The Author/ Producer
"Hello! My name is Christos A. Djonis.
I am the author of the recently released book "Uchronia? Atlantis
Revealed," and the producer of the upcoming feature-length documentary, "Atlantis
Revealed!".
Before discussing further the upcoming
film, first and foremost, I must confess that when I first started the research
for my latest book (more of a passion project that touches on several controversial
topics), I never in a million years thought I'd be able to locate a site that in
every way will match Plato's Atlantis. Even later, more than two years into the
project, when eventually all clues brought me to look for Atlantis within the
Mediterranean Sea, still, in all honesty I was not sure where to look for it.
I remember thinking, if Plato's given
chronology on Atlantis coincided with the rise of the oceans at the end of the
last Ice Age, then, this island could have gotten lost during the rapid rise of
the Mediterranean, just prior to the
flooding of the Black Sea and roughly 10,000 years ago. If so, then Plato's
lost island should only be 400 feet beneath the waves and not few miles deep, as
some researchers theorized in the past.
The search was lengthy, challenging, and
at times I felt it would never come to fruition. Even when I spotted my first
real clue, an underwater plateau around the Cyclades Islands, I did not fully
understand the significance of the find until several hours later, when I was
able to outline its entire shape. Only then I realized that the submerged
super-island I just found, formed by the Cyclades Plateau, perfectly matched
Plato's description Atlantis. The chronology, every physical aspect of the
topography, the volcanic geology, the flora and fauna in that period, the
island's destruction by a "great flood", archaeological remnants of an
unknown prehistoric civilization in the immediate area, all pointed to a genuine
discovery. And that was not all".
I INVITE YOU TO CONNECT WITH US AND SUPPORT THE MAKING OF THE DOCUMENTARY THAT WILL FINALLY UNRAVEL PLATO'S TWO THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD- PUZZLE!
Why
look for Atlantis in the Mediterranean Sea and not in the Atlantic Ocean? What was
the large island/ continent Plato mentioned across the Atlantic? Is it possible
that remnants of Atlantis were left behind?
For
answers to these and other questions, please look for "Uchronia? Atlantis
Revealed", the book behind the upcoming documentary (available at Amazon and major booksellers around the world).
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The Book
At
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 since captivated the imagination of every generation that followed. This
was the story of Atlantis, one of the most advanced societies of the ancient
world, a prehistoric civilization capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean more
than 10,000 years ago.
Today,
regardless of the many archaeological discoveries which support Plato's claim of
such advanced culture (like that of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the Lost city of
Ubar in the Arabian Peninsula, the submerged city off the coast of west India
in the Gulf of Cambay, and others), many skeptics choose to point to the several
inconsistencies in Plato's story (like Athens or Egypt did not exist ten
millennia ago, when according to Plato the story took place) and quickly label
Atlantis as a myth. Are the skeptics correct though?
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 also a myth. All that changed
obviously when Heinrich Schliemann, an amateur archaeologist, found Troy in
1868 while following location tips from Homer’s book Iliad. In the case of
Troy, after ditching all the details regarding beauty queens, demigods, Trojan
horses and scaled back the armies to more rational levels, it was ultimately
acknowledged by the scientific community that the setting as well as the bulk
of this story was real. Essentially, Homer’s entirely fictional story, which he
filled with principles and common elements from his own time, apparently
revolved around a tangible setting and a real incident which took place nearly
six centuries before his time. Of course, Troy is not an isolated example. Our
recorded history is full of stories that contain serious discrepancies and
circumstances where once mythological places, or "fairy tales", in
the end turned out to be true!
So, a fundamental question remains. Was
Atlantis simply a cautionary tale or is it possible Plato crafted a tale based
on a real setting and a prehistoric civilization known to ancient Greeks, while
he supplemented all the “modern” details as Homer did few hundred years before
him?
If true, as
in the case of Troy, the true-part of this story should not rest in the story
plot, but in the detection and authentication of Plato’s “lost island.”
