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<< News >> The wave that destroyed Atlantis

Submitted by coldrum on Wednesday, 25 April 2007  Page Views: 2668

Other ArchaeologyCountry: Greece Region: Crete
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The legend of Atlantis, the country that disappeared under the sea, may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami.

Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers, while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts.

But around 1500BC the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic end may finally have been solved.

A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of Crete was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture disappeared.

"The geo-archaeological deposits contain a number of distinct tsunami signatures," says Dutch-born geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

"Minoan building material, pottery and cups along with food residue such as isolated animal bones were mixed up with rounded beach pebbles and sea shells and microscopic marine fauna.

"The latter can only have been scooped up from the sea-bed by one mechanism - a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together in a destructive swoop," says Professor Bruins.

The deposits are up to seven metres above sea level, well above the normal reach of storm waves.

"An event of ferocious force hit the coast of Crete and this wasn't just a Mediterranean storm," says Professor Bruins.

Big wave

The Minoans were sailors and traders. Most of their towns were along the coast, making them especially vulnerable to the effects of a tsunami.

One of their largest settlements was at Palaikastro on the eastern edge of the island, one of the sites where Canadian archaeologist Sandy MacGillivray has been excavating for 25 years.

Here, he has found other tell-tale signs such as buildings where the walls facing the sea are missing but side walls which could have survived a giant wave are left intact.

"All of a sudden a lot of the deposits began making sense to us," says MacGillivary.

"Even though the town of Palaikastro is a port it stretched hundreds of metres into the hinterland and is, in places, at least 15 metres above sea level. This was a big wave."

But if this evidence is so clear why has it not been discovered before now?

Tsunami expert Costas Synolakis, from the University of Southern California, says that the study of ancient tsunamis is in its infancy and people have not, until now, really known what to look for.

Many scientists are still of the view that these waves only blasted material away and did not leave much behind in the way of deposits.

But observation of the Asian tsunami of 2004 changed all that.

"If you remember the video footage," says Costas, "some of it showed tonnes of debris being carried along by the wave and much of it was deposited inland."

Volcanic eruption

Costas Synolakis has come to the conclusion that the wave would have been as powerful as the one that devastated the coastlines of Thailand and Sri Lanka on Boxing day 2004 leading to the loss of over 250,000 lives.

After decades studying the Minoans, MacGillivray is struck by the scale of the destruction.

"The Minoans are so confident in their navy that they're living in unprotected cities all along the coastline. Now, you go to Bande Aceh [in Indonesia] and you find that the mortality rate is 80%. If we're looking at a similar mortality rate, that's the end of the Minoans."

But what caused the tsunami? The scientists have obtained radiocarbon dates for the deposits that show the tsunami could have hit the coast at exactly the same time as an eruption of the Santorini volcano, 70 km north of Crete, in the middle of the second millennium BC.

Recent scientific work has established that the Santorini eruption was up to 10 times more powerful than the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. It caused massive climatic disruption and the blast was heard over 3000 miles away.

Costas Synolakis thinks that the collapse of Santorini's giant volcanic cone into the sea during the eruption was the mechanism that generated a wave large enough to destroy the Minoan coastal towns.

It is not clear if the tsunami could have reached inland to the Minoan capital at Knossos, but the fallout from the volcano would have carried other consequences - massive ash falls and crop failure. With their ports, trading fleet and navy destroyed, the Minoans would never have fully recovered.

The myth of Atlantis, the city state that was lost beneath the sea, was first mentioned by Plato over 2000 years ago.

It has had a hold on the popular imagination for centuries.

Perhaps we now have an explanation of its origin - a folk memory of a real ancient civilisation swallowed by the sea.

news.bbc.co.uk.

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"The wave that destroyed Atlantis" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Re: The wave that destroyed Atlantis by kerrlaw on Sunday, 14 August 2011
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My new book explores these ideas and sites, and concludes that the story of Atlantis may come from a compilation of sites that include Iberia, Santorini, Crete, and Ireland.

Source: This is a link

>

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    Re: The wave that destroyed Atlantis by Anonymous on Friday, 27 April 2007
    Last the sismological studies made in the last 20 Spanish, Portuguese, North American years by specialists, and French in the area of the Gulf of Cadiz, and Straits of Gibraltar, demonstrate that between the 10.245 BC, until year 1577 (tsunami of Lisbon), they have been taken place tsunamis, associated to earthquakes of great intensity, at the rate of one every 1500 years (maximum every 2000). The calculations have done it geologists thanks to the finding of typical geologic deposits of the registry of tsunamis. Once again we are not before a mere invention or speculation born of my mind, but before results of very serious and rigorous scientific studies made by scientists of many Universities. The table of the possible registries of tsunamis that you can see in the following Link (in Spanish, and English) demonstrates that great probabilities that exist they have happened at least two great catastrophes sismic-tsunamical in same time to which Plato fixes the date of the war between Atlanteans and Athenians. As you can see the table, geologists S.M. Lebreiro, I.N. Mc Cave, and P. Weaver (1997), the Straits of Gibraltar area of and Gulf of Cadiz think that in approximately in the 1245 BC, one of these great tsunamis could happen, in. I believe thatcould be around the 1330 BC. As it wants that it is, according to same calculation of geologists, could happen another one between the 1500 BC and the 1300 BC. If it is certain that still scientists make lack more proofs, before a enough probability scientific we are elevated at least, because these calculations are sustained in the fossil registry of tsunamis in that area. They are not mere speculations without scientific fundament, all the opposite, have much scientific fundament. We all know the list of obligatory points that the Conference of Milos the 2005 dictated for majority that should gather any hypothesis on Atlantis that seeks to be considered as a serious intent, worthy of scientific discussion. This original list of 24 points has been revised and corrected by Georgeos Díaz-Montexano in the following way:

    1. The Acropolis of Atlantis should have been located where an Insular-Land used to be and where parts of it may still exist.
    2. The Acropolis of Atlantis should have had a most distinct geomorphology composed of alternating concentric rings of land and water.
    3. The Insular-Land Atlantis should have been located before (in front) the Pillars of Hercules, in the Pelagus Atlantic.
    4. The Insular-Land denominated like Atlantis were divided by Poseidôn in ten parts or districts, and one of those ten parts was an extremity that arrived until the part of the Pillars of Hercules, and its denomination was Gadeira.
    5. The Insular-Land Atlantis was (in part) from Libya, and (meizôn) so greater (or as powerfull) as Asia (Anatolia and Middle East?).
    6. Atlantis must have sheltered a literate population with writing system, with metallurgical and navigational skills and use of chariot-horses.
    7. The Acropolis of Atlantis should have been routinely reachable from Athens by sea; and at some time it must have contacts with the Greeks.
    8. At the time, the Atlanteans should have been at war with Athenians (Poseidôn against Athena).
    9. The Acropolis of Atlantis should have sunk entirely or partly below the water.
    10. The Acropolis of Atlantis was destroyed in Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonius and Erysichthon times, before Theseus's times.
    11. The Acropolis of Atlantis was 50 stadia from the sea.
    12. Atlantis had a high population density, enough to support a large army (10,000 chariots, 1,200 ships, 1,200,000 hoplites)
    13. The region of Atlantis involved the sacrifice of bulls.
    14. The destruction of Atlantis was accompanied by an great earthquake (seismôn) and a Kataklüsmos: “cleaning by liquid or waters” (tsunami?).
    15. After the destruction of Atlantis, the passage of ships was difficult.
    16. Elephants were present at least in a part of Atlantis, and ivory was used.
    17. Hot and cold springs were present in Atlantis.
    18. Atlantis lay on a coastal plain of 3000 stadion of Maxima length, and 2000 stadion from the sea until approximately in the middle of the plain; surrounded by mountains falling into the sea.
    19. Atlantis controlled other colonies or states of the period.
    20. Some Winds in Atlantis came from the north.
    21. The Atlanteans constructed canals in the plain where was the Acropolis.
    22. In Atlantis they were constructed “aqueducts over the bridges”.
    23. Atlantis were “beneath the sun” (huph' hêliôi), expression that it indicates was - most of the year - in a sunny place.
    24. Every 5th and 6th year, they sacrificed bulls.

    "Milos Conference Match", reviewed and corrected by Georgeos Díaz-Montexano (2005-2007).

    However there are only some few points that are obligatory, the other ones they could be left as secondary. I have been able to reduce to only 10 indispensable or obligatory points. These points are the most exclusive or characteristic in Atlantis, that is to say, those points that cannot be ignored, and that they are not common to all the civilizations, that is to say that cannot be with easiness in any place of the world.

    In this reduction of points I have omitted the figures and measures, because the studies of the diverse codexes and MS demonstrate that big contradictions exist. Consequently, the figures of the measures and distances neither the figures of the dates can be considered as sure elements in the scientific discussion.

    These are that is to say the 10 key points that are obligatory, that it should complete any theory on Plato's Atlantis, so that it can be considered as a serious and rigorous intent of approach to the enigma of Atlantis.

    1. The Atlantis should have been located where an Insular-Land used to be and where parts of it may still exist.
    2. The Insular-Land Atlantis should have been located “before the mouth” of the Pillars of Hercules, but in the Pelagus Atlantic, not in the Mediterranean neither in another sea or the ocean.
    3. The Insular-Land denominated like Atlantis were divided by Poseidôn in ten parts or districts, and one of those ten parts was an extremity that arrived until one part of the Pillars of Hercules, and its denomination was Gadeira.
    4. In Atlantis, in its ground, a native human species arose, that is, indigenous a human species or endemic, that is to say, that the first human beings of Atlantis did not come from any other part of the world but that were born in he himself ground of Atlantis.
    5. Atlantis must have sheltered a literate population with writing system, and endemic or indigenous language, with metallurgical and navigational skills, and use of chariot-horses.
    6. Elephants were present at least in a part of Atlantis, and ivory was used.
    7. The Atlantis Acropolis lay on a rectangular coastal plain, surrounded by mountains falling into the sea.
    8. Atlantis were “beneath the sun” (huph' hêliôi), expression that it indicates was - most of the year - in a sunny place.
    9. The war between the Atlanteans and Athenians occurred in Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonius and Erysichthon times, before Theseus's epoch, that is, in the times of Mycenaean Greece.
    10. The Acropolis of Atlantis should have been reachable from Athens by sea; and at some time it must have contacts with the Greeks.

