Yet another discovery dying a slow death

[Rokcet Scientist]

Haven't heard from this guy since 2004...

Lost city of Atlantis 'found in Mediterranean'
November 16, 2004


Images from the seabed ... the supposed ruins of Atlantis lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean, as seen by computer and released by Robert Sarmast.
Photo: AP

A US researcher claims he has discovered the lost civilisation of Atlantis off Cyprus.

Robert Sarmast says a Mediterranean basin was flooded in a deluge about 9000 BC that submerged a rectangular site he believes was Atlantis. It lies 1500 metres below sea level, 80 kilometres off the south-eastern coast of Cyprus.

"We have definitely found it," Mr Sarmast said.

Deepwater sonar scanning had indicated man-made structures on a [...]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/11/ ... =storylhs/

[Minimalist]

Yeah...there was a special a year or so ago about this guy.

Turned out to be a natural formation.



(He was very disappointed.)

[dannan14]

Not mention that there are many cities that are now underwater. His argument that this was Atlantis seems to be "It's underwater so it has to be"

[Sam Salmon]

I read a book once-fiction-about how Atlantis was in present day Antarctica.

Not much of a novel but when the author 'switched gears' and started actually describing the city it really sounded like he/she had actually been there.

These people(the authors) live nearby on Vancouver Island and are part of the local loony-tunes set.

[Forum Monk]

I read a book once-fiction-about how Atlantis was in present day Antarctica.

In '95 Graham Hancock claimed in "Fingerprints of the Gods" that Antartica was home to the precursor race which spawned the Olmecs, Maya, Egyptians, etc around 10,500 BC when crustal displacement (ala Hapgood's theory) shifted the continent to its present location.

[Minimalist]

I recall the part where Hancock noted that his Research Assistant at the time postulated that in order for such a culture to develop it would need a continent-sized area.

On the face of it, such a claim is preposterous. The great civilizations of antiquity began as small, urbanized, political entities which through a combination of luck and skill grew to be major powers. Even such massive cultures as Minoan Crete or Hancock's England were located on small islands.

[Rokcet Scientist]

England on "a small island"? LOL! Don't let MIT hear ya.

[Minimalist]

Greenland, a much larger island, never amounted to much.

[dannan14]

Greenland, a much larger island, never amounted to much.

Then again neither has Kiribati

[kbs2244]

Aren’t the English and the Minoan empires unique in that their location does not really have much in the way of a natural site advantage?

All the others were at the mouths of large rivers and served as transfer points for inland products with overseas products.

But the English and Minoan were pure trading empires.
Their island location gave them a leg up as sailors.

Atlantis was supposed to be a trading empire also.

[Minimalist]

I don't know. The Tiber is not a major river. Athens has no river at all, as far as I know.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Correct. And the Thames isn't a very impressive river either, as far as navigability is concerned.

[Minimalist]

True but it can be done. The Romans had to build a port at Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber and ship things upriver to Rome by barge.

For that matter, though, the Romans had no apparent interest in sea-going capability until the First Punic War broke out and they discovered that they had to learn in a big hurry.

[kbs2244]

I would agree that both the Greek and Roman empires were not river based.
Their origins were land based military conquests that morphed into trading empires as a way to feed the citizens at the center of the empire.

I guess my point is that London, Paris, Cairo, Ur, and many other “inland” cities were not at the mouth of the river but at the point that ocean going ships could no longer go and thus these sites became transfer points from river based transportation to ocean based.

The various Silk Road trading empires would be the obvious exception.
But there major cities were at natural transfer points from one mode of transport to another, or of a kind of local expertise needed for the next leg of the journey.

Timbuktu would be another example of this.
A transfer point from desert to jungle travel.

But in almost all cases, trade was the reason for their existence.

When I used to travel a lot I always wondered why the town or city I was visiting was where it was.
Almost always it was trade or industry.
(Industry usually meant a good site of a water powered mill.)

Atlanta, GA always confused me.
It has no geographical reason to be where it is.
No river to speak of, it is not at a pass through the mountains, nothing.
Then I learned it was at the crossing of two major railroads.
One going east to west and the other north to south.
The city didn’t exist until the railroads came through.
Then, again, a transfer point.

But the English and the Minoan empires were unique in that they became trading empires because they had no natural reason to be there.

(As I write that I am remembering that London was a tin exporting town.)

[jw1815]

(As I write that I am remembering that London was a tin exporting town.)

London? Weren't the tin mines in Cornwall?

I've wondered how the Phoenicians learned that tin was available there.