[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Sichr, we're speaking from the viewpoint of the setting, in which case Thera was indeed the source of the Atlantis myth. Just as dragons being around in previous ages were the source of all the dragon myths you saw.

But they didn't have ketchup back in the day!

So they claim...

[Mirikon]

Sichr, we're speaking from the viewpoint of the setting, in which case Thera was indeed the source of the Atlantis myth. Just as dragons being around in previous ages were the source of all the dragon myths you saw.

But they didn't have ketchup back in the day!

So they claim...

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[CanRay]

But could be evidence of abstinence.

[TheNarrator]

Aehm...
Atlantis was the source of Thera myth.
Considering the oposit to be truth means you are realy indoctrinated by Shadowrun/Earthdawn paradigm to the level even Horizon would envy

Actually, no. Thera was the name of an actual island in ancient Greece that exploded in a massive volcanic eruption about 3,600 years ago, and is a likely inspiration for Plato's story of Atlantis.

The creators of Earthdawn just added a magical backstory to that historical event.

So yes, in-universe and in real life, Thera inspired the myths of Atlantis.

[CanRay]

And that, children, is why you don't piss off volcano Gods.

[ArkangelWinter]

Makes me think of the Highlander, when they blamed Vesuvius on 2 immortals fighting on holy ground. Talk about not the place to handle this.

[CanRay]

And that, children, is why you don't piss off *ANY* God.

[Hermes]

Aehm...
Atlantis was the source of Thera myth.
Considering the oposit to be truth means you are realy indoctrinated by Shadowrun/Earthdawn paradigm to the level even Horizon would envy

Actually, no. Thera was the name of an actual island in ancient Greece that exploded in a massive volcanic eruption about 3,600 years ago, and is a likely inspiration for Plato's story of Atlantis.

The creators of Earthdawn just added a magical backstory to that historical event.

So yes, in-universe and in real life, Thera inspired the myths of Atlantis.

hmmhmm.  Although that's not entirely accurate IRL. (put's on Atlantis expert's hat)

Thera may have inspired the myths, but Atlantis hunters have found some strange artifacts over the years.



Glozel tablet displaying an Ancient One World Language.



Second Glozel tablet displaying the Ancient One World Language.



Image of a woman taken from a cave in Europe.



Bell blasted out of solid rock in Mass.



Some more cave images of cave men.



An image of a woman from La Marche cave.



rock carving dating from the Stone Age of a woman or child in dreadlocks.



Image of Chaco Canyon.

Can I go on?

[Hermes]

Oh, yes, on the Subject of Atlantis.  Whether or not Thera is the actual location there are so many strange artifacts found that should make one consider the possibility that:

If Atlantis doesn't exist as Plato explained it, what does all these strange artifacts mean?

[Mirikon]

That there were civilizations before the ones we commonly know about and they were wiped out? Hell, you don't even have to look that hard for such things. The Anasazi were wiped out in North America, with barely a trace except for their cities in the side of a mesa. On Crete, there two whole written languages that they've discovered and still can't make heads or tails of. In Asia, that monument they talk about in Hazard Pay is a real thing. And civilizations tend to get wiped out every hundred years or so in Africa.

All this means that there are going to be plenty of artifacts around the world from lost civilizations. The fact that they are all lost does not mean that they are all the same civilization. However, some people, looking to prove a point, may take artifacts from other disparate civilizations, and try to combine them into some tale of one uber-civilization that's gone missing. As Atlantis is the best known of these in the West, most of these get dumped on the Atlantis's greatest hits soundtrack.

[Longshot23]

There's a soundtrack?! Wantwantwant   

I have recently . . . acquired . . . Plato's Timaeus and Critias (no relation to poster), though I haven't read them yet. Mirikon's points about the Atlantis legend/myth are good.

[CanRay]

That there were civilizations before the ones we commonly know about and they were wiped out? Hell, you don't even have to look that hard for such things. The Anasazi were wiped out in North America, with barely a trace except for their cities in the side of a mesa. On Crete, there two whole written languages that they've discovered and still can't make heads or tails of. In Asia, that monument they talk about in Hazard Pay is a real thing. And civilizations tend to get wiped out every hundred years or so in Africa.

All this means that there are going to be plenty of artifacts around the world from lost civilizations. The fact that they are all lost does not mean that they are all the same civilization. However, some people, looking to prove a point, may take artifacts from other disparate civilizations, and try to combine them into some tale of one uber-civilization that's gone missing. As Atlantis is the best known of these in the West, most of these get dumped on the Atlantis's greatest hits soundtrack.

Civilizations come and go, and mankind seems to never be able to learn the lessons from them, even when they're recorded and remembered.

[Sichr]

There's a soundtrack?! Wantwantwant   

I have recently . . . acquired . . . Plato's Timaeus and Critias (no relation to poster), though I haven't read them yet. Mirikon's points about the Atlantis legend/myth are good.

On the other side, you can sucessfully gain those "facts" by playing Indiana Jones: The fate of Atlantis a few years back. no need for serious legwork on this topic

[TheNarrator]

People tend to forget that Plato was a philosopher, not a historian. He didn't write about real civilizations, he wrote about hypothetical ones to prove some point he was trying to make. Like the theoretical nation of "Utopia" from Plato's Republic. It's only in modern times that people have started believing that Atlantis was something that actually existed; the ancient Greeks didn't.

It's also worth noting that ancient Greek philosophers were not exactly authoritative sources on much of anything, since they never actually tested their theories to gain any sort of experimental data, just made stuff up and then went, "That sounds cool. Let's go with that." These were the same guys who thought that heavier objects fell faster (a notion which persisted for thousands of years until Galileo dropped two different-sized cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Piza), that disease was caused by unbalanced humors and that the treatment for a fever was bloodletting (killing millions in Europe through medical incompetence until mere centuries ago, because the "doctors" of the time studied ancient philosophy instead of actual medicine), and that camels store water in their humps (they don't, they store fat).

So I wouldn't count on Plato having any insider knowledge on any lost island civilizations. (And a lost continent is just impossible with what we know of plate tectonics.)

[Nath]

Plato said his knowledge of Ancient Athens and Atlantis came from Solon, three centuries before him, who learned about them during a trip in Egypt. According to Plato's writings, Atlantis lied near the Strait of Gibraltar (the "Pillars of Hercules"), near the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas Moutains, and conquered Europe and Africa around 9500 BC. That's Third Age to you, about eight centuries before the Awakening and some 2,000 years before Thera foundation, CLMC/PITM (assuming constant-length-mana-cycles and peak-in-the-middle). So, if he was talking about ED/SR Thera, he obviously got some facts wrong.

Mythical Crete and Atlantis share a Poseidon patronage, but I guess, so would have any powerful nation based off an island. In Greek mythology, bulls are often associated with Crete (the most famous example is the Minotaur). In the Odyssey, Homer also mentions as much 90 cities in Crete, which is not consistent with Crete as he would have known it in the 8th century BC (as far as our own modern archaeological knowledge goes). This suggests the Greeks still had around the 8th or 7th century BC some knowledge of the so-called "Minoan civilization" (the name was given in the 20th century in reference to King Minos, not the other way round) and its bulls worshiping thing, some three or four centuries after its fall (circa 1100 BC), eight centuries after the end of its golden age (circa 1400 BC). The Santorini eruption is a bit older though, probably around 1600 BC in real life.

For a useful comparison, if it wasn't for Earthdawn sourcebooks and fan sites, Plato and the Internet should know as much about Barsaive, the Blood Wood, the Kingdom of Throal and the War against the Theran empire, than they do about the history of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, whose geographical extent and dates perfectly match.