From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Standing on the Cliffs of Atlantis
Organization: LLNL
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 03:33:28 GMT

In article <31470@goofy.Apple.COM> (batman@apple.apple.com (Ken Laws)) writes:
>Ha. Thought that subject would get your attention.
>
>A few years ago, I visited the Greek island of Thira
>(Santorini). Standing on a balcony, looking out over
>the huge, mostly underwater volcanic crater that defines
>the island, I remembered something I read/heard about
>somewhere: Thira is the source of the Atlantis legend.
>When the volcano blew long ago, most of the island fell beneath
>the sea.

>So, where did I hear this, and is it the "standard
>explanation?"

	It is indeed one suggested hypothesis, but I think that the
"standard explanation" is to try to avoid the question :-):-)

	Here is what I think:


	Was Plato's Atlantis a Memory of Minoan Civilization?

	Ever since Plato put forth his story of Atlantis, apparently a
very civilized realm, in his _Timaeus_ and _Critias_, there has been
no shortage of controversy about whether or not Atlantis existed,
where it was located, and how much of it was accurate. For example,
his best-known student, Aristotle, dismissed it as a figment of his
imagination. A common hypothesis was that the story was intended as a
moral fable of early, heroic, Sparta-like Athens versus the decadent
Atlanteans. Proposed locations of Atlantis were not only the middle of
the Atlantic Ocean but any number of other places. Not surprisingly,
the Atlantis hypothesis attracted the attention of certain kind of
"scholar"; in the 19th cy., Ignatius Donnelly wrote a long book
attempting to demonstrate that Atlantis was the source of all
civilization. It is not surprising that reputable scholars have tended
to avoid discussing Atlantis.

	But with the development of archeology, new possibilities were
opened up, and in 1909 and 1910, J.K. Frost and the Rev. James Baikie
suggested that the then recently discovered Minoan civilization,
apparently a very civilized realm also, may have been Plato's
Atlantis, citing numerous similarities. It was also pointed out that
there were strong similarities to Homer's Phaeacians, also apparently
a very civilized realm. They were very hospitable to Odysseus, they
had fast, comfortable ships and were good seamen, they loved good
food, music, dancing, sports, nice clothes, warm baths, and
comfortable beds, and their queen was the most respected and admired
of women. By their hospitality, they pissed off Poseidon, who had had
a grudge against Odysseus. He then threatened to dump a mountain on
them, despite the king's sacrificing 12 bulls to him.

	When it became apparent that there was a great Late Bronze Age
caldera eruption of Thera, a possible connection between that and the
sudden disappearance of Atlantis became apparent to Spyridon Marinatos
in 1950 and Angelos Galanopoulos in 1960. Here is how well the match
goes, with +'s and -'s for matches and mismatches, along with fudge
factors one way or the other. Some of the +'s are for features that
are hardly exclusively Minoan features, such as polytheism and
political leaders being priest(esse)s.

	Plato wrote the dialogues containing the Atlantis story late
in his life, about 360 BCE, between the Republic and the Laws.
According to him, the story was transmitted to him from the politician
and reformer Solon (638-559 BCE) by a series of relatives.

	Before I discuss the Minoan hypothesis in any detail, I must
mention another hypothesis, mentioned by Phyllis Young Forsyth, the
Sicilian hypothesis. Plato had been to the Greek colony of Syracuse in
Sicily, and he had come to feel that its leaders were going down the
deep end of imperialism; Dionysius I had hatched a plan to move into
the Greek mainland and conquer the shrine of Delphi, with all its
wealth. So Plato may have given his Atlantis some Sicilian features
also. Forsyth also points out that the basic storyline of a virtuous
land-based city defeating an arrogant, imperialistic naval power may
also be derived from Plato's considering the Persian Wars, where
Athens had defeated the Persian Empire, and the Peloponnesian War,
where Sparta had defeated Athens.


Here is "a tale which, though strange, is certainly true"...

? Plato was an expert at inventing myths. Was he trying to indicate
that this was not another one? Or was he trying to pass off some
fiction as truth?

	Solon had visited Sais in Egypt.

