Pre-deluvian civilisations

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In recent years there's a growing body of evidence that a comet hit earth resulting in a global flood

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH) or Clovis comet hypothesis is a speculative attempt to explain the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) as an alternative to the long-standing and widely accepted cause due to a significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic "Conveyor" in response to a sudden influx of freshwater from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. The YDIH posits that fragments of a large (more than 4 kilometers in diameter), disintegrating asteroid or comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia around 12,850 years ago, coinciding with the beginning of the Younger Dryas cooling event. Advocates proposed the existence of a Younger Dryas boundary (YDB) layer that can be identified by materials they interpret as evidence of multiple meteor air bursts and/or impacts across a large fraction of Earth’s surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_D ... hypothesis

Nearly every tribe/civilisation has a flood myth. This can't be a coincidence.

The fallout from this flood resulted in the inundation of existing civilisations at the time which was the subject of a Netflix documentary by Graham Hancock
https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81211003

Hancock's theories were put forward back in the 1980s and was labelled quack/pseudoscience as it was deemed impossible for advanced civilisations to have existed prior to the old kingdom in ancient Egypt < 2500 BC
Then in the 1990s archaeologists discovered an advanced megalithic culture that emerged in Turkey around 12,000 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
The discovery pushed civilisation back 7000 years earlier than first proposed.

The site at Gobeleke Tepi seemed to be built on foundations of older civilisations. And here's where Hancock's theory makes a correct observation that ancient cities/temples seem to be built over the foundations of earlier civilisations with more advanced stonework and masonry than the ones that came later.

Ancient history seems to an incomplete jigsaw puzzle and based on where the pieces are falling the image being put forward in school books seems be not quite accurate.

It might very well be possible. But I've always thought that the commonality of a flood myth came about from human settlements grouping around rivers and bodies of water, which have a tendency to flood.

Actually the Noah flood scripture in the bible is directly aligned with the Gilgamesh flood story of Sumer which is interesting because in the old testament the father of the hebrews Abraham was born Ur the capital of Sumer.

There are widespread flood myths all over the world. The two most famous are Plato's Atlantis and in ancient India the writings called the Sangams claim the ancestors of the earliest Indians escaped a great flood that inundated an entire continent.

[speculation=mine]

My take on the ubiquity of the "Great Flood" legend has to do with the global warming event of 12,000-15,000 years ago.  Before then, seacoasts were much further out from dry land than they are now.  With the rise in global temperatures, the North American and Euro-Siberian ice sheets melted, and the runoff raised sea levels many tens of feet.  Coastal village were inundated and forced further inland over the course of just a few generations.

Of course, this event entered the verbal history of every seacoast culture, and then spread inland.  It was inevitable that someone would try to weave the "Great Flood" into their religion as some kind of divine retribution against immorality and other offenses against the "gods" of the day.

[/speculation]

In regard to the Atlantis story, I tend to agree with the theory that the story was inspired by the obliteration of the Minoan colony of Thera, destroyed by the Santorini volcanic blast. We know many of the refugees from there fled to Egypt, where their history was kept alive in myth, till the Greeks got wind of it centuries later.

Except people still built great cities on coasts. The origin of the Atlantis myth comes from the Egyptian city of Alexandria (according to the Greek sage Solon who was renowned for his honesty) which ironically was built right on the sea and was infact inundated several times through its history.

Interesting theory Kraichie, only problem is Santorini exploded in 1600BC ending the Minoan civilisation and the Egyptians were already ancient (the Great Pyramid and Giza plateau was built 900 years before in 2500BC and the first Pharoah Menes came to power in 3200 BC which is 1600 years before the end of the Minoans)

Yeah the only date given for the sinking of Atlantis does roughly coincide with Meltwater Pulse 1b (~11.5k years ago). For that to be a coincidence is... well I would bet that whatever event the Atlantis sinking was based on probably happened back then, not more recently.

I apologize for not making myself understood. I meant that Minoans had been allowed to settle the Nile valley by the Egyptians after their home blew up, not that the Egyptians were descendants of the Minoans.

Of course it can.

Nearly every civilisation has a creation myth. Nobody thinks this is evidence that the world was created. They might believe one myth, but the others are deemed to be fictional.

