Was Sardinia home to the mythical civilisation of Atlantis?

A comet plunging into the sea could have triggered a tidal wave that devastated bronze age settlements on the island, say scientists

Homer talks of Poseidon lashing out, Plato refers to a massive marine disaster. What happened on Sardinia in the second millennium BC? What dramatic event swept away the Tyrrhenian civilisation and the “tower builders” cited by Strabo and the poet Hesiod in antiquity? Was it an earthquake or a tidal wave? A comet? Was it punishment meted out by Zeus, as Plato suggests in Critias, acting pitilessly to improve the behaviour of these people who had been spoiled by living in a land where it was always spring? Certainly they occupied a beautiful, fertile island, endowed with all sorts of metal, both hard and malleable, such as zinc, lead and silver.

Writer and journalist Sergio Frau, one of the founders of Italian daily La Repubblica, has been investigating the subject for more than 10 years, drawing on the texts of the ancients. A dozen or so Italian scientists joined him when he visited Sardinia in early June. They included historian Mario Lombardo; archaeologist Maria Teresa Giannotta; Claudio Giardino, a specialist in ancient metallurgy; cartographer Andrea Cantile; archivist Massimo Faraglia; and Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist and expert on tidal waves.

The aim was to air hypotheses just before an exhibition entitled Big Wave: The Mythical Island of Sardinia opened at the museum in Sardara. Le Monde followed them through the fragrant brush, heavy with the smell of myrtle, artemisia, rock rose and rosemary, seeking out the shade of twisted old olive trees and cork oaks, climbing to hilltop where the remains of ancient megalithic edifices found in Sardinia lie hidden.

Sardinia might be Plato’s island of Atlas, or in other words Atlantis, which the Greek philosopher placed beyond the pillars of Hercules, the strait between Sicily and Tunisia. Herodotus and Aristotle shared this view, which contradicts the idea that the term refers to the strait of Gibraltar, as was commonly supposed from the third century BC onwards. Frau, too, holds this conviction. Seen from the air the southern end of the island resembles “a marine Pompeii submerged by mud”, he says. Digging into this mud turns up ceramics, cups, pots, oil lamps, sharpening stones, metal implements, knives, chisels, needles and arrow tips, all mixed up, as if the people had been forced to drop everything and run. These remarkable archaeological finds attracted very little attention until the mid-20th century. For good reason, though. For about 3,000 years the island seemed to be under a curse, a prey to malaria until 1946-50 when the Rockefeller Foundation experimented with the use of DDT for eradicating the mosquitoes that carried the disease. We now know that thousands of nuraghi – megalithic fortresses with a central tower – are scattered all over the island. They date from the middle of the bronze age, between the 16th and 12th century BC. In Medio Campidano province, in the south, they have vanished under piles of earth covered in vegetation. Only the ones on high ground, over 500 metres, have been spared. In the past 20 years the number of registered structures has risen from 9,000 to 20,000.

There are 20 structures of this kind on the basalt plateau of Giara, the core of a volcano that now rises to about 600 metres above sea level, extending over 42 sq km. It is home to small wild horses with long manes. The towers seem to stand guard over the plain below. “In the mid-bronze age the plateau was used for winter pasture,” says Francesco Casu, a local guide. “Each tower belonged to a clan which owned the surrounding fields.” In the lowlands the nuraghi resemble pyramid-shaped hillocks. The most complex example is Su Nuraxi, at Barumini. Archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu uncovered this massive building in 1950. Some time before his death, aged 98, in 2012, he explained to Frau how he had been intrigued by a cavity everyone called the well, set on a small hump of earth and pebbles. But no one had the faintest inkling such a treasure was hidden inside.

The Barumini site, which was added to the Unesco world heritage list in 1997, is a spectacular achievement. To reach the central fortress we pass through a labyrinth of circular walls, corresponding to the houses of a later hamlet. The most striking feature is the way the huge basalt blocks forming the central tower fit together. The tower is conical, with a floor of polished pebbles, and covered by a Mycenaean-style dome. It dates from the 16th century BC – according to the fossilised olive branches found inside. Four turrets, dating from the 12th century BC, surround the main tower. They are connected by underground passages, testimony to the skill of its architects. A storage cavity keeps food at a constant temperature of 12C all year round.

Were these towers built as defence against some enemy, to house local lords, or indeed for signalling?