+ Solon had indeed visited Egypt, and Sais, being in the Delta near
the coast, would be a logical starting point.

- The details of Solon's travels there might have been filled in by
someone's imagination.

	He learned of the story from the priests of Neith there, who
had said that Neith was the same goddess as Athena.

+ A plausible source of the story, Sais and Athens having cultural and
religious ties. The two cities had very similar patron deities, both
Neith and Athena being tomboy goddesses of arts, crafts, and warfare.
Not surprisingly, the Egyptian priests had syncretized the two deities
into one.

	They told him that their records go back a very long time, and
that Greeks like Solon were kids by comparison.

+ Certainly true. Even they would have known something of the
centuries of history before their time.

	They told him that there are periodic catastrophes that
destroy civilization outside of Egypt, and that they wanted to tell
him about one that involved Athens long ago.

- The periodic-catastrophe notion is a common type of mythical
cosmogony.

+ It may have been an extrapolation from the effects of the massive
eruption of Thera and those wayward Sea Peoples; though Egypt survived
both catastrophes essentially intact, the same could not be said of
other places.

	They told him that the Greek world had been without writing
for awhile, which absolutely surprised him.

+++ Absolutely true. The Greeks had once had the Linear B script, but
had lost it at about 1200 BCE when the Mycenaean civilization was
destroyed. They didn't get a new script until 850 BCE. The Egyptians,
having had much less disruption and continuous trading relations,
would have remembered the Greek literacy gap. The Greeks themselves
had no tradition of having forgotten about an earlier system of
writing; it had been exclusively used by the Mycenaean palace
bureaucracy, and it disappeared with the Mycenaeans.

	The island was to the west of the Pillars of Heracles, and was
bigger than Libya and Asia combined.

--- Big loser. There is no physical evidence whatsoever for a sunken
continent in the Atlantic.

+ This may have arisen through Solon misinterpreting Egyptian
accounts. Crete seemed far to the west (it is actually to the
northwest) of Egypt, and it is a big island, as big as some nearby
coastlines of nearby Libya and Asia. The Greeks of Solon's day had
much greater geographical knowledge, and Solon may have settled on
this geological absurdity out of wondering where such a big island
could possibly be, since it was not in the Mediterranean. In addition,
there might have been confusion between "bigger than" (_meizo:n_) and
"in between" (_meson_); the latter is a fair approximation of Crete's
position. 

? Sicily is also a big island to the west of the Greek world.

	The island's name.

- Atlantis suggests an association with the Atlantic Ocean, which is a
long way from Crete, Greece, and Egypt.

+ Solon's Egyptian hosts may not have known that the land they called
"Keftiu" is the same as the one that Solon had called "Krete". Solon
stated that he translated some Egyptian names into Greek, and he may
have wanted some counterpart that suggested a land at one of the
pillars which held up the sky at the edge of the world. For a Greek,
the name "Atlas" would come to mind; that is how the Atlantic Ocean
got its name.

	Its sinking into the sea in a day and a night from earthquakes
and floods, and muddy shoals being left behind.

- At last report, Crete is still high and dry.

+ This may not be a reference to Crete itself, but to Thera's caldera
eruption, which destroyed much of the island. Analogy from Krakatoa's
1883 caldera eruption suggests that the eruption lasted several hours,
and produced earthquakes, tsunamis, and darkness. Here also, muddy
shoals were left behind, which quickly eroded away. As was the case
for Krakatoa, it is unlikely that there were any close-up eyewitnesses
to the eruption who survived to describe it.

+ Crete went downhill afterwards, and came under the rule of a
Greek-speaking dynasty, as is evident from the language of Linear B.
It has been a cultural backwater ever since. It might have seemed to
some Egyptian scribe that Keftiu had somehow dropped out of sight,
both metaphorically and literally.

	This disaster happened 9000 years before the priests told the
story to Solon.

-- The technological level of Atlantis was at least Bronze Age; there
is no trace of that level of advancement 12000 years ago. Since
Atlantis was a big trading nation, Atlantean artifacts would have
survived somewhere, and no putative Atlantean artifacts of the right
age have ever been found. Furthermore, there is no evidence of written
language much older than 3000 BCE, which leaves open the question of
how the story was transmitted for the previous 7000 years.