    Any hypothesis or theory that it doesn't respect these obligatory points, simply not even are not entitled to be considered as a serious or scientific hypothesis.

    Some considerations on the points 4 and 5.

    The study of the languages of old Iberia Nêsos that had writing, as Tartessians, Turdetanians, Iberians, etc., it demonstrates that the old residents from Iberia, before the arrival of the phoenicians, Greek and Roman, they spoke some languages that don't belong, that is to say that are not kindred, of none of the linguistic well-known families; consequently, it is impossible to sustain any hypothesis on the origin of the old residents from Iberia, without before to demonstrate that the civilizations proposed as cradle of Iberia, have the same languages. Conclusion. The proof demonstrates - until the moment - that the old civilizations of Iberia like Tartessians and Iberians are absolutely original, autochthonous, indigenous, endemic, that is to say that they had their origin in the same Iberia Nêsos, from the most remote antiquity, that is to say, from before the human being that lived in Iberia learned how to speak. The languages of Iberia, like it passed with the language of Sumerian, they were born in the same floor of Iberia makes hundred of thousands of years, or makes millions of years, because nobody has been able to demonstrate - so far - that the languages of Iberia derive of other well-known languages.

    When one compares the old languages of Iberia with other old languages that neither has well-known family or demonstrated as it is the case of the Sumerian, or of Basque, then the conclusion is that the old languages of Iberia, that is to say, the language of Tartessians, or the language of most of the tribes Iberians, is not Sumerian, neither it is Basque, in spite of so near Basque being geographically.

    Plato's texts locate Atlanteans like inhabitants of the lands that are next to Atlantic Pelagus, "before the mouth" of (pro tou stómatos) Hercules' (Gibraltar) Pillars, and next to the region of Gadeira, that is to say, in the environment of the strait of Gibraltar, and the costs of Iberia and Morocco, but always in Atlantic. This same all the authors of the antiquity that spoke of these three geographical points, say and that they spoke of Atlantis. Consequently, it is an unquestionable fact for any person that respects the scientific rigor and the truth. Then, if Atlanteans was inhabiting of the Atlantic costs of Iberia and Morocco, then Atlanteans cannot have been Etruscos, neither Sumerians, neither the same inhabitants of any other place of the Planet.

    Plato's Critias affirms that Atlanteans had an autochthonous origin, that is to say, indigenous, endemic, starting from Euênôr that was the first human being that arose in Atlantis, being born of the own earth, that is to say that didn't come of any part. Plato is informing us that Atlantis overcomes its origins to a human autochthonous, indigenous, endemic population that had its origin in the same floor of Atlantis that didn't come or it descended of any part, and the scientific proof they demonstrate that in Iberia - almost a million years ago - it also arose kind of a hominid autochthonous, indigenous, endemic, that is to say that didn't come of any place, because although one believes could come from África, the true fact is that it is an unique species that has not been found. so far. in any other place of the world. This species has been baptized as "Homo Antecessor", that is to say, the predecessor of the human modern species; and lastly, we have seen as well as in Iberia, the oldest civilizations had an autochthonous, indigenous, endemic language that didn't come from any place of the world.

    Critias also tells us that Atlanteans had its own grammar or it notarizes, and logically its own language. As before said that they were natives of a human autochthonous, indigenous, or endemic species, then it is logical to suppose that their language was also autochthonous, indigenous, or endemic, that is to say, born in the same floor, and not derived of any other nation or linguistic family.

    Conclusion: Plato's descriptions point to Iberia, at least like a part, or very important extension of old Atlantis Nêsos, and the autochthonous, native, or endemic character of Atlanteans, it is also confirmed by the evidences scientific pickups in Iberia.

    Not it exists in any other place of the planet, another Nêsos (island / peninsula) that has been next to Hercules' Pillars, next to a region of Gadeira, and next to a sea Atlantic, and that has also had a human autochthonous, indigenous, or endemic species, that is to say that has not come of another place, and that has also had an autochthonous, indigenous, or endemic language, that is to say, a language that has arisen in same Nêsos, that is to say that has not derived of other languages.

    Only Iberia Nêsos gathers all these requirements that are obligatory, because, simply, all these key points or indispensable requirements are all data that are written in Timaeus and in Plato's Critias. More Info in: http://www.GeorgeosDiazMontexano.com/ http://www.laAtlantida.info/ http://www.AtlantidaPlaton.es/ http://www.laAtlantida.es/ http://www.Antiquos.com/

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