Lost City of Atlantis Found in Southern Spain? By Zach Howard, Reuters, March 12, 2011 Compliments of the Montreal Gazette and National Geographic Online NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain. "This is the power of tsunamis," said head researcher Richard Freund, a University of Hartford professor who led an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis. Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries. One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November 1755. "It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about." To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multi-ringed dominion known as Atlantis. The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping and underwater technology to survey the site. Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of "memorial cities," built in Atlantis's image by its refugees after the city's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said. While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the "twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain's southern coast. "We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archaeology, that makes a lot more sense," Freund said. Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis about 2,600 years ago, describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity. Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city. Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis "in a single day and night … disappeared into the depths of the sea." Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.

The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in “Finding Atlantis”, a new National Geographic Channel special airing March 14, 2011. Experts plan further excavations at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in central Spain about 240 kilometers away to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts.

Wrath of the Gods Plato, who derived his story from the Egyptians, described Atlantis as having a main city with a royal palace made of ivory, gold, and silver. The city featured bridges, canals, ships, temples, and even a horse-racing track. Atlantis was an empire filled with riches, it was an awe-inspiring civilization until it was defeated by ancient Athens and consumed by a cataclysmic natural disaster. The story is one of the more mysterious and enduring tales in history.

Once a domain of the sea god Poseidon, Atlantis may have been named after Atlas the Titan. According to Plato, the city's kings conquered parts of both Europe and Africa before being defeated by Athens. The gods, angered by Atlantis's greed and corruption, unleashed a barrage of floods and earthquakes on the fabled kingdom, sinking it into the sea in a single day. (Coincidentally, Athens was destroyed by natural disaster at the same time.)

The bulk of Plato's account is clearly fictional. He wrote that the war between Athens and Atlantis took place more than 11,000 years ago, at a time when the civilization he describes could not possibly have existed—nor could Athens. Atlantis’s existence has been a great topic of debate for thousands of years. Plato often mixed facts and fable. But Plato's use of vivid details has led scholars to speculate that his fabled island was based on a real place. Some believe Atlantis is Spartel Island, a mud shoal in the Strait of Gibraltar that sank into the sea 11,500 years ago. Now new evidence claims that Atlantis was based on a real place—or places.

Supposedly, the city of Atlantis was formed of several ‘levels’ of concentric circles.

According to Rainer Kühne, a German physicist, satellite photos of southern Spain suggest that the ‘island’ of Atlantis was in fact a region of the southern Spanish coast that was destroyed by a flood between 800 B.C. and 500 B.C. "These satellite photos show rectangular structures and concentric circles that match very well with Plato's description of the palaces and the city of Atlantis," said Kühne, whose research was reported in the journal Antiquity.

But Kühne says Spartel Island is too small—Plato wrote that Atlantis was bigger than Libya and Asia put together—and could not have possessed the high culture described by Plato. Instead, Kühne points to satellite photos of a salt marsh region called Marisma de Hinojos, near the city of Cádiz in Spain, as the possible location of Atlantis. The photos, Kühne says, show two rectangular structures in the mud and part of concentric rings that may once have surrounded them. "These rectangular structures could be the remains of the temples described by Plato," Kühne said in a telephone interview from his home in Braunschweig, Germany. While transmitting the Atlantis story, the Greeks may have confused the Egyptian word for ‘coastline’ with one meaning ‘island,’ Kühne speculates. The ‘plain’ described by Plato could be a plain that extends today from the Spanish southern coast to the city of Seville. "I cannot say with certainty that Atlantis was located [in southern Spain]," Kühne said. "But these photos suggest that we should take a closer look at this location."

A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park.

Is There Another Potential Location? A Fairy Land?

Ulf Erlingsson, a Swedish geographer, has a different theory. He believes Plato combined elements from different times and places in the background description for his utopia. The distribution of the Atlantean empire seems to match that of the megaliths (large rough stone monuments) in Western Europe and North Africa. The geographic description of the island Atlantis, he suggests, is based on an island that is still standing today—Ireland. "Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles [480 kilometers] long, 200 miles [320 kilometers] wide, and features a central plain that is open to the sea,"

said Erlingsson, the author of the book, Atlantis From a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land. "I have looked at geographical data of the whole world. Of the 50 largest islands, Ireland is the only one that matches Plato's description of the landscape," he added. The island that sank was not Ireland, he suggested, but nearby Dogger Bank, which was struck by a flood wave in 6,100 B.C. But Erlingsson is convinced that Plato based the geographical description of his fabled kingdom on a real place and argues that even the empire might be historic. He claims he has calculated with "99.98 percent probability" that the island Atlantis was modeled on Ireland. "It is the only island in the world that matches the criteria of the island described by Plato." The geographer says Ireland's megalithic monuments, dating back to 3,000 B.C., can be associated with the palaces and temples described by Plato. The megalithic culture of Western Europe and Northern Africa was more advanced than other Stone Age cultures, and Ireland is one of its core regions, he noted. "The hill in which the Atlanteans' maternal ancestor, Cleito, was born resembles Tara, the legendary seat of the high king of Ireland, while Newgrange resembles the palace of their paternal ancestor, Poseidon," he said. Erlingsson says he started his studies believing that Atlantis never existed. But he is now convinced that Plato knew of Ireland. "Plato obviously blended fantasy and fact. But the question is not whether he made something up. It's if he made everything up—or if he based it on some real data. With very high probability, the answer is that he based it on actual geographic information. Ireland comes out as the only logical location for the central island of the Atlantean empire in Plato's tale." Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Lost+city+Atlantis+found+southern+Spain/4430710/story.html#ixzz1GUeIdScb

Match each vocabulary word with the letter of its BEST definition: _____ metropolis A. a series of circles all sharing the same central point _____ dominion B. an overwhelming and continuous bombardment _____ antiquity C. a sudden and violent disaster _____ cataclysmic D. land or territory of considerable size _____ barrage E. an ideal, perfect place or location _____ concentric F. a large, busy city _____ utopia G. large rough stone monuments _____ megaliths H. in ancient times ------------------------------------------------------------ QUESTIONS -------------------------------------------------------------- What disaster supposedly happened that destroyed the city of Atlantis? What are 3 techniques the researchers used to survey the site in southern Spain? _________________________ _________________________ __________________________ Who is Plato? ___________________________________________________________________ What is another name for the Straits of Gibraltar? _________________________________________ What are FOUR different aspects of the city of Atlantis described in this article? ____________________ ___________________ __________________ __________________ Which mythological character was the city of Atlantis supposedly named after? __________________ WHY was Atlantis destroyed by the gods? When did the war between Atlantis and Athens supposedly take place? ______________________ What Egyptian word might the ancient Greeks mistaken for ‘island?’ ________________________ What evidence does Ulf Erlingsson present in trying to prove that Atlantis was in Ireland? What is the author’s PURPOSE in writing this article?

Atlantis Found SURVEY: Record important titles, subtitles, bold-faced words, captions, etc. ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ QUESTION: Write out at least 3 "Who, What, When, Where, Why, or How" questions based on your survey. 1.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 3.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ READ: As you read, look for and write down answers to the questions from above. 1.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 3.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ RECITE: Create a 10 Question TRUE/FALSE quiz to cover the information in this article. Also number them (1-10) and include the answers (T/F) _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________

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