James Cameron links find of bronze-age anchors to lost city of Atlantis

[Skywizard]

The mystical nature of Atlantis has made it a popular subject of books,
television and and movies.

MEGA-MYTH

Is there more to Atlantis than just an ancient fireside tale?

The idea exploded among the modern popular imagination with pseudoscientific books such as Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods in 1968 and, more recently, the likes of Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock.

Atlantis has been linked to just about everything: The pyramids were really an astral power station to charge its technology. Its survivors seeded just about every ancient civilisation. It was buried under Antarctica’s ice (or off the Bahamas, or Japan, or just about any mysterious place).

There are more plausible, though equally unproven, theories.

It could be a distorted memory of the Black Sea Flood which saw a vast swath of Europe engulfed about 5600BC. Or a memory the Minoan palace vaporised on the island of Santorini erupted, sending tsunamis through the Eastern Mediterranean at some point around 1600BC.

That last one looks particularly enticing.

But the fact remains all we really have is a few throwaway lines included in two moral tales written by the Greek philosopher Plato. Most academics feel this was likely to have been an allegorical warning to the then vibrant city-state of Athens not to turn its back on the gods.

James Cameron’s Atlantis Rising documentary series has been picked up
by National Geographic.

CAMERON’S TWIST

Oceanic explorer Robert Ballard beat Cameron to the Titanic in 1985. Now Cameron’s attempting to go one better.

“We set out to investigate the most interesting theories that argue that there is some kind of history behind the myth of Atlantis,” Cameron says.

Expedition leader Richard Freund (an archaeologist from the University of Hartford) is more ebullent: “This is the world’s most sophisticated and extensive search ever made.”

It’s the most “sophisticated and extensive search ever made”. They use ‘cutting edge technology’ to explore a ‘virtual map’ built from Plato’s ancient writings.

While the show travels throughout Greece, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean tracking ‘sightings’ of Atlantis, much is made of the discovery of a cluster of Bronze Age anchors on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar — which some believe to be the “Pillars of Hercules’ Plato states the civilisation was ‘beyond’.

“These anchors could be 3500 to 4000 years old and establish a harbour in the Atlantic, where I didn’t even dare dream to find anchors,” filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici said in a statement. “It’s easier to find a needle in a haystack than Bronze Age anchors in the Atlantic.”

The fun part will be linking them to Plato’s 4th Century BC writings.

The ancient Minoan civilisation, based on Crete, was an advanced race of
ocean-going traders. Snake and bull worshipping goddesses feature
prominently among their art.

ANCHORED IN REALITY?

Plato mentions Atlantis in his works ‘Temaeus’ and ‘Critas’, but provides only an outline sketch of this mysterious civilisation.
He describes it as an island, formed of concentric rings. At its heart was a great city. It’s inhabitants were half-god and half-human. They were rich in resources and mysterious metals. They were proficient seagoers.

The story goes that, through their greed, they upset the great god fo the sea Poseidon. So he got rid of them through enormous earthquakes and floods.

There is one historic event that fits Plato’s tale remarkably well.

It’s the story of the eruption of the volcano Thera (now called Santorini) in 1650BC.

Archaeologists in recent decades have uncovered the remains of an ancient settlement there belonging to the then remarkably advanced Minoan civilisation.

Among the ruins they found a map. It shows a palace on an island in the middle of volcanic caldera.

The fallout of the eruption, and its subsequent tsunamis, are believed to have triggered the collapse of the entire civilisation as it engulfed much of northern Crete.

Into the ruins marched tribes of Greeks - the predecessors of the great nations of Sparta, Corinth and Athens.

So the idea that the disaster that destroyed the Minoans may have somehow wound its way through the centuries down to Plato certainly seems enticing. Though unsubstantiated.





Source: http://www.news.com.au/technology/sc...c769dffef14670


peace...

[Justplain]

If Mr. Cameron was really serious about finding solid evidence of Atlantis he'd consult Edgar Casey's A.R.E. foundation which has done lots of work uncovering the Bimini Road, finding a submerged wall in the same area, etc. There has also been found a submerged pyramid structures found off Cuba.:

https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readi...eries/atlantis

Not to mention the Pyrri Reis map that shows details of atnarctica below the ice.

Oh, and there's the ancient pyramids on tennerife in the Canary islands. Where did they come from?:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancie...enerife-003232

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Could be interesting, but I hope it's not another wild goose chase. Atlantis was not Santorini, and it cannot be found in the Mediterranean.

[annunaki1]

ENDGAME II: The Antarctic Atlantis and Ancient ET Ruins
http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/d...9-endgame-pt-2

David wilcock proposes that Atlantis is actually located under the ice in Antarctica which used to be located in a temperate climate but was moved in pole shift/crustal displacement event as first proposed by charles hapgood,wilcock claims that he has whistleblower testimony of the discovery of ancient ruins that have been excavated and pyramids that have recently became visable due to melting ice,this is a very interesting theory but wether or not these ruins could actually be atlantis remains to be seen as the Piri Reis map does not show the islands made up of concentric rings as stated by Plato

https://youtu.be/GglQufNSEho

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Just got to see this as it aired in the UK last night – and oh boy. Sorry for the cynically tone of voice in this, but my review and analysis of this show is sadly not at all complimentary!

