Talk:Atlantis

Freemasonry

The article should maybe mention the mythological theory about Atlantis being a Masonic civilization. The idea of the United States of America being a kind of New Atlantis is apparently based on the idea that both the United States and Atlantis had a supposedly Masonic background. ADM (talk) 10:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Really so if Atlantis was a Free Mason society, and Plato wrote about Atlantis, and the Freemasons began in the 18th century, then Plato could see the future. I am going to add that to the Plato article. He must have been a reptilian also.--68.184.246.3 (talk) 02:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Atlantis - Egyptian viewpiont

"Critias claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC. In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek."

Has any Egyptian manuscript/inscription been found that corroborates the Greek version of the story of Atlantis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.84.37.18 (talk) 15:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wrong place to discuss this really unless we are working on the article, but the answer is no, and the Egyptians had really very little interest in the history of anyplace other than Egypt. Dougweller (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, read the Book of the Dead. It has nothing to do with Solon, by does mention the sinking of a land to the west whose name has been translated various different ways (as is common with Egyptian names), some of these names are similar to Atlantis; although I don't think it has ever been translated as "Atlantis". Also (to correct the above commenter) the Egyptians did have an interest in non-Egyptian history, as evidenced by the Library of Alexandria, which had as its mandate to make copies of ever book or chart it could find. The Egyptians themselves made the first known records of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea. 68.148.123.76 (talk) 07:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Atlantis/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. The article has a lot of good qualities, but there are some issues that I believe prevent it from meeting the criteria.

• Lead section: "the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC" – this is not mentioned in the text
• "Plato's account":
  • The first quote is out of place; the background needs to be set up first - who is speaking etc.
  • "John V. Luce assumes..." – where? Needs ref
• "Reception"
  • "Ancient"
    • There are a couple of one-sentence paragraphs
    • "...no primary ancient account..." – needs ref
    • "Marcellus remains unidentified." – needs ref
  • "In Nazi mysticism" – does this really need a separate section?
• "In or near the Mediterranean Sea" – this section needs references to the listed locations
  • Google Earth story – here the reference is to a blog; there should be reliable sources for this
• "Other locations" – same thing as "In or near the Mediterranean Sea"
• "Notes" - the notes generally have poor formatting; many have naked URLs, in others information such as site and author is missing
• General:
  • There's a mix of spaced and unspaced dashes. Whatever kind of dashes you chose to use, it needs to be uniform.
  • Too much of the content is referenced directly to the ancient sources, which can be considered original research. Interpretation of ancient sources should be backed up by modern scholarship, of which there is plenty available.

I will wait for seven days, if anyone has started a thorough revision of the article by then, I will extend the waiting period, so the article can remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it will be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far. Lampman (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Since no significant improvements have been made to the article over the last week, I will now delist it. Lampman (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Atlantis Etymology

I deleted the explanation of the name of Atlantis which was unreferenced. I haven’t found anywhere that Atlantis meant the daughter of Atlas. It doesn't make sense. Plato states that the first born was named Atlantas/Atlas and the Island was called after him Atlantis (actually in the Greek text Atlantis is mentioned only once, the first time and then the Island is mostly called ATLANTIDI --- Ατλαντιδι νησω. ) Ατλαντ-ιδι =Atlas + Land. --Xellas (talk) 16:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you could have looked very hard. It's easy to find via Google Books or Scholar, and I happen to have a couple of the books anyway. I've added references and also references for Hellanicus's earlier work about Atlantis, I really should have done this a long time ago - it's amazing no one else noticed the article didn't mention him. Dougweller (talk) 19:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

D, I don't think that Atlantis that Hellanicus's talking about is the one from Plato. I happened to have read Plato's work in his Ancient version (I am not that great but I can read most of it) and I find that Plato uses different names for this island. when he intruduces the island he calls it; ATLANTIS (ONLY once). then, he uses different names like Atlantidi or Atlanta. So if you want to be correct you have to call it ATLANTIDI. anyway, Critias explains that the names are hellenised so the names of Atlantis are all Greek meaning. Atlantis MUST have had a different name in its language (Unfortunatelly we don't know that...)I do speak Ancient and Modern greek so there is no such a thing as the daughter of Atlas anywhere.

