Castleden (The Making of Stonehenge, not reviewed), working with
Plato's Critias, historical and contemporary scholarly works, and
his own speculation, seeks to identify the fabled island of
Atlantis and set it within a greater political-literary context. As
Castleden explains, the story of Atlantis dates from before Plato,
back to the priests of Sais in Egypt and then into the mists. But
it is a close reading of Plato's rendering on which Castleden bases
his conclusions. Yes, Plato uses the island as a parable, as
political satire to improve his fellow Athenians and tempt
Syracusans with an ideal for the city-state, but there are so many
identifiable elements in the story - geographically, geologically,
in references to commerce - that if these elements are put into
historical perspective, if certain misreadings of ancient Minoan
texts are accounted for, a stab can be taken at the island's
identity. Castleden understands the pillars of Heracles to be
situated at the Gulf of Laconia, and not the western end of the
Mediterranean, and Atlantis to be an archipelago of Aegean islands,
Crete and Them (a.k.a. Santorini) most prominent among them. Plato,
Castleden argues, conflated the two islands for his own allegorical
convenience, and thus the confusion. The islands' particular
geographical features bear out his description. Castleden
buttresses his theory with a detailed examination of Cretan and
Theran histories and cultures, drawing parallels to Plato. The
theory is certainly plausible: His familiarity with the material is
intelligently nuanced, and when he takes a leap in the dark -
suggesting understandable mistranslations by the Egyptians, say -
it is never far-fetched. Castleden's pseudoscholarly tone - the
book often reads like a script for Robert Stack's Unsolved
Mysteries - can be a put-off, but the material is too fascinating
for that to be much of an impediment, and the subject has survived
far worse treatment. (For another view of Atlantis, see Richard
Ellis, Imagining Atlantis, p. 630.) A fine synthesis of
Atlantis-related research, with a good number of intelligent,
provoking speculations and an insightful consideration of Plato's
myth-making talents. (Kirkus Reviews)
Plato's legend of the famed lost continent of Atlantis has become notorious among scholars as the most absurd lie in literature. Exciting our imagination and our curiosity, Atlantis Destroyed explores the possibility that Plato's account is the historical truth.
In this fascinating account, Rodney Castleden considers the widely-debated location of Atlantis and its destruction, the literary origins of utopian Atlantis and how this became confused with Plato's authentic account and also the remarkable parallels between Plato's narrative and the bronze age civilisation in the Aegean.
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