Around 360 BC, in his dialogues of Timaeus and Critias, the Greek philosopher Plato introduced an incredible story, a tale of an enigmatic island civilization which has since captivated the imagination of every generation that followed. This was the story of Atlantis, thought to be one of the most advanced societies of the ancient world, an idyllic island paradise of skillful navigators capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to conquer and explore!

"For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, .....and it was possible for travelers of that time to cross from it (from Atlantis) to the other islands and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses the veritable (Atlantic) ocean ..."

– Plato

Plato’s Tale

Today, popular theories place Atlantis in locations like off the coast of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, around the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic, somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of the United States, or even in more exotic locations such as Antarctica and Indonesia. Of course more mainstream studies point to the tiny island of Santorini, the island of Crete, Malta, Spain, and other archaeological sites around the Mediterranean. Overall, there are countless theories on the location of Atlantis, while more seem to surface every year.

Artist’s representation of Atlantis. Source: BigStockPhoto

Despite all the scientific and nonscientific speculation though, and due to the lack of tangible evidence in the past, the vast majority of modern historians believe that Plato’s tale of Atlantis is either a myth, or they assume Plato crafted a story around a fictional place while using a mix of real elements from later times.

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Is it possible then that the story of Atlantis was entirely a figment of Plato’s imagination? It is certainly possible, although if the story is not real, how otherwise can we explain the tangible evidence that supports Plato's story, including a recently discovered site that perfectly matches Atlantis' description.

Essentially, and contrary to a common belief that Plato’s Atlantis may have been somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, a recent study shows that Plato's island of Atlantis was in the Mediterranean Sea and just few kilometers north of the island of Santorini. This now-underwater primary island, along with the island of Santorini, fits Plato's entire description of Atlantis.

Lost in Translation

To successfully decode Plato’s puzzle, and to ensure that the meaning from the original Greek story was not lost during translation, the English version was compared to the Greek format which has entirely different syntactic structure. (Actually, when it comes to Greek, sometimes even a single comma can cause a short sentence to have two different meanings. A good example is a famous quote from the oracle of Delphi. "Go, return not die in war" can have two entirely opposite meanings, depending on where a missing comma is supposed to be - before or after - the word "not.") This recent evaluation of Plato's text revealed that simple errors and flawed interpretations by early translators led many researchers in the past to look for Atlantis in all the wrong places. Consequently, unlike all past “discoveries,” including recent ones that led to more speculation rather than real evidence, for the first time, there is a tangible site where all the physical characteristics perfectly match Plato’s account.

Lost Island Found

It seems that 11,000 years ago, according to Plato the story of Atlantis took place, many of the Cyclades Islands were connected by a flat terrain, today called the “Cyclades Plateau.” This now-400 feet (122 meters) underwater plateau formed the body of a large island, while the modern islands of the Cyclades fashioned rows of mountains that emerged in all the “right places,” when those are compared to Plato’s story!

Just as Plato described Atlantis, the northern portion of this island was entirely comprised of mountains which reached the shores. There was an oblong valley directly below this mountainous region, and a second valley closer to the center of the island that was encircled by low rise mountains. This central valley was two thirds in size of the oblong valley. Moreover, Santorini itself, a setting of an island within an island, and a place where many mainstream archaeologists in the past had placed the crown-city of Atlantis, falls precisely within 5.6 miles (nine km) from the grand island, and as Plato depicted (See image below, from the book “ Uchronia Atlantis Revealed ”.)

“....an island comprising mostly of mountains in the northern portions and along the shore, and encompassing a great plain of an oblong shape in the south extending in one direction three thousand stadia (about 555km ²), but across the center island it was two thousand stadia (about 370km ²). Fifty stadia (9km) from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides…broke it off all round about…the central island itself was five stades in diameter (about 0.92km)”.

- Plato

(Image courtesy author)

Interestingly, and just as Plato mentioned, this super-island drowned by the sea at around 8000 BC during the rapid rise of the Mediterranean and just prior to the flooding of the Black Sea (see 2005 UNESCO study). So, in light of this latest discovery, having a site that finally matches Plato's description of Atlantis, is it possible to accept that Plato's story was based on a real setting and a prehistoric civilization known to ancient Greeks? Of course it is, especially since disproving a perfectly matching site may be even more difficult than finding such a site to begin with.

