- 6 weeks ago
The Atlantis Puzzle (2024) is an adventurous mystery film that dives into the legend of the lost city of Atlantis. When a team of explorers uncovers a mysterious artifact, they embark on a thrilling journey filled with secrets, puzzles, and discoveries that could change history. Blending mythology, suspense, and breathtaking adventure, The Atlantis Puzzle is a captivating story for fans of exploration and ancient mysteries.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:00:30What do you know about the past, and how do you know it?
00:00:34Our species stretches back over 300,000 years,
00:00:39yet we only have written records for the last 2% of that time.
00:00:44Across the long-proceeding ages,
00:00:46how many cultures, kingdoms, and even empires have vanished?
00:00:51All evidence of their existence now turned to dust.
00:00:55Today, archaeologists can carbon-date artifacts
00:01:01and sequence DNA with computers,
00:01:03yet the picture of the deep past that emerges
00:01:06is often frustratingly incomplete.
00:01:10For the majority of our time on this planet,
00:01:14humanity has relied on myth to tell us the story
00:01:17of who we are and where we came from.
00:01:20Today, we often think of myths as fantasies,
00:01:26fairy tales for simple-minded primitives.
00:01:29We read about science myth-busting old ideas,
00:01:32demonstrating how superior our knowledge is
00:01:35to that of our ancestors.
00:01:38But perhaps we shouldn't be so quick
00:01:40to draw these conclusions.
00:01:42We've begun to discover that some myths are rooted in truth.
00:01:46Troy, the famous city attacked by Greek heroes in the Iliad,
00:01:52had been thought fiction for hundreds of years,
00:01:55an invention of Homeric epic poetry.
00:01:58That is, until Heinrich Schliemann's team
00:02:01discovered its remains
00:02:02and those of its arch-rival Mycenae
00:02:04in the late 19th century,
00:02:07completely shifting the paradigm
00:02:08around the credibility of ancient sources.
00:02:11The Great Flood myths of many cultures
00:02:16have often been considered religious parable.
00:02:20Yet recent studies suggest
00:02:22they may reflect cultural memories
00:02:24of rapidly rising sea levels,
00:02:27like those that caused massive,
00:02:29catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea
00:02:31around 7300 B.C.
00:02:34Such evidence opens a tantalizing door,
00:02:37inviting us to wonder about ancient civilizations,
00:02:40of which no true records exist.
00:02:43But there's one myth that's unlike others
00:02:45for a simple reason.
00:02:46It has dates attached to it.
00:02:49That myth is Atlantis.
00:02:52Most of us only have a foggy notion
00:02:55of what the Atlantis myth was really about.
00:02:58Was it an advanced civilization
00:03:00from a missing period in prehistory?
00:03:03Or a decadent society on a lost continent,
00:03:08crushed by the wrath of the gods
00:03:09in a cataclysmic event?
00:03:12And if so,
00:03:13how exactly does a continent
00:03:16get lost in the first place?
00:03:24Let's begin with what Atlantis is,
00:03:26a story written down around 2400 years ago
00:03:29here in Athens.
00:03:31The story is a strange one.
00:03:33Solon, famous lawgiver of the Athenian state
00:03:37and one of the seven sages of ancient Greece,
00:03:40journeyed to the Temple of Sais
00:03:42in the Egyptian Nile Delta
00:03:44around 600 B.C.
00:03:46He spoke with the high priests there
00:03:49about the prehistoric past
00:03:51and told them the Greeks' own mythical version
00:03:55of these events,
00:03:57stretching back to the great flood of Dekalion
00:03:59and estimated what the true dates might have been.
00:04:03An elder priest responded,
00:04:05O Solon, Solon,
00:04:08you Greeks are always children.
00:04:11No Greek is old.
00:04:12You're young, let us say,
00:04:14in psyche,
00:04:15because you do not have inside you
00:04:17any hearing of ancient knowledge
00:04:19and you have not learned
00:04:21of things of the past.
00:04:22The priest describes a past
00:04:25interspersed with natural disasters,
00:04:28droughts, wildfires,
00:04:30and not one, but many floods.
00:04:35It's a long past the Greeks have forgotten
00:04:37through a lack of continuity.
00:04:41Their culture had to reinvent itself
00:04:44after each disaster,
00:04:46its populace reduced to a life
00:04:48of basic subsistence.
00:04:49The Egyptians, by contrast,
00:04:54had escaped most of these disasters
00:04:56and maintained ongoing records
00:04:59of events in their temples,
00:05:01including a major story
00:05:02the priest is quite certain
00:05:03the Greeks have forgotten.
00:05:06Atlantis.
00:05:07It was said to be a continent
00:05:09with a mighty empire
00:05:10that existed around 9600 B.C.,
00:05:14ruled by ten kings
00:05:15descended from Poseidon,
00:05:17god of the sea.
00:05:19Its capital city
00:05:20was astoundingly large
00:05:22and decadent.
00:05:24Its army and navy enormous.
00:05:27Its wealth was unmatched,
00:05:29as was its thirst for conquest.
00:05:33It swept across North Africa,
00:05:36eventually conquering Egypt,
00:05:38and assaulted the western
00:05:39Mediterranean coast of Europe
00:05:41up to central Italy.
00:05:42after a series of wars,
00:05:46it was finally defeated
00:05:47by the ancestors of the Athenians,
00:05:50who liberated Egypt
00:05:51and many other peoples,
00:05:53only to lose their army
00:05:55in the final assault
00:05:56on the capital
00:05:57of this belligerent power
00:05:58during a horrific earthquake
00:06:00and series of floods.
00:06:02The idea that an unknown continent
00:06:05sank into the ocean
00:06:07and the mystery surrounding
00:06:08its location
00:06:09has generated debate
00:06:10for hundreds,
00:06:11if not thousands,
00:06:12of years.
00:06:13Most doubt it ever existed.
00:06:15But perhaps the most bizarre thing
00:06:18about the myth of Atlantis
00:06:19is its source,
00:06:21Plato,
00:06:22the greatest philosopher
00:06:23of the classical Greek world.
00:06:25Plato was born
00:06:26into the noble classes
00:06:27of Periclean Athens,
00:06:29toward the end
00:06:29of its golden age
00:06:30of culture
00:06:31and worldly success.
00:06:34He grew up
00:06:35during the worst civil war
00:06:36in Greek history
00:06:37between Athens and Sparta,
00:06:39and as a young man,
00:06:41was educated
00:06:41by distinguished teachers.
00:06:44Following the defeat
00:06:45of Athens
00:06:46and the death
00:06:47of his mentor,
00:06:48Socrates,
00:06:48in 399 BC,
00:06:51Plato packed up
00:06:52and disappeared.
00:06:54For the next 12 years,
00:06:55we're told
00:06:56that he traveled
00:06:57the Mediterranean,
00:06:58studying with the greatest
00:06:59minds of the age
00:07:00in places like Sicily,
00:07:02southern Italy,
00:07:03and Egypt.
00:07:04Around age 40,
00:07:06he returned to Athens,
00:07:08where he founded
00:07:08a school called
00:07:09the Academy
00:07:10and taught great thinkers
00:07:11like Aristotle,
00:07:12as well as authoring
00:07:13dozens of books
00:07:14on philosophy.
00:07:16The fact he wrote
00:07:17about such a strange story
00:07:19and not just one,
00:07:20but two of his books
00:07:21is something
00:07:22of a puzzle in itself.
00:07:23He wasn't an entertainer
00:07:25for kids' birthday parties,
00:07:26he was a masterful thinker
00:07:28who crafted some
00:07:29of the most complex works
00:07:30at the very foundation
00:07:31of Western thought.
00:07:34Vague notions
00:07:35of a lost civilization
00:07:36that sank beneath the waves
00:07:38have sparked
00:07:39innumerable interpretations
00:07:41from Jules Verne
00:07:42to Disney
00:07:43in the roughly 2400 years
00:07:45since Plato's death.
00:07:48Whatever the Atlantis myth
00:07:49once represented
00:07:50has been washed
00:07:51from our minds
00:07:52by a tsunami
00:07:53of pop culture.
00:07:55Atlantis,
00:07:56a land that harnessed
00:07:57the power
00:07:57of a volcano's fiery heart
00:07:59and learned to store
00:08:00the energy of the sun
00:08:01in giant crystals,
00:08:02then used them
00:08:03to create secret weapons
00:08:05whose disintegrating rays
00:08:06could destroy
00:08:07the rest of the world.
00:08:09All this bogus Atlantis imagery
00:08:11has also had a side effect,
00:08:13spawning an almost
00:08:14obsessive interest
00:08:15by fringe theorists
00:08:16and uncovering
00:08:16a lost continent
00:08:17sunken beneath the ocean.
00:08:35Ignatius L. Donnelly's
00:08:36Atlantis,
00:08:37the antediluvian world
00:08:39of 1882,
00:08:41was among the first
00:08:42to propose
00:08:43a massive continent
00:08:44that sank into the depths
00:08:46of the Atlantic Ocean,
00:08:47the survivors of which
00:08:49allegedly fled
00:08:50to start new civilizations
00:08:52everywhere from the Yucatan
00:08:53to Egypt.
00:08:57Donnelly surmised
00:08:58the Azores Islands
00:08:59were the tips
00:09:00of this huge landmass,
00:09:03a theory that,
00:09:04despite being incorrect,
00:09:06has somehow persisted
00:09:07to the present day
00:09:08in some circles.
