Atlantis_ a Review Essay

8/2/2019 Atlantis_ a Review Essay

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DOROTHY B. VITALIANO

Atlantis: A Review Essay

The Atlantis tale, of course, is not folklore in the strict sense. Everymention of it goes back to a written source, Plato's dialogs the Timaeusand the Critias, in which it is claimed that a record preserved in Egyptwas brought to Greece by Solon and eventually transmitted to Plato.Only those who, like the White Queen, are willing to believe "six impossible things before breakfast" can take Plato's description literally. Inaddition to its internal inconsistencies and obvious exaggerations, thereis the now well established geologic fact that no sizeable landmass hasbeen submerged in the Atlantic Ocean as recently as 11,500 years ago,if ever. Even before the ocean floor was as well known as it is today,serious investigators of the Atlantis problem faced a choice of two alternatives: either Atlantis had a historical basis, but the facts as given byPlato are distorted out of recognition; or else Plato invented it to provea philosophical point. (In the latter case, of course, he could have incorporated scraps of tradition based on real places or events.) By judiciousselection of those parts of the account to be taken literally and thoseto be taken as distortions, seekers after a historical basis can make acase for almost any part of the world as the site of Atlantis, and indeedthere is hardly any part of the world which has not been nominated.Three books published in 1969 are all concerned with the possibility thatAtlantis was Minoan Crete:

Atlantis: The Truth Behind the Legend, by A. G. Galanopoulos andEdward Bacon (Babbs-Merrill, 216 pp., $12.50).Lost Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend, by J. V. Luce (McGraw-


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68 DOROTHY B. VITALIANOsmashing ships and harbor installations and drowning of thousands onthe coast of Crete, would have dealt a mortal blow to a nation dependenton the sea for its prosperity and defense. An earthquake was still needed,however, to account for the devastation of inland sites.6 Strong reinforcement of Marinatos' theory was provided by a study of deep-seasediment by two American oceanographers,7 which revealed that volcanicash from the Bronze Age eruption of Santorin must have blanketed thewhole eastern end of Crete, its most habitable part. In that climate justa few centimeters of ash might have been enough to ruin the land foragricultural purposes for some time, and it is estimated that there couldhave been as much as ten centimeters of it, on the average. In short,Minoan Crete may have succumbed to a combination of disasters, allassociated with the eruption, sufficient to render even the strongest nationof its time vulnerable to the first invader.

Problems remain to be solved before Marinatos' theory is universallyaccepted. The most critical question is that of the timing of the eruption.As the ruins buried under the lowest pumice layer on Thera have yieldednone of the "Marine Style" pottery diagnostic of Late Minoan I B,archeologists assume that the first pumice fell before that style of potterywas in use, and therefore at least 25-30 years before the general destruction of Crete. This is consistent with earlier interpretations of the geologicevidence on Santorin, which seemed to indicate that there had been twohighly explosive phases separated by a prolonged interval of milderactivity. However, several of the world's leading volcanologists who werepresent at the International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Therain 1969 were unanimously of the opinion that a violent pumice eruptioncould not possible have lasted a generation, or even a few years. When aconvincing explanation is put forward which can reconcile the absenceof "Marine Style" on Thera with a relatively brief climactic phase at theend of Late Minoan I B, the only serious objection to Marinatos' theorywill have been removed. And as there are still enough variable or unknown factors involved in both the archeological and geological evidence, Although volcanic shocks accompanying eruptions are never responsible for damageoutside the immediate vicinity of the volcano, the known history of Santorin showsthat major eruptions have been preceded or followed, within months or a couple ofyears, by major earthquakes originating at depths of the order of 100 kilometersunder the Aegean or eastern Mediterranean, capable of doing damage over a wide area., Dragoslav Ninkovich and Bruce C. Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," Colston [ResearchSociety 1Papers 17 (1965), 413-452.


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ATLANTIS: A REVIEW ESSAY 69there is good reason to hope that this "generation gap" will yet be closed.