Nearly every civilisation has a resurrection myth. Nobody thinks this is evidence that resurrection is real. They might believe on myth, but the others are deemed fictional.

Solon was born around 630 BC and died around 560 BC.  Plato as born around 425 BC and died around 348 BC.  Solon and Plato were not contemporaries and could not have met.

Plato wrote that the island continent of Atlantis existed about 9000 BC, based on Solon's alleged works. The few spurious pages that have turned out to be the very words of Solon --  The Memoirs of Solon  -- made no mention of Atlantis.  Plato's work included the "Republic," and the dialogues "Critias" and "Timaeus" in which he mentioned the island empire of Atlantis.  He claimed that an Egyptian priest confided information about Atlantis to Solon, the Athenian legislator, whose memoirs Plato claimed to have read.  Thus, Plato said that Solon said that Egyptian priests said that Atlantis once existed -- a written testimony of an undocumented rumor -- nothing more.

Correct, the date given by Plato (which he learned from Solon who visited Egypt in 500BC) was 9000 years before, which if you add 2500 years from the time of Plato to now equates to 11,500 years)

Last edited by cyberdad on 10 Apr 2023, 4:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Oh I see! yes that's plausibe, The story could have passed to the Egyptians since Solon visited Egypt 500BC

Flood stories are less myth and more a cautionary tale.

The Chronology of the Atlantis Myth

~10,000 BC: Runoff from glacial melting begins to raise sea levels over a period of hundreds of years. Villages and settlements close to the ocean shore were likely inundated and lost under hundreds of meters of sea water. The collective human memory of this event may have been the origin of "Great Flood" stories in nearly every human civilization, and may have eventually inspired the myth of Atlantis.

~9360 BC: Plato wrote in "Timeus" that the island continent of Atlantis existed about this time, "... situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles".

~6100 BC: About this time, the land area known as "Doggerland", between England and Denmark, is devastated by a sudden sea level rise due to a tsunami from the Storegga Slide. This is one of the many possible explanations for the origin of Plato's "Atlantis" myth.

~5600 BC: Approximated date of possible Black Sea inundation; this alleged event is one of the many possible explanations for the origin of Plato's "Atlantis" myth. The Mediterranean Sea, swollen by melted glaciers, breached a natural dam that separated it from the fresh water lake later known as the Black Sea. Sea water from the Mediterranean poured in for as long as 2 years.

~1650 BC (Appr. 1650 to 1625): The volcano Thera (now known as Santorini) in the Aegean Sea, erupted. The explosion of Thera about this time released energy equal to 200,000 H-bombs. One of the many possible explanations for the origin of Plato's "Atlantis" myth.

~630 BC: Birth of Solon, in Athens, Greece. Modern knowledge of Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive in fragments and appear to feature interpolations by later authors and by the general paucity of documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC.

~564 BC: A character in two of Plato's dialogues, "Timaeus" and "Critias", claims Solon visited Neith's temple at Sais about this time and received from the priests there an account of the history of Atlantis.

~560 BC: Death of Solon, in Cyprus, Greece. The few spurious pages that have turned out to be the very words of Solon -- The Memoirs of Solon -- made no mention of Atlantis.

427 BC (May 21): Birth of Plato, a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens -- the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.

373 BC: Destruction of Helike; one of the many possible explanations for the origin of Plato's "Atlantis" myth.

~360 BC: Plato writes "Timeus" and "Criteus", mentioning the alleged destruction of mythical Atlantis. He claimed that an Egyptian priest confided information about Atlantis to Solon, the Athenian legislator, whose memoirs Plato claimed to have read.

347 BC: Plato (b.427 BC), the most distinguished student of Socrates, dies at the age of 80. His real name was Aristocles. "Plato" meant "broad" and he was known to have broad shoulders. He was a prolific writer and considered by some as the most important of all Greek philosophers. His works were all in dialogue form and include: the "Apology", the "Symposium", the "Phaedo", the "Phaedrus", and the "Republic".

Yes this is true, We don't know how Plato learned this from Solon or if Solon infact visited the University of Alexandria as part of his sabbatical (as is claimed).

The main thing is that Plato has little reason to confabulate or fabricate this story. The Greek school of philsophers were sticklers for academic integrity,