The elephant bit at first perplexed me too. However, if we are to accept the 9000 years idea, then the possibility of Mastadons being the "elephants" described is not infeasible.... as this would have been near the time of their extinction and they were very widespread throughout both Americas. They even look MUCH like modern elephants. Even with the 900 years vs 9000 years, the possibility of Mastadons isn't unthinkable, as extinction is an imprecise science at best (look at the Coelocanth found in the 70's, or other cryptids thought to be extinct, then discovered).

This also factors into the lack of other archeological, social, political, etc. indicators, as we simply don't know much about the cultures of SA in that time frame. One must also accept that Plato is recanting something told to him by Solon and is putting his own twist to it, as well as filling in the gaps as best he can, likely with some supposition. Depending on which math to go with, the nation described was either 900 or 9000 years prior to Plato's time!

And there is some evidence. Consider this, many of the most ancient mummies were found stuffed with herbs, plants, etc. that come ONLY from South America! Also, some researchers did prove that the Egyptian boats could make the journey to South America, (they were trying to prove the existence of such a trade route, and it's feasibility).

The "flavor" you state isn't really there. Plato himself states that he's assigning Helenistic names for the convenience of his listeners. He states this before describing Atlantis (read it closely, you'll see what I mean). Certainly, there are similar deities in South American cultures, (you can look to the account of the legend to see one such example), as most of the deities were named for rivers, lakes, streams, etc. One of the big problems, is that many don't read the dialogue carefully. Do so, and a few times. It will then become clear that in the beginning, he talks of Athens at the time....THEN he switches and talks about Atlantis. Many have taken some of the descriptions in the Athenian section, and thought they applied to Atlantis.

My opinion is that the Phoenecians were constant trade partners of the Atlanteans. When the conflict was between Atlantis and Egypt was over, I think the Phoenecians (who were the ones who knew the waters of the area) spread rumors and sank non-Phoenecian ships...monopolizing trade with Atlantis. This is why Plato related the area being impassable, as this is what Solon likely believed as well.

As for the remnants...they are there (and in the same black, white and red stone), but obviously, they are quite old, pre-dating Greek and Roman structures, so there isn't much left. They didn't have the environment to conserve them like the pyramids, etc. Not to mention, the plain in question has had more earthquakes, and flooding since then...

I edited my original response Gaz and tossed in a link which might be helpful.

One of the distintive reasons I said that the Atlantean world had a Hellenic flair was due to platos description of its military. War Chariots were specificaly mentioned and while horses existed in the Hellenic world they did not in South America nor did any type of chariot. Secondly though yes all cultures have dieties which resemble a water god (posidon) few cultures have an Atlas figure. I'm not expert on South American folklore but the story of Atlas seems to be uniquely western European unless you are willing to make some sort of scholarly stretch to some other South American diety.

As for the trade I definatly believe South America traded with the European world the mummy evidence is all to comepelling to state otherwise, but I believe South Americas trade was an extension of an Atlantean mercantile trade system which spanned much of the globe. I may have been confusing in my original post but what I intended to argue was that South America did trade but it traded more like a colony would rather than how the head state of an empire would trade.

The existence of building materials that resemble those mentioned by Plato do exist in South America but unfortunatly "Stone that was white, black, and yellow and excavated from nearby coastal regions" is by no means rare, stone like this can be found in equal abundance in the Hellenic region. Especialy Spain if you have ever seen a picture of parts of its coast.

As for why the Atlantic was impassable that is probably the vaugest thing hit upon in the entire Critas (i wish Plato would have finished the damn thing) . My best theory is that volcanic and or meteoric ash responsible for the destruction of Atlantis, which would float much like huge boulders of Pumus stone, would have made the ocean impasable for fragile ancient ships.

BTW we should realy consolidate all this Atlantis information available on number of threads into one project.

[edit on 5-8-2004 by IndianaJoe]

I think some confusion, is in the names (Atlas, etc.). As mentioned in Allen's site, many of the names are very similar to South American names.

One of the distintive reasons I said that the Atlantean world had a Hellenic flair was due to platos description of its military. War Chariots were specificaly mentioned and while horses existed in the Hellenic world they did not in South America nor did any type of chariot.

They didn't have horse-drawn chariots, no. But, they did have something similar, carried by men, very much like in India, etc. I'd have to look again at the text, but I think that many of the references to specifics about the culture are likely: first, the viewpoint of Solon, and then second, the viewpoint of Plato, when describing the same things, and in a way that would be familiar to his fellow Greeks.

