A book by Peter James

“A roller-coaster ride through Plato’s thought (brilliantly done), ancient Greekand Hittite history, with a stern message at the end of it. Superb.” Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian, 26 September 1996).

“… certainly the best treatment of the subject I have seen in years. The Sunken Kingdom is a considerable achievement… James has provided us with a benchmark in Atlantean studies. Alternative interpretations will have to answer the points he raises or provide a more convincing alternative - and that may be very hard to do.” (Steve Moore, Fortean Times 85, Feb/March 1996).
“… a tour de force, comparable in clarity of writing, wealth of material, and boldness of purpose to The White Goddess.” (Andro Linklater, The Spectator, 11 November 1995)

Overview

The Sunken Kingdom provides a solution to a mystery which has baffled scholars for nearly 2,400 years - since Plato first wrote about Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. Written by an outstanding historian and archaeologist, this book takes an entirely new approach. It reviews previous theories, some fantastic, some more rational, and shows why they will not work. Atlantis could not have been in the Atlantic, nor was it the volcanic island of Santorini near Crete, as currently held. Through a careful analysis of the sources, it becomes clear that the story of Atlantis came from western Turkey, where a major Bronze Age city was devastated by an earthquake and submerged beneath a lake.
Here is a work of detective scholarship as controversial as the author’s Centuries of Darkness, which put an overwhelming case for the redating of the ancient world. Besides precisely citing the original Atlantis, the book provides a convincing explanation of how and why the destruction of the city grew into the story of a ‘lost continent’.

Introduction

Nearly 2,400 years ago the Greek philosopher Plato posed a riddle which has baffled scholars ever since: was his story of the lost continent of Atlantis a complete fabrication, or did some historical reality lie behind it?

The possibility of a real Atlantis, in the terms that Plato described it, has long gone. For all its romantic appeal, the idea of a prehistoric super-civilization on an Atlantic continent is vanishingly unlikely. So was Plato simply writing science fiction? The sheer scale of everything he said about Atlantis might suggest so - from the grandeur of its buildings to the enormous timescale involved. Atlantean civilization, according to Plato, began even earlier than that of the Egyptians. On his chronology, Atlantis flourished about 10,000 years ago, before it vanished in a single night of earthquake and flood.

This information Plato claimed to have received through his family, which had preserved it through several generations from the great Athenian statesman Solon who supposedly collected it during his visit to Egypt in c. 565 BC.

The improbability of Plato perpetrating a complete fraud, involving deceased members of his family and the revered Solon, has led many to assume that there must be some substance to these claims. While Plato always added his own slant to traditional material, he has never been shown to be guilty of wholesale fabrication. As the possibliity of an Atlantic Atlantis became geological heresy in the 1960s, some scholars turned to the idea that the story was a memory of the glorious civilization of Bronze Age (Minoan) Crete. The explosion of the volcanic island of Thera (Santorini) about 1500 BC was argued to have provided the mechanism both for the destruction of the Minoan civilization and for an Egyptian belief in a lost kingdom ‘to the west’.

Under close analysis, however, this theory breaks down. Plato described a catastrophe involving earthquake and flood, yet the Thera event was a volcanic explosion. The Greeks were reasonably informed about ancient Cretan civilization - as echoed in the stories of Minos, Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth - so it seems unlikely that they would have, first, learnt about Crete from the Egyptians, and second, not recognised what their source was ostensibly describing. It also became clear by the 1980s that the explosion of Thera did not, after all, bring about the end of Minoan civilization. It was time for a new approach to the Atlantisproblem.

Most theories about Atlantis have been constructed by believers, who have identified its ‘real’ site in myriad locations from the British Isles and Greenland to Carthage and Thera. On the other side are the sceptics who have dismissed the search for Atlantis as futile. Many years ago I decided that the only way forward was to suspend any naive hope of finding a ‘real’ Atlantis, and to concentrate instead on the key question: can we identify a source behind Plato’s claims? It had an unexpected bonus.

The crux of the problem is the supposed Egyptian connection. The ancient Egyptians took a dim view of foreigners and the idea that they preserved a detailed tradition describing two remote civilizations - Atlantisand its rival Athens - is highly improbable. Even more far-fetched is the idea that the Egyptians, who took pride in being the ‘oldest’ civilization, could have recorded events which took place a thousand years before their own beginnings.

Alternatively, is it possible that Plato was right that Solon gathered the story on his travels, but mistaken in assuming that this was during his famous visit to Egypt? Solon travelled elsewhere, notably to the kingdom of Lydia in western Anatolia (Turkey). There, at the court of king Croesus - proverbial for his riches, but historical nonetheless - Solon is said to have swopped stories not only with the king, but with the great fable-writer Aesop.