+ A transcription error may have occurred somewhere, changing 100's to
1000's, meaning that the disaster occurred only 900 years before
Solon, or 1500 BCE. This figure agrees rather well with the actual
date of the Thera eruption, as determined from other sources.

	There was a plain near the center of the island, which was
very attractive and fertile.

+ This fits either the Messara plain to the south, or the plain
centered on Knossos to the north, or both.

	At a distance of about 50 stadia [10 km], there was a mountain
not very high on any side; some legendary ancestors had lived there.

+ This fits the distance from Knossos to Mt. Juktas very well; Mt.
Juktas is not especially high (only 800 m) by Cretan standards. There
had been a shrine on top of it. The Minoans had worshipped a "Mountain
Mother" goddess who was a Mistress of Animals; a local version of that
deity would naturally be associated with this mountain.

	There were three circular canals around it, with a connecting
canal that ran to the sea that was roofed over in spots; around the
whole setup was a wall 50 stadia [10 km] in diameter. One of the
resulting rings of land had a racetrack for chariots on it. All the
canals could be traversed by ships from the sea, and there was a
causeway over the canals.

- This does not sound very much like the terrain near Mt. Juktas.
Furthermore, the Minoans of Crete did not build walls around their
cities. Some Minoan cities in the Cyclades had had walls, however.
Akrotiri on Thera has not been sufficiently excavated for us to tell,
but even it is much smaller than the Atlantean wall.

+ However, the Minoans had an abundance of irrigation works. It could
well be that this canal arrangement was some schematized version of an
actual arrangement of irrigation canals. Some Minoan roads were
paved; one of the roads could actually have been used for races. James
Mavor has suggested that this canal arrangement was a schematized
version of waterways in Thera; he proposes that the caldera left by an
eruption 25000 years ago had not been completely filled in by volcanic
eruptions, leaving arc-shaped waterways connected to the sea. The wall
may simply be that prehistoric caldera. Furthermore, the diameter of
the walls is only slightly less than Thera's diameter.

+ An alternate possibility here is that this was not a Minoan feature
but a Syracusan one. Ancient Syracuse was built in a natural harbor
with a big island, Ortygia, in it. There was a strait between Ortygia
and the mainland that was bridged by a causeway. There was a wall
around the central fort in Ortygia, a wall around Ortygia itself, and
a wall around the mainland part of the city. Thus, Plato's canals and
walls could have been a schematic version of Syracuse's waterways and
walls. 

	There was a canal surrounding the plain, which had a
circumference of 10000 stadia [2000 km].

- Preposterous. Crete is only 250 km long.

+ If one assumes an expansion by a factor of 10, then the
circumference comes down to 200 km, which is approximately correct for
the central part of Crete.

- There is still no such canal.

+ It may have simply be some confusion resulting from knowledge of
other canals.

	There were a lot of valuable plants and animals, including
elephants, on the island.

+ Crete is still noted for its aromatic herbs. Even in Minoan days,
there was lots of livestock on the island.

- There are no elephants native to Crete.

+ The Minoans carved ivory; exports of carved ivory may have suggested
that ivory ("elephant stuff") originated there.

	Twice a year they harvested their crops, in the winter when it
rained, and in the summer when they supplied water with irrigation
canals. They brought their crops to the temples as offerings.

+ This fits in very well with Crete's climate and the irrigation works
known from Minoan times. The Minoan palace-temple-complexes were also
storehouses; they would have received harvested crops to be
redistributed.

	Ships from many nations stopped off at Atlantis.

+ The Minoans were vigorous traders; no doubt their harbors were open
to anyone who came in peace to trade.

	The rulers of Atlantis were fabulously wealthy.

+ Certainly true of the Minoan leadership, though possessing wealth is
a typical feature of ruling classes.

	They kept on constructing their temples, palaces, and harbors.

+ The Minoans were busy with major construction projects, as
archeology so well reveals.

	There were many temples built and dedicated to many gods.