Consequently, earlier this year, the same image was sent to a popular blog site (one that prides itself to contain the most comprehensive data on Atlantis) with the following comments:

" ....if we remain true to Plato’s account and look for a setting at around 9600 BC, the place on the image must have been the prehistoric site Plato was talking about, whether ‘Atlantis’ as we know it was real or not. As you see, the geography is perfectly identical, the volcanic geology is there, and the flora and fauna (including elephants) chronologically match the topography. Furthermore, a pre-Bronze Age civilization in the immediate area further reinforces this likelihood. If Plato’s Atlantis was ever real, this site offers the perfect match! As you also know, before any geographical area qualifies to be considered the site of Plato’s Atlantis, the 2005 conference of Milos established two dozen criteria. This site meets most of these criteria while the remaining few, especially past suppositions ‘hinting’ to its possible location being somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, are also explained when properly interpreting Plato from ancient Greek to English.… Obviously, it is no longer considered a farfetched hypothesis to accept that, 10,000 years ago, humans were more advanced and just as Plato asserted. Along with the ancient city of Jericho in Palestine, which long ago was determined that some of its structures date back to the 10th millennium BC, the mega-site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (12000BC), as well as the submerged city off the coast of West India in the Gulf of Cambay (8000BC), prove conclusively that prehistoric humans had progressed earlier than anthropologists previously thought.”

- Christos A. Djonis

Regardless of the many archaeological discoveries though, which clearly point to past advanced civilizations, it seems that most skeptics continue to argue, as this blogger did, that “Plato’s 9,000-year-old Atlantis conflicts with common sense and archaeology.” In fact, he also indicated that “since several details in Plato’s story are not compatible with the 10th millennium BC (horse races, triremes, the city of Athens, Egypt, etc.), that leaves no doubt in his mind that Atlantis was a myth.”

Subsequently, in order to demonstrate how important supportive details are to a true story, and to show how Plato's story suffers from verifiable details, a few days later he posted an article in his regular blog in which he outlined the military and the ‘population of Atlantis,’ (which he based on three different past theories) and pointed out that those theoretical numbers cannot be right.

While, of course, this can be explained in a couple of ways, one being the so-called ‘expert’ opinions in the three conflicting examples are wrong, conversely, he never discussed or explained away the ancient island on the image proposed. Apparently, as other skeptics often do, he formed an opinion he based either on modern interpretations of the story, or on oddities from Plato’s own account, as if every “true story” we are ever told always turn out to be real down to the last detail.

Fictions Turned Reality

So, were the Atlantians truly a prehistoric civilization as Plato claimed, or was that a myth? Was the story of Atlantis entirely a product of Plato’s imagination, or is it possible he created a fable around a real setting and an ancient civilization known to ancient Greeks, which in order to successfully communicate some of his philosophical ideas, (divine vs. human, ideal societies vs. corrupt) he filled with familiar matter and details from later times. Could this ideological story otherwise appeal to his audience if they could not connect or relay to it?

A parallel example, of Plato’s legend of Atlantis, is Homer’s Iliad. Just as in the case of Atlantis, for several centuries we thought that the city of Troy—the centerpiece in Homer’s epic saga—was a myth. All that changed obviously when Heinrich Schliemann, an amateur archaeologist, found Troy in 1868 while following location tips from Homer’s book.

In the case of Troy, after discarding all the details regarding beauty queens, demigods, Trojan horses and scaling back the armies to more rational levels, it was ultimately acknowledged the setting, as well as the bulk of this story, were real. Essentially, Homer’s entirely fictional story, which he filled with principles and common elements from his own time, apparently revolved around a true setting and a real incident which took place nearly six centuries before his time.

The walls of the acropolis belong to Troy VII, which is identified as the site of the Trojan War (c. 1200 BC). ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Another example that proves the “true part” of a story does not always rest in the details, is the account that surrounds the historic Battle of Thermopylae. In this case, we have ancient reports of a famous battle which in order to reasonably authenticate, we had to know the factions involved as well as their military force. Do we have such a legitimate testimony? Not exactly! What we have is far from real. More specifically, Herodotus wrote that King Leonidas, with 300 Spartans, along with few thousand Greeks, fought against 2.6 million Persians, followed by two million support personnel. The poet Simonides reported that the Persian army reached four million. Ctesias, a Greek physician and historian downscaled the Persian forces to 800,000.

Greek phalanx formation based on sources from the Perseus Project. ( Public Domain )

Just as in the case of Atlantis, once more, we are presented with conflicting and grossly exaggerated figures. If these guys were the ‘credible’ sources we got this true story from, why then did we discard their details and create our own? After brushing aside the troop count as quoted in all ancient accounts, modern calculations indicate that the Persian force could not have been higher than 300,000 troops.

In the case of Thermopylae, amongst other debatable details, did the ancient Greek historians inflate the size of the Persian army? Of course they did, as the story undoubtedly sounds better that way. Ultimately though, and regardless of the enormous inconsistencies in the facts, we accept this story as real. Interestingly, Troy and Thermopylae are not isolated cases in our recorded history, which is full of stories with serious discrepancies and circumstances where mythological places, or “fairy-tales,” eventually turned out to be true. Such, among others, was the Palace of Knossos in Crete, which it was associated with the Minotaur (a mythical beast of half man and half bull.)