Locating a matching site, along with signs of
an advanced civilization in the immediate area, should be the first step in
solving this mystery.
Indeed, a recent discovery of a sunken island
that perfectly matches Plato's Atlantis, found in the right period as well as
the right location (more on the location later), if anything, it further
suggests that Plato based his story on real a prehistoric civilization, 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.
So, unlike earlier theories and faulty interpretations
of the story which place Atlantis all over the Atlantic Ocean, in Spain, off
the coast of Cyprus, at the Azores Islands, in Antarctica and other places (without
ever offering a matching site), the recent discovery shows that Plato's
Atlantis was a prehistoric super-island in the Aegean Sea at the doorstep of
Greece, and not in some far-away location. Even when setting aside all the other
clues that lead to the same conclusion, Plato's
own words “your State (Greece) stayed the
course of a mighty host,” clearly suggests that Atlantis, as a “host” of
mainland Greece, stood at Greece's doorstep and ultimately controlled the path,
or better yet, the waters leading into the Aegean Sea. True enough! As it turns out, ten
millennia ago, with sea levels lower by 400 feet, the modern day Cyclades
Islands were connected by a flat terrain, today known as the "Cyclades
Plateau". This massive plateau formed a super-island that when comparing
to Atlantis, in every way it matches Plato's description (see Plato's quotation
and image below). If Atlantis was ever real, this must have been the place
Plato was talking about. Not only the geography is identical, the volcanic
geology is there, but when further comparing to Plato's account, the flora and
fauna, including elephants, chronologically match the topography. How is this
possible? To be able to locate a place that slightly resembles Plato’s Atlantis is
extremely difficult, to produce one where all the physical aspects perfectly
match, is virtually impossible, unless of course the proposed site is the real
thing. When up
until today, to prove Atlantis real, the most difficult task was to find a place
that matched Plato's description, now that we have such a place, how can
skeptics explain this finding away? Not only we now have a matching site but
relics from an unknown pre-Bronze civilization in the immediate area further
reinforce this discovery.
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 555 square kilometers), but across the
center island it was two thousand stadia (about 370 square kilometers). 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 0.92 km).
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Image from the
book "Uchronia?-Atlantis Revealed"
![]()
The Island of Santorini, present day (Left). Santorini prior to the eruption of
1600BC, based on a 1991 study by Druitt and Francaviglia (Right).
Of course, as skeptics often do, without ever attempting to explain
away the matching site, many will quickly point that according to Plato (see Plato's
text below) Atlantis was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and not in the
Mediterranean. Was it though? Can this be true, or is it possible that the real
meaning of the story could have been lost during the original translation from
ancient Greek to English?
Before
analyzing the text below, those not familiar with Greek, must be reminded that the syntactic structure of the language that Plato used has a very
different structure than the English language we often use to translate it. What
often seems strange to those who first try to learn Greek is the inversion of
the possessive adjective in respect to the noun. Similarly, text inversions like these may
also exist in the sequence of entire sentences. For
example, in an independent clause, an item which is stressed, i.e. which is
uttered with emphasis or is contrastive, in ancient Greek it generally goes at
the beginning of the clause, rarely at the end. Middle position is occupied by
an item receiving no particular emphasis. In a series of clauses in a sentence, though, as in the translated passage below, a prominent item goes at the beginning of its clause if it relates to the previous context, and at the end if it relates to the following one (look at first sentence of the first paragraph, and the last sentence of the second one).
For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed
the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant
point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of
Europe, and Asia to boot.
(For) the Ocean
that was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks
call, as you say “the Pillars of Heracles” [Strait of Gibraltar] there lay an
island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and
it was possible for travelers of that time to cross from it to the other
islands and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them
which encompasses the veritable ocean ...
