Ep. 12: Zeus@MtOlympus.net: Atlantis

Speaker A: Hello. Hi, I'm Emma.
Speaker B: I'm Shannon, and welcome um to this podcast.
Speaker A: Doesn't exist.
Speaker B: Do you scare me again this week?
Speaker A: No, thanks. You're welcome. I purposely did not choose a disappearance.
Speaker B: Or spooky something or other or anything murdery.
Speaker A: Um i instead chose something that I think you're going to like. Do you want to make a guess?
Speaker B: Um it is one of my favorites. Your favorites? Have you talked to me before about.
Speaker A: It in the context of something else? Yes. I really have no idea. All right, my friends, today we are going to be talking about Atlantis. I am so excited. Feel free to buckle however you buckle into a submarine because we are going down. I am really excited.
Speaker B: You're really proud of yourself for that joke. I am.
Speaker A: All right, so since ancient times, Atlantis has been a mystery. Was it a true place, one of advanced technology and government swallowed by the ocean? Or is it a place of myth and story, a civilization we should take as a blueprint or even a warning for our future? So here's the initial story of Atlantis. It all starts with Plato, not the toy. Thank you.
Speaker B: My brain immediately.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker B: It's like I realize what I mean.
Speaker A: But you mean Plato? Plato, not Plato. I realized, as I said it out loud, that that's what it sounds like. I haven't said Plato out loud.
Speaker B: Welcome, uh everyone, to a reminder to.
Speaker A: Enunciate behind your mask.
Speaker B: Nobody knows how to do it.
Speaker A: No Mumbles, please. So, yes, it all starts with Plato. He wrote of the island of Atlantis and his dialogue. Not to Mees.
Speaker B: It's because you're thinking about Tim.
Speaker A: I am.
Speaker B: He um was so nice. He brought uh Emma's charger.
Speaker A: You did? We're recording two episodes today. Oh, happy New Year, by the way. Hey. Well, almost. It's New Year's Eve. It's New Year's Day, I think.
Speaker B: What uh is time it's made up anyway, doesn't it? Shout out to Tim husband of the year?
Speaker A: Yes. Seriously. He came and brought the charger for the computer.
Speaker B: I had brought everything I needed to today.
Speaker A: I even made myself like a mini checklist to be like, all right, I have this. I have this. I have this. I have this. I did not have a charger. So he drove all the way down here, dropped it off, and then he's coming back after this so we can go look at Christmas lights. Triad adventure. He's the best. So, yes, I was thinking of my Tim, but um it's Timeus. And the critiques again. Greek Latin not our thing. I apologize to my father in law uh also.
Speaker B: What was that one professor you had in College?
Speaker A: Aldinian. I loved him. Was it him? Yeah, he's a Latin Professor. But then you have another one that.
Speaker B: Had a cute dog.
Speaker A: Oh, uh yeah. He was the advanced Latin Professor, and he was married to the uh head of uh the religion Department. And they had two dachshunds. They loved them. That would allow our friends at home.
Speaker B: To check off the image story square on their bingo card, which we're still.
Speaker A: Early on in the episode.
Speaker B: If you wanted to go and download.
Speaker A: It, you can find it in our LinkedIn bio on Instagram. At this podcast doesn't exist. Atlantis is on there, by the way. It's true. The easiest one yet. Basically your free space. Alright, let's try this again. He wrote of the island of Atlantis and his dialogues, Timaus and Critios. Uh i think I did. That right. Love them. So dialogues are basically a written, fictional debate set up to have characters speaking to each other, usually arguing a topic kind of like Critius colon. This is what he says. And then tomeus colon, it goes that way, but in uh this way they're able to have like a Socratic debate on paper. So these uh are our only primary sources from the ancient world about this island that we have intact. Uh but the way that Plato writes a bit makes it seem like he was not the only one who believed. So the dialogues are quoting Solon, an Athenian statesman who visited Egypt between 590 and 580 BC. Solan apparently found Egyptian documentation about Atlantis and translated them. However, we don't have any kind of solid evidence of this. Uh this is just within the dialogues that we're learning of this. The basis of the dialogues is that Plato has introduced his idea of a perfect society in his Republic. Feel free to go and read Plato's Republic. I did not. Socrates, who is also a character in these dialogues, wants to see if he and the others can think of a story they know that reflects such an exemplary society using on the structures that work within certain current civilizations. It is now that Critiis, one of the characters, brings up the ancient civilization of Atlantis, the antithesis of the perfect civilizations that Athens has become. He so believes he outlines it in his portion of the dialogue. So Critius explains the island as the domain and birthplace of Atlas, the son of Poseidon, hence Atlantis and mhm the Atlantic Ocean. He was the first King, and so the island and the ocean were named for him. He passed the lineage down to his sons and to their sons so that the Atlanteans were descendants of the gods. The island was very large, supposedly larger than, quote, ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, end quote, which would refer to current Northern Africa and over half of Turkey. So I had to find that translation of like, what does this mean for now? Because I don't know how large ancient lives.
Speaker B: What is the map look like?