00:09:11The fact that Plato
00:09:12borrowed certain allegories
00:09:13and metaphors
00:09:14from older traditions
00:09:15has led a number of scholars
00:09:17to propose
00:09:18the myth of Atlantis
00:09:19was inspired
00:09:20by a series
00:09:20of actual events,
00:09:22such as the powerful
00:09:23and deadly eruption
00:09:24of Theron Santorini,
00:09:26the Sea People's invasions,
00:09:27or even the Trojan War.
00:09:30And this is just
00:09:31the tip of the iceberg.
00:09:33The location of Atlantis
00:09:34has been proclaimed
00:09:36across the globe.
00:09:38With such a flood
00:09:39of wild goose chase theories,
00:09:41it's not surprising
00:09:42that most classicists today
00:09:44consider the Atlantis myth
00:09:46as simply an allegory
00:09:47invented by Plato
00:09:48to explain the dangers
00:09:49of hubris,
00:09:51bad government,
00:09:52and military aggression.
00:09:54But not everyone agrees.
00:09:56Plato was the greatest
00:10:00philosopher of all times.
00:10:03My major question was
00:10:05why a so rational man
00:10:09was occupied writing myths.
00:10:13This is the beginning
00:10:14of the story 20 years ago.
00:10:17George Serentidis
00:10:18does not believe
00:10:20in sinking continents.
00:10:22An independent researcher
00:10:23of the ancient Greek world,
00:10:24he's authored papers
00:10:26on a broad range of topics,
00:10:28combining his knowledge
00:10:29of the ancient language
00:10:30with geography,
00:10:32sailing,
00:10:33and climate change
00:10:34to reconstruct pictures
00:10:36of the past
00:10:36that have confused scholars
00:10:38for centuries.
00:10:40His work on dating the Iliad
00:10:42through reference to astronomy
00:10:44has even been recognized
00:10:46by the Greek academy.
00:10:49Nearly 20 years ago,
00:10:51George turned his attention
00:10:53to the work of his favorite
00:10:54philosopher, Plato.
00:10:56The main characteristic
00:10:57of Plato
00:10:58is to put you
00:11:00in the problem.
00:11:01Demands
00:11:02very logic
00:11:04sequence.
00:11:05You cannot escape
00:11:06by doing
00:11:08things
00:11:09that do not fit.
00:11:12Otherwise,
00:11:13you don't have results.
00:11:15Unlike many other philosophers
00:11:17who sought to build
00:11:18perfect systems,
00:11:19few, if any,
00:11:21of Plato's writings
00:11:22can be said
00:11:23to advocate
00:11:23a cut-and-dried
00:11:25set of positions.
00:11:27His dialogues
00:11:28often seem to have
00:11:30dissatisfaction
00:11:31and puzzlement,
00:11:32even with the doctrines
00:11:33he seems to be presenting
00:11:34for our consideration.
00:11:35In this sense,
00:11:37his exact positions
00:11:38often seem
00:11:39something of a mystery.
00:11:41Plato
00:11:42was writing
00:11:44these myths
00:11:45for other
00:11:47high-educated
00:11:48persons.
00:11:49What is the benefit
00:11:50of an educated
00:11:53person
00:11:54or a student
00:11:55of Plato?
00:11:57What he could
00:11:58take
00:11:59from a myth?
00:12:01That was the puzzle
00:12:02that I would like
00:12:04to solve.
00:12:05George began
00:12:06analyzing Plato's
00:12:07philosophical dialogues,
00:12:09looking for patterns
00:12:10in the way
00:12:10he wrote about myths,
00:12:12and over time
00:12:13formulated
00:12:14a series of axioms.
00:12:16The theory
00:12:16he developed
00:12:17he titled
00:12:18Methodology of Mythology,
00:12:21a theory
00:12:21he formally presented
00:12:22in a series
00:12:23of papers
00:12:24at conferences
00:12:24throughout the first
00:12:26decade
00:12:26of the 21st century.
00:12:28The theory suggests
00:12:30Plato deliberately
00:12:31constructed
00:12:32his myths
00:12:32for use
00:12:33as a teaching tool
00:12:34and that
00:12:35consistent
00:12:36grammatical clues
00:12:37within them
00:12:38turned the stories
00:12:39into a kind
00:12:40of mental gymnasium
00:12:41for advanced
00:12:42students.
00:12:43Gradually,
00:12:44you see
00:12:45that there is
00:12:47a systematic
00:12:48writing
00:12:49of a myth.
00:12:50There is
00:12:51a frequent
00:12:52appearance
00:12:52of axioms
00:12:54or the axiom
00:12:56that you have
00:12:57found from
00:12:58the beginning.
00:12:59You might see
00:13:00it later on
00:13:01and later on
00:13:01and you can
00:13:02predict
00:13:02that you're
00:13:03going to find
00:13:04in front of you
00:13:04such a thing
00:13:05because there
00:13:07are also
00:13:07some warnings
00:13:08within the text
00:13:10he might use
00:13:11two similarly
00:13:14sounding words
00:13:15in the beginning
00:13:17at the end
00:13:18of the paragraph
00:13:19but with much
00:13:21different meaning.
00:13:23Do not
00:13:23underestimate
00:13:24any detail
00:13:25to find out
00:13:26the tricks,
00:13:27the laws
00:13:28or axions
00:13:29or systems
00:13:30the mythographer
00:13:32is following up
00:13:33to construct
00:13:34a myth.
00:13:35It's a very
00:13:36high scientific
00:13:39document
00:13:41and you can
00:13:42use it
00:13:43to teach
00:13:44either a child
00:13:45or an initiate.
00:13:47The story of Atlantis
00:13:49is briefly summarized
00:13:51in a book
00:13:51called Timaeus.
00:13:53The rest of this
00:13:54long dialogue
00:13:55then goes on
00:13:56to focus
00:13:56on seemingly
00:13:57unrelated subjects.
00:13:59Plato's later dialogue
00:14:01Critias
00:14:02on the other hand
00:14:03is a description
00:14:04of the ancient
00:14:05conflict
00:14:05between the Athens
00:14:06of 9600 BC
00:14:08and the hostile
00:14:09Atlantean Empire
00:14:10and it seems
00:14:11to have been
00:14:12cut off
00:14:12mid-sentence.
00:14:14Most believe
00:14:15that either the book
00:14:15was unfinished
00:14:16or that the rest
00:14:18has simply been
00:14:18lost to history.
00:14:20George collected
00:14:21several of the best
00:14:22modern Greek
00:14:23and English
00:14:24translations
00:14:24of Critias
00:14:25and Timaeus
00:14:26and began
00:14:27to dig into them.
00:14:29Soon
00:14:29he noticed
00:14:30an unusual pattern.
00:14:32All the translations
00:14:33were in agreement
00:14:34for the most part
00:14:35but certain areas
00:14:37of complex description
00:14:38were often rendered
00:14:40completely differently
00:14:41with various degrees
00:14:43of incompatible
00:14:44even conflicting logic.
00:14:47When you see
00:14:48so many
00:14:49different meanings
00:14:51coming out
00:14:53of different
00:14:54from different
00:14:55translations
00:14:56something is wrong.
00:14:59He went back
00:15:07to the source documents
00:15:08the ancient Greek
00:15:09texts themselves
00:15:11and began
00:15:11to compare
00:15:12the modern translations
00:15:13to Plato's
00:15:14original words.
00:15:15one of the very
00:15:18first things
00:15:18is that
00:15:19I had read
00:15:20Atlantic Ocean
00:15:23there is no Atlantic Ocean
00:15:27in the ancient text.
00:15:28We can see the same thing
00:15:30in many common
00:15:31English translations
00:15:33for these histories
00:15:34tell of a mighty power
00:15:36which unprovoked
00:15:37made an expedition
00:15:39against the whole
00:15:40of Europe and Asia
00:15:41and to which your city
00:15:43put an end.
00:15:44This power
00:15:45came forth
00:15:46out of the Atlantic Ocean
00:15:47for in those days
00:15:49the Atlantic
00:15:50was navigable.
00:15:51It says
00:15:52Atlantic Pelagos
00:15:54Pelagos
00:15:57and Ocean
00:15:57have no connection
00:15:58at all.
00:15:59They have
00:16:00much different
00:16:01properties.
00:16:02To get to Atlantis
00:16:04from Greece
00:16:04you had to cross
00:16:06a large body
00:16:07of water
00:16:07previously translated
00:16:09as Atlantic Ocean
00:16:11but the actual
00:16:12ancient Greek
00:16:13says Atlantic Pelagos
00:16:16something more
00:16:17like the Aegean Sea
00:16:18partially enclosed
00:16:20by land.
00:16:21This meant
00:16:22something important
00:16:23Atlantis
00:16:24couldn't possibly be
00:16:26where earlier
00:16:27researchers
00:16:28like Ignatius Donnelly
00:16:29had said it was.
00:16:32But if Plato
00:16:33wasn't referring
00:16:34to the Atlantic Ocean
00:16:35what was this
00:16:36mysterious Atlantic Pelagos
00:16:38that led to Atlantis
00:16:40and were there
00:16:41other aspects
00:16:42of the ancient Greek
00:16:43that were being lost
00:16:45in translation?
00:16:47It's like mathematics.
00:16:48If you are giving
00:16:49wrong data
00:16:50you have a wrong result.
00:16:53A lot of different
00:16:54translators
00:16:55were not able
00:16:57to translate correctly
00:16:58the ancient text.
00:17:01And this was the spark
00:17:02and the main cause
00:17:06to push me
00:17:07to start
00:17:09retranslate
00:17:10the whole
00:17:12two books
00:17:13Timos and
00:17:14Critias
00:17:14from the beginning.