In this case, and contrary to what many automatically assume, Plato does
not point to the direction of Atlantis across the ocean. As explained earlier,
the phrase “your state stayed the course of a mighty host”, at the beginning of
the clause, is where the emphasis should be placed. While in this part Plato
reveals the very close proximity of Atlantis to Greece, in the rest of the
sentence he poetically describes the might of Atlantis and its capacity that
stretched around the world to a “distant point” and another continent across
the ocean. Of course, once he illustrates their incredible capability, he then
describes their audacious and warlike character and their plans to “advance
against the whole Europe and Asia”.
The same rule applies when analyzing the remaining
text. In this case the revelation of a continent across the ocean is not where
the emphasis should be placed. As explained earlier, in a series of clauses in
a sentence, prominent items usually are either placed at the beginning or at
the end of their clause. The middle part of a sentence is occupied by items
that should receive less emphasis. According to this rule, and in this
particular case, the explanation of how Atlantians were able to reach the
continent across the ocean, at the end of the clause, is where the emphasis should
be placed and not on the continent itself that is mentioned earlier (the part that
many automatically are drawn to). Not knowing where the emphasis on a clause
should be placed, can cause a great deal of confusion, as often and depending
where the emphasis goes, two separate meanings can emerge out of a single paragraph.
Actually, when it comes to ancient Greek, sometimes even a single comma can
cause a short sentence to have two different meanings. Such 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".
In short, when a story from ancient Greek is translated to English, the
translated sentences may require proper "re-positioning" in order for
an English reader to make better sense of it. For instance, when understanding
the syntactic structure of the Greek language and how to "read it"
correctly, Plato’s second paragraph above, to an English reader should appear
as follows:
(For) the Ocean that was at that time navigable; and it was possible for travelers of that
time to cross from it (from Atlantis) to the other islands, and from
these islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses
the veritable ocean.... for in front of
the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say “the Pillars of Hercules,” there
lay a continent which was larger than Libya and Asia together.
When
seen in this context, the continent across the ocean is no longer the place of
origin for Atlantians, but a destination. Here, Plato simply describes the
might of Atlantis by depicting their incredible capability to travel half way around the world. He explains that via island hopping (most likely from Scotland, to the Faroe Islands, to Iceland and then to
Greenland),
the Atlantians were able to reach another grand island/continent on
the other side of the Atlantic, one across from the "Pillars of
Hercules". Which other continent is on the opposite side of the Atlantic
across from the Strait of Gibraltar? The American continent, of course! It was
the American continent that Plato said was larger than Libya and Asia put
together and not that of Atlantis, as many wrongly had interpreted and even to
this day continue to interpret.
Those unconvinced that the ancient Greeks could have
known of the American continent around the 4th century BC, must be reminded
that unlike other European civilizations at the time, not only did the Greeks know
of the continent across the ocean but they were also aware that the earth is round
and not flat. The Antikythera mechanism is a technological testament of that advanced
knowledge. Additional evidence though, point that more ancient cultures during
that period may have been aware of the continent across the ocean. Piri Reis, a
Turkish admiral and a famous cartographer (1465-1553) repeatedly claimed that
his controversial maps which showed the American continent, and some say
Antarctica (300 years before its discovery by the Europeans), were actually
based on ancient maps dating from the 4th century BC. Additionally, a recent
discovery of a Carthaginian coin which depicts a world map (circa 350 BC) also demonstrates
that at around the 4th century BC not only Plato and the Greeks may have been
aware of the American continent, but others did as well.
By the way, when altogether discarding Plato's claim,
that 10 millennia ago a prehistoric civilization from the Mediterranean travelled
to North America via island hopping, how do we otherwise explain the migration
of haplogroup X in the region of the Great Lakes, 10,000 years ago? (For those not
familiar with mtDNA studies, while all Native Indians in America were expected
to carry the four Asian haplogroups, A,B,C & D, some tribes around the
Great Lakes were found to also carry haplogroup X, a gene that originates from
the eastern Mediterranean). And, without Plato's explanation in place, how else
do we explain that high traces of haplogroup X also happen to exist in Scotland, Faroe Islands, and Iceland,
essentially all the island stops to North America from Europe?