Speaker A: The island is um also situated just beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, which um is at the edge of Spain on the Southern tip and the top of Africa, basically. And um at this time it was called the Pillars of Hercules and is described as having mostly mountains to the north and a plain to the south. The island itself was surrounded by another stretch of land that rounded the north of the island and met just at the south almost all the way. But it created a natural harbor, so there's, like, a little bit of space that this land around it has allowed for there to be a almost natural wall between the island and uh the outside world. The island was equipped with both hot and cold Springs, fertile land, and an abundance of animals, including elephants. According to the account, the mountain in the middle was surrounded by three boats with land in between in proportional size, basically creating three concentric Islands. Bridges were built to the rest of the island, connecting the concentric circles of land over the water. A canal to the sea was dug and walls were erected around the main city, and the edges of the circles adorned with precious metals and so it shined like silver and also colored red, white and black from the quarried rock nearby. Quarried? Very difficult word. There was a temple to Poseidon in the middle of the city, a palace and an altar. The island is described as having excellent plumbing that utilized the hot and cold water that naturally sprang from the island, even that these waters could be directed into hybrid bathrooms, particularly in the Valley. So he goes on to describe the population of Atlantis as a warring people who were equipped to fight. As in, they were definitely not on um offense. They were constantly going after people to try and conquer. So they were on offense. Yes. Sorry. This is another reminder that Evan does not play.
Speaker B: We don't play sports.
Speaker A: I'm not great at sports. I always forget which is which. Anyway, Atlantis was a conquering civilization and had taken over ancient Libya to its northeast as far as Egypt and into Europe as far as what is now central Italy. Enslaving those they could along the way. They had a strong Navy, a wide breadth of technological advancements in wealth, but became corrupted by it. Within the story that Critius is telling us, mhm apparently the Athenians took action and waged a war against the Atlanteans and prevailed, thanks to the intervention of the gods, setting free the lands that had been conquered. So basically, they made sure that everyone got set free. All the slaves are no longer slaves, except the Greeks and Romans definitely have slaves. Yeah.
Speaker B: I can see why this didn't make the cut for the Disney version, right?
Speaker A: Yeah. After this defeat, Critius says, quote, There occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune, all your warlike men in a body sank into the Earth, and the island of Atlantis, in like manner, disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable because there is a Shoal of mud in the way. And this was caused by the subsidence of the island. Atlantis disappeared into the ocean. Mhm later, ancient writers and philosophers comment on this particular section of Plato's writing. And the debate began on whether or not Plato's dialogue on the island was an actual account or a fabrication used as a tool to teach the myth persists through the ancient world and continue into our more modern times, growing in theory and depth of possibility. And so we dive into scholarship. Ahahahahahaha, I didn't write that on purpose, and I'm just really proud of it now. Well done. Most of what we have as modern interpretations of Atlantis stem from the 16th century, when scholars started to correlate Atlantis and the New World of America. Among these scholars were Francisco Lopez de Gamora. He's a Spanish historian. I didn't know him before this. Francis Bacon.
Speaker B: Hey, our Shakespeare friend and Alexander von.
Speaker A: Hombolt, a geographer and polymath of many subjects. He basically did everything and was just like, I like geology this week. Honestly, I'm so jealous of people because.
Speaker B: I feel like in olden times there.
Speaker A: Was less information overall to know, which meant you could know more about particular things or you could know about more topics versus now it's like you are.
Speaker B: A geologist or a chemist or an English master, and that is your topic of expertise. You stay in your Lane and you take Gen Ed classes versus Sir Francis Bacon.
Speaker A: Could have been Shakespeare.
Speaker B: Was he a Freemason? Do I remember from my own notes, let's say that he was.
Speaker A: I think maybe. I think I remember talking about that.
Speaker B: I know a couple of the potential Shakespeares were Freemasons, but enjoy that square, Jordan.
Speaker A: You're welcome. Oh, I need to show um you what I mean. These pictures will be up on the Instagram, as they always are. But currently I'm showing Shannon the picture of what the layout of the island would look like. The way that Plato has described it looks very organized. Right. And the concentric circle thing is very exact. And it's an image that pops uh up quite a lot in other archaeological uh digs. I love that.
Speaker B: That photos from the History Channel.
Speaker A: Yeah, I watched a History Channel documentary uh or like, show, because I don't necessarily know if there would be documentaries if it's shorter than a certain amount of time. Anyway, I watched that and I watched another Atlantis thing on Disney uh Plus.
Speaker B: I went through like, Hulu, Disney plus YouTube.
Speaker A: I was just like, I'm craving I just want to hear people talk about it. I don't just want to read it. I want to hear them actually talk about it. And in most of these things, there's always this one archeologist who is absolutely convinced that he is right but is so passionate about it that you're like, yeah, buddy. Yeah, you're definitely right about this.
Speaker B: But you have no absolute idea about any of it. You're just taking off the information that he's giving you.
Speaker A: So they were fun to watch. I really appreciated these adorable archaeologists who were just doing their best.
Speaker B: Are you going to go home and.
Speaker A: Watch the Disney Atlantis. Yes, I am. I purposely did not watch it last night because I was like a reward for your fantasy. Um if you haven't seen the Disney version of Atlantis, guys, what are you doing? Also shout out to that era of weird, sort of like steampunk, almost like Treasure Planet and my two very first cartoon crushes.
Speaker B: I just want more of that.
Speaker A: We don't need one of the new.
Speaker B: Ones that got announced. I feel like they had just announced a bunch of sequels and prequels.
Speaker A: Too many sequels.
Speaker B: Although Chris Evans is going to be Buzz Lightyear.
Speaker A: You didn't know that?
Speaker B: No.
Speaker A: Oh, yes. But it's not replacing Tim Allen. It's in the world of Toy Story.
Speaker B: Buzz the toy is based on, like.
Speaker A: You know what I mean? So it's kind of meta the way they described it, but it's uh like Chris Evans is an actor portraying Buzz Lightyear. Buzz Lightyear in a movie that Andy.
