Discovery Of Atlantis (Paperback)

~ Robert Sarmast (Author) "Few people realize that the philosopher Plato is the sole literary source of the tale of Atlantis..." (more)
Key Phrases: rectangular plain, fifty stades, outer stone wall, Acropolis Hill, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

(Sarmast) goes one step further than other Atlantologists... claiming to have vindicated Plato's narrative as not just a philosopher's allegory. -- The Guardian, London The Guardian, London The Guardian, London The Guardian, London The Guardian, London

Did Atlantis ever exist? The answer to that is emphatically yes, if you ask Robert Sarmast. -- BBC World Service, London

It may be the answer generations of experts on the ancient world have been looking for. -- The Sunday Telegraph, London

Robert Sarmast is a modern day 'Indiana Jones'. -- Radio National, Australia

Soon at hand could be one of the greatest discoveries mankind has ever made -- The Guardian, London

Product Description

IS ATLANTIS OFF THE SOUTH COAST OF CYPRUS?

Find Out in this Revolutionary Analysis
of Plato's Celebrated Story. Plato provided nearly 50 physical clues in his famous dialogue Critias--the original account of the story of Atlantis. In this book, author Robert Sarmast cracks the Atlantis mystery wide open by demonstrating how simple facts about the eastern Mediterranean region and the island of Cyprus provide a near-perfect match with Plato's detailed narrative.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: Origin Press (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579830129
• ISBN-13: 978-1579830120
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,545,487 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not so fast..., February 21, 2004

By	D. Hill "dhill757" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great book, well-written and richly illustrated with 3 D maps and other details, and you can't help but to get carried away by the author's enthusiasm for the find. He proves that there is a sunken area off of Cyprus with a plain that might match the one reputed to be the one in Atlantis (the evidence about the circular city and the Acropolis is less convincing). He also says that tools have been found on Cyrpus that date to 10,000 b.c. All this is really interesting, but I'd like to stress that there have been no ancient ruins found here suggesting the lost civilization so far and that, as of the date of publication, no exploration, perhaps not even any diving has been done in the area. All the coastlines were lower during the last part of the Ice Age and most cities were built by the seas. When the waters rose, they were submerged, were every one of these Atlantis..?

Yet, the biggest problem, not only with this book and others like it is that they try and fit the facts of Plato's narrative to fit their own discovery. Mostly, they mention that no one knows which 'Pillars of Hercules' Plato was talking about (there was more than one, but according to the author, there were several), and that Atlantis was not in the Atlantic. The author mentions that references to the Atlantic were entered into the narrative later (his whole case depends on that), but once again, that is conjecture, like all the disclaimers that have been needed to try and make the case for Santorini/Thera as Atlantis for all these years (the Greeks didn't know how to read Egyptian measurements, which was false, Atlantis was supposed to be in the middle of Libya and Asia, not bigger than it, it didn't sink to the bottom of the sea, it was destroyed in a volcanic blast). All these disclaimers deny the original narrative, the most vivid description on Atlantis, which states clearly, more than once, that , before being destroyed, the Atlanteans swept through the Mediterranean from their base in the Atlantic and made war on all the people there. Plato clearly places Atlantis, not only beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but in the Atlantic Ocean, anyone who tries to place it anywhere else and made a discovery has probably found something else. Thera, Crete, Troy, Sardinia, and now Cyrpus have all been mentioned as possible locations for Atlantis, but they are all in the Mediterranean. Whatever these civilizations actually called themselves, it couldn't have been Atlantis. The name Atlantis isn't even Greek, by the way, it comes from the Americas, so the Greeks must have gotten it from someplace else.

In order to make their own case, these books too easily try to dismiss the Atlantic, especially in the Azores area as a site for Atlantis. The author says that this island chain is too far away from the Mediterranean to have affected it , which also assumes that ancient people didn't travel the sea. Well, according to the legend, the people of Atlantis were, over all things a sea-faring people. You can't take some parts of the legend to support your own thesis and then ignore/discount others. He also says that 'the 'Azores theory sunk beneath the waves of public opinion.' No, it hasn't! While the general public might not know the role the Azores have played in the Atlantis mystique, ask them where Atlantis was and, if they believe it existed at all, they will place it in the Atlantic. It's a logical assumption, why else was it called Atlantis..? You wouldn't call something in Thera or Troy or Cyprus Atlantis, you would name it that if it were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! I would like to see the same type of 3 D maps and diagrams the author has in his book done for all the island chains one finds in the Atlantic, then see what we would find. You would find that the Canaries, the Azores and Madeiras all expand in length, might also find areas that one has never even thought of before - one of these areas might well be the actual Atlantis. The fact remains while researchers blandly ignore the idea of a sunken land mass in the Atlantic, no expedition has ever been made to find Atlantis there at all. We have sonar readings and that's it.

I hope it doesn't sound like I panned this book. It is very entertaining and it raises some very interesting questions, I would like to see what happens if more research is done there. Then, too, I'm also waiting to hear more about the sunken city found off the coast of Cuba, the sunken island just off the Straits of Gibralter and whether there will ever be an expedition to Antarctica to see if there is indeed a lost civilization beneath the ice. All of these are Atlantis, too, or at least as much, if not more than Cyrpus is. A shame someone can't research them all at once, then post all the daily results on a website. Researchers, though, will never find the real Atlantis unless they stop looking to other parts of the world for it, and start looking where Plato placed it - in the Atlantic. It is a big ocean, the light is bad down there, but it's time to start searching for it....

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing motif, January 25, 2004

By	"fleetingechoes" (Amsterdam, NL) - See all my reviews

This book favourably impressed me on more than one level. It is well organized and visually appealing.The writing has both down-to-earth and colourful elements, and some pretty high class, scientific/philosophical prose.
I'm no expert on ancient mythology, and initially had only a minor interest in the subject, but I was drawn into the Discovery of Atlantis, and couldn't put it down. I think I have a much better and more realistic understanding of the way things may have been in Atlantis, if it actually existed. I also could not stop thinking about the possibility that all the myths, whether they originate with the Egyptians, Greeks, or Sumerians concerning some kind of exceptional (superhuman) civilization existing in very ancient times, were all talking about the same phenomenon - namely an advanced "Edenic" civilization surrounded by late Stone Age human settlements.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the first REAL forays into our pre-history, October 5, 2003

By A Customer

This book manages to be neither stuffily scientific nor assumptive in its conclusions in spite of its genre. The facts are presented in an easy to digest style without inflicting hair-pulling madness as many other authors approaching similar topics do.That is to say it should satisfy scholars and the general public alike.

What can I say about the subject matter but after you read it I am sure your view of our world now will have changed. This book is the first piece in the jigsaw of the ancient world in my opinion and from here its all upwards.

This will soon be big news in the world, be one of the first to read.