It was to Anatolia that many other clues began to lead, beginning with Atlas, the famous Titan of Greek myth who was condemned to the edge of the world to support the skies when his race was defeated by Zeus and the Olympians. Atlas, Plato tells us, was the first king - and eponym - of Atlantis. Analysis of the myths surrounding Atlas and his family suggests that the Greeks believed that his ‘home’, before he was banished to the west (i.e. the ‘Atlantic’), lay to the east and that the Greeks may have learnt the idea of the sky-supporting giant from that quarter. This is confirmed by a mass of pictorial and literary evidence from the Hittite civilization of Bronze Age Anatolia, which provides exact parallels to the classical Greek concept of Atlas.

It was a short step from there to see what the classical traditions of Anatolia - and in particular Lydia - had to say about the ‘original’ Atlas. Classical scholars have long accepted that another mythological figure, Tantalus, is essentially a Lydian version of Atlas. Tantalus, too, crossed the Olympians, and was condemned to an eternal torment which gave us the word ‘tantalise’. In the version given by Homer his punishment was everlasting hunger and thirst, but the more common tale was of a rock which perpetually swayed over his head. Other versions say he was attached to the rock, that he was condemned to support it and that the ‘rock’ was the sky itself. And Tantalus, like Atlas, is once thought to have ruled an earthly kingdom. When Tantalus was struck by Zeus’ lightning for his sins, the city he founded was shattered by an earthquake and drowned beneath a lake. The name of his city was Tantalis.

I could have stopped with this bizarre mixture of cosmological myth and local tradition. There was already enough circumstantial evidence to vindicate Plato’s claim that he had not invented the Atlantis story. His putative source, Solon, could have picked up in Lydia the story of Tantalis which had all the key elements for its later exaggeration into Atlantis - from its fabulous wealth and transient empire to its catastrophic transformation into a ’sunken kingdom’. As Tantalus was identified with Atlas, the scene could have been mistakenly transferred to the far west, the location of Atlas after his downfall. Once in the Atlantic, the story of the ’sunken kingdom’ could grow uncontrollably during its retelling through the generations from Solon to Plato.

However, I was tempted to go further: could the site of the legendary Tantalis be located, and did such a place ever exist? Clues from classical writers such as Pausanias made it clear that Tantalus’ lost city was believed to lie near Mount Sipylus, modern Manisa Dagh, twenty or so miles inland from the modern port of Izmir (Smyrna) on the Aegean coast. Classical writers describe Tantalis/Sipylus not only as the original capital of Lydia, but as the ancestral seat of the Mycenaean kings. Substance was given to this by a lengthy text from the archives of the Hittite Emperors, composed about 1400 BC, describing the troubles they had with a vassal ruler from a western vassal in league with the Mycenaeans. His seat, ‘the mountain land of Zippasla’, can be reasonably located in Lydia, and identified with Sipylus. Slice by slice, the ruler of Zippasla (Madduwattas by name) swallowed up all the smaller states of western and southern Anatolia and even challenged Hittite authority in Cyprus. How far the men from Zippasla got is hard to say - but Hittite authority was only properly re-established in Anatolia some fifty years later.

If the kingdom of Zippasla lay at Sipylus, where was its capital? Here history, archaeology and legend seem to converge neatly. When I went to Turkey in 1994 it was not too difficult to locate the site of legendary Tantalis. Until about thirty years ago there was a small lake just to the north of Mt Sipylus and a few miles away from a magnificent (and almost undatable) rock-cut tomb which Pausanias described as ‘the by-no-means inglorious grave’ of king Tantalus. A hundred and fifty years ago the lake was much bigger, and I was pleased, after doing the initial groundwork, to find that 19th-century scholars, including Sir James Frazer, had already identified it as the spot where the ancients believed the lost city lay submerged underwater. As the location for a real city, it would be hard to improve: it lies on a fertile plain between the ancient caravan route skirting the mountain and the river Gediz, main artery of Lydia. Yet we are not reliant on merely theoretical considerations. Three hundred feet up the mountain-side a thirty-foot sculpture of a Mother Goddess gazes out over the very spot where Tantalis was thought to lay. Pausanias claimed that it was carved by the son of Tantalus and that it dates to the Late Bronze Age is undeniable - from its style and from the Hittite hieroglyphics which were incised into the carving about the 13th century BC.

It would be strange to imagine that this unique sculpture was not prepared for the worship of a highly organised community, settled in the plain below. For this, and a host of other reasons, I am happy to believe that here there was once an important Late Bronze Age centre. Most likely it was the Zippasla of the Hittite documents and almost certainly it was the Sipylus or Tantalis of classical texts. For its fate we only have the traditions to go on, but the belief that it was totally devastated by an earthquake is not outlandish. The Izmir region, as travellers to Turkey will know, lies in one of the worst earthquake zones of the world, while the appalling damage suffered by the cities of Lydia during the great earthquake of AD 17 is well documented. Hopefully excavation will one day determine whether a Bronze Age city at Mt Sipylus - like the Atlantis of legend - was really destroyed by an earthquake and consigned to a watery grave.