Speaker B: Would have gone to go see the Buzz Lightyear movie.
Speaker A: Oh, I think uh is the way they love that. When I first saw it, I got very upset. I was like, Chris Evans, I adore you, mhm but you can't replace Buzz.
Speaker B: But we can't replace him.
Speaker A: Allen. What?
Speaker B: And then they were like, no, that's not what's happening.
Speaker A: So, guys, we'll see.
Speaker B: Buzz Lightyear is my favorite Disney character ever.
Speaker A: He truly is my favorite. I love him so much.
Speaker B: We dressed up as we did Buzz.
Speaker A: And Woody for our week of Halloween.
Speaker B: In College sophomore year. We had so much energy and dedication.
Speaker A: So much dedication. We were a different pair of people for uh Halloween every day for seven days leading up to Halloween. Uh that was great. We should do that again.
Speaker B: No, it's how I want to.
Speaker A: I just can't do it right. I can't commit yet. You got to know that. We have to plan it.
Speaker B: We'll start now. If you have suggestions, please seriously PM us on Instagram.
Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker B: Back to our scholarship.
Speaker A: Yes. In 1663, Janis Johannes Bikura wrote, quote, Orbe, Novo, Novo, which means the new world is not new, which is an accurate statement in regards to them believing that Atlantis in the New World are like this one and the same, since we had Indigenous Peoples here in the, quote, New World well before anybody else. But in conjunction with the idea of Atlantis, this poses an interesting idea of what Indigenous civilizations were perceived as in different cultures across the ocean. A German Jesuit scholar in the 16 hundreds named Ethanasius. Ethanossius uh believed wholeheartedly that Plato's account was literally true. And he claimed Atlantis was a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean. And this kind of takes off in later maps that we see of people uh drawing of Atlantis, that it's actually its own little small continent um rather than just in island off the coast of Spain. Sir Thomas mhm Moore was inspired by accounts of travel to America and by Plato's descriptions of Atlantis and so wrote his 16th century work Utopia, a piece of fiction which coins the word utopia, which is from a Latin word meaning no place and therefore um a potential place of perfection. That's deep perfection doesn't exist. Yeah.
Speaker B: Boom. Save you an hour of therapy this week. You're welcome.
Speaker A: You're welcome. He and Francis Bacon discuss similar themes in their novels. Bacon in his 1626 work, The New Atlantis, which places Atlantis in America. So he's written a novel about the people uh of Atlantis living on Atlantis that has basically placed them within the geography of the known world in America.
Speaker B: That's interesting.
Speaker A: So basically, he's made a guess that's interesting, though, that they because by that assumption, like you said, the Athenians would have had to cross the ocean, which.
Speaker B: Almost takes away from the achievement of Columbus and these other explorers who discovered the Americas.
Speaker A: Well, actually, the Greeks did it a.
Speaker B: Long time ago with less resources.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, they had the gods, I guess.
Speaker B: Well, they weren't trying to colonize.
Speaker A: I think that maybe had been a different thing, too. They weren't trying to necessarily colonizer Bacon and Sir Moore.
Speaker B: They probably wouldn't have believed in the Greek gods.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And uh that they would have been.
Speaker A: Able to offer assistance.
Speaker B: They probably would have just looked at.
Speaker A: It as like, oh, the Athenians believed in the gods. So these ideas sparked the belief that the Mayan and Aztec civilizations could have been either the Empire of Atlantis or descendants of it. The connection with the early Mesoamerican civilizations to Atlantis, unfortunately, relies on the belief, based upon the things that they wrote at this point, that the Indigenous people couldn't have possibly produced the structures that we can still see today and must have been helped. Parentheses, ancient alien style, but with tech. Close parentheses. Because I may or may not have definitely watched an episode of Ancient Aliens today. You're welcome. And so Atlantis must have been ruled by those of a, quote, higher race. Remember, this is like the 17 1800s now. So racism, racism strikes again. Yes. One pseudo archeologists even believed that he had found connections between the Greek and Mayan languages, as well as links to Egyptian gods. He wasn't necessarily credible, um however, since he believed that he and his wife were Osiris and ISIS to Egyptian gods. But it's interesting nonetheless. And the reason he's called a pseudo archeologist is because he is not sanctioned by any particular country or University or anything. It was around this time. It was around the 1800 that he was doing this, but he was basically just making everything up um as he went along and just pointing at things and being like, this is what it is. And you have no evidence as to.
Speaker B: Why that is the audacity of a white man.
Speaker A: Sincerely. Yes. He was white. In the early 1870s, an amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schileman, Heinrich Shyleman had used Homer's, the Iliad, to unearth the city of Troy, which was thought before to um be completely fictional.
Speaker B: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker A: Yes, exactly. It's the Indiana Jones thing that you my kind of science and history.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: National Treasure style business. Seriously. Ignatius Donnelly in 1882. I know Ignatius. Imagine a baby named Ignatius. Do you nickname him? Iggy. But he in 1882 was then inspired to write Atlantis, the Antidiluvian World, where he outlined 13 hypotheses around the idea that Atlantis really had existed and represented a utopia, contrary to what Plato described it as. Because remember, Plato described it as this highly advanced place that could have had the potential to be a utopia, but.
Speaker B: It was very corrupt.