When Marinatos first proposed his theory he immediately recognizedits implications for Atlantis, and in 1950 published a paper in which hesuggested that Plato's Atlantis was a synthesis of several traditions spanning some nine hundred years, but which had as its core the violent endof Minoan Crete as a result of natural catastrophe. However, as thispaper was in Greek,vt was not widely known until an English versionwas published in 1959 for the aforementioned Congress.s Therefore thecurrent interest in Atlantis, as demonstrated by the appearance of threebooks in quick succession, plus countless articles in scientific and popularperiodicals and newspapers, stems largely from a paper by the Greekseismologist A. G. GalanopouJos. 9 He proposed that not only Atlantis,but the Greek flood tradition of Deukalion's Deluge as well, should beattributed to the Bronze Age eruption of Santorin. He suggested thatPlato was describing two separate places, the Metropolis of Atlantis,which was on the island of Santorin, and the plain around the Royal City,which was the Mesara Plain on Crete. Furthermore, he explained thediscrepancies in both times and space by postulating a translation errorwhich caused all measurements over 100 to be exaggerated tenfold. Thisproposal was followed by a series of papers in which he elaborated bisideas, and went on to link the Plagues of Egypt and the parting of thewaters10 and also the Phaethon mythll to the Bronze Age eruption.The book written by Galanopoulos in collaboration with Edward Bacon,archeological editor of The Illustrated London News, presents these ideason Atlantis, Deukalion's deluge, and the Exodus in some detail, andmentions Phaethon in passing. It is a handsome volume, lavishly illustratedwith both color and black-and-white photographs, drawings, and pertinent maps. It is well worth reading, provided one keeps in mind that theauthors tend to accept uncritically some "evidence" which does not standup to objective scrutiny. The first section of the book, "What Plato Meant, Spy ridon Marinatos. " On the Myth of Atlantis" [in Greek], Kretika Chrol1ika 2(1950). 195-213. Spyridon Marinatos, "Some Words about the Legend of Atlantis",Archaiologicon Delfion 12 (I969), 46 pp. A. G. Galanopoulos, "Tsunamis Observed on the Coasts of Greece from Antiquityto Present Time," Annali di Geo/isica 13 (1960), 369-386.10 A. G. Galanopoulos, "Die agyptischen Plagen und der AUSZllg Israels aus geo!oscher Sieht," Das Alterturn 10 (1964), 131-137.11 A. G. Galanopoulos, "Der Phaethon-Mythus im Licht der Wissenschaft," DasAllerlurn 14 (1968), 158-161.


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70 DOROTHY D. VITALIANOand Said," goes to some pains to establish a fact which should be selfevident - that the Atlantean culture described by Plato was a BronzeAge culture and therefore could not have existed as long ago as 9,000years before Solon's time; the glimpses of various Bronze Age cultures,although interesting enough in their own right, thus seem unnecessary.The second section, which demolishes a number of the best-knowntheories concerning the location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean andelsewhere, contains much skilfully and accurately presented geologicinformation. I t is marred by only one relatively minor technical flaw.The "argument of the vitreous lava" (glassy basalt dredged from theA 1antic Ocean floor at a depth of about 10,000 feet in 1898, a rock typeoriginally thought to be formed only under atmospheric pressure andtemperature conditions and thus to constitute evidence of submergenceof a land area) is countered by arguments showing how a rock formed onland could be carried to deep water by an iceberg or turbidity currents(as does happen); but as it is now known that glassy basalt can be formedon the sea floor in waters even deeper than 10,000 feet,12 and are commonon the Mid-Atlantic ridge, the vitreous lava argument could have beendisposed of much more simply.

The sections headed "Geophysical Facts and Theories" and "CaseProven," which present the cases for the volcanic destruction of theMinoan empire and for the identification of that empire with Atlantis,contain a mixture of arguments which are geologically sound and arguments which are not. For instance, the suggestions that Plato may havebeen describing two different places, that floating pumice could have beenthe origin of the "muddy shoals" marking the site of the submergedAtlantis, and above all, that Deukalion's Deluge as a memory of theSantorin tsunami, all merit most serious consideration. But the calculations of the initial height of the tsunami neglect the vitally importantfactor of the influence of local topography and bathymetry on the heightof run-up of such waves on a distant shore, in the first place, and arebased on a formula which for mathematical reasons cannot be used inreverse, in the second place. Furthermore,"the authors assume that thecaldera collapsed all at oncergenerating o n ~ huge tsunami, whereas it isat least as likely (and probably more so) that it collapsed in several stages,as did Krakatoa.12 James G. Moore, "Petrology of Deep-Sea Basalt near Hawaii," American Journalo f Science 263 (1965), 40-52.