the only thing we can do is try to get the meaning of the word Atlantidi. I have looked into such words and I have found mostly certain pelsgian words such as atdei or atde which stunds for father (AT) and dei (LAND) and atlantidi has both so in other words we have Father - LANT - LAND. I am kind of speculating od course but I am sure that atlantis does not mean the daughter of Atlas. think about it; He is the son of Poseidon and he is the firstborn child. He can't be named after his daughter?! Anyway I will leave it like that and I will look more into it....--Xellas (talk) 22:33, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

You can read more on this site. It explains the diferent ATLAS...es http://www.atlanteans.gr/eng/engenatlas.htm --Xellas (talk) 22:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok D, I found this;

Atlas mythology - Etymology The etymology of the name Atlas is uncertain and still debated. Some derive it from the Proto-Indo-European root *tel, 'to uphold, support'; others suggest that it is a pre-Indo-European name. Since the Atlas mountains fall in the region inhabited by Berbers, it could be that the name as we know it is taken from Berber.

and another one

and it is suported by http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=atlas

As you can see no one is certain about the name, so I suggest you explain that one of the possible meanings is the daughter of Atlas and another one could be to uphold --Xellas (talk) 23:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Atlas is almost certainly derived from the same root as the verb tlaō, "endure". As I explain below, the use of "Atlantis" that we're concerned with here, from Plato, simply means "of Atlas"--Plato always uses it along with nēsos ("island") to mean "island of Atlas".

Atlantidi is simply the dative singular form of Atlantis. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

External links

I have a cool link with a blog with all Atlantis sites;

• ATLANTIS LINK LIBRARY

Should I include within? It doesn't represent a particular theory....--Xellas (talk) 17:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't look that useful to me. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand, what's not usuful? a blog with all the Atlantis sites out there?--Xellas (talk) 02:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

As you say, a blog, see WP:ELNO. It shouldn't be there. Dougweller (talk) 07:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

About the use of word OCEAN

d, u wrote that Atlantis sank into the OCEAN. Plato never said that, he use the word Pelagos. So you do have to correct that. He did say indeed Atlantis Sea but he used the word pealgos which according to BABINOTIS Dictionary means Small Sea. The ancient word for Ocean would be Either PANPELAGOS in Platos time or After Alexander = OKEANOS --Xellas (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Correct. In Timaeus, Plato uses the term "Oceanus" in a different context, towards the god, in a reference to Orphic Genealogy. -- Rich

Somewhat interesting are references to an Atlantic Sea, pre-dating Plato, by Euripedes and Steisichoros. -- Rich —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.64.182.186 (talk) 01:20, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Atlantis, daughter of Atlas != Atlantis, island of Atlas

The article currently claims the etymology of Atlantis is "daughter of Atlas", and conflates a daughter of Atlas named "Atlantis" with the island civilization that is this article's subject. This is a mistake.

First of all, etymology. The article links to the LSJ entry for the adjective Ἀτλαντικός , ή, όν, which tells us that Ἀτλαντίς (genitive -ίδος) is a feminine form of that adjective, which means "of Atlas". So this word is formed directly from the proper name Atlas, and simply means "of Atlas"; the form Ἀτλαντίς is used to modify feminine nouns. The entry also notes that Ἀτλαντίς is used as a patronymic (as adjectives in -ίς, -ίδος often are), so this gives us the additional meaning "daughter of Atlas."

The use of the word that this article is most concerned with is in Plato's Timaeus and Critias, and there, it's combined with the word νῆσος ("island") in every instance. Plato refers not to Atlantis, but "the island of Atlas" (e.g. Timaeus 25a: ἐν δὲ δὴ τῇ Ἀτλαντίδι νήσῳ ταύτῃ...) At ''Critias 114a we are told that the island (and the Atlantic Ocean) are named for the island's first king, Atlas--thus, Atlantis and Atlantic are straightforwardly derived from Atlas' name.