00:17:17George proceeded
00:17:17to spend
00:17:18over two years
00:17:19and 4,000 hours
00:17:20working with
00:17:21Athens University
00:17:22philologist
00:17:23Eva Dacia
00:17:24to formulate
00:17:25new translations
00:17:26of these two books
00:17:28to ensure
00:17:29he was correctly
00:17:29verifying
00:17:30every role
00:17:31of syntax
00:17:32and grammar.
00:17:33The same word
00:17:34on the 6th century
00:17:35might have
00:17:36different meaning
00:17:37on the 5th century
00:17:39different
00:17:40on the 4th century
00:17:41different.
00:17:42You need
00:17:43the correct meaning
00:17:45of every word
00:17:46phrase
00:17:47line
00:17:48and paragraph
00:17:50otherwise
00:17:51you are reading
00:17:52a wrong story.
00:17:54Once he had the words
00:17:55then he rebuilt
00:17:56the phrases
00:17:57then the sentences
00:17:58because a changed
00:18:00sentence
00:18:01will change
00:18:02the meaning
00:18:02of a paragraph
00:18:03which can alter
00:18:04the meaning
00:18:05of an entire book.
00:18:07George began
00:18:08to see
00:18:09that Plato's geography
00:18:10was far more specific
00:18:12than he
00:18:13or anyone else
00:18:14had realized before.
00:18:17Bit by bit
00:18:18the pieces of the map
00:18:19began to take form
00:18:21based on the meaning
00:18:22of key words.
00:18:25Besides
00:18:26Okeanos
00:18:26Greek has
00:18:27three main words
00:18:29for large bodies
00:18:30of water
00:18:30we would call
00:18:31seas.
00:18:33The Mediterranean Sea
00:18:34is a thalassa
00:18:35the Aegean
00:18:37is a pelagos
00:18:38a sea that
00:18:39encloses islands
00:18:40like an embrace.
00:18:43Pontos
00:18:43what we call
00:18:44in English
00:18:45the Black Sea
00:18:46Greeks called
00:18:47the Euxenos Pontos.
00:18:50And Pontos
00:18:51is not a pelagos
00:18:52and it's not an ocean
00:18:54but in
00:18:55all the translations
00:18:56all these
00:18:58are named
00:18:59ocean
00:19:00or sea.
00:19:01through close analysis
00:19:03of the grammar
00:19:04in Critias and Timaeus
00:19:05George was also able
00:19:07to identify
00:19:07and define
00:19:09three key terms
00:19:10that had previously
00:19:11been translated
00:19:12interchangeably
00:19:14as island
00:19:15to great confusion.
00:19:17A continent
00:19:18an island
00:19:19and the sacred
00:19:21center island
00:19:22of the Atlantean
00:19:23capital city.
00:19:24the size
00:19:25and concentric
00:19:26ringed shape
00:19:27of which
00:19:27are explained
00:19:28in great
00:19:29albeit confusing
00:19:30detail.
00:19:33Tradition has it
00:19:34that the phrase
00:19:35let no one
00:19:36ignorant of geometry
00:19:37enter here
00:19:38was carved above
00:19:40the door
00:19:40to Plato's academy.
00:19:42If he included
00:19:43complex geometrical
00:19:45diagrams
00:19:46very specific
00:19:47geographic terms
00:19:48and directional
00:19:49orientations
00:19:51we have to ask
00:19:52why are they there?
00:19:55If it was about
00:19:56a fairy tale
00:19:57you don't need
00:19:58to give such details.
00:20:00It was
00:20:00instructions
00:20:02how to
00:20:02approach
00:20:03Atlantis.
00:20:05start entering
00:20:06the
00:20:07pillars of Herakles
00:20:09which is
00:20:10characterized
00:20:11as a mouth
00:20:12where the
00:20:13larger
00:20:14cavity
00:20:14is
00:20:15the Mediterranean
00:20:16and the
00:20:17smaller cavity
00:20:18is
00:20:19an Atlantic
00:20:20Pelagos.
00:20:22After you
00:20:22pass
00:20:23these pillars
00:20:24of Herakles
00:20:25you are in front
00:20:26of an Atlantic
00:20:27Pelagos
00:20:27and then
00:20:28you have
00:20:28in front of you
00:20:29an island
00:20:31a very large
00:20:31one
00:20:32and characterize
00:20:33it as well
00:20:34as
00:20:35a continent.
00:20:36For this
00:20:37continent
00:20:37he describes
00:20:38a semi-curved
00:20:40shape of land
00:20:41larger
00:20:42than
00:20:43Asia
00:20:44and Libya
00:20:44in length
00:20:45where either
00:20:46by going
00:20:47through the
00:20:48continent
00:20:49or through
00:20:50islands
00:20:51step by step
00:20:52somewhere in
00:20:53the middle
00:20:54of this
00:20:54curb
00:20:55you can find
00:20:56something like
00:20:57a harbor
00:20:58then a poros
00:21:00a narrow
00:21:01passage
00:21:01to pass
00:21:02in another
00:21:03Pelagos
00:21:04after you
00:21:05have
00:21:05left
00:21:06behind you
00:21:06a pondos
00:21:07different sea
00:21:08then you
00:21:09are in
00:21:10front of
00:21:10an island
00:21:11which is
00:21:12located
00:21:13in the
00:21:13middle
00:21:14of this
00:21:14landmass
00:21:15of the
00:21:16island
00:21:17continent
00:21:17and then
00:21:19suddenly
00:21:19I had
00:21:21a new
00:21:21reality
00:21:22in my
00:21:22mind.
00:21:24According to
00:21:24Plato
00:21:25to get
00:21:26to Atlantis
00:21:26by sea
00:21:27one first
00:21:28had to pass
00:21:29the pillars
00:21:30of Heracles
00:21:31so
00:21:32not surprisingly
00:21:33George's
00:21:34first question
00:21:35was
00:21:35where
00:21:36are the
00:21:37pillars
00:21:37of Heracles
00:21:38the answer
00:21:42ever since
00:21:43Rome conquered
00:21:44the entire
00:21:45Mediterranean
00:21:45has been
00:21:46that the
00:21:47pillars
00:21:47are located
00:21:48near the
00:21:48Strait of
00:21:49Gibraltar
00:21:49perhaps with
00:21:50one in
00:21:51Europe
00:21:51and one
00:21:52in Africa
00:21:52but this
00:21:54was not
00:21:54always the
00:21:55case
00:21:56when George
00:21:57began to
00:21:57dig
00:21:58he found
00:21:59there had
00:21:59been
00:22:00considerable
00:22:00confusion
00:22:01and dispute
00:22:02among
00:22:03ancient
00:22:03authors
00:22:04over
00:22:04precisely
00:22:05what
00:22:05and where
00:22:06the pillars
00:22:07of Heracles
00:22:08were
00:22:08As an
00:22:10average
00:22:10person
00:22:10I knew
00:22:11that
00:22:11the pillars
00:22:12of Heracles
00:22:12is somewhere
00:22:13in Gibraltar
00:22:14but Plato
00:22:16is giving
00:22:17you instructions
00:22:17and it's
00:22:19giving
00:22:20a different
00:22:21direction
00:22:22where to
00:22:23find the
00:22:23pillars of
00:22:24Heracles
00:22:24You have
00:22:27to study
00:22:27very hard
00:22:28the text
00:22:29to understand
00:22:30where this
00:22:31place is
00:22:32While examining
00:22:34the differences
00:22:34and descriptions
00:22:35between the
00:22:36two books
00:22:36George realized
00:22:38Greek grammar
00:22:39was the key
00:22:40to narrowing
00:22:41in on the
00:22:42location of
00:22:42the pillars
00:22:43and the
00:22:44mysterious
00:22:44Atlantic
00:22:45Pelagos
00:22:46There's a
00:22:47subtle difference
00:22:48in how language
00:22:49is used in
00:22:50Timaeus
00:22:51versus Critias
00:22:52The closest
00:22:53parallel in
00:22:54English
00:22:54might be the
00:22:54way we use
00:22:55this versus
00:22:56that
00:22:56or here
00:22:57and there
00:22:58This here
00:22:59means something
00:23:00proximate
00:23:00That there
00:23:01means something
00:23:03distant
00:23:03The Egyptian
00:23:04priest speaks
00:23:05of this here
00:23:06Libya
00:23:07referring to
00:23:08a place
00:23:08that's adjacent
00:23:09to his location
00:23:10in the Nile
00:23:11Delta
00:23:12at Sais
00:23:12This grammatical
00:23:14nuance
00:23:14can be used
00:23:15to pin down
00:23:15relative locations
00:23:17in the story
00:23:17based on
00:23:18who was speaking
00:23:19and where
00:23:20that person
00:23:20was at that
00:23:21moment in time
00:23:22The writings
00:23:25refer to
00:23:25how mighty
00:23:26was the force
00:23:27that marched
00:23:28in arrogance
00:23:29at the same
00:23:29time against
00:23:30all of Europe
00:23:31and Asia
00:23:32that campaigned
00:23:34out of
00:23:34the Atlantic
00:23:35Pelagos
00:23:36The fact
00:23:38that the
00:23:38Atlanteans
00:23:39campaigned
00:23:40out of
00:23:40the Atlantic
00:23:41Pelagos
00:23:42suggests
00:23:43it is
00:23:43inside
00:23:44the pillars
00:23:45of Heracles
00:23:46that they
00:23:47demarcate
00:23:48a kind
00:23:48of regional
00:23:49border
00:23:49and that
00:23:50Europe
00:23:51and Asia
00:23:52are on
00:23:52the outside
00:23:53of the pillars
00:23:54If the grammar
00:23:57and syntax
00:23:58was correct
00:23:59the two
00:24:00pillars of
00:24:01Heracles
00:24:01both
00:24:02should exist
00:24:03within Africa
00:24:04But where?