THE STORY ATLANTIS

Over 11,000 years ago there existed an island nation located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean populated by a noble and powerful race. The people of this land possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources found throughout their island. The island was a center for trade and commerce. The rulers of this land held sway over the people and land of their own island and well into Europe and Africa.

This was the island of Atlantis.

Atlantis was the domain of Poseidon, god of the sea. When Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito, he created a dwelling at the top of a hill near the middle of the island and surrounded the dwelling with rings of water and land to protect her.

Cleito gave birth to five sets of twin boys who became the first rulers of Atlantis. The island was divided among the brothers with the eldest, Atlas, first King of Atlantis, being given control over the central hill and surrounding areas.

At the top of the central hill, a temple was built to honor Poseidon which housed a giant gold statue of Poseidon riding a chariot pulled by winged horses. It was here that the rulers of Atlantis would come to discuss laws, pass judgments, and pay tribute to Poseidon..

To facilitate travel and trade, a water canal was cut through of the rings of land and water running south for 5.5 miles (~9 km) to the sea.

The city of Atlantis sat just outside the outer ring of water and spread across the plain covering a circle of 11 miles (1.7 km). This was a densely populated area where the majority of the population lived.

Beyond the city lay a fertile plain 330 miles (530 km) long and 110 miles (190 km) wide surrounded by another canal used to collect water from the rivers and streams of the mountains. The climate was such that two harvests were possible each year. One in the winter fed by the rains and one in the summer fed by irrigation from the canal.

Surrounding the plain to the north were mountains which soared to the skies. Villages, lakes, rivers, and meadows dotted the mountains.

Besides the harvests, the island provided all kinds of herbs, fruits, and nuts. An abundance of animals, including elephants, roamed the island.

For generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them. When Zeus saw the immorality of the Atlanteans he gathered the other gods to determine a suitable punishment.

Soon, in one violent surge it was gone. The island of Atlantis, its people, and its memory were swallowed by the sea.

This is a summary of the story told by Plato around 360 BC in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. These writings of Plato are the only specific known references to Atlantis. They have prompted controversy and debate for over two thousand years.

Atlantis: Similarities between Plato’s beliefs, and today’s facts

Thera and Atlantis both experienced severe earthquakes and a volcanic eruption(s) so huge that only 5 islets, some no more than rocks, remain of Thera, and of Atlantis remained “small islets, only the bones of a wasted body”. See above map. Both were wealthy, highly developed cultures, concerned with art, beauty, entertainment and personal comforts and adornments.
Plato spoke of bulls hunted with ropes within a temple in Atlantis. Archaeological evidence has shown the Minoans built bull rings, hunting the animals with nooses, (the only example of this kind of “bullfight” in world history) and practiced “bull jumping”, either a sport or religious ritual. These practices gave rise to the legend (?) of the Minotaur, half man, half bull, secured within the labyrinth.
Atlantis was said to be situated near a gateway of rock; namely, the Pillars of Hercules. Though the Straight of Gibraltar had this name, there was a different location called The Pillars of Hercules, located in the Cyclades.
Atlantis was a powerful thalassocracy, and ruled areas “larger than Asia and Libya”, with “the docks full of tiremes (a kind of ship) and naval stores…the largest of harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts.” The Minoan area of sea control and economic influence included all of North Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Their fleet was unsurpassed in its size. Remember the ships? Since all the countries in these areas were not even aware of each other’s existence, certainly strange and exaggerated tales could have begun to circulate about the size, scope and wonders of the Minoan civilization.
Plato described Atlantis as alternating rings of sea and land, with a palace in the center “bull’s eye”. Interestingly, the remnants of post eruption Thera are circular around a deep, wide lagoon, with another small island located in the center of the lagoon. Perhaps Egyptians or other ancient travelers visited Thera long after the volcanic destruction occurred, misinterpreted the geographical remains of the island, and began the legend of the rings of Atlantis. Looking 70 miles south to crescent shaped Crete, the ancient traveler could have easily assumed the ring system of Atlantis reached as far.
Plato speaks of the stone quarried from under Atlantis; “one kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red”. The first sight of Thera that modern day tourists see is the sheer cliffs remaining when the rest of the island dropped into the sea, and these cliffs are a breathtaking mix of white, black and red stone. A unique sight in the Aegean world.
Archaeologists have found an extensive and sophisticated system of sewers, drainage, drinking and bath water pipes in Crete and Thera. Private homes had flush toilets and bathtubs. It appears Minoans heated their houses and had hot and cold running water from hydrothermal vents. Plato describes the “bringing up (of) two springs of water from beneath the earth… fountains, one of cold and another of hot water…there were the king’s baths and also the baths of private persons.”
Some may argue the fact of Plato saying that this civilization was destroyed “9000″ years ago, and the actual date from Plato’s time being closer to “900″ years ago. The reason is this:
The symbols for “900″ and “9000″ were simply written incorrectly after being copied time and time again.