Speaker A: Exactly. And so basically, from war and natural disaster and from the power of the gods, they were struck down and eliminated. He followed the logic. Ignatius did that if they were descended from the gods, then they must have built the perfect system, crushed only by the elements, not um their own greed and hubris. Because the gods in that sense were infallible. Because he's following off of the Christian ideal of God being infallible. Whereas actually in Greek and Roman times, the gods were full of. Have you been?
Speaker B: Seriously?
Speaker A: No.
Speaker B: It's because you're not a mortal woman. If you are an immortal being, please write in. Oh, my gosh. Yes. But don't be nice to us. What would this email even be.
Speaker A: Like?
Speaker B: Zeus at Mount Olympus.net.
Speaker A: I really love that. I just love the idea of Zeus with glasses at the end of his.
Speaker B: Nose being like, I have to figure.
Speaker A: This out in order to tell them how stupid they are.
Speaker B: Harris too busy off, like having court.
Speaker A: Yes, he's been candling, so he's now.
Speaker B: Stuck in his room.
Speaker A: He's like, you have to stay in here for the next five days.
Speaker B: For the next 500 years or five.
Speaker A: Days, whichever one, whichever comes first. All right.
Speaker B: Uh sorry.
Speaker A: Yes, go ahead, Zeus. Tell us how we're not representing you. Well, anyway, Ignatius believed all of that. He also believed that if we followed the clues that Plato had written about the island, it could be found. If Troy had been a myth once and was actually real, why couldn't Atlantis be? Which is. All right, that logic kind of follows based upon what just happened. And so this is where the modern idea and modern ideal of Atlantis took off as being this mystical, mysterious. There we go. Mystical and mysterious. Uh magical place like it exists somewhere in the world. It's still there. We just need to go look for it. Question at this time, are they still believing that there are Atlanteans or just that the city still exists under the ocean or um wherever? My guess is that they're still believing in the island somewhere off that's been destroyed. But I think uh they also had a concept of Atlantean refugees. Okay, so that there were Atlanteans somewhere within descendants. Exactly. But they were not thinking that there are people living underwater. So far as I could find the answer is?
Speaker UNK: No.
Speaker A: Okay, clearly my perception is colored by the Disney version, but I am sure that there is. I couldn't find anything that fully outlined that, but maybe it was in some of these books that I didn't necessarily read because they're very hard to clarify. Fair enough. It would be lovely if that were true. Really? Like that. Now barge in. The Russians.
Speaker B: Unexpected.
Speaker A: The Theosophical Society was founded in the 1870? Uh s by a Russian Mystic, Helena Petrovna Bobblovsky. It's very difficult for me to say that. And her partner, Henry Steele Alcott, who.
Speaker B: I'm not sure, was actually Russian, maybe not.
Speaker A: Their philosophy of Western romanticism, um which has an emphasis on emotion mixed with Eastern religious concepts, has allowed the group to be called now the founders of the New Age and other spiritual movements. Okay, so like, New Age gotcha movement kind of stuff. Not of the New Age.
Speaker B: No.
Speaker A: My brain was interpreting that as the.
Speaker B: Founders of an organization called the New Age.
Speaker A: So my brain was going, am I supposed to know what that is? They're the founders of the Theosophical Society. Yes. New Ages.
Speaker B: A genre, genre of religion.
Speaker A: Got you. Helena wrote The Secret Doctrine in 1888 in which she outlined the five root races. And it goes from an ethereal race, so kind of like just spirit to a more physical race, but not necessarily bodies, to progressively more human iterations. The fourth of these mhm root races stemmed from Atlantis. So the Atlanteans were of this fourth race and within this fourth race, Spring, mhm the fifth race, which was the Aryan race, the one that was the modern human race. So she outlined. Helena maintained that the Atlanteans were heroes in line with Donnelly. And contrary to Plato, Atlantis, she and the Theosophists believed had reached its height a million to 9000 years before, but essentially selfdestructed due to internal warfare that rose from the dangerous use of psychic and supernatural powers of its people. So because they are descended from gods, they have these kinds of powers and um psychic abilities and they weren't using them to their advantage and it actually ended up self destructing them. Okay, the Nazis, because they're also here. And who invited you? They invite themselves and the Nazis and their own occult practices because, look that up. Nazis were super into the occult.
Speaker B: I've seen Captain America, the First Avenger.
Speaker A: But these occult practices appear too, uh mostly using the Atlantis myth to bolster the idea of a superior race that was half God and half human and was almost wiped out, but one that would prevail once more over those who had, quote, oppressed them.
Speaker B: So they're using what in your life, right, white boy? Have you been oppressed?
Speaker A: It's just when they can't do exactly what they want to do, that's how they feel. Oppressed. Anyway, moving on. Subsequent believers, specifically occultists, trace the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis, but they never define the Atlantean society as superior or utopian. Rather a lower stage of evolution and occultism.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Which is interesting in the conjunction with the idea of occult and technology, like what they believed was their technology at the time. So interesting flipping my page over. Nowadays, people searching for Atlantis have become pseudo scholars or treasure hunters hoping to happen upon the lost civilization with some radar or carefully plotted dig. So where is Atlantis? There is extreme speculation over where Atlantis actually is, but the most popular are one in or near the Mediterranean Sea, with connections to Crete, Malta, Santorini, Sardinia and other Islands. Two in the Atlantic Ocean, like the Canary Islands, the Azores, or the Madeira Islands. Three, Stone Age Ireland, as described. Geography matches Ireland almost perfectly. So some scholars say, though, there is absolutely no archaeological um evidence to this.
Speaker B: You got enough going on up there.