This is why I prefer to dwell more on the descriptions of the land, measurements, what was in the area, etc. than the culture. As it is quite difficult to surmise what a culture of 900 years ago, or 9000 years ago, was like based on one tale. Ancient records seem historically to be more precise when dealing with measurements of area, geological info, etc. than with sociological data.

A consolidation may prove to be quite a task, but perhaps a research project isn't out of the question....

Excellent arguments and points by the way, and this is one of the reasons I made this post, to see what other things needed to be accounted for...

Wow cool picture where is that from and how old is it? The volcano the Temple sinking into the water (with what looks like bricks falling from the temple too) A person about to sink beneath the waves. Its really quite amazing

Has anyone ever advanced a practical theroy of atlantis having been in North America? If you look at a map then due west of the pillars of heracles, is North America specifically the eastern seaboard.

With North America, enough pieces simply don't exist to even go there.

No known advanced civilizations at the times in question
No evidence of trade with the Egyptians
No resemblance to the geography mentioned by Plato

etc. etc.

Saw a show once that made a serious attempt to delve into the possibility of Atlantis, or at least into forgotten civilisations, and I saw something on there that I have not ever seen since. Discovered by accident whilst flying over the Amazon jungle, was a huge cleared area that looked like it had been used for agriculture. The area was so big that the forest still hadn't reclaimed it, and it was laid out in a geometric pattern and appeared to have been the terraced style crop fields that the South Americans were famous for. Apparently the area would of been sufficient to support nearly a million people with maize and potatoes and whatnot. Also when they poked around there were elaborate stairways cut into the rocky hill, with what seemed to be glyphs and remains of carvings. Also of note were the canals that seemed to be man made rather than natural, and they criss cross not just that area of strangeness, but all over South America like water highways. Which would of been the obvious way to haul goods around, without beasts of burden to do the hard toil. Anyway, like I said I have not seen anything about it since then, maybe because the show I saw was realitively recent, maybe they have de-bunked it, maybe it's just not as interesting as chasing a bearded man around the border of Afghanistan/Pakastan.

Keep in mind I dont know much about this but how can South America be Atlantis when it was originally part of Africa. Wouldnt that throw off measurements but also open up the possibiity of trade with europe since things were connected.'

It may sound stupid but Im just not aware of the timline of all these supposed events.

Refer to the Story of Lucia of Brazil. Lucia was the skeletal remains of a young girl of African Decent. SInce it was impossible for her to have sailed or swam they concluded that Africa and SouthAmerica were attached.

If anyone knows about this please give input because its been a while since I read that story. Maybe Atlantis was part of what brokeoff in the Ocean

The Elephants
There have been discoveries of cave drawings in the andeas of ASIAN elephants along with drawings of ASIAN people.

Do not forget the existance of the large stone spheres and heads in the jungles of the Yucatan. These are attributed to the Olmecs and Toltecs who preceaded the Aztec peoples in the area.
As a side note the Aztecz are blood related to the Apache indians of North America
another side note about North America there is scientific evedence to support the existence of a society of people decended from EUROPEAN's that may have been wiped out or assimilated by the "Native Americans". Anthropologist are looking now to stone age remains that put the arrival of man in the new world well in excess of 20000 years ago. Artifacts that pre date the Clovis site and and closely resemble artifacts from northern europe are being found in sites in New England.
If Europeans had a society in North America that was "Atlantis" like which traded with the African and Middle eastern nations or even Asian nations ( the Olmec heads are said to be African in appearence but they really look like the ruins of Ankor Wat to me?) If this nation suffered a fall like Atlantis then it being replaced by the more recent movement of people from East Asia would have been much easier!
Just some thoughts!

