Archaeology & History

Could an underwater mountain be the origin of the legend of Atlantis ?

By T.K. Randall
August 13, 2024 ·  8 comments

An artist's impression of Atlantis. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Віwуh / Wikimedia Commons Legend has it that Atlantis was a bustling, vibrant city driven by advanced technology that existed many thousands of years before even the ancient Egyptians had built the pyramids.

Today, the whole subject of Atlantis remains mired in controversy with many academics dismissing it as merely a story and others maintaining that it was inspired by real places and events.

As things stand, nobody can even agree on where Atlantis might have been situated and the story goes that the entire city and the land on which it stood was lost to the waves in the distant past due to some cataclysmic event like a tidal wave or volcanic eruption, leaving no trace of it whatsoever.

But what if the Atlantis legend was inspired by something that we can still find evidence of today ?Most recently, researchers in Spain discovered a number of islands that were lost to the sea millions of years ago as part of a seamount located off the Canary Islands.

Situated 1.4 miles beneath the ocean and measuring 31km in diameter, this ancient seamount was home to several now inactive volcanos and has been named "Mount Los Atlantes" on the basis that it is located at one of the places were Atlantis was thought to have fallen beneath the waves.

According to project leader Luis Somoza, the seamount and its islands could have even been the origin of the Atlantis legend itself.

"They were islands in the past and they have sunk, they are still sinking, as the legend of Atlantis tells," he said.

Source: Live Science | Comments (8)

Tags: Atlantis