Speaker A: Seriously. Four somewhere in Europe, most likely in the North Sea. So, like, with Sweden and Norway and all that, or five in the Caribbean or Bahamas creating the vortex of the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker B: Next um time we create the next iteration of the bingo uh card, I feel like we need to include a square that says call back to a previous episode.
Speaker A: Seriously, we do probably need to update it after, like, George, he's going to get so bored. All right, so here are our theories. Number one, Atlantis never existed. Plato wrote the piece about Atlantis and the dialogue as um a way to demonstrate certain philosophical theories, like divine versus human nature, the eventual corruption of human society, and what the most ideal society would be. He used the story of Atlantis to give an example of what it might look like to be a highly advanced civilization that allows its greed and immorality to get the best of them, in this case, retribution from the gods. So basically to be like, let's not be jerks, right? Well, in the way that sometimes people.
Speaker B: If you just try to get straight up in their face and be like.
Speaker A: What you're doing in your town, city, uh Empire is bad.
Speaker B: But if you tell them a story about it, it's like when Jesus tells terrible.
Speaker A: Yeah, like when Jesus tells parable inside of my brain, but what came to my head was godsfell and not the actual Bible, the musical. Sorry.
Speaker B: It's fine. Anyway, after all this time, you think.
Speaker A: We would have found something that would give us the evidence we need to prove that Atlantis is a real place. But nothing conclusive has arisen, regardless of all of the event, like searches and digs and very thin connections to knowledge theory. Number two, Atlantis did exist, but it wasn't called Atlantis. Oh, it could very well have been a collection of Islands inhabited by the ancient civilization called Lemonons, of people with incredible building skills known by Plato and the rest of the world at that time, but was a very far gone civilization, even to them. So it was a potentially ancient civilization to them. Too, like it's even more ancient to us. So that's a possibility. Mhm as it happens, there is evidence of a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, effectively destroying the volcano and making it into a caldera, which is basically just a flat volcano, which uh would have required the force of more than an atomic bomb rocking the Mediterranean and creating tsunamis and earthquakes elsewhere. Although some scholars don't believe the timeline matches when Plato said Atlantis was destroyed, others suggest that there are too many coincidences for it not to be connected to the eruption on Santorini and the disappearance of the Minoan civilization that inhabited it. Just the possibility of being destroyed.
Speaker B: By the uh way that the History.
Speaker A: Channel documentary described it, I think it.
Speaker B: Might have been uh that or the Atlantis thing.
Speaker A: One of these documentaries I watched described the eruption like the dust and ash of the eruption being so hot that when it hit people who are running away, uh it made them disintegrate immediately. That's how hot it was. And I was like, I don't understand how that physically works, but okay, that's terrifying. Yeah. Not a fan. No. Flashback to an earlier off the mic.
Speaker B: Conversation we were having about what was your childhood morbid obsession? Um pompeii was also on my uh list.
Speaker A: Mine was the Romanovs. Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde. I had a lot of them on my list. And the lost colony of Roanoke, Yo Craziness. Uh all right. In 1900, archaeologists also found a site on Crete in Kenozos that captures a palace in a small city under its volcanic ash. They were advanced in their technology, like their subterranean network of pipes and drains that carried wastewater away from the main palace and could be piped into the palace in spaces throughout the city, which is really advanced for this time period. I know that thinking about plumbing as, like, an advanced idea isn't necessarily conceptual to us. We can kind of understand, like, indoor plumbing. I get that it wasn't really a thing, but you at least had an outhouse or anything like that. Wastewater usually would end up in streets in 1600 London. You could smell London from like 3 miles away from the city. Whereas this ancient civilization figured out how to make plumbing, like a good deal for everybody, which is incredible. The palace itself was enormous, four stories and had hundreds of patches way to get around. It is unlike anything of the period on the mainland, far beyond the magnitude uh of what the Romans and the Greeks had at the time. So most Roman and Greek homes and even palaces were just large, not tall. So it would be like a maximum of maybe five or ten rooms. And they would not necessarily be connected by passageways or hallways. They would just be all interconnected so that you would walk into one room and then walk through another doorway into another room kind of thing. That's wild, because I just remember from all my art um history classes we.
Speaker B: Pointed to the Greeks and the Romans as being so advanced, like aqueducts that are still standing today that are Roman construction, but for them to be the.
Speaker A: Inferior, seriously, uh it's absolutely insane, too. Reading this stuff and watching these documentaries and having them go, this is thousands of years older than the Roman aqueducts. That is insane to me. It's crazy to think uh about it in that sense of, like, the Romans didn't even develop this as a thing until thousands of years later. And we know that based on documentation at the time, we don't have any documentation of this. It would probably have been just a trade that was passed down. Like, there was no reason to write anything.
Speaker B: The language, too, because there's carvings and.
Speaker A: There'S drawings and there's stuff on cave walls. There wouldn't be for any Stone Age and Bronze Age thing of the time. A civilization of the time. And one of them, um there are runes, almost. It looks like runes, but it's something completely indecipherable. But you can tell that it's a language that is purposeful. Yeah. So it's not just a drawing of, like, lines in different iterations. It is a language. So that's fascinating to me. But there's no way for us to actually decipher it unless somebody gets magical powers and figures it out.
Speaker B: We find another piece of a Rosetta stone right somewhere.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Wild.
Speaker A: It's so cool. Archaeologists, you all are wild. I wanted to be an archeologist so bad when I was a kid, and then I realized that it requires a whole hell of a lot more math than I am capable of. I'm mad at childhood. Me too.