Some historians suggest that messages passed from one nuraghe to the next may have served to broadcast news of the fall of Troy. If you can see one, you can generally spot four or five others. But as there is nothing in writing, their original function remains a mystery. All we know is that when they were reused, during the iron age (circa 10th century BC), it was for worshipping the moon. Further research has focused on Su Mulinu, near Villanovafranca, 50km north of Cagliari, as part of the Great Tyrrhenian Itinerary, a Franco-Italian heritage trail. A dig has uncovered a large bastion, on a clover-leaf plan, dating from 1400BC. It bears the visible scars of a fire, which occurred in about 1000. A limestone altar, itself shaped like a nuraghe, stands in the ninth-century-BC sanctuary. It is decorated with a crescent moon, a symbol of the mother goddess. From the sludge that covered the structure the archaeologists extracted gold, silver, amber and rock crystal jewellery, as well as hundreds of terracotta oil lamps thought to be offerings to the light of the sun, celebrated at the summer solstice until the second century. These finds are on view in a nearby museum.

The question remains as to what fearful catastrophe, circa 1175BC, plunged Sardinia into a “dark age”. Some islanders took refuge on high ground, others fled to Etruria (now central Italy). In his Life of Romulus, written in the second century, Plutarch maintains that the Etruscans had colonised Sardinia.

Along the coast of Italy Etruscan burial grounds have yielded up countless bronze figurines, Sardinian ex-votos featuring soldiers, with horned helmets and round shields, and models of nuraghi. If a tidal wave did occur, it might explain the large Campidano plain, which cuts across the southern part of the island from Cagliari to the Phoenician port of Tharros, on the west coast. In the Old Testament Ezekiel writes: “What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea? […] In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters […] All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee …”

Frau quotes an inscription in the mortuary temple of Ramesses III (1184-1153BC) at Medinet Habu, Upper Egypt. It tells of how foreigners from the north saw the earthquake. Then the waters engulfed their land, the sea god Nun having stirred and sent a huge wave to swallow up towns and villages. The foreigners were probably Sardinian mercenaries employed by the pharaoh. So was this just a mythical event or a real disaster? The issue attracted a large number of local people in June, who crammed into the chapel of Santa Anastasia in Sardara, even spilling over into the street outside, to listen to the scientists. The conference was illustrated by plenty of photographs. After listening open-mouthed for two hours solid the audience broke into a storm of applause worthy of the first night of an opera.

Professor Tinti explained that until the 1980s no one was aware that tidal waves had occurred in the Mediterranean. But since 2004 scientists have identified 350 events of this type over a 2,500-year period. “The earthquake in Algeria in 2003, which killed 2,000 people, triggered a shockwave that reached the Balearics and Sardinia an hour later,” he said. “So what would have been required in our case?” he then asked. “We’re talking about a huge volume of water, some 500 metres high [the elevation up to which the nuraghi were affected]. Only a comet could do that, if the impact occurred very close to the coast and in a very specific direction,” he asserted. An event of this sort may have occurred near Cagliari, with the resulting wave devastating the plain of Campidano.

“One of the merits of the research carried out by Sergio Frau is to have shown that the nuraghe civilisation was one of the focal points of the ancient world, in terms of both geography and outlook,” says Azzedine Beschaouch, former head of the Unesco world heritage centre. “Now we need to give scientific, historical, cultural, political and emotional substance to a still mysterious past.”

“A falling comet strikes the sea at a speed of 20km a second,” Tinti adds. “It takes less than a second for the wave to propagate, with a four or fivefold increase in size.” He is convinced that his theory is right. It remains to be seen whether evidence of its impact can be found underwater, perhaps even fragments of the projectile.

To this day the people of Sardinia are wary of the coast. As the Sardinian singer Clara Murtas puts it: “The sea, we do not name it, we shun it.”
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Reference:

Evin, Florence. 2015. “Was Sardinia home to the mythical civilisation of Atlantis?”. The Guardian. Posted: August 15, 2015. Available online: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/15/bronze-age-sardinia-archaeology-atlantis

Atlantis' Legendary Metal Found in Shipwreck

Gleaming cast metal called orichalcum, which was said by Ancient Greeks to be found in Atlantis, has been recovered from a ship that sunk 2,600 years ago off the coast of Sicily.

The lumps of metal were arriving to Gela in southern Sicily, possibly coming from Greece or Asia Minor. The ship that was carrying them was likely caught in a storm and sunk just when it was about to enter the port.

"The wreck dates to the first half of the sixth century," Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily's superintendent of the Sea Office, told Discovery News. "It was found about 1,000 feet from Gela's coast at a depth of 10 feet."

He noted that the 39 ingots found on the sandy sea floor represent a unique finding.

"Nothing similar has ever been found," Tusa said. "We knew orichalcum from ancient texts and a few ornamental objects."

Indeed orichalcum has long been considered a mysterious metal, its composition and origin widely debated.

According to the ancient Greeks, it was invented by Cadmus, a Greek-Phoenician mythological character. The fourth century B.C. Greek philosopher Plato made orichalcum a legendary metal when he mentioned it in the Critias dialogue.