00:24:11Known as
00:24:12the father
00:24:12of history
00:24:13the ancient
00:24:14Greek author
00:24:14Herodotus
00:24:15wrote his
00:24:16famous work
00:24:17A Generation
00:24:18Before Plato
00:24:19It was
00:24:21widely known
00:24:22throughout
00:24:22the Greek
00:24:22world
00:24:23for the
00:24:23travels
00:24:24he'd
00:24:24undertaken
00:24:25all around
00:24:26the Mediterranean
00:24:26reporting
00:24:27on the
00:24:28kingdoms
00:24:28and people
00:24:29he discovered
00:24:30In book
00:24:32four
00:24:32of his
00:24:33history
00:24:33he describes
00:24:35the voyage
00:24:35of a
00:24:36Samian ship
00:24:37that was
00:24:37blown off
00:24:38course
00:24:38and made
00:24:39landfall
00:24:40on the
00:24:40Libyan coast
00:24:41at modern
00:24:41Bamba
00:24:42They then
00:24:44set sail
00:24:45for Egypt
00:24:45but a
00:24:46powerful
00:24:47easterly
00:24:47wind
00:24:48drove them
00:24:49in the
00:24:49opposite
00:24:49direction
00:24:50all the
00:24:51way
00:24:51through the
00:24:52pillars of
00:24:53Heracles
00:24:53to a place
00:24:55called Tartessus
00:24:56The location
00:24:58of Tartessus
00:24:59has been
00:25:00recently
00:25:01ascribed
00:25:01to southern
00:25:02Spain
00:25:02However
00:25:04the Dictionary
00:25:05of Greek
00:25:05and Roman
00:25:06Geography
00:25:06notes that
00:25:08its location
00:25:08was uncertain
00:25:10among the
00:25:10ancients
00:25:11George
00:25:14soon saw
00:25:14the problem
00:25:15in another
00:25:16light
00:25:16A long-time
00:25:18sailor
00:25:18he did
00:25:19some quick
00:25:19math
00:25:20and realized
00:25:21that at the
00:25:22rates of sea
00:25:22travel
00:25:23in Herodotus'
00:25:24era
00:25:24the Samian
00:25:26ship's
00:25:26journey
00:25:26to Gibraltar
00:25:27would have
00:25:28taken somewhere
00:25:29between 20
00:25:30and 30
00:25:30days
00:25:31and involved
00:25:32sailing hundreds
00:25:33of kilometers
00:25:34northward
00:25:34completely around
00:25:36Tunisia
00:25:36all the time
00:25:38without making
00:25:39landfall
00:25:39It's impossible
00:25:41to have
00:25:42made this
00:25:43journey
00:25:43in the
00:25:44given time
00:25:45Gibraltar
00:25:46could not
00:25:47be the
00:25:48place
00:25:48where the
00:25:49pillars of
00:25:49Heracles
00:25:50were
00:25:50There was
00:25:51another
00:25:52much more
00:25:53logical
00:25:53location
00:25:54for the
00:25:54ancient
00:25:55pillars
00:25:55of Heracles
00:25:56the Gulf
00:25:58of Gebes
00:25:58in modern
00:25:59Tunisia
00:26:00A journey
00:26:02to the Gulf
00:26:02of Gebes
00:26:03would have
00:26:03taken only
00:26:046 to 10
00:26:05days
00:26:06instead of
00:26:06the 20
00:26:07or 30
00:26:08to Gibraltar
00:26:09But if
00:26:10the Gulf
00:26:10of Gebes
00:26:11was where
00:26:12the pillars
00:26:12of Heracles
00:26:13were
00:26:14in Plato's
00:26:15era
00:26:15where was
00:26:17the Atlantic
00:26:17Pelagos
00:26:18that they
00:26:19supposedly
00:26:19led to
00:26:20If
00:26:21every word
00:26:22he's using
00:26:24has been
00:26:25translated
00:26:26in your
00:26:27mind
00:26:27correctly
00:26:28you will
00:26:30find
00:26:30the right
00:26:31way
00:26:31While today
00:26:33the linkage
00:26:34to inland
00:26:35Africa
00:26:35is blocked
00:26:36up
00:26:36the Gulf
00:26:37once connected
00:26:38the Mediterranean
00:26:39Sea
00:26:40to a large
00:26:41series of
00:26:41salt lakes
00:26:42called
00:26:43shots
00:26:43Today
00:26:45these shots
00:26:45are only
00:26:46navigable
00:26:47by the
00:26:47smallest
00:26:47of boats
00:26:48and even
00:26:49then
00:26:49only during
00:26:50Tunisia's
00:26:51annual wet
00:26:52season
00:26:52This positioning
00:26:54for the
00:26:54pillars of
00:26:55Heracles
00:26:55and the
00:26:56Atlantic
00:26:57Pelagos
00:26:57starts to
00:26:58make sense
00:26:59if we look
00:27:00back at
00:27:00Plato's
00:27:01statement
00:27:01that
00:27:02at that
00:27:02time
00:27:03the
00:27:03there
00:27:04Pelagos
00:27:05was
00:27:05navigable
00:27:06Plato
00:27:08seems to
00:27:08be saying
00:27:09that at
00:27:10the time
00:27:10of Atlantis
00:27:11the shots
00:27:12were once
00:27:13a larger
00:27:13sea
00:27:14leading to
00:27:15inland
00:27:15Africa
00:27:16and deep
00:27:17enough
00:27:17to be
00:27:18sailed
00:27:18by ships
00:27:19but that
00:27:20in his
00:27:21own time
00:27:22the Pelagos
00:27:23had
00:27:23silted up
00:27:24By contrast
00:27:28the Roman
00:27:29era location
00:27:29of the
00:27:30pillars of
00:27:31Heracles
00:27:31at the
00:27:32Strait of
00:27:32Gibraltar
00:27:33was never
00:27:34impassable
00:27:35to ships
00:27:35that
00:27:37waterway
00:27:38hasn't
00:27:38closed up
00:27:39since the
00:27:40Mediterranean
00:27:40Sea
00:27:41refilled
00:27:42around
00:27:434.8
00:27:44million
00:27:44years
00:27:45ago
00:27:45Gibraltar
00:27:46could not
00:27:47be
00:27:48the place
00:27:49where the
00:27:49pillars of
00:27:50Heracles
00:27:50were
00:27:51if
00:27:52you're
00:27:53able
00:27:53to
00:27:54catch
00:27:54this
00:27:56detail
00:27:57then
00:27:57you get
00:27:58the picture
00:27:58the new
00:28:00picture
00:28:00meant
00:28:01something
00:28:01startling
00:28:02and
00:28:03important
00:28:03the map
00:28:04of the
00:28:04world
00:28:05looked
00:28:05different
00:28:06in the
00:28:07age
00:28:07of
00:28:07Atlantis
00:28:08Atlantis
00:28:10should
00:28:10be
00:28:11the
00:28:11west
00:28:12part
00:28:12of
00:28:12Africa
00:28:13and
00:28:14only
00:28:15there
00:28:15the
00:28:17lost
00:28:17continent
00:28:18of
00:28:18myth
00:28:19had
00:28:19been
00:28:19hiding
00:28:19in
00:28:19plain
00:28:20sight
00:28:20all
00:28:21along
00:28:21how
00:28:23hard
00:28:23was it
00:28:24really
00:28:24to
00:28:24believe
00:28:24that
00:28:25a
00:28:25place
00:28:25that
00:28:25contained
00:28:26the
00:28:26Atlas
00:28:26mountains
00:28:27bordered
00:28:27the
00:28:28Atlantic
00:28:28Ocean
00:28:29and
00:28:29contained
00:28:29a
00:28:30kingdom
00:28:30that
00:28:30Herodotus
00:28:31had
00:28:31once
00:28:31called
00:28:31the
00:28:31Atlantes
00:28:32had
00:28:33been
00:28:33called
00:28:33Atlantis
00:28:34in prehistoric
00:28:35times
00:28:35but
00:28:36there's
00:28:36a much
00:28:37bigger
00:28:37problem
00:28:38most of
00:28:39western Africa
00:28:40today is
00:28:40covered by
00:28:41lifeless
00:28:41Sahara desert
00:28:42so even if the
00:28:43geography seemed
00:28:44to fit
00:28:45how could any of
00:28:46the story be true
00:28:47in the first place
00:28:48the text contains
00:28:49the truth
00:28:50today the Sahara is an
00:29:10inhospitable expanse but starting at the dawn of the Holocene and down until as recently as 3000 BC it was a lush
00:29:19green landscape
00:29:20green landscape supporting an enormous array of animals and fish hunted by our ancestors
00:29:27today we call this period the green Sahara what did this world actually look like and was it anything like the world of Plato's myth
00:29:38cyclical changes altered the pattern of the African monsoon rains causing them to intensify and move northward around 11,000 BC
00:29:52these powerful monsoons not only replaced desert with vegetation and large animals they also transformed the few tiny lakes across North Africa from Clark Kent into Superman
00:30:06more than 12,000 lakes have been identified likely covering over a million square kilometers at their maximum extent
00:30:13hyperarid desert was replaced by savannah and swiftly inhabited by prehistoric people who roamed there for thousands of years
00:30:23archaeologists have corroborated the tales told by ancient rock art with finds of bone fishhooks and harpoons in the middle of the desert
00:30:34five massive river systems flowed out from the central mountain ranges of Africa linking vast mosaics of tributaries and wetlands
00:30:46this allowed aquatic species to travel including not just fish but crocodiles and hippopotami
00:30:53in 2020 a research team confirmed crocodiles are still living in a rocky plateau in southern Mauritania a place now utterly surrounded by desert
00:31:07the waterways of the green Sahara once extended here all the way from the Nile River
00:31:14for a moment if we close our eyes we can imagine a map of two continents at the dawn of the Holocene
00:31:22a North Africa divided by seas lakes and rivers into Libya and Atlantis
00:31:33was this the real world Plato's myth was communicating a distant memory of in Timaeus and Critias
00:31:41it would certainly answer a lot of questions climate facts make George's theory plausible
00:31:49but what about the rest of the myth let's see if we can reassemble the pieces of the Atlantis puzzle
00:32:04George's work meant the Atlantis story could no longer be dismissed as complete fantasy
00:32:10if the myth isn't all made up then we have our work cut out for us to determine which elements might be false and which true
00:32:23our tale begins around 9600 BC at the dawn of the green Sahara period
00:32:29it's also roughly the same point at which modern scientists mark the beginning of the Holocene epoch
00:32:35a geologic time period that continues down to the present day
00:32:40we're told the Atlanteans of this era initiated a great war
00:32:44spreading eastward across Africa and conquering everything in their path
00:32:49who were these mysterious Atlanteans?
