Lost City of Atlantis Found in Southern Spain?

Lost City of Atlantis Found in Southern Spain?
By Zach Howard, Reuters, March 12, 2011
Compliments of the Montreal Gazette and National Geographic Online
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - A U.S.-led research team may
have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary
metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years
ago in mud flats in southern Spain. "This is the power of
tsunamis," said head researcher Richard Freund, a University
of Hartford professor who led an international team searching
for the true site of Atlantis. Tsunamis in the region have been
documented for centuries. One of the largest was a reported
10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November 1755.
"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles
inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about."
To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of
a suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz,
Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana
Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multiringed dominion known as Atlantis. The team of
archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a
combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping and
underwater technology to survey the site.
Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of
"memorial cities," built in Atlantis's image by its refugees after
the city's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said. While
it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the "twist" of finding the
memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain's southern coast.
"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility,
especially for archaeology, that makes a lot more sense," Freund said.
Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis about 2,600 years ago, describing it as "an island situated
in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were
known in antiquity. Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the
Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city.
Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's "dialogues" from
around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said
the island he called Atlantis "in a single day and night … disappeared into the depths of the sea."
Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.
The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in “Finding Atlantis”, a new
National Geographic Channel special airing March 14, 2011. Experts plan
further excavations at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the
mysterious "cities" in central Spain about 240 kilometers away to more closely
study geological formations and to date artifacts.
Wrath of the Gods
Plato, who derived his story from the Egyptians, described Atlantis as having a main city with a royal
palace made of ivory, gold, and silver. The city featured bridges, canals, ships, temples, and even a
horse-racing track. Atlantis was an empire filled with riches, it was an awe-inspiring civilization until
it was defeated by ancient Athens and consumed by a cataclysmic natural disaster. The story is one of
the more mysterious and enduring tales in history.
Once a domain of the sea god Poseidon, Atlantis may have been named after Atlas the Titan.
According to Plato, the city's kings conquered parts of both Europe and Africa before being defeated
by Athens. The gods, angered by Atlantis's greed and corruption, unleashed a barrage of floods and
earthquakes on the fabled kingdom, sinking it into the sea in a single day. (Coincidentally, Athens was
destroyed by natural disaster at the same time.)
The bulk of Plato's account is clearly fictional. He wrote that
the war between Athens and Atlantis took place more than
11,000 years ago, at a time when the civilization he describes
could not possibly have existed—nor could Athens.
Atlantis’s existence has been a great topic of debate for
thousands of years. Plato often mixed facts and fable.
Supposedly, the city of Atlantis was formed
of several ‘levels’ of concentric circles.
But Plato's use of vivid details has led scholars to speculate
that his fabled island was based on a real place. Some believe
Atlantis is Spartel Island, a mud shoal in the Strait of
Gibraltar that sank into the sea 11,500 years ago. Now new
evidence claims that Atlantis was based on a real place—or
places.
According to Rainer Kühne, a German
physicist, satellite photos of southern Spain
suggest that the ‘island’ of Atlantis was in fact
a region of the southern Spanish coast that was
destroyed by a flood between 800 B.C. and
500 B.C. "These satellite photos show
rectangular structures and concentric circles
that match very well with Plato's description of
the palaces and the city of Atlantis," said
Kühne, whose research was reported in the
journal Antiquity.
But Kühne says Spartel Island is too small—Plato wrote that Atlantis was bigger than Libya and Asia
put together—and could not have possessed the high culture described by Plato. Instead, Kühne points
to satellite photos of a salt marsh region called Marisma de Hinojos, near the city of Cádiz in Spain, as
the possible location of Atlantis. The photos, Kühne says, show two rectangular structures in the mud
and part of concentric rings that may once have surrounded them. "These rectangular structures could
be the remains of the temples described by Plato," Kühne said in a telephone interview from his home
in Braunschweig, Germany.