Fundamental Questions

So, a fundamental question remains. Was Atlantis simply a cautionary tale or is it possible that Plato crafted a tale based on a real setting and a prehistoric civilization known to ancient Greeks, while he supplemented all the ‘modern’ details (including the familiar Minoan aspects) as Homer similarly did few hundred years before him? If true, the ‘true-part’ of this story, as in the case of Troy, should not rest in the details, but in the detection and authentication of Plato’s “lost island.” Identifying a perfectly matching site, one that preferably exhibits signs of an advanced civilization in the area, should be the first step in solving this mystery.

Is it possible then that the “mighty host” who “stayed the course” (inhabited the path) to mainland Greece be that of the prehistoric island of the Cyclades Plateau? Certainly every element of this site seems to match Plato’s given chronology as well as physical description. If so, can the signs of an early Neolithic presence in the immediate area be the remnants of an even older civilization that was able to recover on the surrounding islands after the Great Flood at the end of the last Ice Age? And finally, was that lost civilization capable of navigating to the Americas via island hopping as Plato claimed?

According to the same study, and as best demonstrated in the book “ Uchronia Atlantis Revealed”, the enormous island/continent Plato mentioned on the opposite side of the Atlantic, “across from the Pillars of Hercules" (Strait of Gibraltar,) one that “encompasses that veritable ocean” and is “larger than Libya and Asia combined," was that of America and not of Atlantis, as many had speculated in the past (see also Ancient Origins article titled, The Legendary Hyperborea and the Ancient Greeks: Who Really Discovered America? )

In the volcanic Gegham and Vardenis Mountains of Armenia, architect Suren Petrosyan discovered unique and mysterious astrological rock art paintings.

Experts have different opinions on the creation chronology of the rock art paintings found in the basin of Lake Sevan and along the slopes of Mount Aragats. Some think these rock art paintings were created in the third to second millennium BC, others claim about the fifth to fourth millennium BC, and there are researchers who date them to 10th millennium BC. It is not surprising, since the study and chronology of rock art paintings is very difficult.

The dramatic volcanic landscape of the Gegham Mountains, Armenia (MEDIACRAT, CC BY-SA 3.0 )

However, there is no doubt that these rock art paintings illustrating stellar maps have thousands of years’ history.

When you visit the mountains where these astrological paintings—some made with a natural paint made of red volcanic mineral, others carved into the rock—have been created, immediately you notice the wide skies which seem almost too close to the Earth. The starry sky is especially clear and bright, which inspires one to go back to the past and for a moment to appear beside our ancestors, and see how they saw.

And at a time when there were no magnifying devices, the fact that the Armenian Highland is high enough above sea level (1700 to 1800 meters, or 5577 to 5905 feet), and about 500 to 600 meters (1600 to 2000 feet) high from the neighboring countries, contributed to witnessing breathtaking clarity of the starry sky.

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In this regard, great importance was placed on rock art paintings on the hill called “Sheikhi Chingil” in the Gegham mountains, and on the peak of Sevsar in Vardenis Mountains—the former above sea level about 3500 meters (11,482 feet), and the latter at about 300 meters (984 feet).

Celestial Rock Art

These rock art paintings differ from the rest of Armenian petroglyphs because they are exclusively dedicated to the worship of the heavenly bodies, including the sun, moon, planets, stars, and unusual compositions of figures. In these places even the so-called “ordinary” rock art paintings are inextricably linked to the starry sky.

Many Armenian scientists have studied these unique ancient astronomic centers and their stellar maps, but historian and archaeologist Harutyun Martirosyan came to conclusion that the ancestors of Armenians, while worshiping the heavenly bodies, recognized several important quantitative and qualitative patterns of the celestial world.

Accordingly, it is clear that the heavenly bodies that were carved into the rock were based on accurate observations, that thousands of years ago our ancestors have differentiated not only the sun and the moon, but also planets, stars, and constellations which were separated into respective images and symbols only in the third millennium BC.

Obviously, ancient man not only noticed, but also depicted the movement of the stars that helped them to clearly understand and mark day and night, and the passage of time—seasons, days, even hours. Our ancestors differentiated the long, medium and short days based on the movements of the near and distant stars and planets.

Thus, Armenians’ ancestors’ understanding of the night sky came from religious circles.

The Sun and Moon: Siblings in the Sky

If we look at the disks of the sun in our rock art paintings, then you see that they are portrayed differently: in varying positions, the disks of the sun portray the morning, noon and evening. The sun is depicted through four concentric circles according to its rotation.

Rock art at the Sevsar Astrological Observatory, Armenia. (Photo courtesy writer.)

Armenians’ ancestors believed that the sun and the moon are siblings. That's why they often depicted the moon, like the sun, in the circle. However, unlike the sun, the moon was depicted with two concentric circles, that reflects two main stages of the moon.