00:32:53Parodotus writes an enigmatic phrase in his history when he speaks of both eastern and western Ethiopians
00:33:01who dwelled at the extreme ends of the African continent
00:33:04Homer 2 in the Odyssey writes of the Ethiopians who dwell split in two
00:33:09some who dwell where the sun rises and somewhere he sets
00:33:12The root of the ancient Greek
00:33:16Aethiopeia comes from Aethel, Bern
00:33:19and Opes, Face
00:33:21The land of those with darkened faces
00:33:24The ancient Greeks seemed to believe
00:33:27that there were two major groups of dark-skinned North African people
00:33:32somehow divided by an east-west split
00:33:35Were the dark-skinned inhabitants of Mauretania from Herodotus' era
00:33:42the direct descendants of the mythic Atlanteans
00:33:45and were these the kind of people Plato had in mind when he wrote his books?
00:33:51There just might be a hidden reality behind these descriptions from ancient Greek writers
00:33:57Current linguistic research suggests the people who spoke the two major North African language groups
00:34:04did in fact split some time in the deep past
00:34:08They were likely isolated from one another during a long dry period
00:34:13and then reconnected during the Green Sahara
00:34:17They differed not only in language but in their ways of life
00:34:21and so much so that researchers have called them the land people and the water people
00:34:27The water people spoke the language group known as Nilo-Saharan
00:34:32The expansion of waterways when the Green Sahara began
00:34:36led to rapid north and westward out-migration of these people
00:34:41They hunted fish, crocodiles, and hippos
00:34:45using barbed harpoons and bone fishhooks
00:34:49The land people by contrast were savannah hunters who used bows and arrows
00:34:56They spoke the language family called Niger-Congo
00:35:00which seems to have originated in the region of modern-day Mauritania
00:35:05They migrated south and eastward across the Sahara during the wet period
00:35:10Evidence of their presence spans northern Africa
00:35:14Climate and human migration might actually support the idea of an Atlantean people
00:35:21But were epic battles like those in the myth really a feature of the early Holocene?
00:35:33It's tempting to see the myth of an aggressive Atlantean Empire
00:35:36that took over North Africa
00:35:38as based on the expansion of Niger-Congo speaking hunters in the early Holocene
00:35:44The time period was similar and so was the general direction of movement
00:35:49Perhaps the cultural memories of the Nile Valley people
00:35:54who encountered these intruders
00:35:56have found their way down to us
00:35:58in a mythical reconstruction of events
00:36:01This is, however, complete speculation
00:36:05While the true origins of the mythical Atlantean war may be in doubt
00:36:14What is not in doubt is that wars were indeed taking place in ancient North Africa
00:36:23Jebel Sahaba, northern Sudan
00:36:26A prehistoric massacre took place here between two different cultural groups around 11,000 BC
00:36:33In the 1960s, archaeologists first uncovered a large number of skeletons
00:36:40with stone arrowheads embedded in them
00:36:42These attacks may have taken place over months
00:36:47or even years in a kind of ongoing war
00:36:50The closer we get to the early Holocene
00:36:54The more evidence accumulates for armed conflict by large groups
00:36:59Cave paintings show teams of archers confronting one another
00:37:04attacking or fleeing
00:37:09Did a real Atlantean army march east across North Africa
00:37:1311,600 years ago
00:37:16Annihilating resistance with barrages of stone-tipped arrows
00:37:20and seizing territory all the way to the Nile?
00:37:26Or might the wars of the myth be a projection from Plato's own time?
00:37:34Plato was no stranger to violence
00:37:37His childhood was spent in the shadow of the worst civil war in Greek history
00:37:42Athens and its allies were engaged in bloody combat with Sparta and its allies
00:37:49From 431 BC up until he was six or seven years old
00:37:53A brief peace ensued
00:37:55But by the time Plato reached adolescence in 415 BC
00:37:59War had broken out again
00:38:01It lasted another 11 years
00:38:06During which time Plato himself saw military service
00:38:10Before Athens finally succumbed to a Spartan blockade
00:38:14And had to surrender
00:38:17Some see a parallel between the historical Athens
00:38:20And the one in the Atlantis myth
00:38:22The Peloponnesian War of Plato's childhood
00:38:25Was triggered by a Spartan allies attack
00:38:28And the Athenians saw themselves as being on the defensive
00:38:33In the Atlantis myth
00:38:35The Atlanteans begin as the aggressors
00:38:37And are righteously repulsed by the Athens of 9600 BC
00:38:43The second phase of the Peloponnesian War
00:38:45Saw Athens as the aggressor
00:38:47When they attacked Syracuse in Sicily by sea
00:38:52In the myth
00:38:53Athens also became the aggressor
00:38:55When they marched all the way
00:38:57To the gates of the Atlantean capital city
00:39:01The complete destruction of the Athenian military
00:39:04In the myth
00:39:05Might mirror the total loss of the Athenian army
00:39:08In the assault on Syracuse
00:39:10During the second phase of the Peloponnesian War
00:39:20Was the Atlantean War real?
00:39:22Total fabrication?
00:39:24Total fabrication?
00:39:25Or a blend of myth, history, and cultural memory?
00:39:29He's giving this with a platonic way
00:39:33You have to decipher
00:39:35You have to extract from the text
00:39:39Plato is our only source for Atlantis
00:39:42Solely by proving or refuting his story
00:39:46Can we get to the truth?
00:39:48Unfortunately, archaeological evidence is scarce
00:39:53And the region as a whole is, in general, poorly studied
00:39:57If we want to know whether story elements
00:40:00Like the vast Atlantean trade networks were real
00:40:03We have to look at analogous evidence
00:40:06From other areas of North Africa
00:40:08And the Mediterranean
00:40:21International trade is something we consider
00:40:23A hallmark of modern globalization
00:40:25The idea that an Atlantean society was trading across continents
00:40:29More than 11,000 years ago
00:40:32Seems impossible
00:40:33But it's not
00:40:358,000 year old DNA
00:40:37From an underwater site off the shore of the UK
00:40:40Has generated a strange revelation
00:40:43Hunter-gatherers were consuming two types of domesticated wheat here
00:40:48Long before anyone in Britain
00:40:50Began cultivating grain
00:40:52These wheat species have no wild ancestors in Northern Europe
00:40:57They weren't grown locally
00:40:59They arrived from the Middle East
00:41:02Through a trade network spanning the entire European continent
00:41:08Continent-sweeping trade networks existed in the Stone Age
00:41:13But what about ancient seafaring?
00:41:19If an Atlantean army really attacked Europe
00:41:22They had to do more than cross lakes and rivers
00:41:25They had to cross the open sea itself
00:41:39Experts often tell us that Egypt was the world's first great maritime society
00:41:45And it's been proclaimed that massive 60-ton Egyptian vessels from 1800 BC
00:41:52Were the world's oldest seagoing boats
00:41:55But according to Plato's story
00:41:59Both Greek and African seafaring began at least 8,000 years earlier
00:42:05Recent discoveries are beginning to move the needle in Plato's favor
00:42:11Scientists have discovered obsidian tools in central Tunisia
00:42:18That originated in the 6th millennium BC
00:42:22But they come from an island called Pantelleria
00:42:26Roughly 60 kilometers from the Tunisian coast
00:42:30To acquire the obsidian for these tools means a round trip of over 120 kilometers across open sea
00:42:38Thousands of years before historians believed this was possible
00:42:45More hard evidence in Greece from the era of the Atlantis myth
00:42:50Suggests that at least part of Plato's story is solidly rooted in fact
00:42:56Just outside Athens is a site called Shistu Cave
00:43:00Where people brought offerings from prehistory all the way down to Roman times
00:43:05Obsidian tools uncovered there demonstrate that the region has been inhabited for at least 14,000 years
00:43:12Corroborating Plato's assertions in the myth
00:43:15The shocking thing about this is not the tools themselves
00:43:19Or even the early date
00:43:20Or rather where they came from
00:43:22The island of Milos in the center of the Aegean Sea
00:43:28Obsidian tools and weapons from Milos
00:43:31Have been recently discovered all around the Aegean
00:43:35Their presence tells us that extensive seafaring trade was taking place in Greece
00:43:40From at least 13,000 BC
00:43:43It also means prehistoric Greeks were sailing long distances
00:43:48More than 3,000 years before the events of the Atlantis myth
00:43:53So if people were conducting trade this way 15 millennia ago
00:43:58Why haven't we found any of their boats?