Describing Atlantis as flashing "with the red light of orichalcum," he wrote that the metal, second only in value to gold, was mined in the mythical island and was used to cover Poseidon's temple interior walls, columns and floors.

Today most scholars agree orichalcum is a brass-like alloy, which was made in antiquity by cementation. This process was achieved with the reaction of zinc ore, charcoal and copper metal in a crucible.

Analyzed with X-ray fluorescence by Dario Panetta, of TQ - Tecnologies for Quality, the 39 ingots turned to be an alloy made with 75-80 percent copper, 15-20 percent zinc and small percentages of nickel, lead and iron.

"The finding confirms that about a century after its foundation in 689 B.C., Gela grew to become a wealthy city with artisan workshops specialized in the production of prized artifacts," Tusa said.

The 39 ingots recovered from the wreck were indeed destined to these workshops and were used in high quality decorations.

According to Enrico Mattievich, a retired professor of physics who taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the ingots are not properly made from orichalcum.

"It appears they are lumps of latone metal, an alloy of copper, zinc and lead," he told Discovery News.

Mattievich, who has led a number of studies in physics applied to mineralogy, paleontology and archaeology, is one of the scholars who disagree on the brass-like nature of orichalcum.

While other scholars equated the mysterious metal to amber and to other copper based alloys, Mattievich believes orichalcum has its roots in the Peruvian Andes and in the Chavín civilization that developed there from 1200 B.C. to 200 B.C.

According to the scholar, who claimed in his book "Journey to the Mythological Inferno" that the ancient Greeks had discovered America, a metallic alloy "with fire-Iike reflections" similar to Plato's description was found in a set of metallic jaguars of Chavin style, which turned to be made of 9 percent copper, 76 percent gold and 15 percent silver.

Whatever the origins and nature of orichalcum, Tusa's team plans to excavate the shipwreck and bring to light the entire cargo.

"It will provide us with precious information on Sicily's most ancient economic history," Tusa said.
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Lorenzi, Rossella. 2015. “Atlantis' Legendary Metal Found in Shipwreck”. Discovery News. Posted: January 6, 2015. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/atlantis-legendary-metal-found-in-shipwreck-150106.htm

Amazing Lost 'Atlantis' Survives Beneath English Sea

The sharpest look yet at an underwater medieval town dubbed England's "Atlantis" reveals that the lost city was once almost as large as the modern City of London, a major district in central London.

Medieval Dunwich was a thriving port in the Middle Ages. Major storms beginning in the 1200s swept the city out to sea and silted up the Dunwich River, choking off the Dunwich harbor. By the 1400s, Dunwich lost its perch as a major port. The city was abandoned, and over the centuries, the ruins continued to slip into the sea as the coast eroded.

The ruins of the city now sit off the coast of the county of Suffolk, England. The lost village has been difficult to explore, as it sits beneath 10 feet to 33 feet (3 meters to 10 meters) of silty, muddy water. The ruins get their nickname from the mythological city of Atlantis that supposedly sank into the sea.

Detailed new look

In 2008, researchers at the University of Southampton began an underwater survey of medieval Dunwich. In a new report, the team reveals the most detailed maps yet of the town's streets and buildings, including a chapel and a friary.

“The loss of most of the medieval town of Dunwich over the last few hundred years — one of the most important English ports in the Middle Ages — is part of a long process that is likely to result in more losses in the future," Peter Murphy, a coastal survey expert with the protection group English Heritage, said in a statement. "Everyone was surprised, though, by how much of the eroded town still survives under the sea and is identifiable."

The researchers found that Dunwich's urban center once covered 0.7 square miles (1.8 square kilometers), an area about the size of the City of London. A defensive earthen wall, possibly made by Saxons, enclosed the town's central area.

The survey also revealed the ruins of multiple religious buildings: Blackfriars Friary, St. Peter's, All Saints Church, St. Nicholas Church and the Chapel of St. Katherine. Another large building appears to be a large house or town hall.

The northern part of the town seems to be commercial, with wooden structures probably linked to port activities.

Changing climate

The find is a reminder of how quickly coasts can change, said David Sear, the University of Southampton researcher who led the mapping study.

The storms that swept away Dunwich occurred during a period when climate was changing from a warm period into the little ice age, which ran from about 1350 to 1850.

"Global climate change has made coastal erosion a topical issue in the 21st century, but Dunwich demonstrates that it has happened before," Sear said in a statement.

Social and economic decisions also influence what happens when coastal cities are threatened.

