Atlantis Destroyed

243 Pages·1998·7.28 MB·English

by  Rodney Castleden

Atlantis
Destroyed
Atlantis Destroyed examines the legend of the famed lost continent of
Atlantis, whose description is found in Plato’s Timaeus and
Critias. Plato’s legend of Atlantis has become notorious among
scholars as the most absurd lie in literature. Atlantis Destroyed explores
the possibility that the account given by Plato is historically true. Rodney
Castleden outlines the latest research findings on Knossos and bronze
age Thera, demonstrating the parallels between Plato’s narrative
and the Minoan civilization in the Aegean.
Rodney Castleden first considers the location of Atlantis re-examining
two suggestions put forward in the early twentieth century: Minoan
Crete and Minoan Thera. Employing the latest research findings, he
discusses the material culture, trade empire and agricultural system,
writing and wall paintings, art, religion and society of the Minoan
civilization. A statistical analysis proves that Minoan Crete was closer
to Plato’s description of Atlantis than was previously suspected.
The destruction of Thera by an exploding and collapsing volcano would
seem to explain the portrayal of Atlantis sinking into the sea.
It is largely the new vision of Atlantis as a lost utopia which has made
Plato the victim of scholarly abuse. Rodney Castleden explains the
origins of the ‘New Atlantis’ and argues that much of
Plato’s description is correct, and some details which perhaps
have suggested the ‘New Atlantis’ point to contemporary
issues of Plato’s own time.
ATLANTIS DESTROYED
By the same author:
Classic Landforms of the Sussex Coast
(1982; second edition 1996)
The Wilmington Giant: The Quest for a Lost Myth (1983)
The Stonehenge People: An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain,
4700–2000 BC (1987)
The Knossos Labyrinth: A New View of the ‘Palace of Minos’ at
Knossos (1989)
Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete (1990)
Book of British Dates: A Comprehensive Dictionary of British Dates
from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day (1991)
Neolithic Britain: New Stone Age Sites of England, Scotland and Wales
(1992)
The Making of Stonehenge (1993)
World History: A Chronological Dictionary of Dates
(1994; second edition 1995)
The Cerne Giant (1996)
Knossos, Temple of the Goddess (1997)
ATLANTIS
DESTROYED
Rodney Castleden
London and New York
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 1998 Rodney Castleden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
The right of Rodney Castleden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-16539-3 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-02486-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-08205-2 (Glassbook Format)
FOR LAURENCE NOWRY
Listen, Socrates, to the story; extraordinary as it is, it is absolutely true.
Plato: Timaeus (c. 355 BC)
It is as certain as such a thing can be that the whole story of Atlantis,
including the statement that Solon had met with tales about the island in
Egypt, is one of Plato’s imaginative fictions.
A. E. Taylor: Plato: Timaeus and Critias (1929)

CONTENTS
List of illustrations i x
Acknowledgements and preface xiii
1 ‘All the island and many other islands also’ 1
The Atlantis legend 1
Thera: a window onto Atlantis 8
Eruption after eruption 10
2 Preludes to discovery 14
The folklore tradition 14
Nineteenth-century glimpses of a Minoan past 15
The backdrop of the Cyclades 17
Bronze age Knossos 23
Bronze age Athens 28
3 Thera: the second rediscovery 32
The discovery of Ayia Irini 32
Mavor and Marinatos 34
The dig at Akrotiri begins 38
4 The bronze age city of Thera emerges 43
‘I see with the eyes of my soul . . . ’ 43
Architecture of a Late Cycladic city 46
The island: bronze age Thera 55
5 Atlantean arts and crafts 58
Pottery 58
Stone 59
Metal-working 60
vii
CONTENTS
Textiles 60
Furniture 64
6 Theran food and trade 66
Agriculture and pastoralism 66
Trade 67
Ships 75
7 Writing and wall-painting 80
Writing 80
Wall-paintings 82
Frescoes of Building 6 (the House of the Ladies) 84
Frescoes of Building 11 (Block Beta) 86
Frescoes of Building 12 (Block Delta) 89
8 Art, religion and society 90
A panorama of Atlantis 90
Growing up 99
9 The last days of Akrotiri 114
After the eruption 126
10 Atlantis destroyed 134
The Minoan trading empire as Atlantis 134
The Knossos Labyrinth as the Atlantean Temple of Poseidon 137
Plato and truth 147
Plato and Sicily 154
Plato and Sparta 160
The source of the Atlantis story 164
11 Deconstruction of Atlantis 172
The Old Atlantis 172
The New Atlantis 182
Appendix Dating the Thera eruption: a major controversy 191
Notes 193
Bibliography 205
Index 219
viii