Drawings detailing the rock art symbols (Image courtesy writer)

Following the sun, moon and stars movements, regularities, and their quantitative expressions, ancient Armenians generalized all these in numbers, studying count and arithmetic from nature.

So they gave the sun one point, the sun and the moon two points, the moon and the stars three points, five points they gave to the planets and added to the sun and the moon, it becomes seven points. And the number 7 occupies the main place in all initial calculations of man, especially since it exactly matches with the changes of the moon phases.

That is why, in “Sheikhi Chingil” rock art paintings we are repeatedly met with such groups of heavenly bodies, of which the sum is 7.

Numbers of Astronomy

The first of rock art painting is relatively small, and has inner and outer frames. There are 28 long rays on big frame.

Drawings detailing the rock art symbols (Image courtesy writer)

If we consider that the moon is seen from the region of Armenia for only 28 days during the month, then we have to accept the full relationship of the duration of the lunar month and the “Sheikhi Chingil” ray numbers. So it becomes obvious that we are really dealing with the calculations of lunar month which consists of four weeks, the beginning of which was determined by the specific observations.

Based on these images, we can assume that one of the highest places of the Gegham Mountains, “Sheikhi Chingil”, was a temple-observatory for the ancient Armenians, from where they watched the bright bodies of light in the sky, counted the number of days and months, and they made predictions based on the observed movements.

Ancient Astronomy at Sevsar

The rock art paintings of Sevsar, which are one of the most unique rock art paintings in the world, both by form or by its content, are hugely significant. By studying the rock art depictions, researchers came to the conclusion that Sevsar was an ancient astronomic center.

Rock art at Sevsar, Armenia. There are 15 pictured rock-pieces within an area of 50 by 20 meters (164 by 66 feet). (Photo courtesy writer).

On this collection of "star maps" there are a large number of images similar to constellations, which are divided into groups. One group has seven points, the other one 38 points, and four semi-spherical figures are carved separately. There are 56 points on a stone, so we can see here the same 7, 14, 28 numbers as at “Sheikhi Chingil” in the remote mountains. So using this star map, we can find the number of days in two lunar months.

This fact allows us to multiply the number 28 by 12, and we will get 336, which is equal to 12 lunar months’ duration. And if we multiply all 60 figures of rock art paintings by 6 (30X12), then we will get 360, which is also close to the solar year duration.

Ancient rock art paintings featuring symbols of lunar and solar events. (Photo courtesy writer).

Ancient rock art paintings featuring symbols of celestial events. (Photo courtesy writer).

The second stone of Sevsar contains a number of celestial bodies which show the calculation of the ‘tropical month’ or vernal equinox. Semi-spherical bodies are arranged in three rows and each of them has 31 points (total of 62), and the tropical month has 31 days.

Solar Calendar

The third rock of the Sevsar occupies six square meters (65 square feet) and presents a marvelous calendar.

On this “star map” four groups of celestial bodies are clearly distinguished, including geometrical images, human and animal figures, etc. Seven figures are placed in the center of the map which seems to be a solar system.

Here we can see two of 12 constellations: “Aries” the Ram and “Gemini” the Twins, from which begins and ends the solar rotation of the spring cycle.

Constellations are depicted as humans, animals and geometric figures. (Image courtesy writer).

The number and layout of figures in the rock art paintings leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of Armenians were predicting the four seasons which directly were depended on the sun's position.

Pursuant to the Solar Calendar of Armenian ancestors, half of the year contained 186 days. Surely the Sevsar calendar contained an almost unerring number of days of a half year.

It is surprising that the 365 days of the modern calendar are also reflected in Sevsar rock art paintings, which is in "Aries" Constellation.

Having such a perfect calendar and being able to determine the exact time of the precise half day of summer solstice by the shortest shadow of the sun, our ancient chroniclers could arrange, through exact calculations, the sequence of holidays and rituals.

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The neighboring Mesopotamia and Egypt in third millennium BC were using not only the calendar, but also used sand and water clocks, however, it is obvious that the earliest Lunar-Solar calendar (about fifth to fourth millennium BC) in Armenia undoubtedly is more progressive compared to the astrological calendars of Egypt and Babylon.

All the evidence that we have at our disposal confirms that the ancestors of Armenians practically knew some patterns of movement of celestial bodies, the recognition and use of which was one of the main conditions for their progress, especially in agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, and the arts.

Featured image: Stellar rock art map from Sevsar astronomical observatory. (Photo courtesy author © Lilit Mkhitaryan).

By Lilit Mkhitaryan

References

S.Petrosyan “Ancient Astronomic center at mountain base Sevsar” ( in Martuni district )  
Tumanyan “History of Armenian Astronomy”

H. Martirosyan “The science begins with primitiveness”

H. Martirossian, A. Israelyan “The Rock-Carved pictures of the Geghamian Mountains”