"In the end, with the harbor silting up, the town partly destroyed, and falling market incomes, many people simply gave up on Dunwich," Sear said.
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References:

Pappas, Stephanie. 2013. “Amazing Lost 'Atlantis' Survives Beneath English Sea”. Live Science. Posted: May 10, 2013. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/29519-england-atlantis-dunwich-mapped.html

'Lost' City of Atlantis: Fact & Fable

Atlantis is a legendary "lost" island subcontinent often idealized as an advanced, utopian society holding wisdom that could bring world peace. The idea of Atlantis has captivated dreamers, occultists, and New Agers for generations.

In the 1800s, mystic Madame Blavatsky claimed that she learned about Atlantis from Tibetan gurus; a century later, psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that Atlantis (which he described as an ancient, highly evolved civilization powered by crystals) would be discovered by 1969. In the 1980s, New Age mystic J.Z. Knight claimed that she learned about Atlantis from Ramtha, a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit who speaks through her. Thousands of books, magazines and websites are devoted to Atlantis, and it remains a popular topic.

The origins of Atlantis

Unlike many legends whose origins have been lost in the mists of time, we know exactly when and where the story of Atlantis first appeared. The story was first told in two of Plato's dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias, written about 330 B.C.

Though today Atlantis is often conceived of as a peaceful utopia, the Atlantis that Plato described in his fable was very different. In his book Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, professor of archaeology Ken Feder summarizes the story: "a technologically sophisticated but morally bankrupt evil empire — Atlantis — attempts world domination by force. The only thing standing in its way is a relatively small group of spiritually pure, morally principled, and incorruptible people — the ancient Athenians. Overcoming overwhelming odds ... the Athenians are able to defeat their far more powerful adversary simply through the force of their spirit. Sound familiar? Plato's Atlantean dialogues are essentially an ancient Greek version of Star Wars."

As propaganda, the Atlantis legend is more about the heroic Athens than a sunken civilization; if Atlantis really existed today and was found, its residents would probably try to kill and enslave us all.

It's clear that Plato made up Atlantis as a plot device for his stories because there no other records of it anywhere else in the world. There are many extant Greek texts; surely someone else would have also mentioned, at least in passing, such a remarkable place. There is simply no evidence from any source that the legends about Atlantis existed before Plato wrote about it.

The 'lost' continent

Despite its clear origin in fiction, many people over the centuries have claimed that there must be some truth behind the myths, speculating about where Atlantis would be found. Countless Atlantis "experts" have located the lost continent all around the world based on the same set of facts.  Candidates — each accompanied by their own peculiar sets of evidence and arguments — include the Atlantic Ocean, Antarctica, Bolivia, Turkey, Germany, Malta and the Caribbean.

Plato, however, is crystal clear about where Atlantis is: "For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, ‘the pillars of Heracles,’ (i.e., Hercules) there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together." In other word it lies in the Atlantic Ocean beyond "the pillars of Hercules" (i.e., the Straits of Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean). Yet it has never been found in the Atlantic, or anywhere else.

No trace of Atlantis has ever been found despite advances in oceanography and ocean floor mapping in past decades. For nearly two millennia readers could be forgiven for suspecting that the vast depths might somehow hide a sunken city or continent. Though there remains much mystery at the bottom of the world's oceans, it is inconceivable that the world's oceanographers, submariners, and deep-sea probes have some how missed a landmass "larger than Libya and Asia together."

Furthermore plate tectonics demonstrate that Atlantis is impossible; as the continents have drifted, the seafloor has spread over time, not contracted. There would simply be no place for Atlantis to sink into. As Ken Feder notes, "The geology is clear; there could have been no large land surface that then sank in the area where Plato places Atlantis. Together, modern archaeology and geology provide an unambiguous verdict: There was no Atlantic continent; there was no great civilization called Atlantis."

Myth from misinterpretation

The only way to make a mystery out of Atlantis (and to assume that it was once a real place) is to ignore its obvious origins as a moral fable and to change the details of Plato's story, claiming that he took license with the truth, either out of error or intent to deceive. With the addition, omission, or misinterpretation of various details in Plato's work, nearly any proposed location can be made to "fit" his description.

Yet as writer L. Sprague de Camp noted in his book Lost Continents, "You cannot change all the details of Plato's story and still claim to have Plato's story. That is like saying the legendary King Arthur is 'really' Cleopatra; all you have to do is to change Cleopatra's sex, nationality, period, temperament, moral character, and other details, and the resemblance becomes obvious."

The Atlantis legend has been kept alive, fueled by the public's imagination and fascination with the idea of a hidden, long-lost utopia. Yet the "lost city of Atlantis" was never lost; it is where it always was: in Plato's books.
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References:

Radford, Benjamin. 2012. “'Lost' City of Atlantis: Fact & Fable”. Live Science. Posted: September 5, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/23217-lost-city-of-atlantis.html