Atlantis was in the Atlantic ocean (coiscidence the name of this ocean?)
the high picks of atlantis are today the Azores. ( a insular region of portugal).
many cientists have dived between the islands to reach certain zones on the ocean floor, where it lays hundreds of ruins from a ancient culture that we do not have any storycal recall about it.
in that places there are even walls with several hundred Km, on the ocean floor. many picies of pottery was bringed by the divers, and they present a uknown painting style, and some of them a uknown writing that resembles or it is similar to some runic symbols. part od that artifacts (the majority) was transported to USA, (because the majority of the guys was from there(althow one of the moust important USA airforce base outside the USA territory is there in azores, in the island terceira), other ones goes to germany and france, and a few are in exibition on the museum of natural history of Ponta Delgada.(i am from there that's why i know that)
althow none of this "guys" never stated that it was from atlantis, but it is the best shoot untill further studies. again,,,somehwere in the atlantic, i don't now exatly where, but it is near the azores too, it was founded a Piramid with 150 m high, on the ocean floor too. that was much more a mistery then the "atlantean" artifacts, because we have been informed in the local news papers of it, and 4 days after, the subject was "forgeted" and nobdy have known more nothing about that.
i have googled about this and i don't find nothing related to that, but it not surprised me at all...lol.
azores are a real beautofful and misterious islands, and i think that we azorians are the only ones i the world that realy know for sure that "gigantic squids" realy exists. apart from legends, by the years fisher man have senn and colected plenty of organic parts that came form that beasts. the azores have a especific type of waile(i don't know the english name, but in portuguese is "cachalote") that are atacked many times by that beasts. a lot of the ficherman boats have a rubber protection in the hull, because of them, they have horrid vision, and a boat it is extremly similar to a waile when seen by something under water. so they are atacked many times too. what freacks me for real it's why it exists a real place(azores) where all that i have described before, exists, and nobody outside knows about it, so "Underwater piramids", "atlantean underwater ruins, and gigantic squids, are...for the rest of the "scientific world", just a mith, or product from ilusionary minds!!...what a pity!
go to the island of St. Michael (S.Miguel), go to the top of a hill called as "lagoa do fogo", in a clean day and just sit there and wait some hours (moustly 2-3 hours), and you can be "blessed " to see a fight between a waile and one of that beasts. in that place there are also a spot where you can see the shadow of that underwater "walls" too.
but the odd ruins don't are only in the ocean...! in the same island , St.Michael (the biggest island of the insular group) there are a high place caled "lagoa das sete cidades", (something like "laggon of the 7 citys"), where a lagoon exixts, that lagoon have 2 weird things:
-first it have 2 diferent colors, one part is blue, and the other is green.
- it have lots of "rock brickets" that came from a ancient place or time that ti is yet a mystery. althow nobody can dig there because of the particular vulcanic activitie in that places (azores are extremly vulcanic active).
so,,,want a cool place for this holydays??...go to azores)

Keep in mind I dont know much about this but how can South America be Atlantis when it was originally part of Africa. Wouldnt that throw off measurements but also open up the possibiity of trade with europe since things were connected.'

Pangea (the supercontinent) was quite some time before all of this, At MOST we're talking about 11,000 years ago. Pangea was MILLIONS of years ago....

Found this in a quick search when looking for OOPARTS....

The discovery, made in 1952 by Dr. Daniel Ruzo, is a great amphitheater of rock in which are magnificent sculptures--but sculptures which, according to all we know, are wholly anachronistic.

Here, for example, among carvings of familiar South American animals and people, can also be seen unmistakable carvings in white dioritic porphyry stone of camels and cows, lions and elephants, and other animals which have never lived here, along with finely carved heads, in the same material, of Semites, Caucasians, and Negroes, all of whom came to this continent less than 500 years ago.

This was describing the Altiplano.... Would make sense for a culture that traded with ancient Egypt...no?

Nobody else finds it odd to have sculptures of caucasians, African animals (such as the elephants Plato described), etc. in ancient South America?

Makes for good evidence of trade with African nations, no?

Interesting, but the meteor impact you're referring to was MILLIONS of years before man or Atlantis...

I should reiterate...there is Atlantis the continent, which I am saying is the whole of South America....and then Atlantis the capital city state, which is the region today called the Altiplano...

Please read my links before you shoot it down out of hand....you may be surprised to find yourself agreeing with me....

Have you seen or heard of the Piri-Reis map? It goes back to those wacky Phoenicians, who then say they got it from an earlier source. The cool thing about that map is that it showed the coast of Antarctica ice free. The validity of the map was confirmed by accident when a U.S. sub map a sonar scan of Antarctica in the 50's. The ancient map was a very close match to the sonar map. There's a good pic of it in Graham Handcock's Fingerprints of the Gods. That book makes a good case for Atlantis is Antarctica theory.

[edit on 31-8-2004 by Der Kapitan]

It may just be that the Atlanteans knew of Antarctica though as well. There doesn't seem to be any other corroborating evidence for it actually being Atlantis. For one thing, we know that the continent of Atlantis has "sides" and one side is long...this hardly fits the description of Antartica.

With South America you have so many pieces fitting it's unreal...

1. continent size and shape mentioned by Plato
2. orichalcum deposits
3. red, white and black brick used in building
4. history of advanced societies
5. local tales of the flooding
6. location as mentioned by Plato
7. evidence of trade with Egyptians (whom Plato got the tale from)
8. pre-columbian art depicting African animals
9. a level plain, surrounded by mountains, with canals, going into the sea
10. alternating land and sea belts
11. mountain low on all sides
12. ocean is even named for it
13. fits the exact measurements given by Plato

etc. etc.