Finding the Lost City of Atlantis

Proof that Plato’s Dialogues are both Historical and Allegorical

(Image Credit: Rocio Espin Pinar/ArtStation)

According to Alfred North Whitehead, philosophy “consists of a series of footnotes to Plato”, and this is particularly interesting in regards to Atlantis. You see, according to academics, who are all the descendants of Plato’s Academy (including his best pupil, Aristotle), Atlantis was nothing more than a fictional island mentioned in an allegory regarding the hubris of nations. Granted, it’s true that in Timaeus and the unfinished Critias, Atlantis does represent an antagonist naval power that besieges “Ancient Athens”, which was the embodiment of the ideal state in The Republic. Nonetheless, Plato repeatedly stated that Atlantis was a real place, and I, for one, believe him. Truth be told, I think Plato lacked the kind of imagination that would have been necessary to create such a fantasy land in such great detail.

The thing is that like the great philosopher Socrates, Atlantis was much more than a mere literary device used by Plato. Ultimately, Socrates was a real person, and Atlantis was a real place, albeit somewhat fictionalized in Timaeus and Critias. This is especially pertinent since Plato is the oldest surviving written source of knowledge regarding the otherwise lost city. This means that archaeological evidence needs to be used to either prove or disprove what Plato wrote. That’s the best way to properly separate fact from fiction. As an example of what I mean by this, Plato stated that there were “alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller, encircling one another”. The way he described it, “there were two of land and three of water”. So, my point is that the ruins of the city should be unmistakable.

This was ancient city planning at its finest, expertly fusing sacred geometry with utility, combining the land and sea. As part of this, the first land ring was the religious sector of the city, where priests performed sacrificial rites in temples, primarily devoted to the god of the ocean who was a powerful merman deity, much like Poseidon in the ancient Greek pantheon. In addition to that, the second land ring housed the soldiers that gave the Atlanteans their military might. They were well-equipped with 10,000 battle-ready chariots, among many other implements of war. As part of that…