Talk:Atlantis/Archive 3

message: In the section about more recent opinions, I have added a quote by Dr Julia Annas, a leading Plato scholar, which I feel goes some way to restoring the balance of the article by explicating more clearly the context of the account of Atlantis in Plato and his thought. Seeing as Annas is not on Wikipedia, I added a link to her profile at the University of Arizona to confrim her credibility.
Anyone questioning her point about using historicity to flag up fiction need only read some Michael Crichton to see how the technique can be employed and misunderstood. --Ajcee7 13:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scepticism 

message: Ok, I'm going to try to clean the "Other Greek accounts" section up a bit. It would be very helpful if anyone who's added material to this section could supply more precise references. For example, it's not enough to say that Plutarch said something; we need to know which specific passage the quoted or cited material comes from.
Most of the material in this section seems to be included on the principle that any report of an island in the Atlantic Ocean is relevant to Atlantis. This is a pretty questionable idea. Most of the authors quoted, as far as I can tell, say nothing to us about Atlantis at all. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Greek accounts 

message: The article now is hijacked by someone who is in favour of Nesselrath's invention hypothesis. But where is the hypothesis of Vidal-Naquet, who is much more known than Nesselrath? And where is the hypothesis of Zangger e.g.? --Athenaios 21:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add Vidal-Naquet and Zangger, but could you please provide full citations? --Akhilleus (talk) 22:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway, here's a quote from Vidal-Naquet: "With a perversity that was to ensure him great success, Plato had laid the foundations for the historical novel, that is to say, the novel set in a particular place and a particular time." (Critical Inquiry 18 [1992] p. 302) Sounds like an invention hypothesis. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nesselrath? - Vidal-Naquet! Zangger! 

message: There are several  tags in the article that have been present for some weeks. No one's stepped up to provide citations. If no one does so within the next few days, I propose to remove the tagged material. Any objections? --Akhilleus (talk) 20:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest that instead of completely deleting the tagged material, comment it out with HTML comment symbols, .  Because, probably most of that information is informative and completely true, and another editor may come along with references.  Or copy the removed material to the talk page here. Or both, even.  -kotra 06:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kotra, I've done some research in this area and I highly doubt the information is correct. There are plenty of Atlantis enthusiasts out there who will seize on anything that talks about islands in the west and claim that it's about Atlantis. However, I do agree that the information should be saved, and when I remove it, I will put it on the talk page so that someone else can provide proper references, if they in fact exist. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I only read some of the tagged material, so there might be things I missed that I'd agree are totally wrong.  And I understand that there are tons of Atlantis enthusiasts, with dozens if not hundreds of baseless theories about Atlantis.  One can't help noticing that after watching this article for a few months.  Regardless, I still think some of the tagged material probably happens to be correct, though I wouldn't know which material specifically.  Anyways, I'm glad you'll be putting the removed material on the talk page.  We seem to agree on that, which is all that really matters anyways. -kotra 13:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Material with "citation needed" tags 

message: As promised, here is material removed from the "other ancient accounts" section, either because it is badly sourced, not about Atlantis, or both.
#Claudius Aelianus cites Theopompus, knowing of the existence of the huge island out in the Atlantic as a continuing tradition among the Phoenicians or Carthaginians of Cádiz.
#A fragmentary work of Theophrastus of Lesbos, from the 4th century BC, speaks of the colonies of Atlantis in the sea.
#Pliny the Elder recorded that this land was 12,000 km distant (by modern measurement) from Cádiz, and Uba, a Numidian talks of an enormous island outside the Pillars of Hercules. He describes it as having a climate that is very mild; fruits and vegetables grow ripe throughout the year. There are huge mountains covered with large forests, and wide, irrigable plains with navigable rivers. The Periplus of Scylax of Caryanda, from the 4th century BC, gives a similar account.
#The historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the 1st century AD, recorded that the Atlanteans did not know the fruits of Ceres.
#(after the Ammianus Marcellinus paragraph currently in the article) Marcellinus further records that the intelligentsia of Alexandria considered the destruction of Atlantis a historical fact and described a class of earthquakes that suddenly, by a violent motion, opened up huge mouths and so swallowed up portions of the earth, as once in the Atlantic Ocean a large island was swallowed up.
#Perhaps the Byzantine friar Cosmas Indicopleustes understood Plato better than the ancient and modern "Aristotelians," says Merezhkovsky. In his Topographia Christiana Cosmas included a chart of the (flat) world: it showed an inner continent, a compact mainland surrounded by sea, and this was surrounded by an outer ring-shaped continent, with the inscription, "The earth beyond the Ocean, where men lived before the Flood."
For ancient prose authors, citations will usually take the form (book.paragraph), so for instance the citation Herodotus 8.171 will direct us to Book 8, paragraph 171 of the Histories. Some of the authors named here (Theophrastus, Scylax) are fragmentary, so citation will be more complex, but we need some specific indication of where to find the information cited--otherwise it is impossible to verify what the article is saying. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed material from "other ancient accounts" section 

message: I removed this sentence, because it makes no sense:
:However, several of the researchers later repudiated those claims even there has been an absence of intercalation of solar calendar to lunar calendar or vise versa. Since the Mayan used a lunar calender, the date can possiblly be adjusted to the same time, the Greco-Roman era.
If someone else understands what's going on here, please rewrite and put it back in. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed material from "Modern interest" section 

message: Sacred Texts.com - Atlantis might offer some neutral point of view insight into this article. You people now even have a complete (at least fragmented copy of Plato's writings on Atlantis - congratulations people! Keep up the good work, and I'll do the finding for you people, since I am into this esoteric, mysterious, enigmatic stuff called mythology. --Lord X 00:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good find, Xinyu! The sacred texts has some good fiction works that could be referenced.Drakonicon 06:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, if you Wikipedians want any sources for this article, or anything else that I may be able to help you with, just message me or something. Thanks. --Lord X 19:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Found some good sources that you people could look at regarding Atlantis

message: Jesus Christ, this article is a mess! Your one true god is David P. A. Hunter, esq. III  Talk to me!  22:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesus! 

message: I have altered the following text... "Some are more or less serious attempts at legitimate scholarly or archaeological works; others have been made by psychic or other pseudoscientific means."
I'm sure the individuals that used psychic or pseudoscientific means were just as serious about their attempts to locate Atlantis as the scholarly or archaelogical efforts. Kiwichipster 03:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That has been my suggestion; but as Akhilleus has pointed out, there have been numerous channelled, psychic, intuitive, and other sorts of information presented for this article as legitimate research into the 'myth' of Atlantis; theories that are often pretty wild. I still think Cayce's medical clairvoyance, and talk of Atlantis has as much to offer as Francis Bacon's novelisation of Atlantis. Bacon presents an ideology - so do scholars of Cayce's work. Proving the value of Cayce's contribution to the Atlantis legend requires couching his knowledge systems in terms of scientific legitimacy. I believe that 30 000 Cayce 'medical' case studies, which often include affadavits and statutory declarations made by doctors and patients, indicates that he was an excellent diagnotician, with a keen eye for the psychological ramifications his recommendations would have on his 'clients'. The modern Atlantis legend is much broader than archeological island location hypotheses. I advocate for a brief list of other possible sources of Atlantean information, just to give an indication as to how much psychological impact 'Atlantis' has had worldwide. I dont pretend that this is an easy job.Drakonicon 09:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I find it immensely interesting that American President Woodrow Wilson consulted Cayce (Harmon Hartzell Bro, A Seer Out Of Season, p (?? ), while in office. Star quality? or something more? Drakonicon 09:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serious?