Meet Me in Atlantis: My Obsessive Quest to Find the Sunken City (29 page)

The Piri Reis map, created five hundred years ago by an Ottoman admiral, is seen by some as evidence of an Atlantis located in Antarctica.
(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Michael Hübner, whose statistical analysis of details in the Atlantis story concluded overwhelmingly that Plato’s island had sunk near Morocco’s Atlantic coast
(Courtesy of the author)

The naturally formed circle located by Hübner near Agadir, Morocco. Its measurements are strikingly similar to those Plato gave for Atlantis’s ringed city.
(Courtesy of the author)

The ocean impact of a meteorite (many times larger than the one that caused Arizona’s Meteor Crater, shown here) could have unleashed worldwide devastation recorded in flood stories such as Atlantis, Gilgamesh, and Noah’s ark.
(Courtesy of NASA)

A number of people were extremely helpful in writing this book. Tony O’Connell fed and sheltered me in County Leitrim and Malta in addition to answering hundreds of queries before, during, and after my visits, even though he disagreed with my conclusions. (His hospitality was abetted by Paul Gordon, Claire Armstrong, and Dai Konieczny.) Several busy people were kind enough to share their expertise in person: Brian Johnson in New York City; Patrick Coleman in Saint Paul; Richard Freund in Hartford; Juan Villarias-Robles in Madrid; José María Galán at Doñana Park; Rainer Kühne and Werner Wickboldt in Braunschweig; Anton Mifsud in Malta; David Gallo and William Lange at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; George Nomikos and Christos Doumas in Santorini; Dora Katsonopoulou in Athens; Stavros Papamarinopoulos in Patras; and John Bremer in Vermont.

Michael Hübner, who was particularly generous with his time in both Bonn and Morocco, died in a bicycling accident in December 2013. Ernest McClain passed away in April 2014, at age ninety-five.

Those who kindly provided essential knowledge and guidance included Dallas Abbott, Corby Anderson, Elizabeth Barber, Anthony Beavers, Robert Brumbaugh Jr., Rand Flem-Ath, Joscelyn Godwin, Michael Higgins, Laura Hoff, Janet Johnson, Alice Kehoe,
Alexander MacGillivray, Bruce Masse, Floyd McCoy, Gregory McIntosh, Trevor Palmer, and Duane Roller.

An incomplete list of those owed gratitude for assistance personal and professional: Ryan Bradley; Steve Byers; Alex Chepstow-Lusty; Caryn Davidson; Gillian Fassell; Christiane and Peter Hübner; Joy Kerluke and Dimitris Hamalidis; Chelo Medina; Mary Anne Potts; Robert Sullivan; Charlie and Jen Baker Vanek; Donovan Webster; and everyone at the extraordinary Westchester Library System, especially Claudia Gisolfi and Patricia Perito.

Special thanks to David Adams and Mary McEnery, Fred and Aura Truslow, Natividad Huamani, and Veronica Francis. Belated gratitude is also owed to the Borgstrom and Kunkel families.

Jason Adams, Maura Fritz, Laura Hohnhold, and David McAninch, gifted editors all, were kind enough to read and comment on early drafts. My agent, Daniel Greenberg, was, as always, stalwart in his support. Brian Tart and Jessica Renheim at Dutton once again provided essential editorial guidance.

My dear wife, Dr. Aurita Truslow, somehow manages to keep the household together when I go off on these strange adventures, which is but one reason I love her with all my heart. Alex, Lucas, and Magnus: You encircle my life with a joy as perfect as Plato’s concentric rings.

Plato was not the only Greek artist-in-residence at Dionysius I’s court. The poet Philoxenus of Cythera, invited to hear some lines of verse his host had composed, gave an honest—and scathing—assessment for which he was condemned to hard labor in Syracuse’s infamous mines. He was soon liberated and summoned to a second recitation, after which the tyrant again asked Philoxenus for his opinion.

“Carry me back to the mines,” he said.

A modern Philoxenus asked to evaluate the Atlantis canon could spend several lifetimes swinging a pickax. Thousands of books have been written about Plato’s lost city; most of them are terrible. Something about Atlantis seems to invite the suspension of both critical thinking and generally accepted rhetorical standards. Many hypotheses about Atlantis are similar, and the purpose of this book is not to determine who originated any particular idea. However, if you spot a factual error or have a question about something, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. If you have theories based on clairvoyant readings, alien visitors, or other such “evidence,” please keep them to yourself.

I have quoted Plato’s works from several published translations; in each instance I chose the one that I felt most clearly conveyed Plato’s message or imagery. The best-known translations of the
Timaeus
and
Critias
are those by Benjamin Jowett (available free online), R. G. Bury, and Desmond Lee. The more recent
Plato: Complete Works
, edited by John M. Cooper, includes perhaps the clearest renderings available of the
Timaeus
(translated by Donald J. Zeyl) and
Critias
(translated by Diskin Clay) as well as everything else Plato wrote.

Anyone interested in learning more about Atlantis and related topics will find the following sources useful:

Atlantipedia.ie

Tony O’Connell’s comprehensive website. Also available in hardcover and eBook editions.

The Atlantis Hypothesis: Searching for a Lost Land: Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference
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Of particular interest are the essays by Papamarinopoulos, Christos Doumas, Dora Katsonopoulou, Werner Wickboldt, A. N. Kontaratos, Floyd McCoy, and Dallas Abbott et al.

The Atlantis Hypothesis: Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference
, edited by Stavros Papamarinopoulos

Of particular interest are the essays by Papamarinopoulos, Wickboldt, Kontaratos, and Thorwald Franke.

An edition of papers from the 2011 conference is forthcoming.

Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature
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Imagining Atlantis
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The Sunken Kingdom: The Atlantis Mystery Solved
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The best historical overviews of the search for Atlantis. Sprague de Camp and Ellis conclude that Plato’s lost island was fiction; James places it in Turkey.

Plato’s Mathematical Imagination: The Mathematical Passages in the Dialogues and Their Interpretation
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A surprisingly readable account of Plato’s enigmatic use of numbers.

When They Severed Earth from Sky
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A terrific introduction to the formation and interpretation of myths.

Lost Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend
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The most scholarly and engaging account of the Minoan Hypothesis.

Some Words About the Legend of Atlantis
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A thin volume that may be the most important book in Atlantology.

Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
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The book that launched Atlantology.

Beyond the Pillars of Heracles: The Classical World Seen Through the Eyes of Its Discoverers
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