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ATLANTIS: A REVIEW ESSAY 71But whatever the initial height, the tsunami(s) generated by the collapse

of the volcano would have been most destructive on the coast of theGreek mainland, particularly the Peloponnese, as well as on the northcoast of Crete, and the suggestion that the Santorin tsunami is the originof the Deukalion tradition is an inspired one. Long ago Richard Andree13noted that the earliest versions of Deukalion's Deluge (devoid of theBiblical elements present in the more familiar versions) told of a sea flood("Meerflut"), and suggested an earthquake-generated tsunami as theorigin of the tradition. Deukalion's Deluge was regarded by the Greeksas historical fact, and its supposed date falls close enough to the time ofthe Bronze Age eruption to warrant connecting the two. I t seems logicalthat the only Greek tradition of a worldwide flood (all the others are local)should be associated with what could have been the most general floodever experienced in Greece - for, as pointed out by Galanopoulos andBacon, heavy rains caused by the presence of large quantities of volcanicash in the atmosphere could have contributed to flooding in inland areasat the same time. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the tradition whichmarks the beginning of Greek national consciousness may be associatedwith the same catastrophe which, if Marinatos' theory is correct, wasresponsible for the rise of the Greek mainland to ascendancy in theAegean world.

As presented by Galanopoulos and Bacon, the case for identifyingAtlantis with Minoan Crete is weakened by insistence on a too-literalmatching of archeological and geographic facts, or inferences based onsuch facts, to Plato's words. For example: to fit Santorin to the description of the Metropolis of Atlantis necessitates several assumptions as toits natural pre-collapse geography, together with modifications by thehand of man which would have been a formidable engineering feat evenin soft volcanic deposits. But assuming for the sake of argument thatSantorin was the site of the Metropolis, it is still thoroughly unrealisticto think that traces of its concentric harbors can be recognized on thepresent bay floor. Whatever was not obliterated during the collapse wouldnow be covered by the new volcanic edifice (whose tip is the KameniIslands in the middle of the bay), built up precisely where the center ofthe Metropolis is presumed to have been situated.13 Richard Andree, Die Fill/sagen, e/hnographisch betmchtet (Braunschweig, F. Viewegund Sohn, 1891), pp . 40-41.


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72 DOROTHY B. VITALIANOAs for the link between Santorin and Exodus, there is no doubt that

some of the direct and indirect effects of the eruption would have beenfelt in Egypt and would have been very terrifying (particularly theblackout caused by the ash cloud at the climax), although I believe amore convincing case could be presented than has been given by Galanopoulos and Bacon. But their case for the tsunami as the basis for theparting of the waters miracleI4 rests first on the assumption that the sitewas on the Mediterranean coast (where some Biblical scholars do believeit was), and then on a chain of coincidences in timing which seems amiracle in itself. In attributing the Phaethon myth to lightning displaysand ash fallout from the eruption, they miss a more likely cause of theidea the earth was burning up, even though they mention it in anothercontext - flaming sunsets such as those seen in various parts of the worldafter the Krakatoa eruption (a common result of the injection of largequantities of ash into the atmoshpere), one of which was so spectacularthat fire brigades were called out in two American cities. I5Luce's book, a close second to that of Galanopoulos and Bacon in format,covers much of the same ground but from a substantially different viewpoint. Luce's approach is based mainly on the evidence from archeologyand tradition, and is much more cautious and critical, both in connectionwith the volcanic destruction of Minoan Crete and with Atlantis. In fact,Luce is overcautious when it comes to the tsunami, for he tends to underestimate the possibility of serious destruction from that source as muchas Galanopoulos and Bacon overestimate it. But if anything, this is anerror in the right direction, for the ashfall (to which he gives properemphasis, as Galanopoulos and Bacon do not), is certain to have beendetrimental to agriculture and therefore to the prosperity of Crete and,if as thick as believed, might even alone have paved the way for invasionby the Myceneans.

Luce too seems to accept as fact that the story of Atlantis was broughtfrom Egypt by Solon and handed down to Plato, and attempts to reconcilevarious details of Plato 's account with Minoan Crete. Although his arguments frequently differ from those of Galanopoulos and Bacon, they" Tsunamis are usually preceded by a withdrawal of the waters to a point far belownormal low t ide level." Dorothy B. Vitaliano, "Bemerkungen zu A. G. Galanopoulos, 'Der PhaethonMy hus im Licht der Wissenschaft'," Das Altertum 16 (1970), 82-83.