00:44:01In fact, we've begun to
00:44:04In 1987, a Nigerian man digging a well
00:44:09Struck a bizarre object near the village of Dufuna
00:44:15When excavated, the strange item revealed itself to be a 27 foot long canoe
00:44:22Dated to around 6,500 BC
00:44:25It would have been in use right in the middle of the Green Sahara period
00:44:29Less than 50 kilometers from the shores of Lake Megachad
00:44:34The water people who used it were linked to the lake
00:44:37By huge networks of rivers and wetlands that filled the region
00:44:44Because of its skillful construction
00:44:46Experts believe the canoe represents a tradition
00:44:49That had already undergone long development in the distant past
00:44:55Five meters below the surface
00:44:57Layers of clay protected the Dufuna canoe from decay
00:45:00In an oxygen free environment
00:45:03Without that clay, it would have deteriorated completely
00:45:06And ancient African boat travel
00:45:09Might have remained speculation
00:45:12The reason more ancient boats
00:45:15Aren't sitting in museums today
00:45:17Isn't because they didn't exist
00:45:20It's simply because they were made of organic materials
00:45:24Clearly the claim that the Egyptians had the earliest seafaring boats in 1800 BC
00:45:31Is simply untrue
00:45:33Just how untrue
00:45:34Is almost mind-blowing
00:45:38Crete is the largest island in Greece
00:45:40Hundreds of kilometers from the North African coast
00:45:44It detached from the mainland around 5 million years ago
00:45:48And has remained a separate island ever since
00:45:51We used to think it was first colonized around 6500 BC
00:45:58And was entirely unpopulated before that time
00:46:01However, that thinking has changed
00:46:04Artifacts were recently discovered
00:46:07Indicating that the first humans
00:46:09Must have arrived on Crete by sea
00:46:12At least 130,000 years ago
00:46:15The deeper we look
00:46:18The more evidence seems to appear
00:46:20In support of Plato's assertion
00:46:22That seafaring isn't a new story
00:46:24It's a very old story
00:46:26If Greek or Atlantean armies
00:46:31Wanted to cross the Mediterranean Sea by ship
00:46:34In 9600 BC
00:46:36It was possible
00:46:38As astonishing as the facts we've unearthed are
00:46:49There are some major missing pieces to the Atlantis puzzle
00:46:52Not all of Plato's descriptions seem to represent a realistic portrayal
00:46:57Of ancient West Africa in 9600 BC
00:46:59Let's revisit some of the myths claims
00:47:04We're told of a ringed capital city
00:47:06Nearly 40 kilometers across
00:47:08Set into a huge pointed island in the center of the Atlantean continent
00:47:13It was filled with glorious buildings and temples
00:47:17As well as harbors bustling with trade from all over
00:47:20The city's massive stone walls
00:47:23Over 30 meters wide and dozens of kilometers long
00:47:27Were supposedly covered in copper, tin, and a sparkling metal called orichalcum
00:47:35The inhabitants of the capital region were farmers
00:47:39Who harvested crops twice a year
00:47:41With the aid of an enormous irrigation system
00:47:45Comprising thousands of kilometers of canals
00:47:48This kingdom
00:47:51One of ten that made up the empire
00:47:53Was said to field an army
00:47:55Of over a million men by itself
00:47:59With a navy of 1,200 ships
00:48:02Greater than any known fleet of the ancient world
00:48:08Could all these things
00:48:09Have been true in 9600 BC?
00:48:12The Atlantis myth claims the empire made widespread use of metal
00:48:25The current narrative of ancient African metallurgy
00:48:29Doesn't support Plato's descriptions of copper, silver, bronze, or gold
00:48:35Being used in large amounts by early Holocene people in West Africa
00:48:39Humanity's use of copper did begin as early as 10,000 BC in other locations
00:48:47But we usually find it only in small tools, spear tips, or jewelry beads
00:48:53Plato's descriptions of kilometers long walls clad with sheets of tin and copper
00:48:59Simply can't be real
00:49:04Agriculture
00:49:06While semi-domesticated grains from the early Holocene
00:49:09Have been found in Egypt at sites like Nobta Playa
00:49:12So far, there's no evidence of farming in Western Africa
00:49:17Until around 3000 BC
00:49:19And then, only at one isolated site in Morocco
00:49:22Irrigation
00:49:25Appearing along the Nile for over 5,000 years
00:49:29And later used at large scale in Libya by the Garamantes
00:49:33Irrigation has been found in few other places across North Africa to date
00:49:39Population
00:49:41To support the 1.6 million man army of just one of the 10 Atlantean kingdoms
00:49:43Would have required a population six times that size, bordering on 10 million
00:49:57Ancient population numbers are being revised upward today
00:50:01And the best estimates we have are between 1 and 10 million people
00:50:05But that's across the entire planet
00:50:10Cities
00:50:11Athens, Sais, and the ring capital city of Atlantis
00:50:17Were all supposed to have existed more than 10,000 years ago
00:50:22According to the myth
00:50:24While early cities did exist in the Middle East during that timeframe
00:50:28So far, nothing matching Plato's descriptions has been unearthed
00:50:33There's another important concern as well
00:50:36Not everyone agrees about the nature and extent of the waterways that existed in the Green Sahara period
00:50:45It's possible the map of Atlantis didn't look exactly the way it's been theorized
00:50:52Does this mean that the vision of an ancient African Atlantean city is nothing more than just a fantasy?
00:51:03Mysterious stone structures have been found across the Sahara
00:51:10What do these structures mean?
00:51:16What was their purpose?
00:51:22Are they burial sites?
00:51:27Were they places of ritual and sacrifice?
00:51:28Were they places of ritual and sacrifice?
00:51:37Or the remnants of defensive fortifications?
00:51:40Were they outposts of a dying Atlantean Empire whose constructs faded into dust long ago?
00:51:49While they are intriguing, most of these structures are thought to date from a few thousand years B.C.
00:51:59And in no way do they resemble the grand Atlantean city of the myth
00:52:05There's good reason not to believe Plato's myth was true
00:52:10Even if Atlantis was an ancient name for West Africa
00:52:15And Green Sahara waterways partitioned it in some way from the rest of the continent
00:52:19Other aspects of the tale are ambiguous
00:52:22But there's one major piece of evidence that's difficult for skeptics to dismiss
00:52:27If George was right about the location of Atlantis
00:52:31Then exactly in the center of the curved continent
00:52:33There should be the remains of a ringed capital city
00:52:38Roughly 40 kilometers across
00:52:46The Rashad structure is a prominent circular feature in the Adrar Plateau in Mauritania
00:52:53It developed due to tectonic activity going back hundreds of millions of years
00:52:59Today it appears as concentric rings
00:53:03A circular structure unique on our planet
00:53:08Because of its roughly 40 kilometer size and relative flatness
00:53:12It cannot be seen from land in its entirety
00:53:18Freshwater fossils confirm the general area was once home to significant amounts of water
00:53:24In the early Holocene the Rashad might have been a fisherman's paradise
00:53:32Scientists who examined the site in the 1970s
00:53:36Discovered huge amounts of stone tools in the sediments of the ringed valleys
00:53:41Was this the lost capital city of Atlantis?
00:53:47George took one more step most people might not
00:53:51So I took the plane
00:53:54Went there with my instruments
00:53:56And measured all these new formations
00:54:00That were referred on the platonic text
00:54:03A professional engineer
00:54:06George traveled to the Rashad in 2008
00:54:09With a small team of locals
00:54:11And took GPS measurements
00:54:13Along with readings from altimeters
00:54:15His results matched exceptionally well with the shape he had derived analytically
00:54:24From Plato's texts
00:54:26Could you think that I could be calm after that discovery?
00:54:33George's new translation finally illuminated certain vague nuances
00:54:39That were proven out on location
00:54:42There is not one outer ring
00:54:44But two
00:54:46One of the rings is a twin ring
00:54:48Another small ring encloses the central sacred island
00:54:51Furthermore there is a canal parallel to an original natural waterway
00:54:55It connects to the sea with a flow that is cinetetratum
00:54:59Involving harbors facing one another
00:55:02There is also an oddly placed nine and a half kilometer canal along the next inner ring
00:55:08And thus the picture we get of the city looks like this
00:55:14If the resemblance of the Rashad structure to Plato's geography is just a coincidence
00:55:20It is a remarkable coincidence
00:55:23But there was no prize awarded to George Serrantidis
00:55:27Or ticker tape parade
00:55:29Instead, one person after another
00:55:33Cashed in on his years of research without really understanding it
00:55:37Many of them made outlandish suggestions
00:55:40Stating that ocean levels were hundreds of meters higher in the Holocene
00:55:44Claiming that continent sweeping floods purged North Africa
00:55:49Or worse
00:55:51It seems unlikely that any of these fringe theorists
00:55:55Speak ancient Greek
00:55:57You have to prove according the platonic text
00:56:01Where Atlantis is
00:56:03In Plato's writings
00:56:05A philosopher is one who seeks the truth
00:56:07And develops a true understanding of the subject at hand
00:56:10A sophist by contrast
00:56:12Might hold a true opinion
00:56:14But they lack any real knowledge of what underpins it
00:56:16It ought to be clear by now
00:56:19To which category George belongs
00:56:21Versus his imitators
00:56:23Believe me
00:56:25It was a very difficult task
00:56:33At last we come to a final question
00:56:36Atlantis was supposed to have sunk into the sea
00:56:39Disappearing in a single day and night
00:56:41I'm here at Mount Lycabetis in Athens
00:56:44277 meters above sea level
00:56:47Even if every single ice sheet on the entire planet melted
00:56:51The rising oceans would not even come close to where I'm sitting right now
00:56:56This misunderstanding has been created because of two characteristic words which exist in the platonic text
00:57:06One word is the word visa
00:57:10And the other is isomeni
00:57:14Visa was wrongly translated to submerged
00:57:20Submerged
00:57:24But when you have
00:57:26Pityko etio
00:57:28A special condition
00:57:30Where the energy of a verb returns to the subject
00:57:33Then
00:57:35This verb has different meaning
00:57:38And the meaning actually is covered
00:57:42So we are talking about two
00:57:45Totally different meanings
00:57:47Sang
00:57:49Wrong translation
00:57:51Or
00:57:52It's steady
00:57:54And was covered by the sea
00:57:57The actual meaning of
00:58:00Isomeni
00:58:02Is that it was settled
00:58:06And not inundated
00:58:09Definitely impossible to have
00:58:12Flooded continent
00:58:13It was not flooded also on the Rhombic Island
00:58:18But it was flooded the capital city of Atlantis
00:58:24Plato never wrote that an island or a continent sank
00:58:29Instead, the destruction of Atlantis would have gone something like this
00:58:34First, a huge earthquake in the region of the Rhombic Island
00:58:38Second, an influx of water from an adjacent inland sea
00:58:44This may have been combined with liquefaction of water-saturated land on the Rhombic Island causing a landslide
00:58:52Either of these could have caused a localized tsunami
00:58:57Third, after the liquefaction loose clay stopped up the drainage of excess water from the ringed capital city
00:59:04It alone was flooded as a consequence
00:59:08Lastly, as the Green Sahara monsoons continued, runoff arrived and kept the Rishat structure full of water
00:59:17Allegedly, it was still swamped around 600 BC when the Egyptian priest told Solon the story
00:59:24I met with Oregon State University earthquake expert Dr. Scott Ashford to see if George's description was possible
00:59:35Is there any way that a tsunami could sink a continent?