As for the use of Ἀτλαντίς as "daughter of Atlas", it's worth noting that there doesn't seem to be any daughter of Atlas whose name is actually Atlantis. Atlas had many daughters (Pleiades anyone?), and we can find Ἀτλαντίς used as a patronymic along with their proper name, e.g. Hesiod Theogony 938 Ζηνὶ δ' ἄρ' Ἀτλαντὶς Μαίη τέκε κύδιμον Ἑρμῆν... (Maia, daughter of Atlas, bore glorious Hermes to Zeus...). I don't have access to the fragments of Hellanicus at this moment but from this link supplied in the article it seems quite clear that the fragments of Hellanicus were discussing the daughters (plural) of Atlas and their descendants, and not the island which forms the subject of this article. So the relevance of Hellanicus to this article seems slight, although it's perhaps worth mentioning that the Greek word "Atlantis" could also be a adjective meaning "daughter of Atlas". --Akhilleus (talk) 01:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree, that's what I said before. It appears as there were at least three diferent Atlas-es. Atlas the Titan, Atlas, the one you're talking about, with the daughters and our Atlas the son of Poseidon.--Xellas (talk) 02:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to have the Google books link removed, that wasn't mine, but I'm putting back the rest as so far as I can see it is well referenced and I only used a few of those I knew about. As for daughter of Atlas, again, I don't know about the LSJ entry, but what is wrong with the other references I added? Dougweller (talk) 05:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to emphasise the point, we have reliable sources, eg the two classics professors I added, and there are more, saying "daughter of Atlas". Therefore it should be in the article - maybe with "it has been suggested...". And of course, if you have reliable sources discussing this saying it's wrong, then add those also. Dougweller (talk) 07:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Doug, did you read what I wrote above? Of course Ἀτλαντίς can mean "daughter of Atlas", but that's not what it means in every instance--and it doesn't mean that mean Plato talks about the Atlantis nēsos. --Akhilleus (talk) 11:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but my sources linked this with Plato's Atlantis, is that irrelevant? Dougweller (talk) 12:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they were, Doug. The LSJ entry doesn't; the only passage it cites for the patronymic usage is the Theogony bit I quote above--when it gets to "ἡ Ἀ. νῆσος, a fabulous island in the far West," and cites Plato and Strabo, it's talking about simple adjective usage ("of Atlas"). This version of the article cites Luce and Ramage for the usage "daughter of Atlas". I don't have Ramage, but Luce mentions "Atlantis, daughter of Atlas" in a fanciful account of how Solon might have planned an epic poem about Atlantis; elsewhere Luce observes "Atlantis is not derived from Atlantic. Linguistically both names are in the same generation, so to speak, like brother and sister, and both trace their parentage back to Atlas, the giant Titan who held the sky on his shoulders. In Greek they are adjectival forms of Atlas, meaning '(the island) of Atlas' and '(the sea) of Atlas' respectively. They differ in form because the nouns with which they agree differ in gender." (This is p. 31 in The End of Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend, which I think is essentially a reprint of Lost Atlantis: new light on an old legend, though with different pagination.) On p. 42, Luce writes: "Imagine Solon's reaction when confronted with this sort of information about ancient Keftiu. He could not have failed to associate it with the myth of Atlas, who, according to Homer, had a daughter in a remote western island and kept 'the pillars which hold the sky round about'. My suggestion is that Solon translated Keftiu by Atlantis, the island of Atlas, and, since the inhabitants bore the same name, he called them the descendants of Atlas." --Akhilleus (talk) 12:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

ok, I've confirmed below that the cite from Ramage's book refers specifically to Hellanicus's usage. I think the article needs to discuss this or it will get back in the lead at some point. Dougweller (talk) 13:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"it's worth noting that there doesn't seem to be any daughter of Atlas whose name is actually Atlantis." -- Akhilleus