+ The Minoans must certainly have worshipped many deities. That much
is evident from the numerous deities mentioned as recipients of
offerings by the Minoanized Mycenaeans.

	The entire [capital] area was densely crowded with habitations.

+ Minoan Knossos was indeed a crowded city.

	In the center of the capital, there was a temple dedicted to
Cleito and Poseidon [a mortal woman and that god], which was
inaccessible. It was 1 stadium [200 m] by 0.5 stadia [100 m], and had
a proportionate height. It had a strange barbaric appearance, and it
was decorated with pinnacles. Its walls and floors and pillars were
covered with orichalcum [_oreikhalkon_, literally, "mountain copper",
some kind of of brass?].

+ This is probably the Labyrinth, in Knossos, which would have been
dedicated to the principal Minoan deities, to be discussed below. It
was about 150 m by 150 m. It was built around its central court, and
it would have looked bizarre to those accustomed to spectacular
facades. It was decorated with sacred horns -- two pinnacles each.
Parts of it were painted red, that is, orichalcum-colored. There is a
strong similarity to the palace of the Phaeacians.

	Inside, they placed statues; there were other statues left
there as offerings.

+ There were cult statues inside the Labyrinth, such as the famous
Snake Goddess statuettes; Minoans had the habit of leaving statuettes
as offerings at sacred spots; hundreds of these have been found.

	In a nearby place, they had springs, over which they buils
buildings.

+ This would have to be a building to the south, the Pilgrims' Hostel,
where one spring's water was run into a footbath and another was
turned into a separate shrine with a building over it.

	Atlantis was a sacred island.

+ Their nature-religion was a major preoccupation with the Minoans; to
an outsider, the whole island might have seemed like a sacred spot.

	The ancestors of the ten kings of Atlantis, who each received
a portion of the island to rule, were Cleito and Poseidon. Their
order of precedence and mutual relations were regulated by Poseidon.
One of them was the biggest of them all.

- Poseidon was the Greek God of the Sea. What's the connection?

+ Many of the Greek deities are "native", non-Indo-European deities;
some of them may have been worshipped by the Minoans. Solon had to
work from Egyptian accounts of them. Examples of "native" deities are
Demeter and Poseidon, Mycenaean *Damater and *Poseidaon, whose names
are half-Indo-European, meaning "Mother Earth" (mater, da) and "Lord
of the Earth" (posei [*potei], da). Poseidon liked bulls and horses
and he shook the Earth, as well as being a god of springs and water
and seas; the Minoans had a major "Bull Cult", including putting up
sacred horns, suggesting that they worshipped a predecessor of
Poseidon as a Bull God who shook the Earth. The Egyptians worshipped
an Earth God, Geb, who was also associated with bulls. Both the
Egyptian chroniclers and Solon guessed right in their translations, it
seems. They may even had some help from the Mycenaean worship of
Poseidon, which may have been known to the Egyptians.

- Who was Cleito? Her name sounds like Kleitos and Kleite, both
meaning "renowned", but she is unknown from the rest of Greek
mythology.

+ Cleito may have originally been an important Minoan goddess, most
likely the Mountain Mother mentioned earlier. The Mycenaeans
worshipped an important deity (or deities) named "Potnia", "the Lady
(or Mistress)", usually as "the Lady of something-or-other".  This
word being Indo-European, it must be a translation of some Minoan word
for "lady". Thus, "Cleito" may be a Minoan to Egyptian to Greek
translation of "the Lady". Plato evidently did not have a clear
picture of Minoan religion, or else he might have conclude that the
Minoan Mountain Mother was the Atlantean Artemis or Demeter.

+ The divine couple thus becomes "the Lord of the Earth" and "the
Lady" in Minoan; this pairing may account for later legends concerning
Crete of Zeus in bull form carrying off Europa and Pasiphae lusting
after a bull -- and both couples having offspring.

+ There were several major palace-temple-complexes on Crete, notably
those at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, Zakro, and Khania (Cydonia). As
far as can be determined, they followed very similar designs.

+ Poseidon was the chief male god for the Mycenaeans and his Minoan
predecessor for the Minoans. He was appropriate for the part.

