited February 7, 2014 by Harte

[docyabut2]

Plato

In this way, then, the names of the ancients, without their works, have been preserved. And for evidence of what I say I point to the statement of Solon, that the Egyptian priests, in describing the war of that period, mentioned most of those names—such as those of Cecrops and Erechtheus and Erichthonius and Erysichthon and most of the other names.

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/cparada/GML/MythicalChronology.html

[nico_k]

Perhaps you think your dealing with a lightweight. Unfortunately for you, the roles are actually reversed here. It is you that is the lightweight in this arena.

Harte

"Anyway, suspect all you want. I'm a high school math teacher, not a Masonic NWO disinfo agent, regardless of what Freight Thompson says!

Harte"

i did not know heavy hitters in this field were math teachers. to me the heavy hitters would be government geologists, archaeologists and the odd credentialed historian. i know that quite a few of them are spending government money as if the big circular structure and enclosure they have found are real. maybe you can stop the madness?

Edited February 8, 2014 by nico_k

[jaylemurph]

I think not much before the Greek and Roman language took control of history, there was a PIE in action -> meaning a root language composed of simple words, only pronounced differently from location to location. No rocket science, no thousand years plan, the prebabylon language was real and not that old.

Then you think wrong.

Or at least you fundamentally misunderstand anything written by the academic linguistic community in the last several centuries. If PIE is a real thing, as opposed to a purely reconstructed thing which may or may not have any bearing on an actual human language, it was no longer spoken -- or was significantly different in different areas -- by c. 3,500 BCE. The first record of Greek or Latin is not before 800 BCE.

...you've got at least /two thousand, five hundred years/ to account for. Which at the very least discredits your use of the term "not much" between the languages.

--Jaylemurph

[Van Gorp]

Then you think wrong.

Or at least you fundamentally misunderstand anything written by the academic linguistic community in the last several centuries. If PIE is a real thing, as opposed to a purely reconstructed thing which may or may not have any bearing on an actual human language, it was no longer spoken -- or was significantly different in different areas -- by c. 3,500 BCE. The first record of Greek or Latin is not before 800 BCE.

...you've got at least /two thousand, five hundred years/ to account for. Which at the very least discredits your use of the term "not much" between the languages.

--Jaylemurph

I fully understand what you call anything written by the academic linguistic community in the last several centuries.

But it is not my interest to memorize and reproduce it as a lemming.

If I can be as blunt: you seem not to understand that concerning linguistics not that much is known/studied as pretended.

Only a rough and abstract PIE construction based on a mythical view about how 'ancient' times of Romans and Greeks were.

If I see that many words in my language by classical etymology are only tracked down to an unknown Greek or Latin composed root which is in most cases 'uncertain' of origin, I don't feel the need to take that serious just because the influence in Germanic language can't be that big as we spoke a rooted language prior to Roman activity.

No need to argue further, I have my idea's others their that are not mine.

When you say I maybe think wrong, i can say most people that repeat what 'the' community has written tend to think not at all :-)

No offence.

[jaylemurph]

You're right. It takes two fools to argue.

I'll just note that you seem not be able to discuss basic points of historical linguistics, with the result that your pronouncements on that subject -- which seem to boil down to "I know better than people who have studied the field rigorously for years because I totes think for myself and don't need no stinkin' schoolin' " -- carry very little weight.

--Jaylemurph

Edited February 8, 2014 by jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

IMO: Plato must be a deceiver to insert the ancient Athens story if not an historical base.

When thinking it as only myth, no reason to admire the rest of his work.

You're trying to view the Atlantis story through the anachronistic lens of modern Western attitudes. Plato was not an historian, for one thing. He was a philosopher. To understand why the Atlantis story was important in his time, you have to know Plato and his time. What had happened to Athens in Plato's own time? Why might this be so similar to the construct of Atlantis? Start there to try to understand the story through the Athenian mind.

Moreover, for whom was the story written? It wasn't for Egyptians, Etruscans, Babylonians, or even for most Greeks. It was written for Athenians—but for that matter, more technically it was written for the elite of Athens. What message might Plato have been trying to deliver? Certainly not history.

There is no way if you want to use it as a mere tool to bring accross a point, that you should stress the fact that Solon confirmed it as a fact.

This is a bridge too far for a genuine philospher on truth.

No arguments seen to explain this fact.

Provide evidence that Solon himself actually did this. Let me save you the time: you won't find evidence. We have nothing from Solon himself—who wrote quite a lot—even to hint at some familiarity Solon had with the Atlantis tale. Plato tells us Solon knew the story. Why might Plato have done this? It wasn't for history.

[kmt_sesh]

...

Do you accept Troy as having been a real place? Schliemann had the Iliad in one hand and the spade in the other, I don't see why the same cannot be done for Atlantis. Why are skeptics anti-Atlantis but not anti-Troy?

