THE MYSTERY OF ATLANTIS - PART ONE

The story of Atlantis begins with Plato, writing in the 4th century BCE. In his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he described a vast island beyond the Pillars of Hercules—what we now call the Strait of Gibraltar. This island, he claimed, was larger than Libya and Asia Minor combined, a land blessed with fertile plains, abundant resources, and a society that valued wisdom and virtue. Its people were descendants of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and their capital city was a marvel of engineering: concentric rings of land and water, connected by bridges and canals, adorned with gleaming walls of red, black, and white stone. At its heart stood the Temple of Poseidon, shimmering with orichalcum—a rare metal said to glow like fire.

Plato’s account was precise, even giving measurements for the city’s layout and describing its advanced infrastructure: irrigation systems, harbors, and a fleet of ships that dominated the seas. Atlantis was not just a city; it was an empire, commanding territories across the Mediterranean and beyond. Its wealth and power were unmatched, and for a time, its rulers governed with justice and restraint.

But prosperity bred ambition. The Atlanteans, once noble, grew greedy and sought to conquer lands far beyond their own. Their moral compass faltered, and arrogance replaced virtue. In Plato’s telling, this corruption angered the gods. As punishment, they unleashed a cataclysm—earthquakes and floods that swallowed Atlantis in a single day and night, leaving nothing but a restless sea where a paradise once stood.

For centuries, scholars debated whether Plato’s story was allegory or history. Was Atlantis a metaphor for hubris, a warning to Athens after its own imperial ambitions? Or was it a memory of a real civilization, passed down through oral tradition? The timeline Plato gave—9,000 years before his own era—places Atlantis around 11,600 years ago, coinciding with the end of the last Ice Age, a period marked by rising seas and violent geological upheavals. Could a great city have perished then, its ruins hidden beneath the ocean?

This question has haunted explorers, historians, and scientists for millennia. And as we’ll see in Part Two, modern discoveries are beginning to suggest that Plato’s tale may hold more truth than myth...