- "Kings" suggests patrilineal succession, which has been seriously
doubted for the Minoans; there is historical evidence of
matrilineality (descent in the female line; "queens" instead of
"kings") surviving into classical times in Minoan-connected areas of
the western Asia Minor coast. There was also a large number of
priestesses in places like the Labyrinth; some of them could be very
wealthy. They must certainly have had some political authority, though
that is not indicated in the Atlantis account.

+ It might originally have been "rulers", who could have been of
either sex; the Egyptians and the Greeks, however, tended to have male
rulers. 

	Cleito's parents were Evenor, an earthborn man, and Leucippe.

- Some of Plato's other myths featured earthborn men; though this
belief may possibly be Minoan, one has to wonder if notable Minoan
legendary ancestors were often female, given the serious possibility
of Minoan matriliny.

- Leucippe means "white horse" in Greek. Horses were uncommon in
Minoan Crete, and certainly had no religious role, unlike bulls, and
it is unlikely that some Minoan legendary ancestor would be associated
with horses. That seems either Mycenaean or classical Greek, among
whom "horse" wass a common part of people's names.

	The ten kings met at alternating intervals of 5 and 4 years to
conduct various kinds of business.

+ The total number of years in the cycle is 9, which agrees with
Homer's statement that King Minos was the "nine-year king", whatever
that means. A governmental cycle of 9 years for the Minoans seems to
be indicated.

	The laws were written on a pillar of orichalcum in the temple,
and one of them specified that none of the kings were to administer
the death penalty on their kinsmen unless with the approval of the
others, and threatened mighty curses for the disobedient.

- This suggests either a bronze pillar or a red-painted stone pillar.
The Minoans had a cult of sacred pillars, so a pillar with laws on it
would not be surprising. Unfortunately, a pillar with a lengthy Linear
A text on it has never been found, despite the great value of such an
artifact.

	The kings would swear to never make war on each other, and to
unite against any who challenged their rule.

+ This is especially convincing to me, since the type of polity here
is very different form the Classical Greek conception of
self-contained city-states or the Egyptian conception of living under
a single divine monarch. The Minoans were relatively un-militarized
and decentralized. The Cretan cities were unwalled, except to some
degree around when they were founded about 2000 BCE, and they were
usually sited with little concern for defensibility. There is
relatively little depiction of armed forces or warfare in Minoan art,
mainly of a palace guard and some mainland conflicts. There is little
evidence of civil war. Homer stated that the "gods of war had not been
worshipped" there. The Minoans were reported to have come in peace by
the Egyptians. Even the Minoan "empire" in the Cyclades was apparently
built peacefully. They were not absolute pacifists; they were
remembered as clearing away pirates, for example. All this is despite
an abundance of role models for the contrary among their shamelessly
militaristic neighbors, whose leaders would brag about the lands they
had conquered and the booty they had brought back home. It would be
remarkable indeed if the Minoan leadership had decided to swear off
civil war, despite obvious temptations. A millennium later, Crete
would indeed have lots of petty civil wars.

	There were free-roaming bulls in the temple, and the kings
captured one of them, using "nooses and staves" (in one translation),
but no weapons. They led the bull to the inscribed pillar and cut its
throat over it, letting the blood pour onto the inscription.

+ There apparently was an area near the Labyrinth where bulls could
roam freely. The Vaphio Cups depict a weaponless bull hunt. No weapons
were used on bulls during the Minoan Bull Games, which involved
leaping over bulls and performing acrobatics atop them. Depictions of
bull sacrifice are rare in Minoan art; maybe it was something that
they found unpleasant to show. The Hagia Triada sarcophagus features a
sacrificed bull's blood flowing into a pitcher, as if was going to be
used for something. The Phaeacians' king also sacrificed bulls, though
Homer did not tell how they were caught.

	After sacrificing the bull, they burned its limbs and filled a
bowl with wine and put into it a clot of blood for each of them. They
all dedicated the bowl and drank from it.

