From what I've understood [0], Atlantis was never meant to be a myth, it's only a fictional alternative version of Athen that Plato conjured up as a political allegory. It's like Batman's Gotham City, it only serves to evoke New York / Chicago.
replyThough to be fair the concept of a powerful city lost to time is something that resonates a lot, and there's multiple similar myth like the isle of Ys, the lost continent of Lemuria, or in the arabic folklore 'Iram of the pillar', often called 'Atlantis of the sand'.
[0] There was an episode on it in the excellent podcast 'In Our Time' by the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001c6t3)
What Plato describes perfectly fits a volcanic island, including the central pillar of rock that some volcanoes have as a volcanic plug, thermal springs and the ring of water inside the caldera.
replyAnd the way Atlantis supposedly ended also fits what happens on volcanic islands.
Nobody at the time could fabricate it out of his own imagination. The description is too accurate.
What Plato described was an invention he created for a philosophical parable, it wasn't intended as history and treating it as such would be akin treating Batman comics as history. The imagined and fictional island was also beyond the Pillars of Heracles which means it was in the Atlantic, not in the Mediterranean.
replyAs well as the mighty, powerful, technologically advanced empire run by.. Santorini?
replyThey had indoor plumbing!
replyIndoor plumbing is very ancient. Many ancient civilizations had it, although generally only for the rich, temples, or government buildings. The Indus Valley and ancient Egypt developed it 4,500 years ago (2500 BCE). (Greek) Minoan Crete followed around 3,700 years ago (1700 BCE).
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