René O'Deay gBlog

Glass Jar - New Kingdom
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Daily News Egypt - Full Article: "Dying for that ancient treasure By Emad El-Sayed, June 6, 2008

Although prospecting for antiquities has been going on for several decades, recently monument trafficking in Egypt has been spreading like wildfire, with several big families in Upper Egypt in particular implicated in the illegal practice.

Dreams of striking gold and finding that long-lost treasure have made those who prospect for monuments ready to sacrifice their lives for it. That distant dream has, however, claimed the lives of thousands of youth who die in tunnels they believe will lead them to a yet undiscovered Pharaonic era tomb."

Fortunetellers, sheikhs, dreams and metal-detectors fuel the dreams of Egyptians seeking relief from the deteriorating economy.
But many have lost their lives, in tunnels, and some even under their own homes.
In the past, mostly metal was taken, now any pharaonic artifact is fair game. Over 15.000 antiquities were stolen in the last 7 years.
The Department of Retrieving Stolen Artifacts was established in 2003, and one judge called for the death penalty to deter this growing crime.

René O'Deay

If searchers for Atlantis are going by Plato's description, they are all looking at the wrong places. First Plato said the island of Atlantis was huge. And that after the earthquake sank it, there was an impassable barrier of mud. Doesn't sound like Santorini. A small island.
Next, Plato gives a good reason for finding it: walls and pinnacles covered in silver and gold, and huge statues of gold, lots of statues of gold.

Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean."

"Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot-the charioteer of six winged horses-and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their wives ...
rommelcatuncan: - from CRITIAS by Plato 360 BC: "- from CRITIAS by Plato 360 BC
translated by Benjamin Jowett, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, [1871]

What a wonderful find it would be!
So where in the ocean could it be?

I wonder if satellite imaging could help in the search? If they look in the right place, somewhere west of the Pillars of Hercules. But, I think the biggest problems with Plato's account, from his predecessor Solon, is that Atlantis fell after a failed attempt to conquer Athens about 11,900 years ago. Did Athens even exist that far back? I don't think so.

Good luck to the more enterprising explorers.

René O'Deay