Ha! I’m a huge Wheel of Time fan so it was delightful to find a reference here. The original author (Robert Jordan) died but he left a plethora of notes, and Brandon Sanderson was chosen by RJ’s widow/editor to complete the series.
One thing I'd like to point out. Whenever Plato compared Atlantis' size to Asia, he don't mean the entire continent as we know it today, only the part known to him at the time. So while it was still big, especially when you combine it with Libya which meant North Eastern Africa, it was not as big as you were thinking.
Yes, this. He would have been referring mostly to the Anatolian peninsula, aka Asia Minor, aka modern day Turkey, plus some nearby portions of the middle east.
Thera Eruption is dated around 1500 B.C.,a century or so before the downfall of Minoan civilization (1400 B.C.).It sure weakened them,but they rebuild what was left. It was just a moral story invented by Plato. Atlantis was a parallel to Imperial Athens ,the mythological Athens who fought them was the idealized version of the same city. The tale of Atlantis could well be inspired by a famous event that happened during Plato's life :the destruction of Helike in a single night by an earthquake that sunk the city into a lagoon.
@@betenoireindustries my Archaeology professor shared practically the same hypothesis with me, back in the early 2000's. The logic resounded with me instantly. Plato was, as mentioned, from a wealthy family. His father was a merchant, and Plato spent his childhood on the docks, reveling in the tales the old sailors told. He learned to spin a yarn from a lot known for weaving tales that captured the mind. Atlantis was a creation of his love for storytelling and philosophy. It was meant to give Atheneans a reason to take pause and consider their morality.
The Wheel of Time was finished by another author after the original author passed away. He used all of the source notes, and had plenty of help from the original author's wife as she knew quite a bit of where the story was supposed to go.
@@lde-m8688 I *think* the Children of Hurin also got the Christopher treatment, but don't quote me. Also, the Dune saga had a similar treatment when Frank Herbert died before finishing them, his son took over and did an almost passable job of completing the story.
@Benjamin Morrish I think you're correct. I think some of Clancy's stuff got written by another author. And gods know tons of romance authors have books written under their names after their demise.
Simon I have had a lot of grief in my life and there is something about watching the humorous way you tell these stories that helps me relax, thanks man.
Rhode Island's full name used to be "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations". Because it was formed of multiple colonies. "Rhode Island" actually was an island, what is now more commonly called Aquidneck Island (the big island Newport is on). Providence Plantations was the mainland area. Originally, Newport was by far the more prosperous colony. Fun fact: Newport participated heavily in the slave trade, whilst the founder of Providence Plantations was staunchly against it. In modern times, people stupidly fought to remove the "Providence Plantations" from the state name because the "plantation" word made them feel bad. Even though there were never any slave plantations in Providence Plantations (at the time, it was just another word for estates, it got the negative connotation later). So, in their ideal to achieve "racial justice", they erased the part of the state name that was abolitionist from the start and left only the part of the name from the slave traders. With the side effect of also leaving the state name solely the island that's off its mainland coast. Learn your history, folks!
im more laughing he thought it is probably in connecticut, and thats next to it, and rhode island would probablty be in cionnecticut if it wasnt its own state
Rhode Island is a state, roughly 1,200 square miles and has the same number of senators as California or New York. You can be forgiven for thinking that’s a joke, which it is, 😂 even though it is also actually true.
Arguing that the plantations part isn't offensive because that those particular ones weren't associated with slavery, therefore its use in a context which has changed is perfectly fine, is like saying that certain Indian religious symbols that got co-opted for other uses in the early 20th century aren't offensive. It doesn't matter. The CURRENT context matters. Saying you are ok with people being hurt by a word that for them has very specific meanings and that they're at fault for not learning YOUR history just reinforces that once again, you believe that what matters to you is more important than their suffering. Changing the name of something doesn't erase it from history, it makes it PART of history, where it belongs. Only destroying all record of its existence erases it.
@@Ylyrra As someone who had family that di3d in the Holocaust, I don't care if an Indian uses the original symbol as part of their beliefs, I can recognize they're not the same thing and not force them to change something that had nothing to do w/ that event just to spare my feelings. And yes, I gave CONTEXT. The CONTEXT is that the abolitionist and all around pretty good guy for his time, Roger Williams, lended the "plantation" part of the state's name, and the slave traders are where we got the Rhode Island part from. I explained this CONTEXT in detail, so others would understand how utterly stupid changing the state name was.
So watching this gave me a video idea that I'd love you to cover. The Ancient Egyptians wrote about a land known as Punt. They are considered the Ancient Egyptians closest trading partner. Except, the Ancient Egyptians didn't write down where Punt was. Some scholars believe it was very much a real civilization, others believe it was metaphorical. You should look into the Land of Punt and what it may have been. Other quintessential examples of us losing information by virtue of the mundane details not being written down is the recipe for Roman Concrete or the identity of the spice that went into the Victorians third spice shaker (salt, pepper, and what else, we don't know because no one wrote it down).
Someone may have noted this before, but to the ancient mind, "Asia" was essentially the region of western Turkey, not the entire continent. Thus, much smaller and able to fit in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
You do know that the Greeks were aware of the continent of Asia beyond Turkey, right? The "Golden Fleece" from the Jason and The Argonauts story was the pelt of a Takin, which are only native to eastern Asia. If Plato just meant Turkey and the surrounding area, he would have said "Asia Minor" as that was their name for that region of land.
Simon's freak out at 40:40 when talking about the Santorini eruption caught me off guard. That is how you can tell he doesn't read it ahead, and I love this format!
Ah, so I was right. They don't bring up the eye of Africa properly, nor any of said evidence involving the end of the ice age or cold snap or... any of the more recent discoveries of that point in time
The wheel was known to the Incas, actually. But since they had no tamed animals large enough to pull carts, the wheels were only used in toys and ornaments.
Also the terrain was poor for it. Even with animals a lot of the mountanous and rocky terrain would be impossible to travel with older simple wheels. Theyd have to build roads to use them anywhere and they would still need to deal with extreme elevation changes along incan roads
@@Sgt.chickens people work out what works in their context. Technology in one place is useless in another context. Look up the coastal town of Clovelly in UK. The old streets in the village are so steep that even today they are not suitable for cars, so still have donkeys to carry things. They hype this as a tourist thing now but is was not that they didn't have technology available but that it didn't work for them
Not to mention that the wheel is simple, but a stationary axel and durable bespoked wheels aren't as simple as they seem. When you're talking about using carts to build megaprojects, you need something with very little wear and tear, leading to less breakdowns.
When Simon was talking about construction companies being delayed by archeologists reminded me of this project my dad was working on, they were building something near a castle where there was lots of historical stuff in the ground. they just laid down a new foundation instead of digging the old one up to avoid any chance of a 10-year delay.
17:23 The book series is "the Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan , he stated publicly that if he died all his records were to be destroyed. He developed Cardiac amyloidosis and as his condition worsened he changed his mind. After his passing his wife and editor read a tribute to her husband by an up and coming author, Brandon Sanderson. He was contracted to finish the "last book". It ended up being 3 massive tomes.
He was talking about the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. He was too slow coming out with the new books so the Game of Thrones series had to be finished by other writers.
@@FrumpyNuts That's possible, but the ASoIaF BOOK series hasn't been finished, the HBO cable adaptation has...and poorly so, the more the showrunners got away from the published material, the worse it got.
@@realkarfixer8208 I agree the show definitely went downhill after the show got through book 5. But the reason I'm assuming he was talking about ASOIAF is because he brought up Game of Thrones immediately after. I know the final 2 books haven't been finished by Martin or another author, but I feel it's too big a coincidence that he brought up Game of Thrones immediately after talking about another writer finishing an author's fantasy series.
@@FrumpyNuts Or maybe because Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones are 2 massive fantasy series that kind of escaped the "nerd bubble" and even people not interested in those know about them. And they actually get confused quite a lot by people who haven't read either (in my experience anyways).
You should record a episode were you decode how exactly The History Channel went from Engineering an Empire, and Little Ice Age: Big Chill to Ancient Aliens.
Even being outside during an earth quake can be terrifying. Even if you disregard the potential for landslides and things collapsing around you there's still the issue of the ground opening up under your feet.
There's a Port Royal video by Simon. He explains the worst issue is when the shaken soil becomes a liquid and you just... sink. Then the earthquake ends and the soil becomes solid again around your torso, so you squish like a bug in there. This is why I live far from an earthquake zone.
@@zimriel that's called liquefaction and it causes the most destruction in the majority of earthquakes. And it is quite terrifying for me personally because I live in California right along the San Andreas fault. I just hope the big one doesn't hit in my lifetime.
I saw recently, that the story Solon learned of was originaly engraved into a temple wall that we know existed and was destroyed. But the story was rediscovered on another temples wall, created after the first temple was destroyed. It was translated recently and it actually backs up what Plato wrote and actually included even more information as well.
Fun fact Simon, a traditional pastime while on road trips is called the License Plate game. Where players look at the license plates of the various cars as you travel to see which states they can list off. Rhode Island has a reputation in that game because it's so hard to find vehicles with a Rhode Island license plate. This is mostly due to its (relative) limited population, geographic size, and location on the East Coast
I don’t get why Simon seems to think that people in the past didn’t know anything and couldn’t even use a compass. We literally just this year figured out why Roman concrete is so much more durable than ours and they think they can recreate it but we still aren’t certain we can. Some ancient people used sea navigation techniques we couldn’t use and until gps were better at it. The Antikythera mechanism is from Ancient Greece and incredibly complex. It’s also not uncommon for ancient measurement conversions to be slightly off or have a margin of error.
I'm from Rhode Island, it's one of the original colonies. Connecticut is on our west border. We've got some nice islands like Jamestown Island and Block island. Of all the states in the US, Rhode Island has the longest ratio of coastline to overall area. Despite being only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long, we have 400 miles of coastline.
Wow, just done the maths, and a quarter the size of Yorkshire, UK where I currently live. Or am eighth of Wales (which is a well used unit of measurement in UK headlines, as in country x, the size of Wales or twice the size of Wales). The early colonies though were competing weren't they? So close borders made sense then, though when adopting huge territories a few random straight lines and a river or two made huge rural areas.
Loved the episode, but the fact that neither Simon or Ilse realized what the Greeks meant by “Asia” cracked me up the whole time, especially Simon commenting on the size discrepancy between Asia and Libya without realizing that the Asia in question is actually just Anatolia 😂
Yeah names and lands can be a bit weird. I personally think there may have been something to Atlantis being Britain and they were considered the tin isles and the area known as dodgerland is growing. That's more of a weak hypothesis.
Simon, i always enjoy your theories stories and information that is researched to the point there is nothing left to read and share. Its always very entertaining and very enlightening for the most part. The story of Atlantis is an ancient story as we know if you whisper to someone in the classroom that they hear someone say they really liked someone for instance then by the time it got around the school these two people heard they hated each other with a passion and never wanted to see the other again. this is something we tried in the class room for a week when i was at school. the stories can changed dramatically when it is first told to where it ends up as. Each time the story is told something is added or taken away. i think we did this in out Greek mythology class, to prove a point. It doesn't make it true but with it told over to each person things get a little lost. Everyone groans when they hear the word Atlantis, throughout history the story of Atlantis has been exaggerated a bit but for the most part the story has remained the way Plato had told it. That being said he had never been there. Philosophy is and was a well respected past time in ancient times, they were considered very wise people. Do i think Atlantis really existed i would like to say yes, i think there are writings all over the world about the place was it technologically superior again i would like to think so. Pompeii was a place forgotten in time, that had a lot of what others didn't have, for the time period. the Inca's the Aztecs all civilizations that disappeared hundreds even thousands of years ago had not seen the light of day until the last hundred to two hundred years ago. so who is anyone to say Atlantis didn't exist. Our earth as small as it feels to us today still has hectares of land still not been discovered treasures to behold and thing to find out. Our oceans less than 10 % explored so far which leave a hugh amount of water to be explored could Atlantis be out there sure it can there is still species of creatures to be seen to be discovered. I remain optimistic that someone will find the remains of the city of Atlantis in the oceans somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, where people are not looking for it or even near the ring of fire where the ocean is far more active with earth quakes and volcanic activity. These are wide open spaces that can go down miles under the sea until someone can find it the world will never know for sure until it is discovered i think someone will find something somewhere that gives more detail.
Its the wheel of time series. The writer, Robert Jordan, died 11 books into the 14 book series and the last three were finished by Brandon Sanderson. Im currently two books into the wheel of time and it is really good so far
When I studied philosophy in college, my professors basically implied that when Plato wrote about Atlantis he was trying his hand at fictional stories intended to illustrate a moral/ideal ie. a fable.
At least the metal Orichalcum mentioned in the Atlantean myths has some interesting details in how it's potentially a Copper & Zinc alloy, as some shipwrecks with ingots of it were discovered a few years back.
@Gerald H No one ever said Atlantis was needed for Orichalcum to exist. It's only that it was mentioned in that story as something that they were able to mine there as Orichalcum was considered a rare metal resource that had been lost away. It's essentially like Altantis being a the equivalent of a fabled lost city of gold. Orichalcum being something that hasn't been definitively identified means that it has a number of alloys that it might have referred to based on the descriptions given when it is mentioned. The most common hypothesis is a copper alloy with either gold, tin, or zinc. There have been plenty of specific compounds that were known at one time and whose precise chemical or metallurgical compositions were lost to time, making what they were referring to difficult to identify clearly (Greek fire for example). Brass is generally 66% Copper & 34% Zinc, whereas the ingots discovered on the shipwrecks mentioned were 65-80% Copper, 15-25% Zinc, and a variety of other elements. No one is arguing that brass didn't exist in antiquity, as it very clearly did and was used for decoration. The question is whether a particular brass alloy found in those ingots may have been the metal known as Orichalcum at one time.
The Baghdad Battery was actually a container into which curses and prayers were places as part of a relatively well documented ritual. Miniminuteman on his channel in his Awful Archaeology series does a video on this that covers it better than anyone I have seen.
The second part where he collaborates with the head of the site at Ur is amazing! His channel 'Artifactually Speaking' is also very good for archaeology video content.
My husband has a masters degree in Humanities and is a philosophy professor. Most Philosophy majors are employed in very nice jobs. Philosophy includes ethics(such as Stock Market Ethics committees or Cyber Security ethics. You need to have strong ethics when you have million of peoples Credit Card numbers at your disposal)In addition Logic and critical thinking are under the "philosophy" umbrella. Finally, philosophy is where ALL hard sciences started. Some shepherd thought it was interesting that stars moved. They made Philosophical theories. Eventually those who are also interested found hard proof and the discipline was given its own category.
35:47 in fairness, to the ancients, Asia was the name of a much smaller portion of what we would now call Asia minor. It was only later that that name was that applied to the whole continent.
as someone with Archaeology as part of their degree and has worked multiple sites... if you find a pot shard and it takes 5 freaking years for you to finish your house either a) You have a site of extreme historical significance and could sell your land for more than you have put in it. or b) you really need to hire a different firm to perform the mitigation because good God are you being fleeced.
@@thelordofcringe I do not know EU regulations, but I have a strong feeling they cant be much worse than California. Even out there, 5 years is waayyy too long on a mitigation. Typically they are done in a matter of weeks, for a relatively large site. At least out here. What you are saying may be true enough, again, I dont know EU regulations and honestly doubt I will ever have need to. My focus *might* take me to the very western edges of the Celtic world, but it would take funding that just does not look realistic lmao.
@@thelordofcringe can confirm. I'm German. Bureaucracy here is pure hell. You want to get some document? Go get this document first so you can get the second document that you need for the third one etc... Oh and expect a few weeks to months for each document if you're lucky....
@@RealSkoolmaster The problem is that a pot shard is california is almost certainly just same ancient native american campground. A pot shard in europe could be an entire abandoned roman settlement or another ancient site, so it takes a hell of a lot more research and digging. And since theyre absolutely everywhere you can't sell it for much, too much supply for the demand.
@@thelordofcringe if thats how it is over there, thats truly surprising. I figure there would be a far larger call for archaeologists in Europe. But, to be fair, I could just not be tapped into those job listings. My specialty is Native American so it makes sense. There is also far more that goes into mitigation in the US than that. You are correct on it is probably just a Native American camp but the timeframe is still quite large and covers multiple historic and prehistoric periods. Its a different form of archaeology than what they deal with in Europe, due to the difference in the cultures, but it is still as long of a time period. Whereas Europe gets to study all the goldwork, metallurgy, huge ancient civilizations, we get to study a more recent version of lithic societies. In some ways I envy European archaeologists but in other ways I am very thankful for the knowledge we are able to gain about all of our ancestors by studying the later lithic cultures which persisted until contact with Europeans.
Can't always assume that someone is around to note large disasters. There was a volcanic eruption sometime in 1809 in the South Pacific that was large. Large enough to cause a mild temperature drop that was worsened by the eruption of Tambora in 1815. We still don't know which volcano erupted prior to Tambora because the tsunami that would have resulted would have wiped out anyone living nearby, and no one else was close enough to note the events. I'm sure that sort of thing has happened many times.
Toth was an Atlantean. His books taught the ancient Egyptians their science and religion. During ancient Greece he became known as Hermes, and taught Pythagoras the knowledge that would form the basis of the ancient Greek culture and philosophy.
Petition for Simon to start an Atlantis channel where he covers every Atlantean conspiracy theory in excruciating detail. Simon please, think of the all money crazy people can bring you in views.
I'd watch it. Literally do an entire episode on each possible location, how it's similar, how it differs, the local history and archaeology and culture. What caveats must be made to have it fit etc.
Oh dear. I'm rather afraid that you may have just accidentally created a new History Channel series "Ancient Atlanteans." I can hear Bob Clotworthy and Girogio Tsoukalos now: "Is it possible? Can it be true?" "The answer is YES!" 😉😁
You know doing that would screw everyone else out of having anything from Simon on any of the other channels because all his time would be taken up dealing with ignorance.
1:13:30 - the current thinking on the Baghdad battery is that it was something similar to “demon bowls”, where an incantation is written on a bowl which is buried upside down to trap a malevolent spirit inside the bowl. It’s hypothesized that a similar incantation would be written on the scroll, which would be sealed with bitumen and buried under an entranceway to your house to protect against evil spirits.
You might have been thinking about The Wheel of Time series. It was started by Robert Jordan who wrote - I believe - eleven of the books, but he died and it was completed by Brandon Sanderson when he wrote the last two. (With permission of the Jordan family.)
Simon, when considering the described Atlantean landmass area, please note that Plato describes the world as he knew the world. In his time, Libya was everything north of the Sahara desert and west of Egypt, and what was known of Asia was likely to extend in a similar radius from the Mediterranean Sea.
He also made a bunch of things up, although my personal favourite Plato related story is... Plato: "man is but a featherless biped." Diogenes: *holds up plucked chicken* "BEHOLD PLATOS MAN!"
Ilsa is such a great writer. Pausing to say: Thinking about this now, the line "Saved from nation of Posidon" made me immediately think of the sea people's and the bronze age collapse. Everyone getting their asses kicked by a mysterious group of people who come from the sea? Guess there must be some big advanced island out there. Oh they stopped? Musta been destroyed, the gods or something I dunno. Edit: I used to have a theory that all the flood myths in Europe came from passing down over a thousand years of "So, Doggerland totally sank" stories.
I thought so, too. Historical cataclysm events being passed down verbally and becoming embellished into a legend is in every culture. Our grandparents remember when places used to be "all fields", imagine a whole land mass just being wiped out. Even the aborigines have stories about a land bridge connecting Tasmania to Australia. Turns out they were right!
You're aware that every civilization we can currently understand have a flood myth that we can trace to the Younger Dryas. It's not just Europe (as ridiculous as that is, considering the original flood myth comes from the Levant).
@@shawnarthur1516 sure am. Humans tend to settle along water, and water tends to do crazy things like flood. Of course every culture has a flood myth; "The world flooded" = "the area we live in flooded"
@@fiction- my point was, in case you missed it, the "World flood" myths can all be dated to the same era. That's not coincidence, nor can it be easily explained away with "well, all civilization congregated around water sources".
in the north sea we have sunken villages, plenty of them. the land got flooded and now those are on the bottom of the sea. located in the dollart to be specific. it's indeed very interesting, I can understand a general fascination with Atlantis
Sea levels used to be roughly 370' lower than today. The Bimini Road, Dwarka off the coast of India and various inhabited locations all over the world used to be above the seas. Plato never said that Atlantis sank. That is a mistranslation from the original ancient Greek. He also didn't say that Atlantis was on the ocean. He said that it was on an inland body of water. There is only one location that was the capital of Atlantis and it is where you would least expect to find it--about 250 miles inland in what is now desert. It is the only location that can match just about everything that Plato ever wrote about Atlantis.
@@Matt-gg2cq It doesn't match. It is in the wrong location, to begin with and it has false geographic features and zero archeological finds that show any temple or any other building described by Plato. Does no one actually read Plato?
@@TorianTammas The Richat and surrounding area matches just about every detail that Plato ever wrote about Atlantis. The one detail I haven't solved yet is the five-stadia diameter then two stadia and one stadia measures, IIRC. Just because you don't know about how Plato's description of Atalntis is matched by the Richat & surrounding area does not mean that those matches are non-existant. Your "wrong location" argument is understandable. It is incorrect, but understandable based on you lack of information. Let's assume that Gibraltar is the Pillars of Hercules. To traverse the ocean in ancient times, you sailed. To understand where you go when you sail, you need to understand the trade winds. When you sail west from Gibraltar, you lose sight of land and are surrounded by ocean. Without the positioning/navigation tools of time even a thousand years back and with no visible landmark, ancient mariners would become disoriented at sea as to their position relative to everything (where they came from and where they were going.) The trade winds would push sailors back to W. Africa. Without our modern understanding of geography, this could easily appear as a new continent in the Atalntic Ocean. This video will explain it for you and show you the trade wind patterns: ruclips.net/video/2imG3OX7vwo/видео.html Zero archeological finds in your imagination. Artifacts and cave art have been found at the Richat structure. As are Plato's Atlantean red/white/black rocks, which exist all over the central island of the Richat and its two raised rings. Extant physical examples of walls and buildings built with rocks of this color exist twenty miles away from the Richat, suggesting a cultural connection. The word "Atlantis" has four definitions. One definition is the source of the word itself/the derivation. The Richat region, locals, and features literally mean exactly what the word Atlantis does, as Plato described. As far as the temple of Poseidon, it needed to survive one or more tsunamis and nearly 12,000 years of weathering. Except for solid stone and metals like gold, everything in our civilization would turn to dust over that time period. This perspective should be taken into account rather than a dogmatic adherence to the idea that Atlantis must have 100% of every detail that Plato ever wrote about it. If you actually read Plato and remembered all that he said about Atlantis, knew about details like the ones above and kept an open mind, you might be able to locate Atlantis.
@@Matt-gg2cq what evidence is there that Plato was not telling a story. Yes using mythology about lost communities, but the detail he gives being elaboration for his debate purposes?
@@helenr4300 I shared my data in my other reply to you. There is significant physical, coincidental, religious, floral, faunal, geological, etymological and oceanographical to prove that the Richat is the capital of Atlantis. Textsbooks speculate that the Atlantis story was made up by Plato. Plato never made it up. He only forwarded it. The Atlantis legend comes from Egypt, not Plato. The legend of Atlantis was translated by an Egyptian priest (Sonchis of Sais) to Solon and this data was later passed down to Plato. Timaeus and Criteas were dialogues written about the nature of the universe as the people of Plato's time understood them. They have nothing to do with philosophy/debate.
When you were debating about whether philosophers actually have jobs, I couldn't help but think of a scene from Mel Brook's "History of the World". If you've never seen it Simon, I recommend looking for it. It's absolute comedy gold. I don't want to give anything away by saying how philosophers reminded me of it, you'll know why if you watch it when it comes to that scene.
Fun fact: apparently saying ‘this is a true story’ to introduce a total fabrication was so common in Ancient Greece that there was a guy called Lucian who in the second century AD wrote the first sci-fi space opera where the protagonist goes to the moon, invents M-preg, and Lucian titled it ‘A True Story’ as a sarcastic parody.
If I had a time machine I'd like to go forward a few thousand years just to see all the theories about the lost civilisation of Wakanda and how the Jedi saved the universe from the evil empire (at least that one could legitimately involve Aliens).
Honestly I find the whole “writing talking to Plato to teach philosophy” thing HILARIOUS. It’s like an ancient podcast! 😂 Also kind of reminds me of like as a kid when you had to make a skit, or a presentation, or a “commercial” for something in school, and you would write the most awkward ass script with you and your bestie trying to make your textbook seem like a natural conversation with some weird unnatural hand gestures and saying “wow! And then what happened?!” Too much 😂
Simon, I’d love an offshoot of Decoding the Unknown or just an episode series focused on deconstructing mythology & exploring possible historical events that inspired mythological events. Ilsa is brilliant & it’s great to hear from a South African who’s not Elon Musk
Reminder that one of the most accurate takes on Atlantis (or at least, the take that used the most historical fiction for its material) was from a filler arc of _Yu-Gi-Oh._ _I activate the Seal of Orichalcamalos!_
It worked in something neat with Orichalcos Shunoros, too. It’s based on a dogu - like the card that searches any monster in a kinda crappy way - specifically a Shakokidogu which are commonly dated to c.1,000-c.400 BCE. Weirdos consider the shape of these pottery figures representative of aliens rather than the result of millennia of religious practices drifting from simpler figures.
While I'm from England and use metric units, I always appreciate that Simon will convert units. A lot of channels I'm not listening to the next 5 seconds while I convert units.
I have to say that this episode brings back a lot of memories reading the Savage Sword of Conan as names like Lemuria appear in King Kull stories. Hearing the archeology evidence adds to the stories written as pure fiction 🤔
I am a huge fan ov Conan and that mythos, it's great stuff. I wish Howard, Lovecraft, and their group could have collaborated more with stuff dealing with that stuff. Always fun (except the old racist rubbish 😅) Lemuria and Valusia have always been favorites ov mine, and I like the idea of Lemurians being Deep Ones and Valusians being the Lizard People/Reptilians ov today's conspiracy shtick. *edit* I also look at Atlantis being the capital ov the Lemurians/Deep Ones. So it was never an island to begin with but rather a city under the water inhabited by fish-frog spawn ov Dragon & Hydra.
The story of Atlantis and how it laid out in rings reminds me of the old story of how Mexico city was built on a island with rings and channels around it
I had never made that connection. Thank you. No, I don't think it's Atlantis, but building a city like that was not beyond the abilities of our ancestors, which is cool.
In Ancient Greece, they didn’t have a concept of continents, just regions. Asia was the Middle East, and Libya North Africa. So, the island wasn’t continent size.
In my opinion, I believe that the ancients got the Azores confused with Atlantis. Earlier explorers could have landed on one of the islands and they could not find it again. So they assumed Atlantis sunk and disappeared under the seas
Apparently the phrase "the pillars of Hercules" was used to refer to different places at different times, generally meaning the edge of the well explored sea. Eventually it was applied to Gibraltar, but if Plato was genuinely relating a story that was centuries old it might have meant the southern Aegean.
@@spyone4828A good point. There’s also the question of what was meant by Atlantis being the size of Libya and Asia combined. Libya could be referring to the entire continent of Africa, and Asia could mean Asia as we know it. However, the ancient Greeks also referred to Libya as the land surrounding Lake Tritonis, a freshwater lake in northern Africa and was probably the modern Chott el-Djerid in Tunisia, and referred to the region of modern Turkey as Asia Minor and northern Iraq as Asia Major. Herodotus, specifically, refers to the regions of Anatolia and the Persian Empire as being “Asia”. So it’s difficult, at best, to determine what size of a country Plato is describing when he says that Atlantis was the size of Libya and Asia combined.
Eye of the Sahara makes sense for Atlantis, as it was the capital city. Atlantans would've occupied northwest Africa(atlas mountains) and the islands along the coast, which explains being out front of the strait of Gibraltar part. The Greek term nisos could mean island, peninsula or continent. It wasn't necessarily sunk, it was washed away and water settled for a time before turning to desert there. Explains why nothing structural is found since its washed clean to the bedrock there. There was a river that ran thru that part of Africa back then and you can see a large flood water ripped across that whole area of Africa. Troy was just a mythical tale, until they found the real city exactly where it was supposed to be.
No pandering, no bullshit....I'm a huge fan of you and your fellow colleagues work and content. From Infographics to this and all things in between even when beliefs and points of view may not align I respect and love the energy you bring to any topic. Highly respect that you have original opinions and takes and how you can take topics that have been beaten to death by others and ressurect them with a fresh approach with facts and humor. You are one of my two favorite Simon's on RUclips, the other Simon Miller. Keep on keeping on my friend.
Due to the amount of unreinforced masonry in premodern architecture, the wisdom in earthquake-prone regions was to get away from buildings, but NOT to run outside if you were in them. Why on Earth? Because the crumbling facades killed more people than pancaking buildings, except in the worst of quakes. Then as the 20th Century came to a close, earthquake-resistant architecture convinced authorities that in MOST situations, running outside was the best idea because supposedly we could flee buildings quickly enough to avoid the occasional crumbling facade. BUT, facades of skyscrapers tend to be concrete segments like megatiles-and glass. Glass. A rain of shards of glass reaching critical velocity can cause momentous damage, small pieces easily embedding themselves in flesh and shredding clothes, large pieces easily severing… parts.
I first 'discovered' Atlantis in 1960 when I saw the film 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' based on the novel by Jules Verne. At one point the intrepid explorers come across a fragment of it, a spectacular set piece in the film. As a whole, the film fired my imagination about not only Atlantis, but geology, dinosaurs, rocks and minerals and more that still persist in my life today. I even have a miniature 'Atlantis' in my back yard using broken statuary I brought home from the garden center I worked at 50 years ago. From what I have read about Atlantis over the years, I particularly like the theory of the explosion of Thera, now Santorini as the basis for the end of the mythical continent of Atlantis. I think it would have made quite an impression on the survivors in the Mediterranean and 1000 years later could very easily have been used by Plato in the description of Atlantis's end. A 1961 film which takes some of Ignatius Donnelly's ideas was "Atlantis, The Lost Continent" directed by George Pal and considered not one of his finest films.
A splendidly entertaining and amusing video, and extremely well-informed in its interpretation of Plato's tale. Simon's mention of Rodney Castleden strongly highlights the destruction of Thera as a strong base for the story. It's incredible how Plato's tale has been distorted over the last 150 years but it all adds to its novelty. An excellent presentation, Simon.
I honestly think that when they say Libya and Asia, they're actually speaking about what we used to call Asia Minor which is Turkey so an island the size of Libya and Turkey is conceivable but still no real proof
I've been to Santorini. They have a buried city from the volcanic eruption that they excavated and made a museum out of it. It's amazing and you can even walk down some of the streets of the city. I would highly recommend visiting Santorini and that museum that is on the south end of the island!
The #point of Plato's story is Atlantis was destroyed in a day. There's is only 1 culture known to have been destroyed in a day, Minoan Thera, Santorini.
When I was in college I took every philosophy course available, which wasnt much. I asked my professor if I could major in philosophy and he just straight up told me there is no money in it and don't bother. But I'm sitting there looking at him, a professor in philosophy and he says, yeah I'm broke. 😂
The Salmon of Doubt is amazing. Read it. The speech he gave at Cambridge called "Is there an artificial god" is brilliant. He was such an incredible person, and is still missed. I often wonder what he would think about the way things have been going the past 10 or so years. Anyway, if you like his work, you'll like this book. Glad you mentioned it, regardless. :D
Haven’t finished the episode yet, but another name drop I noticed was Plato including Atlas as a son of Poseidon that would rule Atlantis. Atlas’ arrogance is what got him settled with keeping up the sky after the Olympians defeated the Titans, as before then it was held up by the 4 Titans representing the different directions. Another perfect character to include in your “pride goeth before the fall” story! The best philosophers know you have to use media to explain!
It's been quite awhile since I read Plato but I don't think it was necessarily the same Atlas. The Titans are generally described as having been born prior to the Olympians. There's also a couple kings by that name historically and I think he may have just picked it for his king of Atlantis because it had "gravitas".
Plato had no doubt heard about a big island outside the Pillars of Hercules (Britain--regularly visited by the Phoenicians) and probably heard old tales of the Santorini explosion, so he combined the two for his STORY. Some people just desperately have to believe in fantasies because living in the real world makes them too miserable.
@@bharris0128 There are more things in heaven and earth, Brandon, than are dreamt of in you non-philosophy. Atheism, based entirely as it is on unproven beliefs, is of course a religion itself.
@lee gramling Atheism is itself explicitly the lack of belief in a higher power, it doesn't substitute something else in. Even supposing it did for the sake of your absurdist argument it's surely doing a better job than the absolutely absurd mess of contradictions and outdated "morals" that is the Bible.
Atlantis could have been buried in the Biblical Flood. Why if it hard to believe we had ancient civilizations that were highly advanced with aliens being the explanation?
No... Plato got the story from a relative who travelled to Egypt, who had a record of Atlantis. Atlantis most likely was in modern day Mauretania, where there happens to be a mountain range called the Atlas mountains.. and who's king was named Atlas.. the Atlantis story originates in Egypt, not with Plato, he just regurgitated the story he was told.
as a fan of the idea of Atlantis, it was great to see an episode covering all the various theories over time. many other videos and books i have seen in the past generally cover one theory and how its an 'exact match' as mentioned towards the end of the video. I agree that the 'Real Atlantis' may not truly exist, however it would be fascinating to see the Plato's "facts" all line up one day to find some form of lost civilisation
Thats what I feel Atlantis is fr. Everyone hears Atlantis and goes massive advanced civilization, gods, oricallium, and more but if theres a lost civilization that fits what Plato was talking about then thatd be Atlantis just it was exaggerated. Never know what we'll find
6:15 *I can shed some light on the subject. I am a philosopher, I’m almost 38 and had some sort of philosophy class from my an AP class my JR year of high school that was normally only for seniors, all the way through college. There’s really only one way to make money being a philosopher, and that’s teaching philosophy. Now some argue that you can get published and earn a living that way. Maybe in Europe but even then few and far between. No usually in order for a philosophy book to be popular enough for the writer to make a decent amount of money, it’s dumbed down so much that I’d argue the person isn’t being paid to be a philosopher they are being paid to be a writer. But this was the same back in the day too. We think of these geniuses all sitting around together in togas with a crown of laurel upon their heads, pontificating the issues of the day. But no it’s not like the Greeks and romans were giving out paychecks to people for thinking about the human condition. And just like today back then there was a lot of overlap with how artists lived. Just like today you will have some who are independently wealthy and you can afford to get an expensive education in an area with such limited jobs, you had the same back then. The ones who could afford to not work and were known during their lifetimes. Then you have the ones that lived the human condition had amazing insights, but also worked real jobs. And not even those with their fingers on the pulse of the philosophical community would hear about them until years or decades after their death.*
I mean he also thought amongst other things, that most people should be educated, women were basically robots who should just be silent and serve and slavery was totally ok. So maybe his opinion isn't super important?
You have to do an episode on the hanging gardens of Babylon, especially since they are the only ancient wonder that we haven't found the location of, there's questions on whether they existed or not or were even in babylon since babylonian texts of the time that they supposedly xisted make zero mention of the hanging gardens
Super cool video. Just one small comment. The wheel was known in South America, but it has only been found on toys or other small objects. Archaeologists believe that because the terrain was so hilly and rocky, the wheel was just not practical for use. Therefore, the people relied on beasts of burden such as llamas, or transported items on foot.
This should be true but isn't, look at diamonds. Diamonds are extremely abundant, but control of supply and really good advertising has lead to the world paying top dollar for worthless carbon. They again are extremely abundant on the planet and have very few uses (drill bits ect).
There is the idea that Plato heard of the people of the modern day Gold Coast from others closer to africa much akin to writers from Greece hearing of Babylons lush gardens and ziggurats and assuming the hanging gardens. It's possible Atlantis was just a rich kingdom in west Africa that writers played up as being mystical. Also fun fact Carthage built a similar setup of harbors in north africa a couple years after plato wrote this, so if he didnt write of an existing city he definitely influenced a future one. Theres also the funny theory that atlantis is actually a description of american native civilizations from the time and the tales come from extremely rare circumstances of people lost at sea and miraculously surviving getting swept across the atlantic from the north african currents. It's pretty crazy but we know the polynesian people had crossed the pacific in canoes proliphically. Idk why they always jump to "these people couldnt have done this so someone else must have" like come on, you dont think a civilization can be so grandiose unless its white, or that civilizations dont wax and wane as time goes on? The largest pyramid in the world is in south america, it's something crazy like 7 pyramids built atop eachother, then theres a catholic church purched atop them all now.
I think that Mycenaean and then later Greek culture would have been influenced by the story of the island of (modern) Santorini, (ancient - Thera). It had an advanced civilization (for the time) and was all but destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1500 B.C. That story would have been handed down over the generations and part of their cultural mythos, long before Plato called it “Atlantis.”
By the way, supporting the Spanish coast theory, an expedition sponsored by James Cameron found evidence for a huge harbor near that park mentioned in the video. They found tons of ancient Greek style anchors. Probably not Atlantis, but possibly an inspiration for it.
Poseidon is the god of the sea.. but also of earthquakes… and horses.. which puts an interesting spin on the story of Troy and this giant horse helping them invade the city 🏰🐴👀 and perhaps earthquakes and flooding impacted the existence of islands… 🤔
Living in the Midwest US it’s quite a rarity to come across anything but fossilized impressions on rocks or arrowheads. My dad works construction and I’ve never heard him talk about uncovering anything cool like they do all the time in the UK and Europe in general I think
@@jasonwb6884I lived near Hot Springs, SD on a ranch that was sat on a lake called Angostura. On the beaches and layered cliff walls you can find shark/fish teeth and even small fish preserved on pieces of shale(?). Sue the t-rex was found near Faith, SD as well. Anndd there is a group here in an unnamed section of SD that is finding and digging up triceratops, t-rex etc in a very small area that just spans a few square miles.
Native peoples in the Midwest didn't do much metal or stone working (at least not compared to many European civilizations) which is another reason you don't see the same kinds of artifacts turning up there.
Ha! I’m a huge Wheel of Time fan so it was delightful to find a reference here. The original author (Robert Jordan) died but he left a plethora of notes, and Brandon Sanderson was chosen by RJ’s widow/editor to complete the series.
Robert Jordan was a far better writer than Brandon Sanderson ever was
Unfortunately, we have to get what we get. Also love the Wheel series
Thank you for enlightening me ❤
One thing I'd like to point out. Whenever Plato compared Atlantis' size to Asia, he don't mean the entire continent as we know it today, only the part known to him at the time.
So while it was still big, especially when you combine it with Libya which meant North Eastern Africa, it was not as big as you were thinking.
Yes, this. He would have been referring mostly to the Anatolian peninsula, aka Asia Minor, aka modern day Turkey, plus some nearby portions of the middle east.
This. 👆🏼
Actually it is much smaller than that. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_(Roman_province)
Simon read a few Wikipedia articles
about Atlantis
I’m pretty sure he also said that ‘there are no mentions of Atlantis in prehistoric writings’, so… um… yeah
Thera Eruption is dated around 1500 B.C.,a century or so before the downfall of Minoan civilization (1400 B.C.).It sure weakened them,but they rebuild what was left.
It was just a moral story invented by Plato. Atlantis was a parallel to Imperial Athens ,the mythological Athens who fought them was the idealized version of the same city.
The tale of Atlantis could well be inspired by a famous event that happened during Plato's life :the destruction of Helike in a single night by an earthquake that sunk the city into a lagoon.
this is the correct answer.
@@betenoireindustries my Archaeology professor shared practically the same hypothesis with me, back in the early 2000's. The logic resounded with me instantly. Plato was, as mentioned, from a wealthy family. His father was a merchant, and Plato spent his childhood on the docks, reveling in the tales the old sailors told. He learned to spin a yarn from a lot known for weaving tales that captured the mind. Atlantis was a creation of his love for storytelling and philosophy. It was meant to give Atheneans a reason to take pause and consider their morality.
The Wheel of Time was finished by another author after the original author passed away. He used all of the source notes, and had plenty of help from the original author's wife as she knew quite a bit of where the story was supposed to go.
Pretty sure Christopher Tolkein helped finish some works...maybe the Silmarillion?
Brandon Sanderson finished it for Robert Jordan
@@lde-m8688 I *think* the Children of Hurin also got the Christopher treatment, but don't quote me. Also, the Dune saga had a similar treatment when Frank Herbert died before finishing them, his son took over and did an almost passable job of completing the story.
@Benjamin Morrish I think you're correct. I think some of Clancy's stuff got written by another author. And gods know tons of romance authors have books written under their names after their demise.
@@Veklim I see this happening with ASOIAF too. Martin has been dragging his feet too long.
I'm getting to be a big fan of Ilsa. I've thoroughly enjoyed every script she's produced since she joined the team.
Simon’s really capturing some good writing talent these days…allegedly 🔥
Simon is going to have to expand his basement...
@@gmoney4980 no need because Simon is actually the one in the basement. He’s a script reading slave for a cabal of RUclips writers.
I agree they have all been pretty good.
@@-MarcusAurelius whoa! Whoa. Don’t blow my mind like that.
Simon I have had a lot of grief in my life and there is something about watching the humorous way you tell these stories that helps me relax, thanks man.
Rhode Island's full name used to be "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations". Because it was formed of multiple colonies. "Rhode Island" actually was an island, what is now more commonly called Aquidneck Island (the big island Newport is on). Providence Plantations was the mainland area. Originally, Newport was by far the more prosperous colony.
Fun fact: Newport participated heavily in the slave trade, whilst the founder of Providence Plantations was staunchly against it. In modern times, people stupidly fought to remove the "Providence Plantations" from the state name because the "plantation" word made them feel bad. Even though there were never any slave plantations in Providence Plantations (at the time, it was just another word for estates, it got the negative connotation later). So, in their ideal to achieve "racial justice", they erased the part of the state name that was abolitionist from the start and left only the part of the name from the slave traders. With the side effect of also leaving the state name solely the island that's off its mainland coast.
Learn your history, folks!
im more laughing he thought it is probably in connecticut, and thats next to it, and rhode island would probablty be in cionnecticut if it wasnt its own state
Rhode Island is a state, roughly 1,200 square miles and has the same number of senators as California or New York.
You can be forgiven for thinking that’s a joke, which it is, 😂 even though it is also actually true.
@@fridayhunt7075 It has more people than like 7 other states, which also each get 2 Senators.
Arguing that the plantations part isn't offensive because that those particular ones weren't associated with slavery, therefore its use in a context which has changed is perfectly fine, is like saying that certain Indian religious symbols that got co-opted for other uses in the early 20th century aren't offensive. It doesn't matter. The CURRENT context matters. Saying you are ok with people being hurt by a word that for them has very specific meanings and that they're at fault for not learning YOUR history just reinforces that once again, you believe that what matters to you is more important than their suffering.
Changing the name of something doesn't erase it from history, it makes it PART of history, where it belongs. Only destroying all record of its existence erases it.
@@Ylyrra As someone who had family that di3d in the Holocaust, I don't care if an Indian uses the original symbol as part of their beliefs, I can recognize they're not the same thing and not force them to change something that had nothing to do w/ that event just to spare my feelings.
And yes, I gave CONTEXT. The CONTEXT is that the abolitionist and all around pretty good guy for his time, Roger Williams, lended the "plantation" part of the state's name, and the slave traders are where we got the Rhode Island part from. I explained this CONTEXT in detail, so others would understand how utterly stupid changing the state name was.
So watching this gave me a video idea that I'd love you to cover. The Ancient Egyptians wrote about a land known as Punt. They are considered the Ancient Egyptians closest trading partner. Except, the Ancient Egyptians didn't write down where Punt was. Some scholars believe it was very much a real civilization, others believe it was metaphorical. You should look into the Land of Punt and what it may have been.
Other quintessential examples of us losing information by virtue of the mundane details not being written down is the recipe for Roman Concrete or the identity of the spice that went into the Victorians third spice shaker (salt, pepper, and what else, we don't know because no one wrote it down).
Greek fire?
Worth taking a punt on that👍
@@MR2Davjohn great example!
Oh yeah, that's a really good one. It's also important in the story of Hatshepsut's remarkable reign (being a pretty long-serving female pharaoh).
The third spice was grounded mummified remains it was written down just ignored
Someone may have noted this before, but to the ancient mind, "Asia" was essentially the region of western Turkey, not the entire continent. Thus, much smaller and able to fit in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
The area you speak about was mentioned as Μικρά Ασία,Minor Asia . They called Asia the whole condinent . They just did not knew how big it was .
You do know that the Greeks were aware of the continent of Asia beyond Turkey, right?
The "Golden Fleece" from the Jason and The Argonauts story was the pelt of a Takin, which are only native to eastern Asia.
If Plato just meant Turkey and the surrounding area, he would have said "Asia Minor" as that was their name for that region of land.
Simon's freak out at 40:40 when talking about the Santorini eruption caught me off guard. That is how you can tell he doesn't read it ahead, and I love this format!
5:55 - Chapter 1 - The story of atlantis
18:25 - Chapter 2 - Atlantis in antiquity
21:50 - Chapter 3 - Modern atlantis
35:05 - Chapter 4 - Where is atlantis ?
36:00 - Chapter 4.1 - Santorini
45:55 - Chapter 4.2 - Off the coast of spain
56:35 - Chapter 4.3 - Helike & the earthquake wars
1:01:00 - Chapter 4.4 - Some other locations
1:02:20 - Chapter 4.5 - That time google earth found atlantis
1:14:10 - Chapter 5 - Why atlantis wasn't probably real
1:22:55 - Conclusion
1:03:30 - Simon Learns about Rhode Island
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so basically nothing worth watching..
Ah, so I was right. They don't bring up the eye of Africa properly, nor any of said evidence involving the end of the ice age or cold snap or... any of the more recent discoveries of that point in time
@@rokpepeshogunBest you stick to channels like lilbubblegum and leave education videos to others
The whole entire Rhode Island journey was the BEST this I’ve seen all year
Big thank you to Simon and the whole team for such consistent uploads. Always a pleasure to open RUclips and see another long video to dive into!
The wheel was known to the Incas, actually. But since they had no tamed animals large enough to pull carts, the wheels were only used in toys and ornaments.
Also the terrain was poor for it. Even with animals a lot of the mountanous and rocky terrain would be impossible to travel with older simple wheels.
Theyd have to build roads to use them anywhere and they would still need to deal with extreme elevation changes along incan roads
And they didn't even make wheel barrows or hand carts or anything? 😂 Noobs
@@Sgt.chickens people work out what works in their context. Technology in one place is useless in another context. Look up the coastal town of Clovelly in UK. The old streets in the village are so steep that even today they are not suitable for cars, so still have donkeys to carry things. They hype this as a tourist thing now but is was not that they didn't have technology available but that it didn't work for them
Not to mention that the wheel is simple, but a stationary axel and durable bespoked wheels aren't as simple as they seem. When you're talking about using carts to build megaprojects, you need something with very little wear and tear, leading to less breakdowns.
@@Sgt.chickensthe Inca had roads.
When Simon was talking about construction companies being delayed by archeologists reminded me of this project my dad was working on, they were building something near a castle where there was lots of historical stuff in the ground. they just laid down a new foundation instead of digging the old one up to avoid any chance of a 10-year delay.
17:23 The book series is "the Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan , he stated publicly that if he died all his records were to be destroyed. He developed Cardiac amyloidosis and as his condition worsened he changed his mind. After his passing his wife and editor read a tribute to her husband by an up and coming author, Brandon Sanderson. He was contracted to finish the "last book". It ended up being 3 massive tomes.
Perhaps also The Hitchhiker's Trilogy's final volume by Douglass Adams, 'And Another Thing...' by Eoin Colfer
He was talking about the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. He was too slow coming out with the new books so the Game of Thrones series had to be finished by other writers.
@@FrumpyNuts That's possible, but the ASoIaF BOOK series hasn't been finished, the HBO cable adaptation has...and poorly so, the more the showrunners got away from the published material, the worse it got.
@@realkarfixer8208 I agree the show definitely went downhill after the show got through book 5. But the reason I'm assuming he was talking about ASOIAF is because he brought up Game of Thrones immediately after. I know the final 2 books haven't been finished by Martin or another author, but I feel it's too big a coincidence that he brought up Game of Thrones immediately after talking about another writer finishing an author's fantasy series.
@@FrumpyNuts Or maybe because Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones are 2 massive fantasy series that kind of escaped the "nerd bubble" and even people not interested in those know about them. And they actually get confused quite a lot by people who haven't read either (in my experience anyways).
Simon's discovery of Rhode Island is the most significant event in its history.
That's a state right? Wait... what state is Rhode Island in? 😂
@@Tukin15sLike20s In the State of Rule by Democrats, which is just another way of saying f'd up.
lived in rhode island my whole life. at least he didn't bring up family guy shit. NO QUOHOG IS NOT A TOWN! NO WE DON'T HAVE A DRUNKEN CLAM BAR
2 words..Great Gatsby
Yes we do have a drunken clam wtf!
Best part of episode, Simon's pronunciation of Tartessos" where it always sounded like he was saying "Tartar Sauce" xD
Yes omg I missed a step and was like “Why does he keep talking about Tartar Sauce?!”
I thought he was talking about tartarys
or his constant tim-mouse instead of tim-may-us
You should record a episode were you decode how exactly The History Channel went from Engineering an Empire, and Little Ice Age: Big Chill to Ancient Aliens.
I think that’s better suited for Brain Blaze, but it would be a really good topic for them to cover
I like it.... and Engineering an Empire was an amazing series.
Ancient Aliens is tight! It's Ghost Paranormal Hunters or Pawn History Shop that sucks
It is interesting, I can actually remember when the History channel was about actual history
You forgot it became the WWII channel in between.
Even being outside during an earth quake can be terrifying. Even if you disregard the potential for landslides and things collapsing around you there's still the issue of the ground opening up under your feet.
There's a Port Royal video by Simon. He explains the worst issue is when the shaken soil becomes a liquid and you just... sink. Then the earthquake ends and the soil becomes solid again around your torso, so you squish like a bug in there.
This is why I live far from an earthquake zone.
@@zimriel that's called liquefaction and it causes the most destruction in the majority of earthquakes. And it is quite terrifying for me personally because I live in California right along the San Andreas fault. I just hope the big one doesn't hit in my lifetime.
I saw recently, that the story Solon learned of was originaly engraved into a temple wall that we
know existed and was destroyed. But the story was rediscovered on another temples wall, created after the first temple was destroyed. It was translated recently and it actually backs up what Plato wrote and actually included even more information as well.
Yes
The island of the egg.
Check out the RUclipsr named apocalypse and his Atlantis videos.
He is the closest I think to something real.
Simon learning about Rhode Island was a wild ride 😂
"And it's not even an island! Get your shit together America!" has the same energy as the Kansas Arkansas "America explain!" video.
Yeah, I kinda expected him to debunk it too together with Atlantis. :)
The chances were really good there that I would suffocate before I could stop laughing. What a trip. ♡
My favorite part of the Rhode Island but was when he thought it wasn’t a state but guessed it was in Connecticut. Which frankly it practically is in.
It's like he actually discovered Atlantis
Fun fact Simon, a traditional pastime while on road trips is called the License Plate game. Where players look at the license plates of the various cars as you travel to see which states they can list off.
Rhode Island has a reputation in that game because it's so hard to find vehicles with a Rhode Island license plate. This is mostly due to its (relative) limited population, geographic size, and location on the East Coast
This sounds like it would fit right into the mouth of Sheldon Cooper. You even started the statement out the sasme way
In the UK we just have one plate system, so the game is based on car colours and who gets the biggest number
Rhode Island was always one of the first for me but I'm in Mass! 😂
@@aellor-out in Kansas, it was a hard one to find. 😢😂
This is absolutely true. I'm from Philly, and I had never seen a Rhode Island license plate until I went there to see H.P. Lovecraft's gravesite.
I don’t get why Simon seems to think that people in the past didn’t know anything and couldn’t even use a compass. We literally just this year figured out why Roman concrete is so much more durable than ours and they think they can recreate it but we still aren’t certain we can. Some ancient people used sea navigation techniques we couldn’t use and until gps were better at it. The Antikythera mechanism is from Ancient Greece and incredibly complex. It’s also not uncommon for ancient measurement conversions to be slightly off or have a margin of error.
I'm from Rhode Island, it's one of the original colonies. Connecticut is on our west border. We've got some nice islands like Jamestown Island and Block island. Of all the states in the US, Rhode Island has the longest ratio of coastline to overall area. Despite being only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long, we have 400 miles of coastline.
Wow, just done the maths, and a quarter the size of Yorkshire, UK where I currently live. Or am eighth of Wales (which is a well used unit of measurement in UK headlines, as in country x, the size of Wales or twice the size of Wales). The early colonies though were competing weren't they? So close borders made sense then, though when adopting huge territories a few random straight lines and a river or two made huge rural areas.
The other thing that's surprising about Rhode Island is that most of the US can't tell you exactly where it is.
@@bloodyirishman9155 yup, they'll think it's an actual island 🤣
Also it has vast over representation in the US Senate. #outdatedsystem
@@danjenkinsdesign I mean a states a state is a state. We're a republic of states.
Loved the episode, but the fact that neither Simon or Ilse realized what the Greeks meant by “Asia” cracked me up the whole time, especially Simon commenting on the size discrepancy between Asia and Libya without realizing that the Asia in question is actually just Anatolia 😂
I came to say the same.
Same here!
in german they still call turkey "little asia"
@@nevermindmeijustinjectedaw9988 "Asia Minor" exists as a synonym for Anatolia in English as well.
Yeah names and lands can be a bit weird.
I personally think there may have been something to Atlantis being Britain and they were considered the tin isles and the area known as dodgerland is growing.
That's more of a weak hypothesis.
Simon, i always enjoy your theories stories and information that is researched to the point there is nothing left to read and share. Its always very entertaining and very enlightening for the most part. The story of Atlantis is an ancient story as we know if you whisper to someone in the classroom that they hear someone say they really liked someone for instance then by the time it got around the school these two people heard they hated each other with a passion and never wanted to see the other again. this is something we tried in the class room for a week when i was at school. the stories can changed dramatically when it is first told to where it ends up as. Each time the story is told something is added or taken away. i think we did this in out Greek mythology class, to prove a point. It doesn't make it true but with it told over to each person things get a little lost. Everyone groans when they hear the word Atlantis, throughout history the story of Atlantis has been exaggerated a bit but for the most part the story has remained the way Plato had told it. That being said he had never been there. Philosophy is and was a well respected past time in ancient times, they were considered very wise people. Do i think Atlantis really existed i would like to say yes, i think there are writings all over the world about the place was it technologically superior again i would like to think so. Pompeii was a place forgotten in time, that had a lot of what others didn't have, for the time period. the Inca's the Aztecs all civilizations that disappeared hundreds even thousands of years ago had not seen the light of day until the last hundred to two hundred years ago. so who is anyone to say Atlantis didn't exist. Our earth as small as it feels to us today still has hectares of land still not been discovered treasures to behold and thing to find out. Our oceans less than 10 % explored so far which leave a hugh amount of water to be explored could Atlantis be out there sure it can there is still species of creatures to be seen to be discovered. I remain optimistic that someone will find the remains of the city of Atlantis in the oceans somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, where people are not looking for it or even near the ring of fire where the ocean is far more active with earth quakes and volcanic activity. These are wide open spaces that can go down miles under the sea until someone can find it the world will never know for sure until it is discovered i think someone will find something somewhere that gives more detail.
Its the wheel of time series. The writer, Robert Jordan, died 11 books into the 14 book series and the last three were finished by Brandon Sanderson. Im currently two books into the wheel of time and it is really good so far
15 if you count the prequel.
I love how Simon seems absolutely furious about the existence of his own channel.
Yeah its self torture, wonderful :D.
When I studied philosophy in college, my professors basically implied that when Plato wrote about Atlantis he was trying his hand at fictional stories intended to illustrate a moral/ideal ie. a fable.
At least the metal Orichalcum mentioned in the Atlantean myths has some interesting details in how it's potentially a Copper & Zinc alloy, as some shipwrecks with ingots of it were discovered a few years back.
@Gerald H No one ever said Atlantis was needed for Orichalcum to exist. It's only that it was mentioned in that story as something that they were able to mine there as Orichalcum was considered a rare metal resource that had been lost away. It's essentially like Altantis being a the equivalent of a fabled lost city of gold.
Orichalcum being something that hasn't been definitively identified means that it has a number of alloys that it might have referred to based on the descriptions given when it is mentioned. The most common hypothesis is a copper alloy with either gold, tin, or zinc.
There have been plenty of specific compounds that were known at one time and whose precise chemical or metallurgical compositions were lost to time, making what they were referring to difficult to identify clearly (Greek fire for example).
Brass is generally 66% Copper & 34% Zinc, whereas the ingots discovered on the shipwrecks mentioned were 65-80% Copper, 15-25% Zinc, and a variety of other elements.
No one is arguing that brass didn't exist in antiquity, as it very clearly did and was used for decoration. The question is whether a particular brass alloy found in those ingots may have been the metal known as Orichalcum at one time.
The Baghdad Battery was actually a container into which curses and prayers were places as part of a relatively well documented ritual. Miniminuteman on his channel in his Awful Archaeology series does a video on this that covers it better than anyone I have seen.
Agree minuteman is good for this type of content
The second part where he collaborates with the head of the site at Ur is amazing! His channel 'Artifactually Speaking' is also very good for archaeology video content.
Krakatoa disappeared in 48 hours. A monster mountain/volcano on an island. Gone with a bang, also killing thousands with a big ass sunami.
My husband has a masters degree in Humanities and is a philosophy professor. Most Philosophy majors are employed in very nice jobs. Philosophy includes ethics(such as Stock Market Ethics committees or Cyber Security ethics. You need to have strong ethics when you have million of peoples Credit Card numbers at your disposal)In addition Logic and critical thinking are under the "philosophy" umbrella. Finally, philosophy is where ALL hard sciences started. Some shepherd thought it was interesting that stars moved. They made Philosophical theories. Eventually those who are also interested found hard proof and the discipline was given its own category.
Thank you from a person with a BA in Philosophy.
Been waiting for this one. Researching Atlantis is what started my road to skepticism.
35:47 in fairness, to the ancients, Asia was the name of a much smaller portion of what we would now call Asia minor. It was only later that that name was that applied to the whole continent.
as someone with Archaeology as part of their degree and has worked multiple sites... if you find a pot shard and it takes 5 freaking years for you to finish your house either
a) You have a site of extreme historical significance and could sell your land for more than you have put in it.
or
b) you really need to hire a different firm to perform the mitigation because good God are you being fleeced.
That depends. In the US? Absolutely. In much of Europe? Nah, the bureaucracy is disgusting.
@@thelordofcringe I do not know EU regulations, but I have a strong feeling they cant be much worse than California. Even out there, 5 years is waayyy too long on a mitigation. Typically they are done in a matter of weeks, for a relatively large site. At least out here. What you are saying may be true enough, again, I dont know EU regulations and honestly doubt I will ever have need to. My focus *might* take me to the very western edges of the Celtic world, but it would take funding that just does not look realistic lmao.
@@thelordofcringe can confirm. I'm German. Bureaucracy here is pure hell. You want to get some document? Go get this document first so you can get the second document that you need for the third one etc... Oh and expect a few weeks to months for each document if you're lucky....
@@RealSkoolmaster The problem is that a pot shard is california is almost certainly just same ancient native american campground. A pot shard in europe could be an entire abandoned roman settlement or another ancient site, so it takes a hell of a lot more research and digging. And since theyre absolutely everywhere you can't sell it for much, too much supply for the demand.
@@thelordofcringe if thats how it is over there, thats truly surprising. I figure there would be a far larger call for archaeologists in Europe. But, to be fair, I could just not be tapped into those job listings. My specialty is Native American so it makes sense. There is also far more that goes into mitigation in the US than that. You are correct on it is probably just a Native American camp but the timeframe is still quite large and covers multiple historic and prehistoric periods. Its a different form of archaeology than what they deal with in Europe, due to the difference in the cultures, but it is still as long of a time period. Whereas Europe gets to study all the goldwork, metallurgy, huge ancient civilizations, we get to study a more recent version of lithic societies. In some ways I envy European archaeologists but in other ways I am very thankful for the knowledge we are able to gain about all of our ancestors by studying the later lithic cultures which persisted until contact with Europeans.
Can't always assume that someone is around to note large disasters. There was a volcanic eruption sometime in 1809 in the South Pacific that was large. Large enough to cause a mild temperature drop that was worsened by the eruption of Tambora in 1815. We still don't know which volcano erupted prior to Tambora because the tsunami that would have resulted would have wiped out anyone living nearby, and no one else was close enough to note the events. I'm sure that sort of thing has happened many times.
Toth was an Atlantean. His books taught the ancient Egyptians their science and religion. During ancient Greece he became known as Hermes, and taught Pythagoras the knowledge that would form the basis of the ancient Greek culture and philosophy.
Petition for Simon to start an Atlantis channel where he covers every Atlantean conspiracy theory in excruciating detail.
Simon please, think of the all money crazy people can bring you in views.
I'd watch it. Literally do an entire episode on each possible location, how it's similar, how it differs, the local history and archaeology and culture. What caveats must be made to have it fit etc.
I can hear Simon's will to live breaking already
Oh dear. I'm rather afraid that you may have just accidentally created a new History Channel series "Ancient Atlanteans."
I can hear Bob Clotworthy and Girogio Tsoukalos now:
"Is it possible? Can it be true?"
"The answer is YES!" 😉😁
You know doing that would screw everyone else out of having anything from Simon on any of the other channels because all his time would be taken up dealing with ignorance.
I think he would have a rage stroke
Holy crap! An hour and a half of Decoding. Ilsa you're legend! Cheers from Tennessee
1:09:30 Yes, there are several naturally occurring alloys. My favorite is Electrum, which is mostly gold and silver.
1:13:30 - the current thinking on the Baghdad battery is that it was something similar to “demon bowls”, where an incantation is written on a bowl which is buried upside down to trap a malevolent spirit inside the bowl. It’s hypothesized that a similar incantation would be written on the scroll, which would be sealed with bitumen and buried under an entranceway to your house to protect against evil spirits.
You might have been thinking about The Wheel of Time series. It was started by Robert Jordan who wrote - I believe - eleven of the books, but he died and it was completed by Brandon Sanderson when he wrote the last two. (With permission of the Jordan family.)
Simon, when considering the described Atlantean landmass area, please note that Plato describes the world as he knew the world. In his time, Libya was everything north of the Sahara desert and west of Egypt, and what was known of Asia was likely to extend in a similar radius from the Mediterranean Sea.
He also made a bunch of things up, although my personal favourite Plato related story is...
Plato: "man is but a featherless biped."
Diogenes: *holds up plucked chicken* "BEHOLD PLATOS MAN!"
@@TheTrueLikeButtonNow I know why my sister likes to call me a bird brain! She's not being rude she's just quoting Plato!
🤣
I understood the hint and yes, I would love to see you do an entire channel dedicated to Atlantis theories!
Ilsa is such a great writer. Pausing to say: Thinking about this now, the line "Saved from nation of Posidon" made me immediately think of the sea people's and the bronze age collapse. Everyone getting their asses kicked by a mysterious group of people who come from the sea? Guess there must be some big advanced island out there. Oh they stopped? Musta been destroyed, the gods or something I dunno.
Edit: I used to have a theory that all the flood myths in Europe came from passing down over a thousand years of "So, Doggerland totally sank" stories.
Religion for breakfast "the sea people"
And the pork episode.
I thought so, too. Historical cataclysm events being passed down verbally and becoming embellished into a legend is in every culture. Our grandparents remember when places used to be "all fields", imagine a whole land mass just being wiped out. Even the aborigines have stories about a land bridge connecting Tasmania to Australia. Turns out they were right!
You're aware that every civilization we can currently understand have a flood myth that we can trace to the Younger Dryas. It's not just Europe (as ridiculous as that is, considering the original flood myth comes from the Levant).
@@shawnarthur1516 sure am. Humans tend to settle along water, and water tends to do crazy things like flood. Of course every culture has a flood myth; "The world flooded" = "the area we live in flooded"
@@fiction- my point was, in case you missed it, the "World flood" myths can all be dated to the same era. That's not coincidence, nor can it be easily explained away with "well, all civilization congregated around water sources".
40:42 😂😂😂 it takes a lot to get Simon to curse like that.
in the north sea we have sunken villages, plenty of them. the land got flooded and now those are on the bottom of the sea. located in the dollart to be specific. it's indeed very interesting, I can understand a general fascination with Atlantis
Sea levels used to be roughly 370' lower than today. The Bimini Road, Dwarka off the coast of India and various inhabited locations all over the world used to be above the seas.
Plato never said that Atlantis sank. That is a mistranslation from the original ancient Greek. He also didn't say that Atlantis was on the ocean. He said that it was on an inland body of water.
There is only one location that was the capital of Atlantis and it is where you would least expect to find it--about 250 miles inland in what is now desert. It is the only location that can match just about everything that Plato ever wrote about Atlantis.
@@Matt-gg2cq It doesn't match. It is in the wrong location, to begin with and it has false geographic features and zero archeological finds that show any temple or any other building described by Plato. Does no one actually read Plato?
@@TorianTammas The Richat and surrounding area matches just about every detail that Plato ever wrote about Atlantis. The one detail I haven't solved yet is the five-stadia diameter then two stadia and one stadia measures, IIRC. Just because you don't know about how Plato's description of Atalntis is matched by the Richat & surrounding area does not mean that those matches are non-existant.
Your "wrong location" argument is understandable. It is incorrect, but understandable based on you lack of information. Let's assume that Gibraltar is the Pillars of Hercules. To traverse the ocean in ancient times, you sailed. To understand where you go when you sail, you need to understand the trade winds. When you sail west from Gibraltar, you lose sight of land and are surrounded by ocean. Without the positioning/navigation tools of time even a thousand years back and with no visible landmark, ancient mariners would become disoriented at sea as to their position relative to everything (where they came from and where they were going.) The trade winds would push sailors back to W. Africa. Without our modern understanding of geography, this could easily appear as a new continent in the Atalntic Ocean. This video will explain it for you and show you the trade wind patterns: ruclips.net/video/2imG3OX7vwo/видео.html
Zero archeological finds in your imagination. Artifacts and cave art have been found at the Richat structure. As are Plato's Atlantean red/white/black rocks, which exist all over the central island of the Richat and its two raised rings. Extant physical examples of walls and buildings built with rocks of this color exist twenty miles away from the Richat, suggesting a cultural connection.
The word "Atlantis" has four definitions. One definition is the source of the word itself/the derivation. The Richat region, locals, and features literally mean exactly what the word Atlantis does, as Plato described.
As far as the temple of Poseidon, it needed to survive one or more tsunamis and nearly 12,000 years of weathering. Except for solid stone and metals like gold, everything in our civilization would turn to dust over that time period. This perspective should be taken into account rather than a dogmatic adherence to the idea that Atlantis must have 100% of every detail that Plato ever wrote about it.
If you actually read Plato and remembered all that he said about Atlantis, knew about details like the ones above and kept an open mind, you might be able to locate Atlantis.
@@Matt-gg2cq what evidence is there that Plato was not telling a story. Yes using mythology about lost communities, but the detail he gives being elaboration for his debate purposes?
@@helenr4300 I shared my data in my other reply to you. There is significant physical, coincidental, religious, floral, faunal, geological, etymological and oceanographical to prove that the Richat is the capital of Atlantis. Textsbooks speculate that the Atlantis story was made up by Plato. Plato never made it up. He only forwarded it. The Atlantis legend comes from Egypt, not Plato. The legend of Atlantis was translated by an Egyptian priest (Sonchis of Sais) to Solon and this data was later passed down to Plato. Timaeus and Criteas were dialogues written about the nature of the universe as the people of Plato's time understood them. They have nothing to do with philosophy/debate.
When you were debating about whether philosophers actually have jobs, I couldn't help but think of a scene from Mel Brook's "History of the World". If you've never seen it Simon, I recommend looking for it. It's absolute comedy gold. I don't want to give anything away by saying how philosophers reminded me of it, you'll know why if you watch it when it comes to that scene.
Meh. He's on his wine break, probably.
Fun fact: apparently saying ‘this is a true story’ to introduce a total fabrication was so common in Ancient Greece that there was a guy called Lucian who in the second century AD wrote the first sci-fi space opera where the protagonist goes to the moon, invents M-preg, and Lucian titled it ‘A True Story’ as a sarcastic parody.
What's M-Preg?
I love seeing the titles for the decoding the unknown videos knowing you are going to go to town on these theories
Making an entire episode of strange/lost stuff (re)discovered by Google Maps could be a grest idea for a Brain Blaze episode.
Little less music and less laughing , makes it even greater presentation of such a full knowledge you offer the people
In the last 2 hours, 5 Simon universe videos. Best way to relax after work. Smoke a joint and laugh 🇨🇦
I raise my munchies to you because I'm right there too. How many channels of his am I actually subscribed to at this point? Whatever the number = all
If I had a time machine I'd like to go forward a few thousand years just to see all the theories about the lost civilisation of Wakanda and how the Jedi saved the universe from the evil empire (at least that one could legitimately involve Aliens).
Honestly I find the whole “writing talking to Plato to teach philosophy” thing HILARIOUS. It’s like an ancient podcast! 😂 Also kind of reminds me of like as a kid when you had to make a skit, or a presentation, or a “commercial” for something in school, and you would write the most awkward ass script with you and your bestie trying to make your textbook seem like a natural conversation with some weird unnatural hand gestures and saying “wow! And then what happened?!” Too much 😂
I love how Simon told everyone single joke about Rhode Island, without realizing it once.
Simon, I’d love an offshoot of Decoding the Unknown or just an episode series focused on deconstructing mythology & exploring possible historical events that inspired mythological events. Ilsa is brilliant & it’s great to hear from a South African who’s not Elon Musk
Thank you! I agree - the history that gave rise to the myth is often far more interesting than the myth itself.
@@IlzevanderBank Definitely
I add my voice to this request. I think that would be fascinating. Simon I hope you're listening!
Bible aka christian mythology would be a nice topic.
I love that Simon dropped a reference to the Lonely Island song "I'm on a Boat" in there. Bravo!
i’m glad someone else caught that
Simon W is my favourite voice on RUclips.
Content great, execution great, VOICE great 👍🏻
All round great guy.
😊
Reminder that one of the most accurate takes on Atlantis (or at least, the take that used the most historical fiction for its material) was from a filler arc of _Yu-Gi-Oh._
_I activate the Seal of Orichalcamalos!_
It worked in something neat with Orichalcos Shunoros, too. It’s based on a dogu - like the card that searches any monster in a kinda crappy way - specifically a Shakokidogu which are commonly dated to c.1,000-c.400 BCE.
Weirdos consider the shape of these pottery figures representative of aliens rather than the result of millennia of religious practices drifting from simpler figures.
While I'm from England and use metric units, I always appreciate that Simon will convert units. A lot of channels I'm not listening to the next 5 seconds while I convert units.
I have to say that this episode brings back a lot of memories reading the Savage Sword of Conan as names like Lemuria appear in King Kull stories.
Hearing the archeology evidence adds to the stories written as pure fiction 🤔
I am a huge fan ov Conan and that mythos, it's great stuff.
I wish Howard, Lovecraft, and their group could have collaborated more with stuff dealing with that stuff.
Always fun (except the old racist rubbish 😅)
Lemuria and Valusia have always been favorites ov mine, and I like the idea of Lemurians being Deep Ones and Valusians being the Lizard People/Reptilians ov today's conspiracy shtick.
*edit*
I also look at Atlantis being the capital ov the Lemurians/Deep Ones.
So it was never an island to begin with but rather a city under the water inhabited by fish-frog spawn ov Dragon & Hydra.
The story of Atlantis and how it laid out in rings reminds me of the old story of how Mexico city was built on a island with rings and channels around it
I had never made that connection. Thank you. No, I don't think it's Atlantis, but building a city like that was not beyond the abilities of our ancestors, which is cool.
In Ancient Greece, they didn’t have a concept of continents, just regions. Asia was the Middle East, and Libya North Africa. So, the island wasn’t continent size.
In my opinion, I believe that the ancients got the Azores confused with Atlantis. Earlier explorers could have landed on one of the islands and they could not find it again. So they assumed Atlantis sunk and disappeared under the seas
Apparently the phrase "the pillars of Hercules" was used to refer to different places at different times, generally meaning the edge of the well explored sea. Eventually it was applied to Gibraltar, but if Plato was genuinely relating a story that was centuries old it might have meant the southern Aegean.
@@spyone4828A good point. There’s also the question of what was meant by Atlantis being the size of Libya and Asia combined. Libya could be referring to the entire continent of Africa, and Asia could mean Asia as we know it.
However, the ancient Greeks also referred to Libya as the land surrounding Lake Tritonis, a freshwater lake in northern Africa and was probably the modern Chott el-Djerid in Tunisia, and referred to the region of modern Turkey as Asia Minor and northern Iraq as Asia Major. Herodotus, specifically, refers to the regions of Anatolia and the Persian Empire as being “Asia”.
So it’s difficult, at best, to determine what size of a country Plato is describing when he says that Atlantis was the size of Libya and Asia combined.
Eye of the Sahara makes sense for Atlantis, as it was the capital city. Atlantans would've occupied northwest Africa(atlas mountains) and the islands along the coast, which explains being out front of the strait of Gibraltar part. The Greek term nisos could mean island, peninsula or continent. It wasn't necessarily sunk, it was washed away and water settled for a time before turning to desert there. Explains why nothing structural is found since its washed clean to the bedrock there. There was a river that ran thru that part of Africa back then and you can see a large flood water ripped across that whole area of Africa. Troy was just a mythical tale, until they found the real city exactly where it was supposed to be.
No pandering, no bullshit....I'm a huge fan of you and your fellow colleagues work and content. From Infographics to this and all things in between even when beliefs and points of view may not align I respect and love the energy you bring to any topic. Highly respect that you have original opinions and takes and how you can take topics that have been beaten to death by others and ressurect them with a fresh approach with facts and humor. You are one of my two favorite Simon's on RUclips, the other Simon Miller. Keep on keeping on my friend.
Due to the amount of unreinforced masonry in premodern architecture, the wisdom in earthquake-prone regions was to get away from buildings, but NOT to run outside if you were in them. Why on Earth? Because the crumbling facades killed more people than pancaking buildings, except in the worst of quakes. Then as the 20th Century came to a close, earthquake-resistant architecture convinced authorities that in MOST situations, running outside was the best idea because supposedly we could flee buildings quickly enough to avoid the occasional crumbling facade. BUT, facades of skyscrapers tend to be concrete segments like megatiles-and glass. Glass. A rain of shards of glass reaching critical velocity can cause momentous damage, small pieces easily embedding themselves in flesh and shredding clothes, large pieces easily severing… parts.
I first 'discovered' Atlantis in 1960 when I saw the film 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' based on the novel by Jules Verne. At one point the intrepid explorers come across a fragment of it, a spectacular set piece in the film. As a whole, the film fired my imagination about not only Atlantis, but geology, dinosaurs, rocks and minerals and more that still persist in my life today. I even have a miniature 'Atlantis' in my back yard using broken statuary I brought home from the garden center I worked at 50 years ago. From what I have read about Atlantis over the years, I particularly like the theory of the explosion of Thera, now Santorini as the basis for the end of the mythical continent of Atlantis. I think it would have made quite an impression on the survivors in the Mediterranean and 1000 years later could very easily have been used by Plato in the description of Atlantis's end. A 1961 film which takes some of Ignatius Donnelly's ideas was "Atlantis, The Lost Continent" directed by George Pal and considered not one of his finest films.
A splendidly entertaining and amusing video, and extremely well-informed in its interpretation of Plato's tale. Simon's mention of Rodney Castleden strongly highlights the destruction of Thera as a strong base for the story. It's incredible how Plato's tale has been distorted over the last 150 years but it all adds to its novelty. An excellent presentation, Simon.
I honestly think that when they say Libya and Asia, they're actually speaking about what we used to call Asia Minor which is Turkey so an island the size of Libya and Turkey is conceivable but still no real proof
I've been to Santorini. They have a buried city from the volcanic eruption that they excavated and made a museum out of it. It's amazing and you can even walk down some of the streets of the city. I would highly recommend visiting Santorini and that museum that is on the south end of the island!
Wish I could! Sounds amazing
Yes, the true Atlantis, they just don’t want to confirm it.
The #point of Plato's story is Atlantis was destroyed in a day.
There's is only 1 culture known to have been destroyed in a day, Minoan Thera, Santorini.
When I was in college I took every philosophy course available, which wasnt much. I asked my professor if I could major in philosophy and he just straight up told me there is no money in it and don't bother. But I'm sitting there looking at him, a professor in philosophy and he says, yeah I'm broke. 😂
As a philosophy major,I can say I'm in it because I really love philosophy. I've not had anyone say anything like that though.
@@joseybryant7577 are you broke?
The Atlantis tale is a morality tale.
The Salmon of Doubt is amazing. Read it. The speech he gave at Cambridge called "Is there an artificial god" is brilliant. He was such an incredible person, and is still missed. I often wonder what he would think about the way things have been going the past 10 or so years. Anyway, if you like his work, you'll like this book. Glad you mentioned it, regardless. :D
Haven’t finished the episode yet, but another name drop I noticed was Plato including Atlas as a son of Poseidon that would rule Atlantis. Atlas’ arrogance is what got him settled with keeping up the sky after the Olympians defeated the Titans, as before then it was held up by the 4 Titans representing the different directions. Another perfect character to include in your “pride goeth before the fall” story! The best philosophers know you have to use media to explain!
It's been quite awhile since I read Plato but I don't think it was necessarily the same Atlas. The Titans are generally described as having been born prior to the Olympians. There's also a couple kings by that name historically and I think he may have just picked it for his king of Atlantis because it had "gravitas".
I'm a little surprised that the Atlantean contingent hasn't linked Gobekli Tepe and Karhan(?) Tepe to the myth at this point. Shhhhhh.
Plato had no doubt heard about a big island outside the Pillars of Hercules (Britain--regularly visited by the Phoenicians) and probably heard old tales of the Santorini explosion, so he combined the two for his STORY. Some people just desperately have to believe in fantasies because living in the real world makes them too miserable.
Just like religion
@@bharris0128 There are more things in heaven and earth, Brandon, than are dreamt of in you non-philosophy. Atheism, based entirely as it is on unproven beliefs, is of course a religion itself.
@lee gramling Atheism is itself explicitly the lack of belief in a higher power, it doesn't substitute something else in. Even supposing it did for the sake of your absurdist argument it's surely doing a better job than the absolutely absurd mess of contradictions and outdated "morals" that is the Bible.
Atlantis could have been buried in the Biblical Flood. Why if it hard to believe we had ancient civilizations that were highly advanced with aliens being the explanation?
No... Plato got the story from a relative who travelled to Egypt, who had a record of Atlantis. Atlantis most likely was in modern day Mauretania, where there happens to be a mountain range called the Atlas mountains.. and who's king was named Atlas.. the Atlantis story originates in Egypt, not with Plato, he just regurgitated the story he was told.
Simon blaming Americans for Rhode Island not being an Island when his country named it.
Lol strong point
Errm the rejects from his country, which then became you.. prob explains why no one’s realised and changed it since then aye 😂
@user-ni2md3ey9m rejects from his country? Lol yeah thats the story. We talking Australia or United States of America?
@@AndyouareWrong both 😂🤣
Names can be changed🤙
This EPISODE is legendary. Perhaps the best ever.
as a fan of the idea of Atlantis, it was great to see an episode covering all the various theories over time. many other videos and books i have seen in the past generally cover one theory and how its an 'exact match' as mentioned towards the end of the video.
I agree that the 'Real Atlantis' may not truly exist, however it would be fascinating to see the Plato's "facts" all line up one day to find some form of lost civilisation
Thats what I feel Atlantis is fr. Everyone hears Atlantis and goes massive advanced civilization, gods, oricallium, and more but if theres a lost civilization that fits what Plato was talking about then thatd be Atlantis just it was exaggerated. Never know what we'll find
The best part of this episode was the Rhode Island part, which says a lot because as usual the entire thing was fantastic. Good job Simon and team!
To give him credit, Rhode Island is next to Connecticut... (I did cackle with laughter at this part)
Yes he was very close with the Connecticut comment. It's the state next to Connecticut
Also the map that was shown showed both Connecticut and Rhode Island
6:15 *I can shed some light on the subject. I am a philosopher, I’m almost 38 and had some sort of philosophy class from my an AP class my JR year of high school that was normally only for seniors, all the way through college. There’s really only one way to make money being a philosopher, and that’s teaching philosophy. Now some argue that you can get published and earn a living that way. Maybe in Europe but even then few and far between. No usually in order for a philosophy book to be popular enough for the writer to make a decent amount of money, it’s dumbed down so much that I’d argue the person isn’t being paid to be a philosopher they are being paid to be a writer. But this was the same back in the day too. We think of these geniuses all sitting around together in togas with a crown of laurel upon their heads, pontificating the issues of the day. But no it’s not like the Greeks and romans were giving out paychecks to people for thinking about the human condition. And just like today back then there was a lot of overlap with how artists lived. Just like today you will have some who are independently wealthy and you can afford to get an expensive education in an area with such limited jobs, you had the same back then. The ones who could afford to not work and were known during their lifetimes. Then you have the ones that lived the human condition had amazing insights, but also worked real jobs. And not even those with their fingers on the pulse of the philosophical community would hear about them until years or decades after their death.*
We humans sure can imagine an idealized past even though the past was the worst.
Not necessarily
"The past was the worst"
Ummmm were you there?!?!
Simon is a savage during these hour-long script readings. Atlantas is real, because Plato was real, and what Simon says is real because Simon says
😂 "Simon Says".... this is great.
"Plato would be so disappointed in us" i mean... Yeah. Yeah he would.
I mean he also thought amongst other things, that most people should be educated, women were basically robots who should just be silent and serve and slavery was totally ok. So maybe his opinion isn't super important?
You have to do an episode on the hanging gardens of Babylon, especially since they are the only ancient wonder that we haven't found the location of, there's questions on whether they existed or not or were even in babylon since babylonian texts of the time that they supposedly xisted make zero mention of the hanging gardens
Super cool video. Just one small comment. The wheel was known in South America, but it has only been found on toys or other small objects. Archaeologists believe that because the terrain was so hilly and rocky, the wheel was just not practical for use. Therefore, the people relied on beasts of burden such as llamas, or transported items on foot.
I love that Zeus has a problem with anyone’s morals. That dude had issues
Simon, keep in mind, if gold is everywhere, then it has no value. It is pretty, but common. So you can have a ton of it and not be “materialistic”.
This should be true but isn't, look at diamonds.
Diamonds are extremely abundant, but control of supply and really good advertising has lead to the world paying top dollar for worthless carbon.
They again are extremely abundant on the planet and have very few uses (drill bits ect).
diamond ring for marriage with the slogan diamonds are forever had every regular guy buying one.
There is the idea that Plato heard of the people of the modern day Gold Coast from others closer to africa much akin to writers from Greece hearing of Babylons lush gardens and ziggurats and assuming the hanging gardens. It's possible Atlantis was just a rich kingdom in west Africa that writers played up as being mystical.
Also fun fact Carthage built a similar setup of harbors in north africa a couple years after plato wrote this, so if he didnt write of an existing city he definitely influenced a future one.
Theres also the funny theory that atlantis is actually a description of american native civilizations from the time and the tales come from extremely rare circumstances of people lost at sea and miraculously surviving getting swept across the atlantic from the north african currents. It's pretty crazy but we know the polynesian people had crossed the pacific in canoes proliphically. Idk why they always jump to "these people couldnt have done this so someone else must have" like come on, you dont think a civilization can be so grandiose unless its white, or that civilizations dont wax and wane as time goes on? The largest pyramid in the world is in south america, it's something crazy like 7 pyramids built atop eachother, then theres a catholic church purched atop them all now.
"Can you mine... alloys? I guess that could be possible."
No, no... Simon, you need to get back on that Rhode Island tangent!
Given his views on art, I wonder what Plato would think if he was aware of this RUclips video discussing him and Atlantis?
HI Simon. It's pronounced J.K Rowling, not J.K Rowling. 👍
I think that Mycenaean and then later Greek culture would have been influenced by the story of the island of (modern) Santorini, (ancient - Thera). It had an advanced civilization (for the time) and was all but destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1500 B.C. That story would have been handed down over the generations and part of their cultural mythos, long before Plato called it “Atlantis.”
Ima take a guess and say, "Likely not, but there's a bunch of crazy dudes on the history channel who will tell me it might have been".
By the way, supporting the Spanish coast theory, an expedition sponsored by James Cameron found evidence for a huge harbor near that park mentioned in the video. They found tons of ancient Greek style anchors. Probably not Atlantis, but possibly an inspiration for it.
Poseidon is the god of the sea.. but also of earthquakes… and horses.. which puts an interesting spin on the story of Troy and this giant horse helping them invade the city 🏰🐴👀 and perhaps earthquakes and flooding impacted the existence of islands… 🤔
Living in the Midwest US it’s quite a rarity to come across anything but fossilized impressions on rocks or arrowheads. My dad works construction and I’ve never heard him talk about uncovering anything cool like they do all the time in the UK and Europe in general I think
Cause the Midwest was covered in Ocean Millions of years ago. Very rich in ancient Marine Fossils.
And one of the largest Mammoth sites in South Dakota.
Because it's the middle of the USA......
You can find cool stuff in some of our states! Cali is one.
@@jasonwb6884I lived near Hot Springs, SD on a ranch that was sat on a lake called Angostura. On the beaches and layered cliff walls you can find shark/fish teeth and even small fish preserved on pieces of shale(?). Sue the t-rex was found near Faith, SD as well. Anndd there is a group here in an unnamed section of SD that is finding and digging up triceratops, t-rex etc in a very small area that just spans a few square miles.
Native peoples in the Midwest didn't do much metal or stone working (at least not compared to many European civilizations) which is another reason you don't see the same kinds of artifacts turning up there.