-- Atlas had a couple of daughters who do not appear in the Plieades or Hyades. One was named was Maera. The other was named Atlantia, and she was married to Danaus. Atlantia was a poplar-tree nymph(hamadryade), who also would seemingly connect to the Phaethon legend via this poplar tree link. -- Rich

Hellanicus definitely wrote a work called Atlantis

I do not understand at all why this was removed. I had planned to work on it more today and look at the sources that I hadn't found myself and clear up what people think it was about (a genealogy, etc), but I don't understand why it was removed completely as it is a fact that he wrote a work called Atlantis before Plato's writings, and that is clearly something that should be in the article. Removing it wasn't the way to go I believe. I'll bring some more references to the table sometime today. Dougweller (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed it because Hellanicus' Atlantis wasn't about the subject of this article. It was, as you say, a genealogy--which deals with the descendants of the daughters of Atlas. I don't have a problem with mentioning that Hellanicus wrote a work called Atlantis, but any material that suggests that he mentioned Atlantis (the island) before Plato is wrong. --Akhilleus (talk) 11:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wrong is a bit of a strong word considering that we only have a tiny bit of this particular work and the fact that Hellanicus wrote at least 28 local histories and chronogrophies, eg the first history of Athens. But I agree that the sources say it was basically a genealogical work, although again, here's what Castleden says: "Plato's detractors have accused him of inventing the Atlantis myth in its entirety, hut a book called Atlantis was written a century before. Unfortunately, only a fragment of Hellanicus' Atlantis survives, Including the line, 'Poseidon mated with Celaeno, and their son Lycus was settled by his father in the Isles of the Blest and made immortal'.79 This bears similarities with Plato's account, where Poseidon mates with Cleito and their son Atlas becomes ruler of a marvellous island. Plato may have borrowed from the earlier book, taking its title as the name (or his lost land, while I lellanicus in his turn may have taken the story from a still earlier Atlantis epic;80 alternatively, both may have drawn on Solon's story, which may have had a wider currency in the sixth century than we now realize. The Isles of the Blest were often thought of as being far to the west...

And John V Luce in Ramage's book: "I do not myself believe that there was any popular Greek basis for Plato's tale. It has some affinities with mythological motifs like the "Golden Age" and the "Isles of the Blest," but such motifs are too generalized to count as sources. Plato, however, may have de­rived some inspiration from a fifth-century literary presentation of popular mythology. I refer to the work of Hellanicus of Lesbos, whose writings, so far as I am aware, have not previously been discussed in relation to Atlantis criticism. This is all the more surprising given the fact that Hellanicus was the author of works entitled Phoronis, Deucalioneia, and Atlantis (or Atlantika, or Atlantias), and that Plato alludes explicitly to the legends of Pho-roneus and Deucalion in his introduction of the Atlantis story (Timaeus 22a). According to Lesky, Hellanicus aimed at closing the gap between myth and historical tradition in the modern sense.60 Jacoby also regards him as much more than a mere com­piler and speaks highly of his systematic treatment of the early legends.61 Like Hecataeus, he tried to introduce some rational order into the confused deposit of Greek myth and heroic legend. I have contended that Plato continued the same enterprise, and, if so, it would be natural for him to take some account of Hellanicus' work. In the genealogy of the kings of Atlantis Plato is certainly writing in the manner of Hellanicus, and there may be a more specific debt to be traced. "Atlantis" as used by Hellanicus meant "daughter of Atlas," and the work seems to have been basically a genealogical one.62 Only a few fragments survive, and one of these recounts how "Poseidon mated with Kelaino and their son Lykos was settled by his father in the isles of the blest."63 This fragment bears a marked similarity to the account in the Critias (113d-e) of Poseidon's mating with Cleito and the island sanctuary fashioned by the god for their offspring."

Dougweller (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

So then it's very simple; include both the etymology of the name (daughter of Atlas) and Hellenicus work. Nevertheless, you have to make sure that you pinpoint the ambiguity that surrounds both. --Xellas (talk) 13:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)