Speaker B: If I could go back in time, I'd give childhood me a bunch more books about different careers.
Speaker A: Seriously, I would have been like, here, look at all of this stuff that you could or are capable of doing. You just need to do it anyway. The palace was also made from gypsum, which is a kind of rock that when the sun hits, shines like silver.
Speaker B: I um learned about that in my two environmental science class. Shout out to you, Mr. Roland. I love you.
Speaker A: The palace also had pillars of red wood that held up the floors of certain stories. It was also designed so that there was sunlight in every single space. Regardless of the fact that this is a four story building and there are hundreds of passageways and tons of rooms, they utilize the thought of skylights and a courtyard in the middle of the building to make it possible that every room has light. It's fascinating. There is evidence that the earthquakes that certainly at that point, ancient times shook the area because it happened often. The Mediterranean is basically over top of a tectonic plate, like two tectonic plates that are always shifting. So earthquakes are not uncommon for this area. The walls of this palace were built to withstand sudden shifts in the Earth. They had wooden frames in the wall and then in between those frames, it was filled with stone that prevented the earthquakes from shaking them down. And this development of building was not even developed in our modern world until, like, the early 21st century. So, like, San Francisco getting shaken and then everything's falling and on fire. There was no concept of creating an earthquake resistant home or building. And these ancient people figured out the way to do it architecturally, and they.
Speaker B: Figured out physics without even figuring out physics. It's just so crazy to me.
Speaker A: I love it. But they were talking about it in the documentary. Uh i'll tell you what it is in like a minute when I get to that point in my notes. But they keep talking about just how advanced this is. Um and when you usually think of technology, quote, unquote of advanced technology. We all think like, they had fancy gadgets uh and like in Atlantis, they had the lasers and stuff.
Speaker B: So, like, it's interesting to me that.
Speaker A: What they mean by technology is just like they actually knew how different things were built. Their engineering was so different and so advanced. That was the technological advance at the time because this is the Stone and Bronze Age. Like, the technological advance of fire is not fairly new, but not far from new. It's just fascinating to me. However, these walls could not keep them safe from a massive tsunami that had been determined to have happened during the approximate time of the demise of Minoan civilization. The tsunamis probably came from that giant explosion of the volcano on Santorini, which is about 100 miles north of Crete in the 1900s. Digging past the volcanic ash on the central island of Santorini at Akrotiri that contains the caldera. So this is where the caldera is. Archaeologists found a house site and a burial ground that gave them evidence uh of a civilization that could have very well been completely destroyed by a crazy natural phenomena that matched Plato's description of Atlantis's destruction. After digging further, archaeologists found evidence of a fully planned city, internal bathroom, plumbing that is centuries ahead of its time and an obviously prosperous civilization. Closer to Plato's description of the Kingdom of Atlantis and linked to the palace of Crete. That's what this space is. It's obvious that they were in contact with Crete and some surrounding Islands. So it is not unfathomable that Atlantis, quote unquote, was a collection of Islands rather than one island, or at least the civilization was. Yeah. Or this is just places that they conquered, that they were able to spread their civilization further. Got you. It is unlikely, though, that we can take Plato's description fully as fact, since he described the Atlanteans as coming from the west. Remember, Straits of Gibraltar and being fairly militaristic, as in they mhm are going um to conquer everybody that they have the chance to. Whereas the Minoans were egalitarian and actually based in the east. So they're more from the Greek side of the Mediterranean. There is also a theory that Sardinia is actually Atlantis as the Pillars of Hercules could actually potentially be the edge of Italy and the edge of Sicily, close enough to be seen on either side of you as you sail through those points towards Sardinia. The island itself has a few formations that um are of an advanced technique and it has the potential, based on archaeological evidence, that the civilization was wiped out and forgotten. The island also has made of red, black and white rock like Plato described. There is also a mountain there that is topped with a tower that was once in the middle of the island before the Southern edge was submerged. And it also has a temple to a water deity which was very important and key to Atlantean society, according to Plato. The theory persists, though, that the evidence on Sardinia is actually mhm from the refugees from a destroyed Atlantis, as it was after the eruption of On Santorini that these ruins date. So if the actual destruction of Atlantis was because of the eruption on Santorini, then the ruins in Sardinia, because they date mhm after this eruption, must be from the refugees of this eruption in 2017. James Cameron hey and documentary filmmakers Simka Jacob. I can't do anyone's name today. Jacobici Simca Jacobici teamed up to produce Atlantis Rising on a quest to discover the real Atlantis, following the myth and trying to add up the clues, but essentially find instead that uh there is evidence that links the Islands of the Mediterranean and even the Azores in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to one ancient civilization, or at the very least, a civilization that was emulated throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Is this the one on Disney Plus? Yes. Usually these kinds of documentaries are very ancient aliens esque. The way that they're produced, the way that they are written, they are not very well done. This is the exact opposite. This documentary was so um good. James Cameron is a little goofy because he's not even around. He's just kind of like the producer. And Simka is the guy who's going to all of these Islands and talking to people and looking at these ruins. The photography is gorgeous, the music is great, and every single scientist that they interview is just the perfect nerdy man. It's so good. I love it so much. It was such a good documentary. I definitely suggest it. It is on Disney Plus. It's a National Geographic thing. I know that for some reason Disney owns National Geographic.
Speaker B: Um capitalism is the reason you're looking for.