00:59:39The answer is no
00:59:41The amount of energy that is generated in the earthquake
00:59:44And then the amount of energy that is that it carries in that tsunami
00:59:50Is nothing compared to what it would take to sink a continent
00:59:55But, are there ways that an earthquake and a tsunami could destroy a city, remove a city, make it look like it's been wiped off the face of the earth?
01:00:07Mauritania isn't known for strong seismic activity in recent decades
01:00:12But smaller earthquakes do tend to cluster around a region to the north of the Rhombic Island
01:00:18Can we get a big earthquake in an area where we don't normally have earthquakes?
01:00:23And certainly the Pacific Northwest is a great example
01:00:26We get these great earthquakes every three, four, five hundred years
01:00:30Sometimes there's a thousand years between these great earthquakes
01:00:37The deadliest earthquake in recorded history was likely Shaanxi, China in 1556
01:00:44Where an area 520 miles across was completely destroyed
01:00:50And an estimated 830,000 people were killed
01:00:54An earthquake in Japan last decade caused thousands of landslides just because it happened to take place during the rainy season
01:01:07If you were to walk on liquefaction, it would be like quicksand
01:01:12And you'd just sink right into it
01:01:14The sand loses all its strength
01:01:16The slope will fail, it will cause a landslide in the Hawaiian Islands
01:01:19Part of one of the islands slid away, caused a tsunami that affected the nearby islands
01:01:28If the adjacent sea was struck by an earthquake
01:01:32Or if a huge landslide plunged into the rings of water around the Atlantean capital city
01:01:37It would have created a powerful tsunami
01:01:40One of the deadliest natural disasters on earth
01:01:43If you have a landslide that falls into a small sea or a big lake
01:01:50Causes a wave, that wave hits a nearby town
01:01:54Certainly that can wash away some of the smaller structures
01:01:59Depends how big it is
01:02:01So this huge machine behind me is our tsunami wave basin
01:02:04And there are paddles along the back that are computer controlled
01:02:11And allow us to generate almost any kind of wave
01:02:16We've actually had a scale model of some cities
01:02:19And we look at what is the effect of a tsunami on this town
01:02:23It gives you that feeling of what a real disaster would have worked
01:02:43Yeah
01:02:52That's a tsunami
01:02:54How do these natural disasters interact?
01:02:58A tsunami or landslide, it carries all the debris along with it
01:03:03I've seen the sand almost look like toothpaste
01:03:06Filling up all the drainage canals
01:03:08As the water dissipates, it's going to leave your drainage system filled with dirt
01:03:14If you have flooding after that, right, there's nowhere for the water to go
01:03:19Plato, right, the way that he describes different events
01:03:24Has truth into what we observe today
01:03:27Flooding, earthquakes, liquefaction, landslides
01:03:31Any of those could have destroyed the settlement
01:03:34Making the town unviable
01:03:37While there may be some damage
01:03:39They may not be able to continue their commerce
01:03:42And the town still dies
01:03:49Ever since George's ideas became known
01:03:52Adventurers have gone to the Mauritanian desert
01:03:55Looking for the remains of a lost city
01:03:57In 2020, satellite images allowed for the discovery of hundreds of stone ruins in the Rashad area
01:04:06These ruins, however, remain undated
01:04:10And even if found to originate close to 9600 BC
01:04:14They are a far cry from the massive city described in the myth
01:04:18Mighty palaces
01:04:20Irrigation systems
01:04:22Temples
01:04:24Gymnasiums
01:04:25Boathouses cut in stone
01:04:27And city walls
01:04:29Dozens of kilometers long
01:04:31Here, in the details of the city
01:04:33Perhaps we are encountering
01:04:35Some of Plato's untruths
01:04:37Today we tend to associate great civilizations with titanic works of architecture
01:04:42As did the ancient Egyptians and Greeks
01:04:44But the construction of large temples, fortifications, and palaces
01:04:49Only makes sense if a large population is dwelling in a single area for an extended period of time
01:04:55What if our ancestors didn't?
01:04:59The Mongolian Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in human history
01:05:05Conquering everyone they found in their path
01:05:08Living on the move, they weren't prolific builders
01:05:11They were a free-ranging, nomadic population
01:05:16That still maintained a few permanent or semi-permanent settlements
01:05:21This pattern was almost universal in the early Holocene
01:05:26Temporary camps and seasonal movement were the default way of life
01:05:32In fact, the nomadic lifestyle dominated North Africa
01:05:37All the way until colonialism arrived
01:05:40Some, like the Tareg, maintained their traditional ways
01:05:44Up to the early 20th century
01:05:49Maybe the idea of the Atlantean capital sprang from later people
01:05:53The Egyptians and Greeks
01:05:54They might have imposed their own cultural assumptions about architecture
01:05:59Onto the story of the Atlantean Empire
01:06:02Dreaming up an enormous capital city
01:06:05Where in fact, only hunter-gatherer villages and fishing encampments once existed
01:06:12Whoever discovered bits of such ruins and stone tools around the Rashad
01:06:18Might have inferred that they were tiny remnants of an epic city
01:06:22That met its destruction long in the past
01:06:25With certain embellishments
01:06:29Perhaps the myth of Atlantis
01:06:31Does record the last vestiges of a great ancient African Empire
01:06:36But there must be dozens of ways the story could have come down to us
01:06:45Was it made up by ancient Mauritanians to explain a puzzling geographic feature
01:06:51And found its way to Egypt over time via trade caravans
01:06:56Was the Atlantean culture completely fabricated?
01:07:00Or was its description by the Egyptian priests true in some respects
01:07:04And not in others?
01:07:07Was the story based on a real cultural memory of Niger-Congo hunters
01:07:13Attacking Nile Valley civilization at the dawn of the Holocene?
01:07:17Was it enhanced with reports of ruins at a far-off ringed landmark?
01:07:23Did the priests of Sais invent certain dramatic aspects as allegory?
01:07:29Or did Solon, Critias, or Plato himself?
01:07:32At each step along the way
01:07:36Changes might have been made
01:07:39Facts confused
01:07:42Or elements invented
01:07:45There's simply no way to know the truth with 100% certainty
01:07:53But what if we're asking the wrong questions?
01:07:56Plato's intent with the myth of Atlantis
01:08:00Might have had nothing at all to do with where it supposedly was or who lived there
01:08:05It might have had everything to do with how we understand our distant human past
01:08:10And how we think in the present
01:08:11The Atlantis myth has had people chasing lost continents for millennia
01:08:29And yet most of us have failed to ask why Plato cared so much about this particular ancient tale
01:08:40The fundamental theme appears to be the destruction of Atlantis due to hubris and moral corruption
01:08:47But the story isn't about the loss of just one civilization
01:08:55It takes an Egyptian priest with a temple full of records
01:09:00To make the Greeks realize that they have completely lost their own past
01:09:05Is this myth more about Atlantis?
01:09:09Or the ancient Athenians?
01:09:12In Plato's era, the Greeks knew a legendary people had preceded them
01:09:18And had possessed writing that was later lost
01:09:21Along with all the history it represented
01:09:24In fact, Greece had writing from at least 1850 BC
01:09:29One script we know of, Linear B, lasted centuries
01:09:36But it all vanished when the great palaces of the Mycenaeans were destroyed in the 12th century BC
01:09:43For hundreds of years afterward, the Greeks were illiterate
01:09:47Before writing was reinvented
01:09:52This same theme of civilizational destruction and cultural loss
01:09:56was also present in Plato's own time
01:10:01Not only did he experience decades of war himself
01:10:06But two generations before he was born
01:10:09Athens was utterly destroyed by an invading Persian army
01:10:13Nearly everything was lost
01:10:16And yet, even when the most sacred temples were sacked and burned
01:10:21The core myths of Greek culture
01:10:25The Iliad and the Odyssey lived on
01:10:29Plato realized that myth might be the most durable way of preserving knowledge and wisdom across time
01:10:39Atlantis, a story of destruction
01:10:44Simultaneously acts as a tool
01:10:48For cultural preservation
01:10:51Functioning as an ancient time capsule
01:10:55This myth allows us to ponder the same questions
01:10:59He posed to his students more than 2,000 years ago
01:11:03How can we know ourselves as a culture if we have forgotten our past?