My position is that Atlantis was a real place while denying anything spectacular about the island. Robert Scranton (whose theory is closest to mine) argued that Atlantis was a Neolithic drainage cove, my identification is with Sesklo. This is why our theories have academic credibility, but don't sell well. The only theories or books on Atlantis that make ££££ are the sensational or crazy ideas.

Thanks for the explanation about Sesklo. I admit not to being familiar with this particular theory, so when time permits I might have to look into it. Atlantis in Thessaly is a new one for me. I agree with you about the sensationalism that has accumulated around the Atlantis story through time, and especially in modern times. Still, with respect, I think you're trying really hard to find as much historicity in the story as is possible, where so much of it is historically implausible (and some if not a lot of it impossible).

Now, about Troy. I've always believed there is some kernel of truth in the legend, but separating fact from fiction is the tricky part. That some battle between Mycenaeans and Western Anatolians might have occurred is entirely believable, but obviously nothing quite like as portrayed in the Iliad. Nevertheless, I see your point with Troy but do not think the same argument can be made for Atlantis.

The story behind the Iliad is widely attested all over the ancient Greek world and beyond (it's even been found on papyrus fragments in Egypt used to wrap mummies). There are variations of the story from region to region. Homer is of course not its creator but only the person who apparently first penned it, or had it penned (theories on Homer vary from an illiterate bard to a mythical construct). So we have here a well-founded and abundantly circulated story stretching back probably to the Late Bronze Age, even if it wasn't first penned until the middle of the eighth century BCE.

Nothing of the same can be said of Atlantis. The story as told by Plato does not exist before Plato (as with other posters, I concur that Hellanicus has no relation to the Atlantis of Plato's writings). It pops up near the mid-fourth century BCE by Plato's talented hand. There's no evidence of which I'm aware that the story was widely circulated in the Greek world, until later writers elaborated on it. It's always struck me as ironic, in fact, that Timaeus and Critias are not major works of Plato, and yet because of Atlantis most ordinary people of today probably think they're the only things he wrote.

There's also no archaeological findings in the Mediterranean world that would support Plato's story. That's always been a sticking point with me. Puzzler once made a valid argument that perhaps it originates with the Minoans. I myself do not think so, but in truth it's the only ancient civilization with whom the Greeks interacted that suffered such a fatal catastrophe. It limits all of us that the Minoan Linear A remains undeciphered, so if it ever is solved and linguists discover the Minoan name for the Knossos palace was something like "Atlantish," I shall have to eat my words.

But a cautionary note about Heinrich Schliemann. As well read as you are I imagine you've read David Traill's Schliemann of Troy, which I personally found very interesting. No one doubts Schliemann's passion for the Iliad and his lifelong desire to find the historical Troy, but in the end the man, as well intentioned as he was, was a self-promoting hack. He did not find the site of Hissarlik but certainly capitalized on it—and did untold archaeological damage. It also needs to be stressed that archaeologically speaking, there is no consensus that Hissarlik is the historical Troy.

[kmt_sesh]

Maybe i do not fully understand what you mean with an understood language (roots and all).

You mean in Greek all roots are understood and we should look where Germanic roots share these roots?

This one post of yours that I'm quoting stands for all of your other posts about the origin of the word "Atlantis." While there's a lot of conjecture about the linguistic origin of the word, your use of Germanic languages is far off tangent and represents a thing we at UM like to call Lego linguistics.

For one thing, PIE would not be at play here. As hotly disputed as PIE is as a reconstructed language, that something of the sort existed is beyond a doubt. Your implying that the word Atlantis seems to have originated to some degree among the PIE speakers of the Pontic-Caspian steppe at least 6,000 years ago. Your basing your argument on the roots of words. Can you establish this with supported research? I have to wonder, because in one post you claim to be familiar with the study of languages but in another you deride proper historical linguistic research? Which is it? Unless you possess a demonstrable expertise in ancient Indo-European languages, your word alone is hardly sufficient. Is it?

"Atlantis" was part of the ancient Greek language. Plato would've spoke and written in Attic Greek. Whatever the precise origin of the word might have been prior to entering Greek dialects, I cannot think of any other ancient Mediterranean language that had the same or a similar word meaning the same or similar thing. Of course I do not profess to be an expert in all ancient Mediterranean languages, but let's look at the "lant" portion of it, which you claim to be Germanic. In Plato's time the peoples of northernmost Europe speaking such a tongue had lately come out of proto-Germanic. How do you attempt to prove that a part of or all of the word "Atlantis" came from a Germanic tongue but then ended up in Attic Greek?

Given that "Atlantis" appears in writing only in Greek prior to and in Plato's time, the Attic Greek word for "land" was not "lant" (or anything similar to it).

You've dug yourself into a hole.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Here's a thought, could Atlantis be a pun or a portmanteau like "Utopia", which means literally "not a place" (was it Thomas Moore who coined it? Sod 18th century philosopher came up with the term while on a rant about idealism versus reality IIRC).