Speaker A: Yeah, but yeah, it's very good. I suggest it very highly. Um so they believe that Atlantis was actually in what is now Southern Spain, so beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, under mud flats at Donyaana National Park. This would fit with the assertion that they were a conquering civilization that came from the west. Spain able to use the ports to their advantage and to build up a powerful Navy. The fact that it is covered in mud flats also goes along with the impassable piece of ocean that Plato talks about after the city is destroyed. The mud flats have been excavated minorly and have given up some promising pieces that there is in fact evidence of a civilization under there. But the space is a National Park and is exceedingly hard to excavate because mud, which makes sense. But the clues, at least to Simka, added up to a conquering nation that made it all the way from Spain to Greece and Turkey before a natural disaster brought them to their knees and scattered them. England. Our third theory, Atlantis is real and.
Speaker B: Magic is out there and we're just.
Speaker A: Waiting to find it. The end. Thank you Disney, for all of my Atlantis dreams. Because Milo and Keita and also talk about a diverse cast. Why is this not a live uh action movie? Seriously? I mean, Dr. Sweet, the rock or even what's his name from Brooklyn, 99.
Speaker B: Golly, I have not watched that um show. Andy Sandberg is the only one I.
Speaker A: Know, and that's not who you're talking about.
Speaker B: No, I'm sure I've seen gifts of him. The bald African American uh man, really tall.
Speaker A: Buffy, be perfect for Dr. Sweet. He'd be the perfect doctor. Sweet. And then we have Audrey. Like America Ferrera would be perfect. And then Vinny, that guy in the movie theater line that we saw one time, remember? Who know what he looks like. The mix between the Dynamite guy, Vinny from Atlantis and the guy who killed Bambi's mom. Remember that? We were going to go see a movie and we were in concessions like this. Oh, wait.
Speaker B: Okay. I think I remember. Maybe. Remember movie theaters.
Speaker A: Guys, let's see if I can find a picture. If I can find it, we'll put it on the Insta.
Speaker B: I'll try and like, block out his.
Speaker A: Face a little bit so it's not like Chrome emoji or something.
Speaker B: I don't know.
Speaker A: But seriously though, where is my lap action movie and why it would be so beautiful and like Tom Holland as Milo. Wouldn't that be kind of sweet? Too little, too, baby. I don't want to say too handsome because that's mean.
Speaker B: But yeah, like two, baby. I need some more academic angst.
Speaker A: That's fair.
Speaker B: That boy doesn't look like he's ever pulled it on later to write a paper.
Speaker A: He's busy spoiling Marvel movies. That's true. Writing with your Dreamcast of alive. Seriously. Best gang ever.
Speaker B: Oh, you've got a picture?
Speaker A: I do. I really want to watch this um.
Speaker B: Movie now because it's been so long. I love the caption.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That's going on the instance uh like a beautifully diverse cast.
Speaker B: You know that Josh Gadd would play this character.
Speaker A: Oh, year.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. 100%. That's who they would pick.
Speaker A: I just love it. It's such a perfect movie to me because uh it just encapsulates that whole feeling that I love of nerdy adventure.
Speaker B: Kind of like, happenstance luck situation, but.
Speaker A: Also love and a whole gang getting together and being best friends. But there's that crucial moment that they all have to make that one decision of like, am I going to do this for them or am I going to do it for me? The right reason. There's a selfish reason. It's so good. Atlantis, treasure planet, natural treasure.
Speaker B: Indiana Jones.
Speaker A: Yes, they're just perfect. I love it.
Speaker B: Indiana Jones was one of my favorite.
Speaker A: Um movie series when I was a kid. Well, I think half of it has to do with the fact that my dad wanted me to watch them and so he'd be like, what's this with me? And we'd get excited and watch it. But also the fact of what would it feel like to be that knowledgeable and find this thing and know exactly what it is, know exactly what you're looking at. That's so cool. And you're the first person to see it and you discover it. You're just so uh smart. So smart.
Speaker B: Further proof. I know we've had this conversation off the mic. I don't know if we have on the podcast, but further proof of why I love Nicholas Cage in the National Treasure movie.
Speaker A: Seriously, I cannot abide him in any movements except for the animated into the Spiderverse. But just to know enough to be like, oh, yes, in the year, blah, blah, blah, Ben Franklin and such and such, and this, it's just amazing. I have that knowledge. I know that both of us are smart enough to be able um to do this. However, I know both of us are lazy enough never to do it.
Speaker B: What do you mean? You mean I can't find Atlantis?
Speaker A: Uh i'm not saying you can't.
Speaker B: I mean, I guess they already kind of found it.
Speaker A: Yeah, that was my next question is what are your thoughts on? Have they found it? Have they found evidence of it? Was it Atlantis or was it like a philosophical tool or was it an actual ancient civilization that is now under uh the water and we just need to go find it and it's still there and functioning? I don't think it's the last one. I hate to ruin your dream, all right.
Speaker B: But I think both of the other.
Speaker A: Two explanations are equally valid because I could easily see Plato being like, you aren't going to listen to me if.
Speaker B: I say that this parable is about Athens.
Speaker A: So I'm going to make it about Atlantis and to share about that. But then also, like you were saying.
Speaker B: Asian civilizations, if they wrote things down.
Speaker A: We don't have the key to that. Uh so it could have easily been a society that traveled and conquered and was taken out by natural elements, too. Yeah, well, and the fact that their entire because they were an island, their entire Navy was like the thing that kept them powerful, very similar to another island that we know was very powerful because of their Navy the British Empire.
Speaker B: So it's that kind of weird thing.
