Chapter 6: The Proposal

Once everyone was seated, they called the first person to give their proposal and when it became clear that it wasn’t Professor Thelete; he got glances from Dr. Schroder, Dr. Cromwell, and Dr. Lee, knowing that it meant he would be the last present.

Each presentation became longer than the last one, but so did its potential to change the way humanity looked at their past. After about dozen proposals were given for the night, it was finally the Professor's turn. He knew that tonight would be the deciding factor for his entire career.

An outright rejection by the committee would mean years of clambering back up to get enough respect again to be allowed to make a proposal again. He was naturally a little nervous, but he had been working towards this moment his whole adult life, so his excitement outpaced his nerves.

“Ladies and gentleman our final proposal for the evening is about to begin. Please welcome Dr. Thelete.” The Professor made his way onto the stage and set up his presentation. No one truly knew what to expect, but Professor Thelete most certainly had everyone’s undivided attention.

“What I propose in this presentation is nothing less than the probable location of Atlantis. The real Atlantis. The location discussed below is likely a place you've never considered before. However, it works. In this presentation I will show you why.”

“All I will claim in this presentation is that I will convey what Plato himself wrote about Atlantis, with no embellishment or distortion or exaggeration, for purposes of matching those characteristics with a very specific place that exists today. I compare Plato's points about Atlantis to this specific place so that you may independently learn about that place and decide for yourself whether his account matches that location.”

“Atlantis is mainly known from the writings of Plato, who claimed to obtain his information from the writings of his ancestor Solon (six generations ahead of Plato). Whatever Solon wrote was kept in the family and ultimately came to Plato's attention. Apparently, Plato's source from Solon was in the form of writings that now are lost. There are other sources, of course, but Plato is the primary source so I will focus on his writings.”

Solon, Plato claims, got his information from the high Egyptian priests of Sais in 600 B.C. The unknown priest translated some hieroglyphics for Solon in the temple. That temple in the Nile Delta was well known at the time but since has ceased to exist. The destruction of Atlantis occurred 9,000 years before that time, the priest said, so that makes it roughly 11,600 years ago.”

“The temple was well known, and anyone at the time could visit, given the means. Thus, Plato's account was not some kind of hocus-pocus kind of deal, it was based on a verifiable source. The temple inscriptions were verifiable for anyone who had Solon's or Plato's accounts and cared to double-check them.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Plato is not the only ancient source of knowledge about Atlantis. For example, the inscriptions of the Temple of Horus at Edfu (inscribed after Plato during the Ptolemaic period between 237 and 57 B.C.) appears to corroborate Solon and Plato without actually using the word "Atlantis" and apparently deriving from other sources. There are other ancient sources about Atlantis of declining levels of acceptance by mainstream scholars.”

“Herodotus of Halicarnassus, for instance, placed Atlantis on his map of the world south of the Pillars of Hercules. He did this after visiting the Temple of Neith in the city of Sais, the same place that Plato visited. However, Herodotus visited the temple in 450 B.C., fifty years before Plato. Interestingly enough, Herodotus places Atlantis in the same general location of where I believe that Atlantis is.”

“There are also ancient sources that appear to corroborate parts of Plato's Atlantis account without actually being about Atlantis (such as Plato's claim about ten initial Atlantean emperors which matches independent Egyptian history about the ten Auritean rulers, called Aleteans by the Phoenicians). However, Plato is considered the gold Standard as far as Atlantis is concerned, and nobody has any doubt about what he said and that he was describing Atlantis.”

“To avoid distractions and debates about meanings and legitimacy, Plato's writings are what we will rely upon - but just remember, other sources corroborate what Plato says. I bring this up as another layer of proof that Atlantis was an actual location not a made-up idea of Plato's anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the facts or is purposely lying about Atlantis.”

“So, based on Plato's very specific but also frustratingly vague description of the location of Atlantis, people have been searching for Atlantis for centuries. Why exactly everyone wants to find Atlantis is a bit unclear at times, but Atlantis has gained a legendary mystique. Fantastic tales of death rays and advanced power sources have been joined on to the legend over time, despite there being no indication whatsoever from our primary source, Plato, that they ever existed.”

“Because of this mystique, Atlantis is the true Holy Grail of adventurers - anyone that finds Atlantis and can prove it basically will become immortal within the scientific community. That is what happened when Heinrich Schliemann - a rich German dilettante determined to find ancient Troy - actually discovered it (to everyone's utter amazement). The lost city of Angkor in Cambodia, the capitol of the Khmer Empire, is similar, a fabled city not rediscovered until the 1860s.”

“As a result, various theories as to the location of Atlantis have been proposed. However, as exciting as they seem at first, every single candidate ultimately collapses for one reason or another. For instance, several islands within the Mediterranean have been proposed. Since every island there contains ancient ruins, it is possible to point to those ruins as proof of Atlantis.”

“However, the one thing that Plato was clear about in his dialogues was that Atlantis was not in the Mediterranean, and, in fact, was beyond what we now know as Gibraltar. The Greeks knew all about the Mediterranean islands and Plato would have just pointed to one if that was the location of Atlantis. So, enticing as those Mediterranean islands and their ruins may be, they are not Atlantis.”

“It might surprise you to learn that there is a location that meets virtually all of Plato's requirements. It is in the right location, it is the right size, it has the right geographical features, and it makes absolute sense.”