MADRID (dpa) – For more than 2,000 years, mankind has pondered the fate of Atlantis – the lost continent described by Plato, a powerful and advanced civilization, which is believed to have sunk into the sea.
Did Atlantis really exist – and where was it? Archaeologists and adventurers have attempted to locate it in places ranging from Sweden to the Caribbean – but now, French scientist Jacques Collina-Girard thinks he may have finally tracked it down.Atlantis could have been in the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco, where the rising sea level after the last ice age caused an island to be swallowed by the waves, Collina-Girard told DPA. Plato described the Atlanteans as a noble and progressive race, which erected a gold and silver temple to sea god Poseidon and dug canals to make use of the abundant natural resources of their beautiful island.The rulers of Atlantis held sway into parts of Europe and Africa, and finally became so power-hungry that supreme god Zeus submerged the island into the sea, Plato says.Plato’s dialogues “Timeaus” and “Critias” are the only known original references to Atlantis, and many people believe it to be only a creation of the philosopher´s imagination designed to illustrate an argument about human nature.Yet Collina-Girard, geologist at the University of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence, believes the myth of Atlantis may have corresponded to a real island.It was where Plato described it to be, near the Pillars of Hercules, a name used by the Greeks for the Strait of Gibraltar, Collina-Girard says.His assessment of coral reef data indicates that an archipelago emerged from the western part of the strait around 20,000 years ago, when the sea level sank 135 metres during the ice age known as the Late Glacial Maximum.The largest island of the archipelago, Cap Spartel Island, was 14 kilometres long and five kilometres wide. Collina-Girard believes that it may have been Atlantis.Though ice sheets covered much of northern Europe, the area where Atlantis may have been located is thought to have retained a benign climate.When ice began to melt, the sea level rose again, and the archipelago was submerged some 11,000 years ago. Researchers believe widespread flooding occurred around that time and may have given rise to the Biblical myth of the deluge.The location and geography of the archipelago and the time of its submergence, Collina-Girard points out, correspond roughly to the details given by Plato.Spartel Island was not nearly as large as the one described by Plato, but Collina-Girard thinks it may have been a simple mistake in converting the measurements in the Egyptian account on which the Greek philosopher is believed to have based his writings.The French scientist made his discovery accidentally while studying the possible migration patterns of palaeolithic people.Who were the residents of Atlantis? Palaeontological evidence in Morocco and Spain indicates that a more advanced race of humans defeated a race of hunter-gatherers at that time.Members of that superior race may have settled on the island which had emerged from the sea, Collina-Girard suggests – though Plato’s idea that they built an utopian society could be mere embellishment.