Speaker A: Of like the only reason that they're no longer around is uh because of a natural disaster. It had nothing to do with anybody else, really? Like the Athenians in Plato's description, the Athenians defeated them, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily lost their land. That was because of a natural disaster.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I don't know.
Speaker B: I don't know.
Speaker A: I would like to believe that Myla's.
Speaker B: Hatch and Keita are still living it up.
Speaker A: Has Milo become immortal because he's King now?
Speaker B: Is that a thing?
Speaker A: I don't know. I didn't see the second one.
Speaker B: I know.
Speaker A: I never saw the second Atlanta.
Speaker B: Wait, I'm sorry, what?
Speaker A: I haven't seen the second Atlanta.
Speaker B: There's a second Atlantis.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's on Disney Plus as well. Friends, are you sure?
Speaker B: We have to go like a Christmas light?
Speaker A: Yay. But after that. But after that, you get to watch.
Speaker B: I have a six hour car trip tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I'll just watch both Atlantis movies back, do it, and then maybe National Treasure.
Speaker A: That's also on Disney Plus.
Speaker B: I know I've already watched it.
Speaker A: All right, well, that is the end of my Atlantean story. I really enjoyed researching this one.
Speaker B: Yeah, you're very pleased with yourself. It was just so much fun to.
Speaker A: Research because I love the idea of Atlantis, but I only ever really knew about the movie version because this is so cool as, like, a theory.
Speaker B: But then reading further into it and.
Speaker A: Actually reading Plato's writing on it, it's very descriptive. No holds are barred in terms of describing the actual city. Obviously, I didn't read it to you, and you can find it on Project Utenburg. Thank you very much. All of the things that are no longer in the 70 years of Copyright.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: Now it's in public. Yeah, now it's in public domain. It's 70 years.
Speaker B: It's Plato.
Speaker A: It's been a minute. It's been a minute. Um but, I mean, it was fascinating. I'd never had a chance to read that. And then watching all of my documentaries, I made Tim um watch them with me, too. Husband of the year. Seriously, though.
Speaker B: Seriously. Good.
Speaker A: It was a nice, lighter topic. Yes.
Speaker B: Now we're spooky.
Speaker A: We've had a couple more heavy ones in recent weeks. And a great way to start our new year. Yes. New Year.
Speaker B: New Civilization.
Speaker A: New World. New me. New Me. Well, if you would like to share with us your thoughts and feelings on Atlantis, your live action Dreamcast for the.
Speaker B: Inevitable live action remake, we hope again. I know I said this on a previous episode. If you'd like to judge Emma for her first childhood crush um of Milo.
Speaker A: Thatch you can do any and all.
Speaker B: Of the above by emailing us at.
Speaker A: This podcast doesn't exist@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. And if you would like to see my very first crush after you make.
Speaker B: Fun of me, maybe you need to.
Speaker A: Revisit just exactly who and what he looks like. So go over to our Instagram at this podcast doesn't exist and go ahead and look at all these photos. Not just of Milo uh thatch, but also of the gang that he's a part of that goes down to go visit Atlanta uh.
Speaker B: But also my other actual sources. Sources for the material.
Speaker A: Uh yeah. So you'll be able to see what Atlantis is supposed to look like and a couple of maps on where it's um potentially located versus where Ignatius believed it was located. He printed out a whole map that had the continent of Atlantis in it in the middle of the Atlantic ocean uh and like, these are the places that it conquered. Also. I feel like we're going to have.
Speaker B: To do an episode about Ireland because.
Speaker A: Ireland keeps popping up in fully unexpected places. Bermuda triangle in our Sylvania. It was kind of there. Well, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker B: I'm sure people from Ireland would be very quick to point out to you that Ireland and Britain are too separate.
Speaker A: I'm very well aware in entities.
Speaker B: I'm just saying record. I don't want anybody to come for us.
Speaker A: No, please don't.
Speaker B: We're both very aware.
Speaker A: Very fragile.
Speaker B: Wow. The truth came hard and fast and unexpected. Much like the fall of the Atlantean Empire.
Speaker A: Well, Emma, thank you so much. This uh is really fun.
Speaker B: Happy new year, everybody. Happy new year. We're going to go enjoy what is.
Speaker A: Still Christmas time for us. Yes, time is wild. Yeah. Try and find some Christmas lights uh to go and enjoy. Woohoo. Yeah. Tim's gonna come pick us up. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Tim. Driving all the way back. I love him so much.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: All right. Just remember, uh friends, this is the first time I've ever done that.
Speaker B: This podcast. No, you don't want to do it. No, I just forgot the order. And remember this podcast doesn't exist. New year new us.
Speaker A: Woo.

Sources:
The Mother Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis
The Theosophical Society books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine
Live Science, Atlantis: https://www.livescience.com/23217-lost-city-of-atlantis.html, https://www.livescience.com/4846-eruption-thera-changed-world.html, https://www.livescience.com/64176-lost-city-atlantis-spain.html and https://www.livescience.com/26275-peaceful-minoans-surprisingly-warlike.html
Critias and Timaeus: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1571/1571-h/1571-h.htm and https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1572/1572-h/1572-h.htm
Lost Worlds: Atlantis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrkhGaNGnbU&ab_channel=HISTORY
Ancient Aliens: Aliens and Forbidden Islands: https://www.hulu.com/watch/4f9c3233-e9ef-495c-9dbe-5f455b4a9c46
National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/archaeology/atlantis/
Discover Magazine: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/where-is-the-lost-city-of-atlantis-and-does-it-even-exist
Atlantis Rising with James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, found on Disney +