01:11:12How do we know what is true if we have no records of what happened?
01:11:19How do we preserve the continuity of civilization
01:11:23Knowing that disasters will strike
01:11:27And that everything can be so easily lost?
01:11:33We shouldn't be surprised that Plato's myth is something very different from what we might expect
01:11:40A profound teaching device in the form of a puzzle
01:11:44Do not underestimate any detail
01:11:47Do not underestimate any detail
01:11:49It's a very high scientific document
01:11:54And you can use it to teach either a child or an initiate
01:12:05A modern puzzle has a single solution or answer
01:12:09But the Atlantis myth presents an entirely different kind of puzzle
01:12:15A multi-layered apparatus
01:12:17Designed for improving your thinking
01:12:20Yourself
01:12:22And how you see the world
01:12:24A world where everything is richly connected
01:12:29Plato's best students knew all the writings and historical events we've covered
01:12:34The Odyssey
01:12:36The Iliad
01:12:37Herodotus' History
01:12:39The Persian Wars
01:12:41And the Peloponnesian War
01:12:43Given the keen minds of this audience
01:12:46Plato could freely play with a vast array of ideas
01:12:50If you look hard
01:12:52You may begin to notice certain connections
01:12:55And double meanings
01:12:58The size of the Atlantean military
01:13:00Recalls Greek estimates of the army that destroyed Athens
01:13:04In the Persian War
01:13:06The sequence of the Atlantean War
01:13:09Echoes the flow of the Peloponnesian War
01:13:12Between Athens and Sparta
01:13:14That shook Greece to its foundation
01:13:17Just as it began to recover from fending off the Persians
01:13:21Or perhaps you'll see how Plato requires you to bend your thinking
01:13:26When he writes that the length of Atlantis
01:13:30Is longer than Libya and Asia together
01:13:33This distance is only definable
01:13:36If we realize that the phrase is nearly word for word from Herodotus
01:13:42When he describes the length of Europe
01:13:45And this length doesn't fit Atlantis
01:13:48Unless we curve it into an arc to follow the shape of the continent
01:13:52Moving away from thinking in a straight line
01:13:57Is powerfully emblematic of the approach it takes to reach the hidden meaning in Plato's myth
01:14:03This becomes most apparent in the journey from familiar waters
01:14:09Into the unknown lands of Atlantis
01:14:11To get to Atlantis
01:14:21One first had to pass the pillars of Heracles
01:14:25But the word Plato used for the pillars
01:14:29Stella didn't mean a structural column
01:14:32Or natural formation like the rock of Gibraltar
01:14:36A Stella was a commemorative stone plaque
01:14:39Something demarcating the edge of Greek expansion
01:14:43The limits of what was known
01:14:46When you pass by this marker
01:14:49You enter an enormous, uncertain territory
01:14:52That you must navigate completely on your own
01:14:56It is exactly this territory that Plato wants us to seek
01:15:02To succeed there
01:15:06You'll have to look past easy answers
01:15:09Leaving linear thinking behind
01:15:12And you'll only find your way
01:15:15By grappling with conflicting information
01:15:18And complexities
01:15:20At the same time
01:15:22Perhaps Atlantis signifies
01:15:24That while the knowledge of the moment may crumble and fade with time
01:15:27We will always need to discern between true and false
01:15:32And even if we'll never reach a perfect, ultimate truth
01:15:37There is still virtue in taking a step closer to it
01:15:41If we can
01:15:43In today's world of fake news
01:15:46Plato's challenge couldn't be more necessary or timelier
01:15:49Or timelier
01:15:53The myth of Atlantis in that sense
01:15:56Holds a greater truth
01:15:57Than all our scientific theories and archeological digs
01:16:01I was looking for Plato
01:16:05And found Atlantis
01:16:07The other guys are looking for Atlantis
01:16:11And forgot Plato
01:16:12Plato
01:16:20Plato invited his students into a hidden way of engaging with the puzzle he'd created
01:16:26Where cultural continuity and the individual's journey toward wisdom
01:16:32Come together in an extraordinary way
01:16:35The timeless way of the initiate
01:16:38This way of thought is perhaps best illustrated in trying to answer one of the most stubborn enigmas of this entire story
01:16:49The fact that the Atlantis myth has no ending
01:16:55You realize that you might have in front of you a puzzle to solve
01:17:01Do not underestimate the text
01:17:03Critias appears unfinished
01:17:06As if Plato was writing it one day
01:17:09Put his pen down mid-sentence
01:17:12And never got around to completing the story
01:17:15Or maybe he did finish it
01:17:18And the manuscript was partially destroyed by time
01:17:21Leaving us with only a fragment
01:17:25These are the official explanations
01:17:28But let's take a closer look
01:17:32The cut-off end of Critias takes place in a conference of the gods
01:17:40Where Zeus addresses the subject of the Atlanteans
01:17:44Zeus, realizing that the chosen race was behaving despicably
01:17:49Wishing to punish them
01:17:51Called to counsel all the gods
01:17:53And on having assembled them said
01:17:55Said what?
01:17:57Knowing what you know now
01:17:59Doesn't the idea that Plato simply left off mid-sentence
01:18:04Seem just a little suspicious to you?
01:18:07To get to the bottom of this enigma
01:18:12We need to think like one of Plato's initiates
01:18:15Plato challenges you not to memorize what he says
01:18:32But to think for yourself
01:18:35As we met to discuss his work for the last time
01:18:38George demonstrated the depth of his own thinking
01:18:42Revealing a connection between Plato's Atlantis
01:18:46And Homer's Odyssey
01:18:48That no one had ever realized before
01:18:51Critias has always been considered unfinished
01:18:54Leaving us to conjecture about the full extent of the Atlantis story
01:18:59We have lost
01:19:01But George has strong evidence
01:19:03The mid-sentence ending was intentional
01:19:05And that scholars have misread it for centuries
01:19:11When Zeus calls together all the gods
01:19:15To make his cut-off speech at the end of Critias
01:19:18We're presented with a scene
01:19:20Identical to one that takes place
01:19:23Right on the first page of the Odyssey
01:19:26Only Poseidon is missing from the conference of the gods in the Odyssey
01:19:32And why?
01:19:35Poseidon had gone to visit the Ethiopians worlds away
01:19:39To receive an offering
01:19:41Bulls and rams by the hundred
01:19:44He's busy enjoying an animal sacrifice in Africa
01:19:49Much like the one Plato has the Atlantean kings perform in Critias
01:19:54Poseidon is the patron god of Atlantis
01:19:56And a traditional rival to Athena, goddess of Athens
01:20:01He was also god of the sea
01:20:04And of earthquakes
01:20:06Which together destroyed the Atlantean capital city
01:20:11The matching conferences of the gods called by Zeus
01:20:16The links to Africa and Poseidon's special role there
01:20:20The parallel animal sacrifices
01:20:25These connections between Critias and the Odyssey
01:20:30Seem too obvious not to have been deliberate
01:20:33Where is Plato leading us?
01:20:36Plato is forcing you to find out the right piece which is missing
01:20:41Make a cross-check between Atlantis story and Odyssey story
01:20:52Decide by yourself what could be the end of the story
01:20:56Look at how the Atlantis story ends
01:21:00Seemingly mid-sentence
01:21:01And now here's Zeus speaking at an identical gathering of the gods
01:21:06On page one of the Odyssey
01:21:08Zeus
01:21:10Realizing that the chosen race was behaving despicably
01:21:13Wishing to punish them
01:21:15Called to counsel all the gods
01:21:17And on having assembled them said
01:21:19Oh alas, how mortals put the blame on the gods
01:21:23They declare that from us stem their misfortunes
01:21:26While it is often they themselves
01:21:28Who with their bad deeds
01:21:31Fall into grief beyond what's written
01:21:34It doesn't cut off part way because Plato was too lazy to finish it
01:21:39He did it on purpose
01:21:41It redirects you back to the beginning of the Odyssey
01:21:45And what is the story of the Odyssey?
01:21:47The man who left the civilization that he knows
01:21:51And has to go on this long circuitous journey
01:21:54He has to suffer and struggle mightily
01:21:57Just to get back to the point where he started from
01:22:00Welcome Jack
01:22:02To the realm of Plato's Initiates
01:22:06Thanks George
01:22:10This is Plato's meta-lesson
01:22:12About the continuity of human civilization
01:22:14If we do not fight against corruption in our society
01:22:20And ourselves
01:22:22And if we do not plan ahead for periods of disaster
01:22:25We will wind up reduced to ignorance
01:22:28Losing all the great blessings we enjoy
01:22:30And it will be a long, circuitous, and tortured odyssey
01:22:35To get back to where we began
01:22:37It's certainly possible that things are that way
01:22:45But it is also possible that they are not
01:22:48So you must investigate them courageously and thoroughly
01:22:52And not accept anything easily
01:22:55You are still young and in your prime after all
01:22:58Then, after you've investigated them
01:23:01If you happen to discover the truth
01:23:03You can share it with me
01:23:04I think we can learn not to ignore the myths
01:23:08Right?
01:23:09I think we can learn not to ignore the myths
01:23:32Right?
01:23:34I think all the time we're finding what we thought was a myth
01:23:38now we find actually is a reality.
01:24:08The world is a reality.
01:24:38For more information visit www.fema.org
01:25:08For more information visit www.fema.org
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