Those who support the Solutrean/ Clovis hypothesis (a migration
via a partial ice sheet over the Atlantic), how do they explain that out of at
least a dozen haplogroups present in northern Europe at the
time (H, V, J, HV, U, T, UK, X, W, and I) only a single one managed the trip to
North America, when on the opposite site, every one of the 4 Asian haplogroups
sequentially followed each other over the Bering Strait?
As for those who support the hypothesis that haplogroup X migrated to the Great Lakes
on foot via the Bering Strait, along with haplogroups A,B,C & D, how do they
explain that there is no trace of haplogroup X to fill in the huge void between
southern Russia and the Great Lakes of North America? Most importantly, though, if haplogroup X
migrated to America via the Bering Strait, how do we explain that the heaviest
concentration of haplogroup X, away from the eastern Mediterranean, exist on
the east coast of the United States, around the Great Lakes, and not in Alaska
or the west coast? Is it time perhaps to give Plato's story another closer
look?
Finally, in regards to the critics who will remind you that Atlantis was entirely
swallowed by the sea, while obviously in this case remnants of it were left
behind, in the following paragraph Plato clarifies this flawed belief.
The consequence
is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining in small islets
only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, all the richer and
softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the
country being left.
The Project
Your
contribution will assist in producing "Atlantis Revealed", the pilot documentary
in a series that will help unravel some of the most contentious mysteries of
our time!
Most
every previous claim about the discovery of Atlantis, has produced NO tangible evidence. Unlike past failures on the subject, this documentary will establish the following:
-
Proper translation and analysis of Plato's account,
places Atlantis in the Mediterranean, at the doorstep of Greece, and not in the
Atlantic Ocean, or in some exotic location as many researchers previously
thought.
-
A thorough look for Atlantis in the Mediterranean
ultimately revealed a prehistoric super-island (now 400 feet below sea level) that
in every way matches Plato's description.
-
Around the 4th century BC, Plato and the ancient Greeks
were fully aware of the American continent across the Atlantic. In effect, the
continent across the Atlantic Plato mentioned in his story, was the American
continent and not that of Atlantis.
-
Past mtDNA studies, which confirmed the existence of a
Mediterranean gene (haplogroup X) among certain American Indian tribes around
the Great Lakes, not only corroborate Plato's claim of an advanced prehistoric civilization
10,000 years ago, capable crossing the Atlantic, but these tests further reinforce
our conclusion that this advanced culture originated in the eastern Mediterranean.
-
High traces of haplogroup X in Scotland, Faroe Islands,
Iceland, and ultimately around the Great Lakes of North America, also validate that
these "Atlantians" (or whatever that civilization was called) visited
North America from the Atlantic side via "island hopping" and just as
Plato claimed.
-
Our research will reveal that the super-island of the
Cyclades Plateau, otherwise known as Atlantis, was 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 UNESCO study of 2009 regards to the Black Sea Flood
-- See also global flooding caused by Glacial Lake Agassiz -- Read Science News
article, 2010: "Global Sea-Level Rise at the end of the Last Ice-Age,
Interrupted by Rapid Jumps".)
-
Contrary to a common belief that Atlantis vanished from
the face of the Earth, Plato's own account reveals that remnants of Atlantis
remained behind and formed small islets, just as in the case of the Cyclades
Plateau.
-
While several archaeological artifacts around the
Cyclades islands point to some unknown pre-bronze age civilization in the area,
we must now establish whether these artifacts are the recovering remnants of
another slightly older civilization, one that could relate to Plato's Atlantis.
-
Finally, the discovery of a matching site in the given
chronology, confirms past scientific speculations that Plato created a moral fable
around a real setting in which, in order to successfully communicate some of
his philosophical ideas, he filled with familiar matter and details from his
own time, just as Homer did 400 years earlier with the city of Troy.
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