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ATLANTIS: A REVIEW ESSA Y 73likewise are sometimes too strained to be convincing - for instance theelaborate derivation of the name "Atlantis" from "Keftiu," the Egyptianname for Crete. Yet his final summation of the case for a Minoan Atlantiscannot be faulted for its circumspection. On the whole, Luce's book canbe recommended strongly, particularly for its presentation of the archeological evidence concerning the destruction of Minoan Crete (includingan authorized account of the early stages of Marinatos' excavations atAkrotiri, on Thera), and for its compilation of local traditions whichmight be references to the Santorin tsunami.

Strangely enough, while Luce is willing to attribute to that tsunami anumber of flood traditions which could equally well be memories of other(earthquake-generated) waves, he is reluctant to consider Deukalion'sDeluge one of the probable consequences. He prefers to connect it withflooding of the Copais Lake basin, which both Andree16 and Frazer1 ?associated with Ogyges' flood. (Frazer considered Deukalion's Deluge tobe a "myth of observation," associated with the supposed formation ofthe Value of the Tempe; it is interesting to conjecture what he wouldhave thought had he known that the Santorin collapse happened at aboutthe right time.)

Siding with those Biblical scholars who accept a date of circa 1200 B.C.for the Exodus, Luce dismisses the possibility of any link between it andSantorin. His main argument against it is the fact that the ruler of Egyptat the time of the eruption was the powerful Tuthmosis III. However,J. G. Bennett,18 who first proposed that the Plagues of Egypt might belinked to the Santorin eruption, pointed out that the Bible does picturePharaoh as a stern and strong ruler, who could be persuaded to let theIsraelites go only in the face of some terror before which he was powerless.Mavor 's book, less impressive in format than either of the others, is alsoless impressive in content. Essentially it is a personal account of theauthor's two expeditions to Santorin seeking evidence (mainly on thefloor of the bay) that i t was indeed the site of the Metropolis of Atlantis.Although his enthusiasm for proving Galanopoulos' theory apparentlyprovided the catalyst which led to the current excavations at Akrotiri16 Andree, loco cit., p. 40 .., James G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, Vol. 1 (London, 1919), "TheGreat Flood," pp. 104-361.IS J. G. Bennett, "Geo-physics and Human History: New Light on Plato's Atlantisand the Exodus," Systematics 1 (1963), 127-156.


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74 DOROTHY B. VITALIANO(which are proving to be of inestimable archeological value), that sameenthusiasm, untempered by discretion, led to a clash with Marinatoswhich ended in Mavor's being barred from further work on or aroundThera. The detailed chronicle of this conflict may appeal to those whofind pleasure in gossip columnists' tidbits, but for others it is merelyembarrassing, and tended to leave this reader's sympathies with Marinatos. Although the book contains technical information not given ineither of the others which may be of interest to some - notably, descriptions of the geophysical instruments and procedures used to survey thefloor of the caldera and other submerged areas around Santorin - thepertinent information on the Bronze Age eruption and its consequencesis scattered throughout in such disorganized fashion that the book cannotbe recommended as a lucid presentation of either the case for the volcanicdestruction of the Minoans or the case for an Aegean Atlantis.

Consistency is not Mavor's strong point. On page 61 we find the statement: "So, between 1450 and 1400 B.C., the greater part of the island ofThera collapsed into the cavernous abyss left by the eruption of cubicmiles of ash and pumice . .. ", and on page 64 we read: "The only warningof the approaching sea waves came as air blasts generated by the collapseof the central mountains of Thera . . . The seismic waves followed insidiously, rushing unseen across the sea of Crete to crash upon the shoresthirty minutes after their birth at Thera." But then on page 70, after aquotation from the Book of Jeremiah (42 : 2,4) concerning the destruction of the Philistines, the "remnant of the country of Caphtor [Crete]"by waters which rose out of the north and overflowed the land, we arebrought up short by the incredible statement, "We can speculate thatthey [the Philistines] were refugees dislodged by the Thera catastrophewho had fled Crete and settled in Palestine in time to experience theflooding from the north, which was felt as far as the African coast" - andthis, when any waves generated by the collapse would have reachedPalestine within a few hours (and essentially from the west to boot)!After encountering such reasoning in the early pages of the book, thediscerning reader can hardly fail to have doubts about all that follows.

