- MOUNT OLYMPUS, Cyprus
(Reuters) - Some say it is in the Aegean, others in the Azores, off the
Celtic Ridge of Britain or even as far as the South China Sea, but an American
researcher says everyone has been looking in the wrong place.
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- Atlantis was in Cyprus and ancient philosopher Plato
is about to be vindicated, according to Robert Sarmast.
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- "The island of Cyprus was, or is, part of Atlantis
-- a mountaintop," Sarmast said from his home in Los Angeles. "This
region is at the heart of the ancient world."
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- Drawn from accounts by the ancient Athenian lawmaker
Solon, Plato's description of a powerful civilization destroyed by the
wrath of God has fired the dreams of explorers for centuries.
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- Of late, it has inspired fantasies of webbed-limbed people
living in glass bubbles on the sea bed; of old, it was thought by some
to be the Garden of Eden, where mankind fell from God's grace.
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- Geologists say the land mass of Cyprus's central mountain
range once formed the ocean floor. Sarmast says the mountainous island
was the tip of the civilization submerged in a devastating earthquake and
flood thousands of years ago.
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- Using deep-sea imagery, simulations of the sea bed, and
following some 50 clues found in Plato's Critias and Timaeus Dialogues,
Sarmast said he has discovered a sunken rectangular land mass stretching
northeast from Cyprus, toward Syria.
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- "Everything matches the descriptions in the dialogues
of Atlantis to an uncanny degree," said Sarmast.
-
- Using scientific data collected a decade ago, Sarmast
said he came up with detailed three-dimensional maps and simulated models
of the eastern Mediterranean basin.
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- "We lowered the sea level by 1,600 meters (5,250
feet) and an island popped up," he said.
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- Having written a book about his discovery, Sarmast now
hopes to organize an expedition to the region for further research.
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- SCHOLARS SKEPTICAL
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- His theory has been challenged by archeologists, who
say the Atlantis story is a myth.
-
- Sarmast, however, says the sheer volume of detail found
in the dialogues is proof enough that something is lurking in the watery
deep. The dialogues read like a treasure map," he said.
-
- Although theories on where Atlantis was are many and
varied, most believers agree the ancient city was probably destroyed in
the biblical flood, which has its parallel in the history of the Babylonians,
Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians and South Americans.
-
- Plato describes a series of worldwide floods culminating
in the deluge of the Deucalion, dated by Greek historians to the end of
the last Ice Age, about 10,000 BC.
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- According to those ancient texts, Atlantis was a powerful
nation whose residents became so corrupted by greed and power that Zeus,
the king of the gods, destroyed it.
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- Cypriot scholars are skeptical of Sarmast's conclusions.
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- "The possibility of Cyprus being Atlantis is next
to zero," said Plato scholar Sofronis Sofroniou.
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- "Cyprus is mentioned by Homer and other people and
there is no mention of that.
-
- "If Cyprus was Atlantis, it would probably have
been mentioned. There is absolutely no basis for this theory."
-
- Sophocles Hadjisavvas, director of the Antiquities Department,
agrees. "This is mere speculation and has nothing to do with reality,"
he said.
-
- "Atlantis is mythology, but even mythology speaks
of Atlantis being outside the Gates of Hercules in the Atlantic,"
he said, referring to the Straits of Gibraltar.
-
- "But it is good for Cyprus tourism," he added.
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- Sarmast won't be swayed. "Heinrich Schliemann discovered
Troy by following clues in Homer's Iliad," he said, referring to the
German explorer who found what he thought was the ancient city of Troy
in 1873. "Before that archeologists said it was a myth. It wasn't,
and nor is Atlantis."
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