[Van Gorp]

You're right. It takes two fools to argue.

-- which seem to boil down to "I know better than people who have studied the field rigorously for years because I totes think for myself and don't need no stinkin' schoolin' " -- carry very little weight.

--Jaylemurph

:-) Fool's play. I think there is some reflection at work.

In case of knowing better. Some posters can't stand the fact that people can have different thoughts compared to what is 'accepted'.

It's safe to hide oneself behind the accepted, Action gives reaction, I'm not interested in getting accepted,or deliver prove, just stating my thoughts at the noissance of the puritans commune here.

It's a delight :-)

[Van Gorp]

a thing we at UM like to call Lego linguistics.

Given that "Atlantis" appears in writing only in Greek prior to and in Plato's time, the Attic Greek word for "land" was not "lant" (or anything similar to it).

You've dug yourself into a hole.

I know to well what you call the basics of language.

You know why lego is called lego: it's the law of language my friend.

And the law is layed down, neer-gelegd. Lego is leggen, everychild knows this, but the seriously overstudied lemming has to look it up in the lex-icon.

:-)

For the rest: same reply as to the Murph

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

I know to well what you call the basics of language.

You know why lego is called lego: it's the law of language my friend.

And the law is layed down, neer-gelegd. Lego is leggen, everychild knows this, but the seriously overstudied lemming has to look it up in the lex-icon.

:-)

For the rest: same reply as to the Murph

Lego does not mean leggen (thats not even a word in Danish), its called lego because it is an abreviation of "Leg godt" (play well).

Every child in Denmark knows that !

[Frank Merton]

Now all this time I thought Lego Language was a description of doing something the way a child does with lego logs. If it fits, use it, regardless of real history.

[Leonardo]

Now all this time I thought Lego Language was a description of doing something the way a child does with lego logs. If it fits, use it, regardless of real history.

Which shows how important context is in both linguistics and history.

[aquatus1]

I know to well what you call the basics of language.

You know why lego is called lego: it's the law of language my friend.

And the law is layed down, neer-gelegd. Lego is leggen, everychild knows this, but the seriously overstudied lemming has to look it up in the lex-icon.

The problem with thinking that learning from people more knowledgeable than oneself equates to nothing more than memorization and recitation (which...lemmings...are known for?) is that it causes people to mistake confident ignorance for independent thought.

[Frank Merton]

Usually when someone dismisses some foundational or important scientific knowledge, it merely indicates ignorance, but that is not always so. I think a close reading of the disagreement is needed, or maybe follow up questions, before the ignorance label is appropriate.

I have several times been falsely accused of ignorance on things I knew better than the accuser: of course it was not because I expressed disagreement but because the accuser was a little ignorant. Those cases call for even more caution.

[Van Gorp]

Lego does not mean leggen (thats not even a word in Danish), its called lego because it is an abreviation of "Leg godt" (play well).

Every child in Denmark knows that !

Nice input.

Language is playing with words (in my language "to play" is "spelen" and "to spell" is "spellen"), but for me they then had better called the lego block game legodt if it really means play well.

Not logical imo. I keep it calling laegge if you don't mind.

Etymology

From Old Dutch *leggen, from Frankish *lagjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną. Compare German legen, English lay, Danish lægge.!!!!!!

Edited February 8, 2014 by Van Gorp

[Van Gorp]

Now all this time I thought Lego Language was a description of doing something the way a child does with lego logs. If it fits, use it, regardless of real history.

indeed, if it fits you lay it down.

[aquatus1]

So, you can decide what words mean and where they originate from, but the people who created a word to name something they invented can't?

[Frank Merton]

If you invent something you usually draw from your own language or maybe a classical language (a Vietnamese might draw from English or French or Chinese as well as from Vietnamese) to name it. That way you draw from the linguistic history of the sounds.

To say that two words have the same root requires more than just similarity of form and meaning, as it could be a borrowing or just a coincidence. The word in Vietnamese for the internet is "internet." That does not mean Vietnamese and English are related.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

Lego was invented by Ole Kirk Christiansen from Billund (Denmark) in 1934, so if he decided to name his invention Lego, the name is Lego !

If you call it something else but Lego, be my guest, but it doesnt make you right.

Im born and raised in Denmark, so i think i know the language pretty well !

[The Puzzler]

So, how is the word Atlantis proven Greek word when they don't even know the true etymology of the word Atlas. Since he's also a Titan god his name is more than likely pre- Greek.

Herodotus uses the same word for the sea Atlantis. If sea was already in the word (sea of atlas) why does Herodotus use the word sea/thalassa next to Atlantis...? Is he calling it the sea of atlas sea?

Why does an island name contain the word sea if it equates to sea of atlas?

Also, why does Plato give us a Greek translation for the name Gadeirus? Atlas twin. If the names are already Greek, why does he do that?