One other detail might be mentioned inasmuch as it has received worldwide newspaper publicity, and is taken seriously by Galanopoulos andBacon as well. The finding of a "fossilized" monkey's head on a beachon the east coast of Thera is cited by Mavor as proof that Cretan royaltyvisited Thera, which Hi turn is taken to mean that Thera therefore was


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ATLANTIS: A REVIEW ESSAY 75the Metropolis of Atlantis. Even if it were a fossil dating from the eruption, the presence of a pet monkey on Thera at best would merely indicatethat wealthy Minoans lived there - and even before they were recognizedas Minoan, the ruins excavated in the nineteenth century had alreadyrevealed that the pre-eruption inhabitants were comfortably off, a factamply confirmed by the new finds at Akrotiri. But neither Mavor norGalanopoulos and Bacon offer any explanation of what would constitutean unprecendented case of fossilization - replacement by lava - interms that would satisfy any paleontologist. The monkey head is muchmore easily explained as an artifact of unknown date.

Faith in the reliability of Mavor's scholarship is further underminedby frequent clues to its superficiality and carelessness, such as his citationof a 1939 date for K. T. Frost's paper on the Critias and Minoan Crete,19which suggests that he never read the original, but only the reference toit in a paper20 in which the date is given thus incorrectly; his consistentmisspelling of the name Ninkovich ("Ninkovitch"), a name second onlyto "Marinatos" in connection with the volcanic destruction of MinoanCrete; and his inclusion of a very eye-catching cyrillic entry in the bibliography, which not only is so incomplete that it would be impossible tofind the work in any library, but is so garbled that it leaves the unfortunateimpression that the author knows no Russian at all and inserted the entrymerely to impress.Mavor's obviously keen interest in mythology, which led him to seekthe site of Atlantis in the first place, is evident throughout the book. Inaddition to those myths mentioned by Luce and Galanopoulos and Bacon,he brings in several not mentioned in either which he believes may beconnected with the Bronze Age eruption. Some may be; but a workwhich refers to the Babylonian god Ea as "the wise goddess of the nethersea" does not inspire confidence in the soundness of its folklore background either.All in all, it seems to this reviewer that none of the three works makes thebest possible case either for the volcanic destruction of Minoan Creteor for an Aegean Atlantis. The former would be far bet ter served by concentrating on the most likely, or even the minimum possible, effects ofthe eruption on the Minoans, rather than on the maximum; the latter1D Frost, foe. cit.20 Ninkovich and Heezen, loe. cit.


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76 DOROTHY B. VITALIANOwould profit by less insistence on an exact fit between various details ofPlato's account and what is known of Minoan Crete and Santorin. Thereis absolutely no doubt that a very great eruption occurred, and that itoccurred during the time interval in which (a) Thera was evacuated andthen buried in ash, (b) the general destruction was accomplished onCrete, and (c) the Deluge of Deukalion is thought to have occurred, andalso possibly the Exodus. The absolute magnitude of the eruption as awhole can only be "guesstimated," but judging from the widespreaddistribution of the ash fallout revealed by the deep-sea cores, it is certainthat the climactic paroxysm(s) of the eruption must have been the mostawe-inspiring event ever witnessed, or experienced more remotely, in theAegean or in the Mediterranean area as a whole. If it can be demonstratedthat even its minimum effects on the Minoans would have led (directly orindirectly) to their downfall, then even the most skeptical must beconvinced of the fundamental validity of Marinatos' theory.

Finally, it would be more surprising than otherwise if the variousmanifestations of the eruption, as experienced in various places, did notgenerate a number of myths and legends and traditions, including one ormore which could have led, directly or (more probably) indirectly, toPlato's Atlantis. But the connection between Santorin and Atlantis, although intimately bound up with the volcanic destruction of MinoanCrete, is not entirely dependent on it and will be much more difficult toprove. Only if some pre-Plato documentary evidence should turn up toidentify Atlantis beyond all doubt with the Minoans would the questionbe settled once and for all, and as that is unlikely to happen even if theidentification is correct, we can be assured that, despite the optimistictitle of the British edition of Luce's book, we have not yet heard "the endof Atlantis."

U. S. Geological Survey21Bloomington (Indiana) Unit

21 Publication authorized by the Director, U. S. Geological Survey.

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Atlantis_ a Review Essay