+ There was some Minoan ritual(s) featuring the drinking of some
liquid. Rodney Castleden has suggested that the liquid may have
contained the blood of a sacrificed animal; following later practice,
it may have been diluted with wine or milk or honey. It would have
been a way of ritually acquiring the life of a sacrificed animal.
There are a large number of drinking vessels at the Labyrinth; these
may have been left as offerings by sated worshippers.

	After satisfying themselves, the kings waited until night, at
which time they all put on the most beautiful azure robes and gave and
received judgment. At daybreak, they wrote their sentences on a gold
tablet and dedicated it and their robes as a memorial.

+ Special robes were worn by priestesses and others conducting their
business. The color could come from the dye of murex sea snails, which
the Minoans had fished for. Some rituals were apparently done in
darkness, as in the interior of a cave or a building. Making an
offering out of their robes is consistent with Minoan custom
concerning more durable items. It is also consistent with the
Mycenaean Linear B lists of offerings.

	The kings of Atlantis "possessed true and in every respect
great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom. They despised
everything but virtue. Nor did wealth deprive them of self-control".

- Plato makes them sound like the philosopher-kings of his _Republic_.

+ The legendary King Minos was reputed to have been very wise and
just; he had the role of judge of the dead in Hades. Diodorus Siculus
relates a legend of blessed happiness before the rule of Zeus in which
the people were so law-abiding that they allowed themselves all sort
of indulgences.

? This raises the question of what Minoan society was like before the
Thera disaster and the Greek conquest. Art buffs find Minoan art much
more lively before the conquest than afterwards, when it starts to get
stiff and rigid; this presumably says something about the tastes of
the various patron(esse)s of the arts there, since much of Minoan art
was not simply "art for art's sake" but to illustrate what was
important to people. One has to wonder what would make Minoan Crete be
remembered as some sort of paradise where nearly everyone acted very
virtuously.  Is this simply yet another case of Good Old Days
romanticism? Or is it something more than that?

	The Atlanteans started to go downhill and become corrupt, and
Zeus called a council of the gods to decide what to do about them and
he said... [at this point the _Critias_ breaks off]

- It has been suggested that Plato was trying to write a moral fable
with Atlantis being the villain, but got tired of the project when his
"villain" proved too interesting.

+ Pre-Conquest Crete may have seemed much more pleasant to some
old-timers compared to the military preoccupations of its Greek
conquerors. We see the "Warrior Graves", with lots of weapons, from
this period, as well as a fresco of black mercenaries; their skin
color clearly indicates that they had traveled a long way to Crete.

? The King Minos tradition curiously agrees that Minos had had a great
fall after he had pissed off Poseidon.

	[A digression] Atlantis's central plain was divided into
60,000 lots of about 3 km^2 each, each of which had to contribute 20
men with various skills to the Atlantean armed forces, which had
chariots. Its navy had 1200 ships. This was presumably for its war
with Athens.

- This turns out to be 1,200,000 troops, which is preposterously
large.

+ The factor-of-10 expansion mentioned above yields much more
manageable values of 6000 lots, 120,000 troops, and 120 ships.

- Even these reduced values do not fit in well with the nature of
Minoan society, since they would mean that a sizable fraction of the
adult male population was part of the armed forces; its total
population then is estimated at about 500,000 to 800,000. There is
also the problem of chariots, which seem to have been rare if not
absent.

+ This makes more sense for Crete after the Greek takeover, given its
greater preoccupation with military matters. But even then, the
figures seem rather large. The Mycenaeans had had chariots, though in
Crete they may have been mainly a status symbol. The Knossos archives
mention chariots, though the tablets that refer to them may have been
a scribal training exercise, as suggested by John Chadwick, referring
to something that is not normally found. The Syracusans in Plato's
day were also big on militarism.

	Atlantis and Athens came to blows, Athens defeated Atlantis,
only for both the Athenian Army and Atlantis to be destroyed.

+ This agrees with the King Minos tradition, which states that there
was a confrontation with early Athens; the Athenians had to send seven
young men and seven young women as tribute every year as food for the
Minotaur until the Athenian hero Theseus killed it.