It may have had all the credentials of a scientific study of Atlantis, but it lacked in equal measure all the investigative qualities made kindergarten-easy by their AUTHORATATIVE GO-TO GUIDE, which they openly endorsed and subsequently quoted throughout the two hours, and that was Plato's "Timaeus" and "Critias". But they failed to follow even the simplest of Plato's instructions, chasing one flawed premise after another, choosing to cherry-pick only convenient aspects of the writings, while blatantly ignoring other (and most) important points.

I knew this was a thoroughly mainstream production, but with Cameron on board I had hoped for an infusion of creativity or at least some integrity, in that one or two trends might be bucked, and go out on a limb somewhat. No such luck. Instead we were led into many a familiar blind alley and wild goose chase. Some of the conjecture was pretty wild, and at times moronic.

Throughout the show, Atlantis was referred to as 'an island', and that's true, Plato did call it an island. But these researchers also called it a city, lots of times, and worst of all, a 'port'. So for the best part of the two hours we are presented with the most likely locations "for Atlantis based on Plato's writings", and bizarrely and unbelievably they amounted to: Santorini, Sicily, Malta, and Sardinia, and then for a long time on a small cove in southern Spain. We were even sent several hundred miles inland, into a Spain, to look at a pile of ancient stones on a hilltop. All of which is in thorough opposition to Plato, because he says (in bold)


1.
"This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean"

In the first instance, Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean (AtlantiC/AtlantiS you see?). Not the Mediterranean. I could not understand why they were looking in the Mediterranean. This detail by Plato, made so obviously, was totally ignored.

2.
"…and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean...for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour...having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent."

The 'opposite continent' is by fair reason alone, almost certainly America. Plato makes it relatively clear that Atlantis lies between us (Europe), and this opposite continent (America). The "this sea" Plato mentions, where he is located, is the Mediterranean, and therefore he implies a second time that where he is in the world is other than where Atlantis was located. Details totally ignored.

3.
"the island (Atlantis) was larger than Libya and Asia put together."

Libya is large, (not perhaps as large in Plato's times as today), and Asia to Plato would've been Asia Minor, also known as Turkey. Therefore we can imagine he is not referring to a tiny speck of land, like Santorini, nor even a large speck of land like Malta or Sardinia (none of which are in the Atlantic anyway!). A conservative estimate for Plato's Atlantean landmass, based on Plato's account, would be approximately the size of Spain and France combined, or roughly the size of Alaska. This point is ignored altogether, as they waste time looking at interesting but nonetheless irrelevant archaeological sites in the Mediterranean.

4.
"The whole country [of Atlantis] was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre of the island two thousand stadia."

Plato is even more specific, in driving home this point about size, by describing an extensive plain, 3,000x2,000 stadia in size. One stadia is about 606ft. By this calculation, we can estimate the dimensions of the plain alone to be approximately 78,000 square miles. That's about the size of Nebraska!

5
"But afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea."

Surely the most obviously established fact of Atlantis was that it sank. It went below the waves and sank into the sea. So I was wondering why they spent so much time on land. On mountains and hilltops. Even by their own flawed assumption in looking for a 'seaport', they spent time, lots of time, miles in land searching for signs and clues of Atlantis up hills and in mountain caves. I hate to use the word agenda, but it seemed they were following some sort of scripted agenda or strategy to dumb down Plato, Atlantis and anything remotely associated with an advanced civilization that pre-dated the mainstream theories of ancient civilization. This whole program came across as almost a hit-piece against Atlantis.


6.
"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking."

Plato alludes to the timeframe in question for Atlantis, which is approximately Nine thousand years (ago). Or from our point of view today, some eleven thousand years ago. Yet constantly, from one stop to the next, the investigators pore over a variety of crumbling archaeological sites, cave drawings, and particularly bronze age settlements, because the bronze age is their target period; they categorically stated, that 3-5 thousands years ago is the correct timeframe (they are looking) for "the height" of Atlantis. It was nothing of the sort, as the very Platonic Bible they continued to cherry-pick from clearly says otherwise.


They only briefly touched on the Azores, which is really where the investigation should have started at, and remained. There was a brief exposé of some very striking archaeological sites in the Azores, including mysterious and certainly ancient Ziggurat-like structures, which apparently no one has ever studied. There you are, James Cameron! Make some history and investigate this ignored, and who knows, these potentially very important artefacts!

But no. The climax of the documentary centred on the very un-stellar discovery of...a stone anchor on the sea bed a few miles off the southern tip of Spain.

In summary, if they thought Plato's assertions to be so out of bounds with their versions of reality, why did they embark on this investigation based on Plato's writings in the first place!? They ignored everything of importance, anything that actually defined what Atlantis was, where it was, when it was, and what happened to it, concentrating only and exclusively on those aspects that might, with 'some strong and courageous imagination', and some wiggle room, just about fit in after all, and then only just, with the established mainstream narrative for 'History-according-to-US' (anything beyond that, such as an advanced civilization pre-dating Sumer or Egypt, being a quasi- thought crime).

[Foxie Loxie]

Thanks, Star Mariner, for the critique! I did enjoy Simcha J's "Secrets of Christianity" as it helped steer me in the right direction to understanding what has been wrong with the Christian System. Guess this points out that one needs to use one's own discernment about incoming "new" information!