While transmitting the Atlantis story, the Greeks may have confused the Egyptian word for ‘coastline’
with one meaning ‘island,’ Kühne speculates. The ‘plain’ described by Plato could be a plain that
extends today from the Spanish southern coast to the city of Seville. "I cannot say with certainty that
Atlantis was located [in southern Spain]," Kühne said. "But these photos suggest that we should take a
closer look at this location."
A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may
have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists
have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath
the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park.
Is There Another Potential Location? A Fairy Land?
Ulf Erlingsson, a Swedish geographer, has a
different theory. He believes Plato combined
elements from different times and places in the
background description for his utopia. The
distribution of the Atlantean empire seems to
match that of the megaliths (large rough stone
monuments) in Western Europe and North Africa.
The geographic description of the island Atlantis,
he suggests, is based on an island that is still
standing today—Ireland.
"Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles [480
kilometers] long, 200 miles [320 kilometers] wide,
and features a central plain that is open to the sea,"
said Erlingsson, the author of the book, Atlantis From a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy
Land.
"I have looked at geographical data of the whole world. Of the 50 largest islands, Ireland is the only
one that matches Plato's description of the landscape," he added. The island that sank was not Ireland,
he suggested, but nearby Dogger Bank, which was struck by a flood wave in 6,100 B.C.
But Erlingsson is convinced that Plato based the geographical description of his fabled kingdom on a
real place and argues that even the empire might be historic. He claims he has calculated with "99.98
percent probability" that the island Atlantis was modeled on Ireland. "It is the only island in the world
that matches the criteria of the island described by Plato."
The geographer says Ireland's megalithic monuments, dating back to 3,000 B.C., can be associated
with the palaces and temples described by Plato. The megalithic culture of Western Europe and
Northern Africa was more advanced than other Stone Age cultures, and Ireland is one of its core
regions, he noted. "The hill in which the Atlanteans' maternal ancestor, Cleito, was born resembles
Tara, the legendary seat of the high king of Ireland, while Newgrange resembles the palace of their
paternal ancestor, Poseidon," he said.
Erlingsson says he started his studies believing that Atlantis never existed. But he is now convinced
that Plato knew of Ireland. "Plato obviously blended fantasy and fact. But the question is not whether
he made something up. It's if he made everything up—or if he based it on some real data. With very
high probability, the answer is that he based it on actual geographic information. Ireland comes out as
the only logical location for the central island of the Atlantean empire in Plato's tale."
Read more:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Lost+city+Atlantis+found+southern+Spain/4430710/story.html
#ixzz1GUeIdScb
Match each vocabulary word with the letter of its BEST definition:
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
metropolis
dominion
antiquity
cataclysmic
barrage
concentric
utopia
megaliths
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
a series of circles all sharing the same central point
an overwhelming and continuous bombardment
a sudden and violent disaster
land or territory of considerable size
an ideal, perfect place or location
a large, busy city
large rough stone monuments
in ancient times
------------------------------------------------------------ QUESTIONS -------------------------------------------------------------What disaster supposedly happened that destroyed the city of Atlantis?
What are 3 techniques the researchers used to survey the site in southern Spain?
_________________________ _________________________ __________________________
Who is Plato? ___________________________________________________________________
What is another name for the Straits of Gibraltar? _________________________________________
What are FOUR different aspects of the city of Atlantis described in this article?
____________________ ___________________ __________________ __________________
Which mythological character was the city of Atlantis supposedly named after? __________________
WHY was Atlantis destroyed by the gods?
When did the war between Atlantis and Athens supposedly take place? ______________________
What Egyptian word might the ancient Greeks mistaken for ‘island?’ ________________________
What evidence does Ulf Erlingsson present in trying to prove that Atlantis was in Ireland?
What is the author’s PURPOSE in writing this article?
Atlantis Found
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RECITE: Create a 10 Question TRUE/FALSE quiz to cover the information in this article.
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