? If there was such a confrontation, then when did it occur? There was
a Minoan outpost at Keos, very near Athens, for example. After the
Greek conquest of Crete, there was a Greek-speaking dynasty at
Knossos, which was ultimately destroyed by conquest, the Labyrinth
going with it. That conquest would have been by another group of Greek
speakers; Crete has been Greek ever since.

- The big Thera eruption and the fall of the Labyrinth were not
contemporary.

+ A later chronicler may well have mixed up both events, as suggested
earlier. In addition, a later Egyptian chronicler may have mixed up
this conflict with the invasion of the Sea Peoples at about 1200 BCE;
some of the had apparently come from the Aegean area.

	Early Athens, which defeated Atlantis, was "home to the
fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived" and it was "first in
war and in every way the best governed of all cities."

- Is this part of Plato's intended moral fable? Or is this some
pleasant patriotic back-patting on the part of Plato, Solon and/or the
priests at Sais? Interestingly, the King Minos tradition also has a
pro-Athenian slant.


	In summary, I find:

	Plato's Atlantis account is probably a hybrid of several
different places and times, but with much of it a surprisingly good
description of features of Minoan Crete and Thera. Some un-Minoan
parts are probably Syracusan or Mycenaean Greek in origin. The
"hybridization" probably came from later chroniclers trying to resolve
discrepancies in different accounts. There are other serious
discrepancies, but they can plausibly be resolved by confusions of
geography and by inadvertent multiplication by factors of 10.

	As mentioned earlier, Plato may have wanted to write a moral
fable where early Athens was the hero and Atlantis was the villain;
but his "villain" ended up being the character that interested people
in the centuries to come. Even if some of the Atlantis story was
Plato's invention, one has to wonder about what he used as "sources".


	There are several things that the Atlantis story unfortunately
did not include; these things would have proven invaluable in checking
any putative identification, and would have been very informative
about the society. The account may have been put together from the
accounts of Egyptian merchants who traveled to Crete and neighboring
areas; in which case it would have been interesting to know what sorts
of people they dealt with. What was their position, what was their
principal occupation(s), what was their wealth, and even what was the
sex of their Minoan intermediaries?

	It would also have been good to have gotten a list of major
coastal towns and their principal exports; a trader would have to have
known what is the best place to buy (say) olive oil or wool or
perfumed oils or bronze daggers or timber or his favorite style of
pottery. It would also have been nice to get a list of principal
deities, their attributes, their functions, and their principal places
of worship. Details of religious and other festivals would also have
been interesting; surely, some Egyptian merchant might have been lucky
enough to drop in on one. There may have been some enactments of
mythological scenarios; the details of these would have been most
interesting.

	What other eye-catching features of Minoan society might a
visitor have noticed? Sporting events, such as the Bull Games,
certainly. Athletes of both sexes vaulting over bulls and riding them
would have been a sight to see. Dancing is another, which the Minoans
evidently enjoyed. Many Minoan dancers were female, and the sight of
some Minoan ladies dancing in their favorite clothing would have been
absolutely unforgettable for some fully functional heterosexual male.
Minoan female costume often featured the seeming incongruity of bare
breasts and long skirts. Mythological scenes? One of them seems
evident: that of a Mother Goddess and a dying and resurrected Boy God;
the dying symbolized by plucking a branch out of a shrine. This motif
is much like the stories of Isis and Osiris, Ishtar and Tammuz, Cybele
and Attis, and Aphrodite and Adonis, and an Egyptian would certainly
have known about the first of this list. Other curiosities related to
Minoan religion include the sight of male priests dressed like the
priestesses, and who could well have been eunuchs; and priestesses who
wielded sacred double-axes. The sight of such a "weapon" in mostly
female hands would certainly have been an oddity. I finally mention
the possibility that some Minoan priestesses had done some snake
charming; that seems suggested by the famous Snake Goddess statuettes.


Further reading:

James W. Mavor, Voyage to Atlantis
J. V. Luce, The End of Atlantis
Phyllis Young Forsyth, Atlantis, the Making of Myth
Charles Pellegrino, Unearthing Atlantis
L. Sprague deCamp, Lost Continents
Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic