Atlantis and Santorini
Plato described a great island empire that sank in a single day. Some think he was remembering an island in the Aegean.
What was reported
In his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written around 360 BC, Plato described Atlantis, a powerful island civilisation beyond the Pillars of Hercules that attacked Athens and was swallowed by the sea in a single day and night, some 9,000 years before his time.
Since then, people have placed Atlantis everywhere from the Atlantic to Antarctica. One popular theory links it to Thera, now Santorini, whose volcano erupted catastrophically in the second millennium BC and buried the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri under ash.
Explanations offered
Most classicists think Plato invented Atlantis as a moral tale about pride and power, as he did with other stories in his works. Supporters of the Thera theory point to the eruption, the Minoan civilisation it affected, and the island's ring shape. No archaeological evidence ties any site to Plato's Atlantis.
- When
- Told by Plato around 360 BC
- Where
- Santorini, Cyclades, Greece
- Witnesses
- Plato, retelling a story he said came from Egypt
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.