Where was Atlantis located? When did it exist, and how did it come to an end, according to Donnelly? What is the main historical source for Atlantis?
Atlantis was a large island that was located in the Atlantic Ocean opposite the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. The Atlantis existed 9,000 years before Plato’s time and it came to an end during a terrible flooding of the island caused by shifts in ocean water and eventually the whole Island with all its inhabitants submerged into the Atlantic Ocean outside the Pillars of Hercules. Only a few of the people managed to escape using rafts to the other nations and told of the catastrophic tale. The main historical source for Atlantis is the description of the island that had been given by Plato in his works, Timaeus. His description had largely been considered as a fable, but which Donnelly believes to be veritable history. He argues that Plato could not have invented the West India Islands and the whole of the American continent, even if he had imagined Atlantis as some critics have argued. Plato presupposes that the Atlantis kingdom was founded by Poscidon and Atlantis was named after Atlas, Poscidon’s eldest son (Donnelly 2006).
What kind of evidence does Donnelly present to support this theory about the existence of Atlantis?
Donnelly cites a number of reasons for his argument. One of them is that the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, Hindoos, Phoenicians and Scandinavians were just but heroes, kings and queens from Atlantis and that the heroic acts attributed to these figures in myths and fables were a reflection of a confused recollection of real historical events. His second argument was that the myths and beliefs of Peru and Egypt were representations of the indigenous religion of the people of Atlantis. The original religion of the Atlantis was simplistic, they did not offer regular sacrifices except for flowers and fruits and they worshipped the sun (Donnelly 2006). This applied to Peruvians as well who worshipped one deity; they considered the sun as his most glorious work and therefore revered the sun as a representation of the deity. The Egyptians constructed their temples to the sun. In both cases, flowers and fruits were also their acceptable forms of sacrifice. Donnelly further argues that Atlantis is the home of civilization. He says that almost all arts that have been regarded as significant to civilization can be traced back to the age of Atlantis, “certainly to that ancient Egyptian civilization which was coeval with, and an outgrowth from Atlantis” (Donnelly 2006). He posits that in six thousand years the world did not make any changes on the civilization that it had received from Atlantis, despite the fact that the civilization was passed on from one nation to another; Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldea, Greece, Rome and India. Plato in his description of Atlantis says they possessed mining ores, architectecture, were involved in sculpturing, painting and engraving all of which were part of the new civilization.
How do Donnelly’s arguments present some of the 19th century assumption that we previously discussed
Early anthropologists and other scholars held a prevailing view that culture evolved in a progressive manner just as organic species developed into an increasingly complex structure. Of significance to note is Montesquieu’s three-stage evolutionary scheme; hunting or savagery, herding or barbarism and civilization. Donnelly uses this scheme to compare the old and new civilizations and also to advance how civilization spread from Atlantis to other regions, arguing that the peoples of the other nations were simple and could not have possessed such complex architecture, metallurgy and other form of arts. He therefore posits that this people; the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks must have inherited these arts from an earlier and more civilized nation-the Atlantis.
Racial science is the application of anthropology or pseudo-sciences to classify the human population into physically distinct races that may be viewed as superior or inferior. Donnelly largely employs this in arguing for the origin of Aryans and Indo-European families using physical attributes, culture and linguistic features to prove that they came from Atlantis.
References
Donnelly, I. (2006). Atlantis: the antediluvian world. Book Tree.
