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ATLANTIS IN A NUTSHELL The story of Atlantis begins with the dialogues of famous Greek philosopher Socrates with his students and other men of high learning. These dialogues were recorded by Plato, who was a student of Socrates, and Plato like Socrates became a great Philosopher. The story of Atlantis is narrated in two dialogues written by Plato, these dialogues are called ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’. We will do a deep analysis of these dialogues and other non-Greek records of Atlantis in Sumerian, Indian and Biblical literature in coming chapters; let’s first take a superficial look on Atlantis, mostly based on Plato’s dialogues. Atlantis is described as an island or continent, which existed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was famous for its beauty and high level of development. It was a rich Island, it had rivers, two crops in a year, horses, elephants, well built cities, sea-ports etc. The people of Atlantis were mostly traders and had trade relations with countries all over the world. Trade was carried out through the sea, with cargo ships, sailing to ports all over the world. It was a lush green island; also it had a well built system of canals, for domestic trade and travel. People of Atlantis were highly learned, and special emphasis was laid on learning and getting academic qualifications was necessary for the people of Atlantis. They had a developed writing system. Business records were maintained and all sorts of poetry and literature existed. The government system in Atlantis was that of a republic, in fact as we will see latter the story of Atlantis was told when Socrates was discussing his concept of republic with his fellows. People had religious freedom, educational and medical services were provided by the government. People used to pay taxes on their earnings; Atlantis was a true welfare state, with people enjoying protection and progress provided by the government. As we will see later, having fun was the favorite pastime for the Atlantians. Although Atlantis was a republic, its rulers were not elected but were generations of its founder; the name of founder of Atlantis according to Greek records was Poseidon. In spite of the fact that Atlantis was ruled by monarchs and not elected representatives of people, they had complete support and confidence of the people. Atlantians were very honest people; they traded with honesty, and were known all over the world for their goodness in trade. Cheating in any aspect of life was considered a serious crime in Atlantis, and criminals were severely punished. A judicial system existed, for the prevalence of justice. Atlantis had a huge Army and armed forces, it had colonies all over the world, at its peak Atlantis had become the center of civilization and headquarter of the world. As we will see later, Atlantis had also developed high technology and we will take a look what scientific and technological marvels they had achieved. Thus Atlantis existed as a place of peace, love and justice for thousands of years, but as it said that all good things come to an end, similar was the fate of Atlantis. After Atlantians had become a technologically superior civilization and had established colonies all over the world, they became barbaric in nature and they setout with their huge armed forces to take over the entire world. This is the point from where Atlantis started to become unpopular and many nations in the world became its enemies. The religion of Atlantis was polytheism, i.e. they believed in many gods, the kings or rulers of Atlantis were regarded as gods and they were worshiped. Temples were built in the name of these king-gods of Atlantis. The gods were worshiped, and animal sacrifices were offered to them. People used to pray in the name of their gods. And their gods used to take care of their people. There was complete unity among the kings of Atlantis, and even if there was any conflict between the kings, it was rapidly settled in a meeting consisting of all the rulers of Atlantis. According to Greek records the entire land of Atlantis was divided into ten regions and each region was ruled by a king, who was a son of Poseidon the founder king and god of Atlantis. Other famous gods of Atlantis were Hephaestus and Athena; we will discuss the gods of Atlantis in great detail in latter chapters. The gods had divided different tasks among themselves, like agriculture, health, military, industry, government etc. The people and rulers of Atlantis not only just had developed science and technology, but were very fond of arts as well. The temples and palaces in Atlantis were beautifully decorated, with statues, paintings, fountains etc. The people were also fond of singing and dancing and it was practiced on religious and other happy occasions like weddings, births etc. In Atlantis class system existed and people were classified in four major classes. The first class was of holy ones i.e. kings, gods, goddesses, priests and highly learned people. The second class was of the warriors, they were the ones of whom the armed forces were comprised of. The third class was of business people, they were the traders, who had business relations all over the world, agriculture and industry was established and maintained by this class. The fourth and last class was of slaves or labors; they were the poor people and didn’t enjoy the privileges which were provided to higher classes by the government. The lowest class was also deprived of education and was not allowed to attend the institutions of learning. So the entire population of Atlantis was classified according to a hierarchal system, the top ones, the kings and holy ones, then were the warriors, third were the business people and last were the slaves or labors. We will look at all the scientific evidence, of where in the world Atlantis existed, but we know from the dialogues of Plato that where ever Atlantis existed, it was a volcanically active region and many huge and dangerous volcanoes existed in and in the vicinity of Atlantis. Since now we have an idea, as to what type of civilization Atlantis was, we can see that in spite of all its glory and greatness many evils existed in this civilization. The biggest evil that crept in this society was their desire to rule the entire world, due to their superior technology and knowledge. Second evil which we see in Atlantis was the class system, although a judicial system existed, but if a case was between a person of high and low class the one belonging to high class was given upper hand and preference in judicial matters. Also the treatment to the slave class was very inhuman, they were beaten by masters like animals, they were not given wages but just food to survive, they were also deprived of education and were not even allowed to sit besides or attend gatherings of higher classes. These were the evils that slowly made Atlantis very unpopular all over the world. From the dialogues of Plato, we learn that when Atlantians setout to conquer the entire world, they were successful in conquering the entire planet except for Greece. The Greeks defended their freedom, with great bravery and might, and were not ready to give up or to surrender to Atlantian forces. It is recorded in the dialogues of Plato that when the war was going on between Atlantian and Greek forces, a huge volcanic eruption happened in Atlantis, and as a result of this volcanic eruption, huge tidal waves were created in the sea, this flood raised the see level by several meters and the entire island or continent of Atlantis went under water. In fact these volcanic eruptions happened all over the world and entire world was flooded and destroyed, by erupting volcanoes and huge tidal waves called Tsunamis. This is a brief history of Atlantis. In spite of the common belief that the record of Atlantis only exists in Greek dialogues and according to some scholars Atlantis is just a made up story of Plato, we will see the scientific and historical records that reject such assumptions and establish the fact that Atlantis was a real continent, which was destroyed by natural catastrophes around 11,500 years ago. As we will see shortly the story of Atlantis is also present in Old Testament, where it’s called ‘Enoch’ and the land of Atlantis is called ‘Dilmun’ in Sumerian records. In Indian mythology the name of Atlantis is ‘land of Kuru’. We will also discover that the real name of Atlantis was ‘Idrees’ and its location was present day Indonesia, in South China Sea.
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